rev.3.origami journal_of_qualitative_studies_vol__5_1___2018.pdf 1∗ 2 1† 4 1 2 4 ∗ 2 † 4 • qualitative studies vol. 6, no. 2, 2021, pp. 1-4 issn 1903-7031 1 editorial: rhythms charlotte wegener aalborg university, department of communication and psychology, teglgårds plads 1, 9000 aalborg, denmark introduction rhythms are the basics of life. the earth’s elliptical movement creates recurring rhythms of day-night and the seasons. rhythms are the placement of sound and silence in time, in a piece of music and in speech. rhythms are the beat of your heart, arrhythmic at times. rhythms are repetition and variation, emphasis and relief, giving and receiving. rhythm refers to a variety of temporal and spatial experiences such as flow, synchronization, being out of time and going through a phase. in everyday life, we follow a work schedule (or play truant), we march (for peace or to war), we applaud in unison the players at the soccer field or the eloquent agitator. in research, rhythm is used in a wide range of writings within the arts, philosophy, technology, critical theory and in studies of the everyday (crespi & manghani, 2020). there is a renewed awareness of rhythm across the social sciences and humanities — an awareness that can be seen as a response to the radical shifts in the pace and reach of modern life (lyon, 2019). in this issue of qualitative studies, we are inspired by the concept of rhythm as it appears in the writings of the french sociologist and philosopher henri lefebvre (1901-91), the american philosopher, psychologist and educational reformer john dewey (1859-1952) and some of those who are inspired by them. in art as experience, dewey talks about the rhythmic “drama” of conflict and resolution in which action, feeling and meaning are one: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5600-7824 c. wegener: editorial: rhythms qualitative studies: 6(2), pp. 1-4 © 2021 2 experiencing like breathing is a rhythm of intakings and outgivings. their succession is punctuated and made a rhythm by the existence of intervals, periods in which one phase is ceasing and the other is inchoate and preparing. (dewey, 1934, p. 158) according to lefebvre (2004 [1992]), rhythm is “everywhere where there is interaction between a place, a time and an expenditure of energy” (p. 15). it requires an element of recurrence, but it is not an exact repetition — it is a summing up as well as a carrying forward. as such, rhythm involves both linear and cyclical conceptions of time and offers a complex approach for the study of place, materiality, movement and the body (lyon, 2019), as well as transgressions of boundaries and issues of power (reid-musson, 2018). rhythms are not good or bad; they just are, and even though rhythms elude firm categorization, we all have a sense of what they are, how they affect us and the ways in which they can be used for good or evil purposes. lefebvre suggested the term “rhythmanalysis” as an orientation or a strategy comprising a set of methods that can be applied depending on the object and field of inquiry. he argues that the human body has several rhythms and that rhythms outside of the body can be studied with the researcher’s own rhythms as a point of reference. the researcher must situate heror himself simultaneously inside and outside by actively and creatively engaging with his or her own rhythms and with the rhythms in the field of investigation. as a research practice, rhythmanalysis has much in common with ethnography and its ambitions of being there and observing through a spatially, temporally and sensually attuned practice. analyzing rhythms involves an intimate feel for the transaction between and entanglement of bodies and spaces and a commitment to experimenting with different ways of attunement (mccormack, 2013) or, in dewey’s terms, experimenting with experience. the contributors to this issue apply rhythms as a prism into analyzing phenomena as diverse as the acquisition of writing skills, entrepreneurship in welfare education and presidential election campaigns, and in developing a framework for studying meaning making when confronted with individual, social or environmental rupture. each of them uses the notion of rhythm to theorize time (and space) beyond the linear rhetoric such as “accelerated” (rosa, 2013) or “slow” (honoré, 2004). rather, they show how all rhythms are “fragile orderings emerging from, and potentially returning to, chaos” (mccormack, 2013). in “phenomenology of rhythm: the role of rhythm in written language,” casper feilberg and john maul present existential-phenomenological perspectives on a case study of a high c. wegener: editorial: rhythms qualitative studies: 6(2), pp. 1-4 ©2021 school student with written language difficulties. throughout the article, they elucidate connections between rhythmic perspectives in movement, speech, working memory and language as prerequisites for the acquisition of written language skills. by combining developmental psychology, neuropsychology and qualitative observations, they work towards a rhythmic understanding of dyslexia. by presenting different perspectives as a contribution to an overall understanding in the light of a phenomenological ontology of the human being, which takes the experiencing body-subject as a basis and a starting point, they conclude that combining these approaches is in line with the work of merleau-ponty. in the second article, “the pitch as meaning-directing activity: implications for students and education when fast pace and a striving for novelty set the scene,” nicolai nybye investigates the elevator pitch as part of a tendency toward homogenization of entrepreneurial content in educational programs. drawing on data from innovation courses for health students at a danish university college and on the work of dewey and professor of education gert biesta, he shows how the pitch as a phenomenon in education organizes the way students orient themselves, guides their meaning making and reduces the space for reflection. nybye concludes that values of speed and the striving for novelty become affordances for the health students in specific ways. through the pitch, the students are expected to act as a version of saleswo/men in a marketplace for new solutions to an audience of assessing judges, while the active, reflective student as figure is left behind. “rhythm politics in a changing brazil: a study of how bolsonaro and haddad mobilized voters musically in the 2018 election” is based on kjetil klette bøhler’s fieldwork during the 2018 election campaign in brazil. it provides a conceptual framework and offers a new concept of rhythm politics. rhythm politics is used to carry out an analysis of how musical rhythms and melodies activate other rhythms (e.g. psychological, biological and social) and thereby mobilize political sentiment, values and visions through aesthetic means. one, and perhaps the most important, lesson to be learned from the study, bøhler states, is that music and arts may humanize and popularize fascist movements that threaten human rights. to fight against such movements in the future, it is important to know more about how jingles, national anthems and other music phenomena are used to mobilize voters. consider your life-course as a piece of music. this is what sarah awad suggests in “experiencing change: rhythms of everyday life between continuities and change,” in which she inquires into meaning-making processes in times when everyday rhythms are disrupted. in such times, argues awad with inspiration from zittoun’s idea of melodies of living, we reconstruct our past and c. wegener: editorial: rhythms qualitative studies: 6(2), pp. 1-4 © 2021 4 imagine possible alternative futures in a pursuit of continuity following disruption. paying attention to how personal, social, and environmental changes reciprocally influence one another, she argues that the experience of change could be understood through looking at rhythms in five interrelated domains that are tied together with a core focus on meaning making: time, space, body, social others and symbolic resources. we trust that you, our readers, will engage in rhythmic transaction with the texts and that they will inspire further attunement in your research practice as well as in everyday life. references crespi, p., & manghani, s. (2020). rhythm and critique: technics, modalities, practices. edinburgh university press.dewey, j. (1934). art as experience. new york: penguin group. honoré, c. (2004). in praise of slow. how a worldwide movement is challenging the cult of speed. london: orion books. lefebvre, h. (1992). rhythmanalysis: space, time and everyday life. london: bloomsbury academic. lyon, d. (2019). what is rhythmanalysis? london: bloomsbury academic. mccormack, d. p. (2013). refrains for moving bodies: experience and experiment in affective spaces. durham and london: duke university press. reid-musson, e. (2018). intersectional rhythmanalysis: power, rhythm, and everyday life. progress in human geography, 42(6), 881-897. doi:10.1177/0309132517725069 rosa, h. (2013). social acceleration. a new theory of modernity. new york: columbia university press. about the author charlotte wegener is associate professor in social innovation. she is also passionate about writing and has explored the art and craft of writing in several ways. she teaches graduate and postgraduate writing courses, runs writing retreats and seeks to expand the field of academic writing by involving music, fiction, and the rhythms of everyday life. microsoft word sköld editorial .docx qualitative studies vol. 7, no. 1, 2022, pp. 1-6 issn 1903-7031 editorial kvalitativ psykologi alfred sköld1 1 aalborg university, department of communication and psychology, teglgårds plads 1, 9000 aalborg, denmark (alfred@hum.aau.dk) nærværende temanummer om kvalitativ psykologi udspringer af en konference arrangeret af vidensgruppen qualitative studies på aalborg universitet i maj, 2021. baggrunden for konferencen var en intention om at samle forskere fra rundt om i landet med henblik på at diskutere, hvad kvalitativ psykologi er, bør og kan. på trods af at pandemien medførte et halvt års udskydelse, og at konferencen til sidst blev afholdt online, var der både god stemning, høj kvalitet på oplæggene og bred appel til at fortsætte en tværvidenskabelig diskussion omkring teoretiske, empiriske og metodiske spørgsmål knyttet til kvalitativ forskning – også udenfor psykologien. i forlængelse af konferencen i 2021 blev kvale-konferencen derfor etaberet som en årlig tilbagevendende begivenhed på baggrund af et konstruktivt samarbejde mellem aalborg universitet, aarhus universitet, syddansk universitet, københavns universitet, roskilde universitet og danmarks pædagogiske universitet. den første kvalekonference afholdes på sdu i september, 2022 på temaet ”brug og udvikling af teori i kvalitativ forskning”. forhåbningen er, at konferencen netop formår at skabe en arena for inkluderende formidling og engagerende diskussioner inden for det kvalitative område i danmark og øvrige skandinaviske lande. a. sköld: kvalitativ psykologi qualitative studies 7(1), pp. 1-6 ©2022 2 størstedelen af artiklerne i dette temanummer udspringer af opæg fra konferencen kvalitativ psykologi, herunder keynote-forelæsningerne af charlotte højholdt, klaus nielsen og svend brinkmann. diversiteten i temanummeret afspejler et bredt call for papers, der både søgte teoretiske bud på, hvad kvalitativ psykologi kan være, empiriske nedslag i den kvalitative psykologis brogede landskab og bud på fremtiden for kvalitativ forskning indenfor psykologien og dens tilgrænsende discipliner. mange af artiklerne forholder sig både til teoretiske, metodiske og empiriske spørgsmål og præcise kategoriseringer og inddelinger af bidragene har vist sig vanskeligt. rækkefølgen af artikler er dog motiveret af en gradvis mere empirisk orientering. i det følgende præsenteres temanummerets bidrag: i artiklen hvad handler kvalitativ psykologi om? henimod en deltagerpsykologi, argumenterer svend brinkmann for, at kvalitativ psykologi udmærker sig ved en særlig kombination af intentionalitet og normativitet. gennem tanker, følelser og handlinger retter vi os mod verden og hinanden. den måde hvorpå vi gør dette, hævder brinkmann, er ikke moralsk neutral, men infiltreret af en grundlæggende ”børhed”. med udgangspunkt i påstanden, at intentionalitet og normativitet er to sider af samme mønt, udfolder brinkmann senere distinktionen mellem deltagerog tilskuerpsykologi i bestræbelsen på, at definere genstandsfeltet for den kvalitative psykologi. som mennesker og kvalitative psykologer er vi andet og mere end tilskuere – vi lever og deltager, og kun med dette udgangspunkt kan vi undgå at objektivere både os selv og andre. den kvalitative deltagerpsykologi er ifølge brinkmann en førstepsykologi, hvortil tilskuerpsykologien må indfinde sig som et nødvendigt, men sekundært supplement. klaus nielsen udfolder en beslægtet tankegang i temanummerets anden artikel, kvalitativ psykologi som tilfældets psykologi. nielsens ærinde er en revitalisering af tilfældet, som et centralt erfaringsmæssigt omdrejningspunkt for kvalitativ psykologi. med udgangspunkt i bl.a. kierkegaard og lyotard retter nielsen en skarp kritik mod ”forvaltningens psykologi”, der mangler blik for at det meste og måske også væsentligste, vi oplever i livet, ofte kan karakteriseres som et tilfælde. nielsen sporer denne tendens tilbage til den kognitive revolution og begrebsliggørelse af psyken som en maskine for informationsbearbejdning. meget af det, der går under betegnelsen ’psykologi’ går ifølge a. sköld: kvalitativ psykologi qualitative studies 7(1), pp. 1-6 ©2022 3 nielsen glip af både kærlighed, sprog, historie, mening, emotioner, konflikter, bevidsthed, politik og økonomi – og her kan man jo rettelig spørge, hvad det så handler om? ligesom brinkmann tilskriver intentionaliteten en normativ dimension, hævder nielsen, at en respekt for tilfældets betydning ikke fører til en art fatalisme, men omvendt påkræver en form for (an)svar. tilfældet får først sin egentlige betydning i lyset af den måde, hvorpå vi forholder os til og tager konsekvenserne af det, og nielsen fremhæver især de relationelle og sociale aspekter herved. i temanummerets tredje artikel, den kvalitative psykologiens kraft til å forstyrre fenomenene, argumenterer ingrid johnsen hogstad for, at en af den kvalitative psykologis fornemmeste opgaver er at forstyrre og problematisere. i en tid hvor replikationskrisen hærger i mange lejre af det psykologiske landskab, er hogstads argument om, at reproduktion af viden aldrig har været målet, særdeles interessant. hogstad eksemplificerer sin påstand om, at den teoretiske underbygning analysen hviler på, har afgørende betydning for dens potentiale for at problematisere, ved at give to vidt forskellige bud på, hvordan vi fortolker børns sorgudtryk og forståelse af døden. spørgsmålet om, hvor vidt vi anlægger et piagetsk inspireret konstruktivistisk perspektiv eller en sociokulturelt inspireret analytik, viser sig afgørende for, hvordan vi fortolker og forstår denne vanskeligt tilgængelige empiri. hogstads påstand om, at barnets erfaringer ikke kan forstås fyldestgørende med udgangspunkt, hvis vi udelukkende forstår psyken som en indre beholder, lægger sig op ad både brinkmanns og nielsens tanker om, hvordan mennesket primært er et levende væsen i en verden af andre. martin vestergaard kristiansens bidrag, fænomenologi som dvælen ved erfaringens merhed, indskriver sig i den aktuelle diskussion om, hvordan fænomenologien kan og bør informere kvalitativ forskning. kristiansens eget interviewstudie med personer, som lider af generaliseret angst, og hans forsøg på og udfordringer med at opnå righoldige beskrivelser af deres oplevelser, ligger til grund for en diskussion af, hvad vi som forskere stiller op med interviewmateriale og informanter, der ikke mangler et sprog, men derimod reproducerer særlige måder at tematisere deres oplevelser på. kombinationen af en diagnostisk forståelseshorisont og udbredelsen af eksternaliserende mestringsstrategier har ført til en objektivering af mental lidelse, som ifølge kristiansen gør det tiltagende a. sköld: kvalitativ psykologi qualitative studies 7(1), pp. 1-6 ©2022 4 vanskeligt, at ”dvæle ved det konkrete” og sætte ord på, hvordan det er at ængstes. kristiansen udfolder hermed en fænomenologisk tilgang til feltet, som indeholder lige dele minutiøs opmærksomhed og mistænksom hermeneutik. i temanummerets femte bidrag, kvalitativ forskning om situeret ulighed i skolen fortsætter charlotte højholt diskussionen af metodologiske udfordringer for kvalitativ psykologi med fokus på forholdet mellem forskere og dem, de forsker med. i lighed med kristiansen fremhæver højholt med-forskningens og samarbejdets afgørende betydning. på forskellige måder er forskning noget, vi gør sammen med andre, og i linje med hogstads artikel, fremhæves betydningen af at inddrage sociale betingelser for at forstå de udfordringer, som vores informanter kæmper med. højholt empiriske udgangspunkt er et projekt om ulighed i skoleregi. ulighed er ifølge højholdt mere og andet end statistik; ulighed er situeret; det opog udleves i sociale sammenhænge. dette implicerer ikke, at kvalitativ viden udelukkende er lokalt forankret, men en nyttig påmindelse om, at det generelle og almene altid er tilstede og virker i det konkrete. spørgsmålet er, om det ikke er et af den kvalitative forsknings fornemmeste opgaver, at beskrive og forstå denne bevægelse mellem det singulære og det universelle, samt den kulturelle mediering som til enhver tid forbinder dem? temanummerets sjette artikel, abduktive bevægelser mellem ’mysteries’ og ’my-stories’ er skrevet af britta møller og retter blikket mod de bevægelser mellem brud og kontinuitet, som ifølge forfatteren kendetegner kvalitativ forskning. med udgangspunkt i et længerevarende eksperimentelt og kollaborativt studie af læring i ældreplejen på en socialog sundhedsskole og pragmatisk filosofi, beskriver møller hvordan forskerens ”levende resonanskasse” anvendes til at nuancere forståelsen for det, som umiddelbart fremtræder forvirrende og uforståeligt. i lighed med nielsen, argumenterer møller for, at det er mellemrummene, bruddene og i mødet med den empiri der udøver modstand, som udgør kilden til spændende og nytænkende forskning. få af os tænker frivilligt – det er når verden i al sit kaos og mysteriøsitet trænger sig på, som vi tvinges til at forholde os til livet og verden. afsluttende del af møllers artikel viser, at den måde vi forholder os til og svarer på det uforståelige, ikke udelukkende er et eksistentielt anliggende, men både forskningsmæssigt og organisatorisk vedkommende. a. sköld: kvalitativ psykologi qualitative studies 7(1), pp. 1-6 ©2022 5 cecilie marie thøgersen og chalotte glintborgs artikel, at udføre kvalitativ forskning med personer med kognitive funktionsnedsættelser metodiske udfordringer og styrker undersøger de muligheder og udfordringer, som er forbundet med kvalitativ forskning omkring personer med kognitive funktionsnedsættelser. moderne samfund generelt og kvalitativ forskning i særdeleshed, hviler ofte på antagelsen, at personer besidder grundlæggende evner til at kunne reflektere og udtrykke sig verbalt. i thøgersen og glintborgs perspektiv, er der et stort behov for ”indefra perspektivet” fra personer med disse vanskeligheder – både for at muliggøre anerkendelse og validering af, at dette er et fuldgyldigt og ofte unikt blik på verden, og for at kunne tilbyde adækvat hjælp og støtte. på baggrund af mange års forskning indenfor feltet identificerer forfatterne seks overordnede temaer/grupper af udfordringer, som kræver tilpasning for at lave kvalitative studier med denne målgruppe. thøgersen og glintborg illustrerer hermed, hvordan generiske tilgange til forskningsinterviews sjældent er vellykkede – at bedrive kvalitativ forskning med personer med kognitive funktionsnedsættelser kræver både indsigt i de særlige problemstillinger, som denne gruppe kæmper med – og mod til at udfordre metodisk dogmatik. på en beslægtet måde argumenterer aase m. ottesen i artiklen, fokus på det relationelle møde med personer med demens i demensrehabiliteringsindsatsen for, at kvalitativ forskning kan spille en afgørende rolle når det kommer til at forstå de behov demente oplever, men ikke altid kan udtrykke. ottesen skriver med udgangspunkt i musikterapien og en længereværende interesse for, hvordan musiske elementer kan anvendes til at øge kontaktfladen mellem omsorgsgiver og personen med demens. artiklen sætter fokus på, hvordan værdighed og respektfuldhed i demensplejen kan understøttes gennem en personorienteret tilgang. musikken bliver relevant, da den ofte vækker minder, erindringer og sider hos personen med demens, som ellers sjældent får mulighed for at blomstre. i lyset af at antallet demente er stadig stigende, og at ingen medicinsk behandling er tilgængelig, anses det afgørende at vi bliver bedre til at forstå hvordan det er at leve med sygdommen, herunder hvordan vi interagerer på en relationelt adækvate måder. i ottesens perspektiv, er det ofte mindre vigtigt hvad en pårørende eller omsorgsgiver gør, men desto vigtigere hvordan det bliver gjort. i relationen er det også af at være lydhør overfor stemninger, og musikken er en måde hvorpå dette kan gøres. a. sköld: kvalitativ psykologi qualitative studies 7(1), pp. 1-6 ©2022 6 marie g. laursen & katja sandbergs artikel impostor-fænomen blandt fremspirende voksne: en kvalitativ interviewundersøgelse af oplevelsen og håndteringen af impostorfænomen, sætter fokus på den diskrepans mellem objektiv kompetens og subjektiv oplevelse, som karakteriserer impostor-fænomenet (if). forskningen på området har tidligere været karakteriseret ved et overvejende kvantitativt fokus, hvor man primært har undersøgt korrelationelle sammenhænge mellem if og andre mentale lidelser. det kvalitative studie, som artiklen er baseret på, fokuserer specifikt på if i et ”fremspirende voksenliv”, og de udviklingsog identitetsmæssige udforinger, som gør sig gældende her. med rig inddragelse af interviewmateriale og en gennemført tematisk analyse illustreres, hvordan oplevelsen og håndteringen af if er dybt vævet ind i aktuelle og kontekstuelle faktorer. god læsning! about the author alfred sköld, cand.mag. i filosofi, cand.psych., ph.d., er adjunkt i psykologi ved institut for kommunikation og psykologi ved aalborg universitet. alfreds ph.d.-afhandling omhandlede sorgens eksistentielle og etiske aspekter. hans nuværende forskningsprojekt undersøger håbets betydning for unge klimaaktivister. sköld & lund editorial .pdf qualitative studies vol. 6, no. 1, 2021, pp. 1-10 issn 1903-7031 1 editorial suffering in contemporary society alfred bordado sköld & peter clement lund aalborg university, department of communication and psychology, teglgårds plads 1, 9000 aalborg, denmark (alfred@hum.aau.dk; pclund@hum.aau.dk) suffering points in every direction. it unites and separate us, makes us feel alive, yet close to death. suffering makes us hide and act, love and kill. from the primal scream of the newly born to the oftenpainful last sip of air that we breathe, suffering pervades our entire lives. we feel it through the core nerve of our being, and suffering, in kierkegaard’s words, “nails us to ourselves”. there is nowhere to hide and yet there is. the world was always one of others and through them, our lives acquire its form and its bearing. yet these others cannot be trusted; they betray, grew old, sick and finally, they too must die. the relational shields that protect and mark who we are can alleviate but not protect us from suffering. as løgstrup (1997) has suggested, it is through the irrevocable unshareability of suffering that the need to attest our inner experiences and articulate these through language or action emerges. it is thus the solitude of suffering that creates the active need to connect with others, and on the one hand, we find ourselves, with alphonso lingis’ (1994) words, in “the community of those who have nothing in common”. on the other, riots and revolutions often testify to the potential of suffering to unite across the borders that otherwise tends to diverge us. as martin hägglund (2019) has pointed out, all of us find ourselves thrown into a world that leaves much to wish for – none of us have asked for this life, and yet we are asked to carry it; to “own our lives”. mental states are never identical to brain states (kripke, 1980) and the agonies that humans undergo always point to us as spiritual beings, to suffering being more than pain. shortly after the world has begun to make sense, reflexivity kicks in and we all become, as augustine puts it in his confessions, “questions unto ourselves”. being human means experiencing that while our actions are earnest attempts of responding to these questions, final answers remain out of reach, and we find a. sköld & p. lund: suffering in contemporary society qualitative studies 6(1), pp. 1-10 ©2021 2 ourselves, like the neurath’s sailor, forced to rebuild the ship on open sea without any land in sight. until the ship suddenly sinks one day and we are no more. at times, the lack of answers that a cold and callous cosmological chaos leaves us to fathom, might make one wonder whether there is any point in continuing. the capacity to end life through suicide is one of the features – together with our persistent need to bury our dead, that mark our species. as human beings, we have the capacity, not only to suffer, but to “curse the day we were born”. there are no astral laws that guarantee human existence and we often ask ourselves why. the existential version of leibniz’s question why there is something rather than nothing, reads: why am i? (o’byrne, 2010). with what right do i occupy this place on planet earth? who grants me this life, this air, this sun and this love? or, conversely, but not unrelatedly: who cursed me to this hell? more often than we are willing to admit, we find ourselves as abandoned children, deadly aware of the fact that we are not the source of our own existence, and yet still unable to find someone or something willing to claim responsibility, not only for who we are, but that we are. throughout the twenty-first century, we have begun to ask these questions on a global level. the superego of today breathes co2 and we are beginning to confront ourselves with questions such as: with what right do we occupy the earth and by what right do we demolish it in the way we are doing? if the evils of the twentieth century in isiah berlin’s words, “the most terrible century in human history” made it unquestionably clear that we carry all the necessary potential to eradicate ourselves, the present century has proven that we likewise are to be held accountable for climate change, an accelerating ecological crisis and the extinction of species and entire eco systems. in the time of the anthropocene, the planet aches, and these predicaments inevitably raise the question of which kinds of sufferings should be endured and which kinds should be revolted against. not all forms of suffering call for stoic equanimity or fatalism. many of the social pathologies that pervade our epoch need not to be met as phenomena that are naturally given – the proliferation of contemporary malaises, mental illness’, diseases, and psychosomatic disorders might, to a large extent, be related to social and cultural changes and upheaval (keohane & petersen, 2013); they are pathological forms of development of society that lead to individual suffering and therefore they are also subject to change. suffering is an inherent facet in human life, but it is also socially distributed, experienced, instigated and fought. not all forms of suffering we see today are the same as we saw 100 years ago, simply because the social and cultural context under which suffering occurs has transformed through the course of history. 100 years ago, the ecological crisis was not on the mind of society and thus the suffering caused, either in the form of habitats being destroyed, humans 3 a. sköld & p. lund: suffering in contemporary society qualitative studies 6(1), pp. 1-10 ©2021 displaced by weather related catastrophes or even the rise in psychological problems related to the loss of nature, was non-existent. likewise, things like social media did not exist and no one killed themselves because of it. thus, suffering changes, but it does not disappear. as such, suffering has been a main focus point for sociology and social theory since its inception: durkheim described anomie and its effects on suicide rates – how the loss of a coherent collective consciousness led to suffering for individuals; weber’s thought on the disenchantment of the world and its rationalizing tendencies as an iron cage that made life less collective and less magical, which of course led to increased suffering; marx’s attention to the plight of the working class and their subjugation into the capitalistic system, which turned individuals into commodities and destroyed both their lives and the world they inhabited; and to simmel’s description of the tragedy of modernity and the effects of citylife on individuals. from these classics and until now suffering has been on the mind of sociology. this means that many contemporary forms of suffering are forms of social suffering – they are caused by or born out of our social environment and each specific time-period creates new forms of suffering. following the likes of zygmunt bauman or peter l. berger and thomas luckmann (bauman, 1992; berger & luckmann, 1966) one might say that much of what we call society and culture could be understood as ways of handling suffering – of staving off meaninglessness, pain and disorder. thus, society – like life itself – is built on suffering. suffering is not a condition that one day could cease to exist, as a result of our conquering or overcoming it. instead, we can understand the world today as continuously marked by new forms of suffering. in this way, we might come to see culture and suffering as existing in a dialectic relation – society is a response against suffering, that in turn creates new forms of suffering. we see this in the rise of psychiatric diagnoses – which has been described as a diagnostic culture (brinkmann & petersen, 2015) where the increase in diagnostic classifications is meant to alleviate suffering, but simultaneously paves the way for new forms of suffering by removing our ability to talk about or understand suffering with any other form of language than a diagnostic one (brinkmann, 2014). likewise, we may see many of the ailments of our current age as byproducts of our need to control and alleviate suffering. as hartmut rosa has recently described (rosa, 2015) we live in an age of increasing acceleration of all parts of social life, personal life and technology – things that bear with them the promise of something better, of a life that might be easier and more fulfilling. as rosa argues acceleration is the eudaimonic promise in contemporary society; a promise that a life lived to the fullest is a life free from suffering. but this has only lead to an increase in suffering in the forms a. sköld & p. lund: suffering in contemporary society qualitative studies 6(1), pp. 1-10 ©2021 4 of alienation and burn-out – to a mute and hostile world around us that removes our possibilities of a good life (rosa, 2019). acceleration of life and society promises to make things easier and to further our ‘reach’ into the world, making our lives better by freeing more time, but the promise fails. the faster we move and the more we want to further our control and reach, the less resonant experience we acquire. thus, acceleration promises to relieve suffering – to give us more free time and give us more possibilities – but instead it causes more suffering in the form of complete alienation from a world that becomes illegible and incoherent for us. when we turn our attention to the impending ecological crisis, the story is much the same. technology and capitalism made possible the increase in living standards for many, but also paved the way for the exploitation of individuals all over the world and led to new forms of suffering. now, we are all facing the destruction of our planet at our own hands and the suffering this is already causing and in time will cause. this form of suffering has been created by ourselves, by the lives we have led and the culture we have been a part of – we have all done our part to help along the destruction of our habitats in what others have called the capitalocene (moore, 2017, 2018) – we are not just living in the anthropocene ‘the age of man’, instead it might be argued that we are living in the capitalocene. ‘the age of capital’ over the past five centuries has not just been about maximizing the productivity of labour-time, but also about maximizing the output of nature (moore, 2018, p. 237). thus, humans have created the system that causes their own suffering through the exploitation of both themselves and the places they inhabit. therefore, when we talk about suffering, we are talking about ourselves. about why the forms of suffering we experience have come to be and we come to question why they are still allowed to exist. focusing on suffering is a way of reminding ourselves of who we are and who we want to be. this work is never done precisely because suffering and society exist in a constant tug-of-war where each new form of progress creates new suffering, and this suffering instigates new cultural replies to it. there is no real utopian world without suffering, but it might be worth imagining such a utopian world so we can strive for less suffering – aware that we cannot remove this existential condition, only lessen it and perhaps remedy its unequal distribution. in light of this contemporary malady, the editorial board at qualitative studies has invited scholars from various academic fields to contribute to a deeper understanding of the questions, dilemmas and aporias that pervades our time. the idea has grown out of the interdisciplinary work in the research centre the culture of grief, where we are both ph.d.-fellows. as a continuation of an earlier research project on diagnostic cultures (brinkmann & petersen, 2016), the ambition of this centre has been to “grasp the many facets of grief, both in order to achieve a thorough comprehension of the 5 a. sköld & p. lund: suffering in contemporary society qualitative studies 6(1), pp. 1-10 ©2021 phenomenon, but also in terms of being able to take a qualified position of the diagnosis and treatment of grief in order to improve community services to people in grief” (the culture of grief, p. 2). grief, which exists in the borderland between the existential universal and culturally specific, is, needless to say, a profound form of suffering. in grief, “one finds oneself fallen” (butler, 2006, p. 21); we are forced to reckon with a the radicality of finitude and more prone to empathize with the suffering of the world. this special issue is our first attempt of expanding the notion and range of suffering beyond grief, hopefully pointing ahead to future projects and cooperation. in various ways, the different contributions to this special issue attest to the important role of academia concerning how to come to terms with the various forms of suffering in our age. while some articles insist that adequate forms of suffering are left little or no room in a society that evades many forms of negativity, others make an argument that to remedy what is seen as unwarranted forms of suffering, action is called for. in order to draw this very distinction, intellectual work must be done, and this special issue offers some fruitful contributions that take this poignant task rather seriously. with articles from scholars near and far working within the fields of philosophy, sociology, psychology, anthropology and cultural studies, we are proud to present this special issue on suffering in contemporary society. only after launching the project did we realize that “social suffering in contemporary society” is the subtitle of pierre bourdieu and coworkers’ the weight of the world, published in 1999. we carry no aspirations of being worthy followers of this masterpiece, but given that the weight of the world remains unequally distributed, and given that every era has its specific burdens, the struggle most go on. and “there is never time to wait” (hägglund, 2019, p. 389). “a generation share time”, lisa barrister (2017) writes, and we suggest that suffering is one of the most prominent features of sharing time, that is, of belonging to a generation. there is little reason to remind our readers of the potential of suffering to tear individuals, groups, countries and the entire world apart, open the gates to hell and what is worse. what is more imperative is the potential of suffering to heal and unite, to call for mutual recognition, respect and solidarity. the sufferings of our contemporary societies offer a key to understanding who we are, inspiration for the struggles to become someone else and fuel for action in that direction. to guide our readers throughout this tour de force throughout the land of agony, a short presentation of the articles will now follow. a. sköld & p. lund: suffering in contemporary society qualitative studies 6(1), pp. 1-10 ©2021 6 in ‘forced adulthood’: an aspect of ‘quarterlife crisis’ suffered by young english and assemese adults, raginie duara, siobhan hugh-jones and anna madill discuss the transition into adulthood for young people. through a qualitative study they investigate the suffering that occurs through the, sometimes, traumatizing effect of having to assume adult responsibilities. by using methods such as photo-elicitation and time-line interviews with 22-30-year-olds from both england and assam, india, they elucidate how this form of suffering is mediated and shaped by a person’s cultural and educational background. they discuss how this form of quarterlife crisis is different from the more commonly known midlife crisis, by being characterized by feelings of unpredictability and apprehension. the article also discusses how this notion of forced adulthood plays out differently in the two countries – one being more individualistic and less traditional and the other more traditional and collectivistic. they describe three sub-themes from their research: (1) the feeling of being rushed into financial self-sufficiency, (2) the notion of training oneself to be an adult and the inherent chrononormativity in this, and (3) the relentless responsibilities of being ‘the man in the house’. in mothering death: a psychosocial interpretation of breast cancer biography, birgitta haga gripsrud investigates the intrapsychic and social conflicts related to breast cancer, drawing on a single-case study with a 50-year-old woman having her breast transplanted as part of cancer treatment. the statement “i would rather die than lose my breast” becomes the opening to an article that – with a point of departure in vivid empirical material, raises fundamental questions of the meaning of breasts, tumors and life as such. in the wake of covid-19, cancer might have – temporally, lost part of its status as the plague of our time, but this disease still affects all of our lives at some point. drawing on earlier research on the cultural significance of breasts and femininity, gripsrud makes it undeniably clear that despite the fact that cancer is close to a universal existential, it matters whether is strikes one part of the body or another. furthermore, the meaning of cancer, that in this article is exhibited through group interpretation, will be futile without a deep understanding of the patient’s life story and psychical reality. in social suffering in the sociology of zygmunt bauman, michael hviid jacobsen explores how the theme of suffering has run through the works of the late zygmunt bauman. the article traces how we might understand suffering as an inherent part of human life, how it is both individual and general, and how it is unequally distributed. jacobsen discusses how suffering and culture constitute the core of bauman’s body of work. the article then describes how bauman focused on the change from what might be called solid-modern suffering to liquid-modern suffering. the former being a form of 7 a. sköld & p. lund: suffering in contemporary society qualitative studies 6(1), pp. 1-10 ©2021 suffering that exists because of totalitarian tendencies and the latter a form of suffering that is much dispersed and intangible. jacobsen also discusses some of bauman’s most famous work on globalization, including his concepts of tourists and vagabonds as winners and losers in the globalization game – as those who might suffer under these developments and those who might overcome suffering. the article ends with a discussion of what we should do to alleviate suffering, seen from bauman’s perspective. the question of our responsibility to the other comes into the foreground and bauman rests his notion of normativity in this responsibility – and thus asks us to make a difference in the world. the article narratives of loss: exploring grief through photography, written by ignacio brescó de luna and belén jiménez-alonso, likewise begins in cancer. the articles seek to expand the often exclusively verbal understanding of meaning-making central to bereavement. photography is introduced, both as a methodological tool that might enrich our understanding of the temporality of grief, and a therapeutically fruitful tool. through pictures, we get a glimpse of maria’s struggles following the loss of a close friend. given the close proximity to cameras that today’s use of cellphone offers, picture taking cannot be overlooked if we wish to understand contemporary technologies of the self. for bereaved people especially, picture taking offers an opportunity to show what cannot be expressed in words, remembering and honoring the dead in ways otherwise precluded. researchers need to be, the writers argue, up to the timely task of navigating this field and grasp the opportunities offers by visual methods in general. in necessary suffering? investigating existential suffering in youth, joachim meier investigates everyday suffering among high school adults in denmark. drawing on qualitative interviews with people on the threshold to adulthood, he asks how their various sufferings should be understood. the article begins with a critical discussion of contemporary tendencies of pathologization, that meier fears overshadows both the normative and contextual aspects of suffering. under the rubric ‘existential suffering’, meier presents the difficulties of his informants in the light of freedom, anxiety, finitude and otherness. these types of sufferings that “cling to life”, should be seen as an inevitable feature of existence itself, something that the (necessary) attempts to make a distinction between legitimate and illegitimate forms of suffering need to consider. the question of what kinds of suffering we should or should not bear, and to what extent being against suffering even makes a. sköld & p. lund: suffering in contemporary society qualitative studies 6(1), pp. 1-10 ©2021 8 sense, is a question that transcends the limits between the personal, cultural and existential dimensions of life. in a virtue ethical approach to interpretation of the suffering other, anne eggert stevns likewise begins with questions related to pathologization, asking whether the existential and ethical aspects of suffering are overshadowed by a reductive bio-medical framework. framing the discussion within a practioner-client relationship, stevns asks what a recognition of otherness consists in, and, conversely, what a treatment that respects the client as a meaning-making and agential person amounts to. iris murdoch’s understanding of love as the selfless, and, to a certain extent, disinterested acknowledgement of the reality of the other as distinct from oneself becomes the key to an understanding of what it means to see the other as, namely, an other. the loving gaze that enable us see nature, art and literature as beauty beyond the self, could likewise, stevns argue, guide our interpersonal and caring relationships as well. in negotiation languages of suffering in northern uganda, lars hedegaard williams discusses suffering through the perspective of ngo’s working in a post-conflict area of northern uganda, based on his fieldwork in the area. the article elaborates how there is an ongoing psychiatrisation and psychologization of the local cosmology, which then transforms local notions of suffering. williams critiques the current view that all psychological notions of suffering from the global north that are implemented in other contexts necessarily leads to a form of therapeutic governance – instead he argues that we should look at global culture as an ever-changing flow. williams specifically looks at trauma and ptsd discourses in the wake of an armed conflict in uganda and he argues that the use of diagnostic language by the ngo’s working in the area does not replace or exclude the local cosmological understanding of suffering. rather, it merges with local ideas into new forms and alternative ways of conceptualizing and perceiving illness, distress, trauma and suffering. williams elaborates how trauma can take on different meanings: either as interchangeable with ptsd, as a disorder brought on by spirits for moral reasons, as disorder brought by demons or the devil or more as part of an illness-phase and something more diffuse. williams argues for a more pragmatic concept of suffering – a concept of that is understood as something people do and use to cope with the world around them. 9 a. sköld & p. lund: suffering in contemporary society qualitative studies 6(1), pp. 1-10 ©2021 acknowledgements this special issue has grown out of the research centre in the culture of grief. the editors remain much thankful for the opportunity of growing up academically in an environment where interdisciplinary is a language everyone speaks, and crossing disciplinary borders in is something that everyone does. we remain especially thankful to our supervisors, anders petersen and svend brinkmann for wholehearted support and encouragement throughout our time as ph.d.-fellows. the culture of grief is financed by the obel family foundation. references barrister, l (2017). enduring time. bloomsbury publishing. bauman, z. (1992). mortality, immortality, and other life strategies (1st ed.). cambridge: polity press. berger, p., & luckmann, t. (1966). the social construction of reality: a treatise in the sociology of knowledge(1st ed.). retrieved from http://ideanetworking.com.au/docs/sensemaking/_peter_l._berger_thomas_luckmann_ the_social_cons_bookfi.org_.pdf brinkmann, s., & petersen, a. (2015). diagnoser perspektiver, kritik og diskussion (1st ed.). aarhus: forlaget klim. butler, j. (2006). precarious life: the powers of mourning and violence. london: verso, 2006. hägglund, m. (2019). this life : secular faith and spiritual freedom. new york: pantheon books, 2019. keohane, k., & petersen, a. (eds.). (2013). the social pathologies of contemporary civilization (1st ed.). london: routledge. lingis, a. (1994). the community of those who have nothing in common. bloomington: indiana university press. løgstrup, k. e. (1997). the ethical demand. notre dame: university of notre dame press. moore, j. w. (2017). the capitalocene, part i: on the nature and origins of our ecological crisis. the journal of peasant studies, 44(3), 594–630. moore, j. w. (2018). the capitalocene part ii: accumulation by appropriation and the centrality of unpaid work/energy. the journal of peasant studies, 45(2), 237–279. o’byrne, a. (2010). natality and finitude. bloomington: indiana university press. a. sköld & p. lund: suffering in contemporary society qualitative studies 6(1), pp. 1-10 ©2021 10 rosa, h. (2015). social acceleration: a new theory of modernity (1st ed.). new york: columbia university press. rosa, h. (2019). resonance: a sociology of our relationship to the world (1st ed.). john wiley & sons. the culture of grief, project description. retrieved from: https://www.kommunikation.aau.dk/digitalassets/268/268233_the-culture-of.grief.pdf about the authors alfred bordado sköld is a philosopher and psychologist, currently a ph.d.-student at the research centre, the culture of grief. his dissertation, relationality and finitude – a social ontology of bereavement, explore the existential and socio-ontological aspects of grief. drawing on existential phenomenology, deconstruction, psychoanalytic theory, and a longitudinal interview study with bereaved life partners in different generations, he attempts to understand the coordinates of relationality in general, our notion of a shared life in particular, and how grief can inform and deepen our notions of mortality. peter clement lund is a sociologist and ph.d.-student at aalborg university and part of the research centre, the culture of grief, where he is researching the forthcoming diagnostic classification of prolonged grief disorder. using a combination of theoretical discussion and a qualitative methodology of gonzo sociology he investigates how our current culture exists in an ongoing struggle for the rights to define and treat grief as a phenomenon – and the consequences this has for our beingin-the-world. qualitative studies vol. 8, no. 1, 2023, pp. 16-22 issn 1903-7031 collaborating off the beaten track selina tusitala marsh & helen sword1 1 centre for arts and social transformation, university of auckland / waipapa taumata rau aotearoa new zealand writing off the beaten track requires confidence, courage, and chutzpah. collaborating off the beaten track requires something more: trust, for a start, not to mention flexibility, respect, a robust sense of humour, and an appetite for intellectual risk-taking. join us as we revisit some memorable moments from the off-piste collaboration of a book author (helen) and an illustrator (selina) who also happen to be colleagues, comentors, and friends. the title and topic of helen’s book, writing with pleasure, became the modus operandi of our collaborative process as we negotiated the challenges and rewards of venturing into new territory together. like the forty illustrated panels that we co-produced for the book, these storyboarded scenes confound academic conventions and resist easy explication. instead, they “gesture toward, lean into, sport with, learn from, dance around, and laugh about” (sword, 2023, p. ii) the themes that they address: from shadowy sharks to unexpected treasures; from structural designs to serendipitous discovery; from imposter syndrome to creative confidence; and from surprise to delight. keywords: collaboration, illustration, convention, imposter syndrome, pleasure s. t. marsh & h. sword: collaborating off the beaten track qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 16-22 ©2023 17 s. t. marsh & h. sword: collaborating off the beaten track qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 16-22 ©2023 18 s. t. marsh & h. sword: collaborating off the beaten track qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 16-22 ©2023 19 s. t. marsh & h. sword: collaborating off the beaten track qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 16-22 ©2023 20 s. t. marsh & h. sword: collaborating off the beaten track qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 16-22 ©2023 21 s. t. marsh & h. sword: collaborating off the beaten track qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 16-22 ©2023 22 references sword, h. (2023). writing with pleasure. illustrated by selina tusitala marsh. princeton and oxford: princeton university press. vol. 5, no. 2, 2018, pp. 49–56 issn 1903-7031 editorial researching organisational imbrications and interstices: a qualitative gaze on how mundane public administration works bagga bjerge1 , tobias georg eule2 , kasper trolle elmholdt3  1aarhus university, department of psychology, center for alcohol and drug research, bartholins allé 10, 8000 aarhus c: denmark 2university of bern, department of law, schanzeneckstraße 1, ch–3001 bern: switzerland 3aalborg university, department of political science, fibigerstræde 3, 9220 aalborg ø: denmark (1bb.crf@psy.au.dk 2tobias.eule@oefre.unibe.ch 3elm@dps.aau.dk) • introduction the film i, daniel blake, directed by ken loach, portrays the everyday struggles of an elderly man navigating the english welfare system. recovering from a heart attack, blake experiences the bleak reality of an indifferent administration that leaves him hungry and homeless, while still making him jump through ever more absurd bureaucratic hoops. largely seen as a commentary on current political developments in the united kingdom under the cameron and may governments, the film also addresses the quixotic reality of accessing welfare support in social systems around the world, as well as the absurd effects of bureaucracy in general. beyond more overtly political questions about the extent and sufficiency of welfare provisions, a key question for welfare providers, recipients and academics alike has been how welfare services are provided and received. welfare states tend to have grown in a rather piecemeal historical process, including the development of various state, privatised or renationalised agencies, with multiple and sometimes overlapping obligations. as a result, it can be increasingly difficult to navigate between these organisations – both for service users and employees themselves. indeed, public sector service has often been considered a matter of organising ‘pluralistic contexts’ and contents (denis et al., 2001: 2007). in a complex public administration system, this often means that the service user is assessed by different agencies simultaneously, and the assessment or treatment of a user in one type of welfare service is likely to impact or impede claims in other service domains. as a result, there is a growing scholarly interest in the interfaces within and between different welfare services and cross-boundary activities (cristofoli et al., 2017). for instance, forbess and james (2014) show how interstices emerge at the fringes of the public sector and in the tangle of public sector agents, businesses and civil society. indeed, a lack of coherence or difficulty in connecting different organisational units is a widespread matter of concern where particularly vulnerable citizens are in danger of not receiving the support they need, of ‘falling through the cracks’ (bartfeld, 2003; walsh et al., 2015). this includes, but is not limited to, children (bartfeld, 2003; delany-moretlwe et al., 2015; kemp et al. 2009), elderly people (burns, 2009; furlotte et al., 2012; grenier et al., 2016) and people with substance use issues (delany-moretlwe 49 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0942-0322 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6973-2715 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0325-5266 mailto:bb.crf@psy.au.dk mailto:tobias.eule@oefre.unibe.ch mailto:elm@dps.aau.dk 50 b. bjerge, t. eule, and k. elmholdt: a qualitative gaze on how mundane public administration works qualitative studies 5(2), pp. 49–56 ©2018 et al., 2015; dohan, schmidt, and henderson, 2005; forbess and james, 2014). these issues are well known, and in more general organisation studies literature the role of interstitial spaces or the betwixt-and-between spaces of formal organisations are recognised as critical for accomplishing organisational tasks (kellogg, 2009; furnari, 2014; mumby, 2005), and yet, the way users may fall short in these spaces and the new trajectories that are re-negotiated or stabilised, are often black-boxed. a better understanding of the work that takes place at these interfaces of public administration requires an exploration of how welfare services are organised at a local level, from a qualitative stance but without reducing the accomplishment to a closed local activity. in the title of this editorial, we open this work at the interfaces by using the terms imbrications and interstices as analytical concepts to capture the phenomena that are investigated in the articles of this special issue. the concept of imbrication in geology is a way to explain patterns of layering or sedimentation; imbrication means to be layered or ‘to be tiled’ and can be said to reflect a ‘history of successive accumulations’ (taylor, 2007: 6). an analogy, thus, could be the ways in which roof tiles if placed in the right wayoverlap one another, so that rain does not come into the house. organisationally speaking, imbrication suggests how ‘the practice’ of one local professional or administrator, ‘becomes the object of a different practice’ (taylor 2011: 1285) activities are layered. being layered is well known in organising and welfare services; admittedly, imbrications can both make life difficult and pave the way for fairly smooth user trajectories and professional collaboration. organising does not only happen in imbricated spaces, however, but also in spaces devoid of formal or layered structuring. the concept of interstices refers to gaps or breaks in something, such as sunshine filtered through a fence or a river running through a narrow gorge. in welfare systems or public sector organisation these interstices or breaks may be created through silos or divisional bureaucratic structures, national borders, the physical environment, dispersed geographical locations, finances or management accounting, different professional knowledges, and so on. paraphrasing furnari (2014: 440), we may say that the interstitial spaces of public sector organisation refers to ‘the small-scale settings’ where individuals (e.g. citizens, patients, professionals) from different fields or professions ‘interact occasionally and informally around common activities’ (ibid.). in other words, the interstitial spaces highlight these gaps, or the fringes of formal organising; these spaces may be said to be situated betwixt-and-between formal regulation and have to be guided by the discretion of the professional or the capacities of the user and their ability to fill these gaps. by applying these concepts as analytical lenses, we investigate the local organisation and accomplishment of welfare services as a reciprocal movement between imbricated activities and interstitial spaces. in this special issue of qualitative studies, we bring together various theoretical and empirical approaches that tackle aspects of imbrication and interstices within and between public organisations. we wish to shed light on the way professionals and users organise at the interface of public sector organisations in the midst of different kinds of services, tools, policies, professional backgrounds and so on. this resonates with public debates within and about public services, where there is an increasing appetite for knowledge of, and possible solutions to, problems of the coordination of services, for interdisciplinary collaboration and for “holistic” views and strategies for helping users. we wish, through this special issue, to explore different thematic perspectives in order to provide a platform for bridging conversations across both countries and traditional scholarly boundaries. much research on welfare services and implementation has pointed to the inadequacy of welfare organisations in helping users, and in allowing professionals to navigate the systems. this can be identified in all articles of this issue, but at the same time, the articles also ask what bridges the gaps, and how complex welfare systems come to work. importantly, many scholars note that it remains important to disentangle the “black box” of the workings of public bureaucracy (cf. mosse 2004, bjerge & bjerregaard 2017, bjerge & rowe 2017). we specifically advance this agenda by exploring ‘how things work’ in public administration (watson, 2011) and by looking into the methodological b. bjerge, t. eule, and k. elmholdt: a qualitative gaze on how mundane public administration works qualitative studies 5(2), pp. 49–56 ©2018 51 issues in theorising these phenomena from a qualitative and practice-based stance. accomplishing public sector service: theorising interstices and imbrications from a qualitative stance crucially, many qualitative researchers of welfare service organisations have struggled to provide knowledge of issues of overlaps and gaps that go beyond the organisations they have studied. this focus on the many contexts of producing public sector service and the trenchant inter-organisational accomplishment resonates well with the focus in current practice-based organisation studies and how organising takes place in a nexus of practices. as nicolini (2017: 102) notes, performances: ‘can be understood only if we take into account the nexus in which they come into being. what happens here and now and why (the conditions of possibility of any scene of action) is inextricably linked to what is happening in another ‘here and now’ or what has happened in another ‘here and now’ in the past’. in other words, the accomplishment of public sector services relies on ‘bundles of practices’ taking place elsewhere, and on the materialdiscursive framing of the situation (nicolini, 2012). practice-based approaches are much more prevalent in organisation studies (see e.g. gherardi, 2009) compared to the literature on public administration (see e.g. wagenaar, 2012), yet the focus on ‘doing’ and how work is accomplished in practice by the means of discursive and material elements is also an emerging agenda in public administration (ibid.). what the practice-based agenda encourages us to do is to explore the way that public administration actually comes to work, and to consider questions of space and the local ‘tactics’ of civil servants (de certeau, 1984: schatzki, 2018).1 as such, practice-based studies of public administration resemble and advance the ambition of administrative ethnography to explore ‘what happens in practice when civil servants perform their daily work’ (boll and rhodes, 2015) and to expand the context of public services. that is, practice-based studies take a productive view on the mundane practices of public administration (bjerge & bjerregaard, 2017), and thereby add knowledge to more “classic” views on public administration (putnam et al., 2016), where models of and for organisational set-ups, as well as the actions of those inhabiting these organisations, tend to be well-defined, ordered and predictable. accordingly, sufficient attention is not given to the fact that the workings of public administration, including its various internal and external boundaries, are continually constructed and reconstructed in variable relationships within everyday practice. the articles collected in this issue all approach public sector services with a practicebased sensitivity where topics such as advice giving, organising across professional boundaries, the tactics of the employees, casework, and local health policy are all opened up and expanded in new qualitative ways. as case studies, the articles do not give definite answers, but rather provide different pathways into the intersections or imbrications and interstitial spaces of the welfare services. with the authors´ shared interests in qualitative methods and an interpretative approach, the issue emphasises the contribution of the qualitative social science studies to addressing core societal debates about the welfare services, the work lives of its employees and the experiences of its users. the articles explore how far such an approach can take us in terms of understanding the everyday, mundane workings of contemporary welfare services, as well as how such studies tap into, elaborate or even challenge scholarly discussions of how to understand the phenomenon on a broader scale. by taking their points of departure in various empirical settings, the articles explore the complexity of the services. despite their dissimilar empirical starting points, they also address common features, which may be ascribed to the nature of welfare services per se. contributions in this special issue a case study of casework tinkering the first article in the special issue addresses the challenges of welfare provision in the danish administration context, using the example of a single person. like daniel blake, the drug user ‘marianne’ struggles to navigate the welfare state, as her issues relate to multiple health 52 b. bjerge, t. eule, and k. elmholdt: a qualitative gaze on how mundane public administration works qualitative studies 5(2), pp. 49–56 ©2018 and welfare service providers. contrary to the film, however, maj nygaard-christensen, bagga bjerge and jeppe oute present a compelling picture of the inner workings of public administration by analysing how staff from multiple agencies struggle to work together to advance marianne’s case. their article is based on extensive qualitative fieldwork on the interrelationship of drug treatment, psychiatric and employment services in denmark and focuses on a temporary housing and drop-in facility called oasis. the authors draw on humantechnology relations literature and introduce the concept of ‘tinkering’ to the public administration debate. in this way they highlight the process of piecing together a suitable and sustainable treatment, and of the handling of marianne’s case. this process is defined by continuous toing and froing between the different professionals who “quibble” over both practical measures and the interpretations of the issues at hand. the authors suggest that even though it is experienced as a strenuous procedure, ‘tinkering’ might be the key to successful welfare application, particularly in complex cases. this in turn calls for closer attention to the intricacies of the welfare state, and the way groups and individuals make policies work. health care professionalism without doctors: spatial surroundings and counter-identification in local health houses drawing on a study of health care professionals in local “health houses” [da: sundhedshuse] in two danish municipalities, østergaard møller analyses how health houses comprise an alternative to the medical view of health. the article advances the ‘vignette method’ as a probing device for qualitative research, and scrutinises the processes through which the professionals constantly try to differentiate their services from what is offered in hospitals. the author includes an analysis of how institutional, and particularly spatial settings, are key for understanding such processes. originally, the health houses were established to pave the way for a “smoother” relationship between citizens and health professionals, and in terms of delivering health promotion and rehabilitation outside hospital that is, to make health services more accessible for citizens and to make sure to imbricate between different types of health services. østergaard møller nevertheless demonstrates how these health houses and their particular spatial settings have also offered new opportunities for health professionals to redefine themselves as “health consultants” rather than, for example, as nurses. as the author argues, spatial surroundings that matter for professionalisation are often omitted, and as the article shows, spatial surroundings are used by the health consultants to identify and counteridentify with more established professions such as the medical profession. in other words, the health consultants and local health houses in many ways find their professional identity through the interstices of more established modes of professionalism in the public sector. although health professionals and many of the citizens using the services are positive about the organisational set up of this new professional service, the article demonstrates how the spatial surroundings also create an ambiguous space where there is a lack of clarity about expectations and the role of the health professionals. this interstitial position creates a new demand for health consultants to fill in the gaps in their relationships with citizens. using ignorance as (un)conscious bureaucratic strategy: street-level practices and structural influences in the field of migration enforcement in this article, lisa marie borrelli explores the case of street-level bureaucrats working in the field of migration enforcement. she explores the uneasy task of finding ir-regularised migrants and processing their cases – often until deportation. as the encounters are unforeseeable and characterised by tension and emotions, bureaucrats develop practices and strategies which help them to manage the often very personal encounters. while research has stressed the importance of ‘coping’ mechanisms and the problem of many ‘dirty’ hands, the author explores how ignorance is exploited as a tactic in the daily work of bureaucrats. in turn, she looks at how ignorance, including deliberate not-knowing, as well as non-deliberate partial-knowing or being kept ignorant, is used in public administration, through multi-sited, b. bjerge, t. eule, and k. elmholdt: a qualitative gaze on how mundane public administration works qualitative studies 5(2), pp. 49–56 ©2018 53 ethnographic fieldwork in migration offices and the border police/guard offices of three schengen member states: sweden, switzerland and latvia. borelli makes the distinction between structural and individual ignorance, which both have the ability to limit a migrant’s agency. by analyzing their intertwined relationship, borrelli advances an understanding of how uncertainty and a lack of accountability become the results of everyday bureaucratic encounters. ignorance, she argues, thus obscures state practices, subjecting migrants with precarious legal status to structural violence. in turn, borelli´s findings underscore how interstices can be fabricated or enhanced by bureaucratic (in)-action. assembling advice this article by samuel kirwan, morag mcdermont and john clarke explores the key role that voluntary sector advice agencies play for many citizens in the uk in accessing and understanding public services. these advice agencies may be conceived as fiercely ‘independent’ yet conflicted at the interstices of the welfare state. presenting data from participant observation, interviews and focus groups with advisers and managers within the citizens advice service, the paper explores this relationship by focusing on two particular areas of the service; the delivery of the service by volunteers, and the different funding streams that enable the service to function. the paper draws upon assemblage theory, focusing upon elements of an organisation in their ongoing practices and relationships; a processual approach that allows them to reflect upon the broader implications of their ethnographic data. the study discuss the ‘fragile futures’ of advice in the context of aggressive budget cuts and the welfare reform agenda, and shows how funding also becomes ‘a component of the advice assemblage with distinct effects upon the ongoing practice of advice´. the authors show how the local act of giving advice is a composition or assemblage of various components that encapsulates various sites, pasts and futures: the article demonstrates how the volontary advice organisations in this specific context seem necessary to help citizens navigate the welfare service. in underlining that, the article also points to the fragile future of these organisations, which thus potentially increases people’s danger of falling through the interstices of the welfare services. by focusing on advice assemblages, the article also notes the difficulty of navigating imbricated practices of funding. treatment of dual diagnosis in denmark — models for cooperation and positions of power katrine schepelern johansen takes her point of departure in her long-term experience of working as an anthropologist in the psychiatric system, focusing on patients who suffer from both a mental disorder and a substance use disorder – called dual diagnosis. these diagnoses are treated in two different organisational units or systems, a medically based psychiatric treatment system and a socially-oriented substance use treatment system. despite the fact that a large proportion of the people in drug treatment, and of mental health patients, have these dual diagnoses, there is a remarkable lack of coordination and collaboration between the two organisational units. applying david brown´s (1983) classic concept of “organisational interfaces”, johansen analyses the historical, political, organisational, professional and technical factors influencing the field of dual diagnosis treatment, and tests how far the concept of organisational interfaces can take us in understanding the challenges in the field. not far enough, she concludes. a host of initiatives have been set up to enhance collaboration between the two systems. some initiatives seem to have been able to generate equal collaboration between the two types of systems, however, in practice many initiatives can be characterised by a skewed balance between the two systems predominantly with psychiatry being the most powerful and least interested in collaborating. the two systems and their employees do not enter into cooperation on equal terms and do not seem to agree on its necessity, as brown´s model would have it. this means that treatment for dual diagnosis in the danish welfare state is not at all coherent despite the fact that research repeatedly suggests it to be absolutely key for providing the proper help for persons with dual diagnosis. johansen argues that these difficulties partially depend on unequal power relations at the organisational in54 b. bjerge, t. eule, and k. elmholdt: a qualitative gaze on how mundane public administration works qualitative studies 5(2), pp. 49–56 ©2018 terfaces between psychiatric and substance use treatment. cross-pollinating discussions and contributions of the special issue reading across the articles, it becomes evident that frictions in macro structures and policies are translated into challenges for organisations. we can thus trace the impact of gaps or interstices, and overlaps or imbrications, and a piecemeal welfare state by paying close attention to practices at the micro level. this includes negotiations within and between services, but also interactions with service users and their support networks. there is thus a value in ‘studying up’ on how welfare systems are not quite working smoothly (nader, 1972). at the same time, the articles show that smallscale case studies need to be acutely aware of the external context of specific welfare provision, such as national policies, economic resources and professional traditions. to put it bluntly, no welfare supplier is or can be an island, and the connections and interrelations (or lack of) between agencies define their success and failure in terms of creating coherence for citizens in need of more than one type of services. as such, the activities performed by the welfare suppliers are inherently imbricated, and yet gaps or interstitial spaces are discernable. this stance encourages us to find ways of exploring the imbrications of these larger social phenomena, and not least to explore the large in the small (see also latour, 2005). as case studies, the articles collected in this special issue offer both methodological and theoretical contributions to render the imbrications or interstices of public sector organisation visible. methodologically, the articles collected in this issue move beyond individual case studies without negating the analytical depth necessary for meaningful qualitative research. nygaard-christensen, bjerge and oute show how a single person’s case can become a useful lens to show the conflicting interpretations and practical toolsets necessary to overcome organisational divides. using a vignette method as a probing device, østergaard møller’s article highlights the spatial aspects of professionalism within the health sector, and provides a model to link the imbrication of places, discourses and labels. borrelli’s work suggests that in tracing flows of (mis)information through organisational networks, we can improve our understanding of intentional and unintentional misapplications of policies. kirwan, mcdermont and clarke compare different types of relationships between voluntary organisations and the british welfare state, and are thus able to highlight the uneasy relationship between funding struggles and voluntary work. finally, schepelern johansen uses a kind of ‘meta autoethnography’ to highlight the continuity of organisational frictions across individual projects and sites, and offers new pathways of meaningful comparison between small-scale case studies. the articles draw on a wide range of sources and concepts for their theory – from technology studies (nygaard-christensen, bjerge and oute) to assemblage theory (kirwan, mcdermont and clarke), or critically update classic public administration studies (borrelli, schepelern johansen, østergaard møller). in this, they all provide interesting concepts to develop further. the article by nygaard-christensen, bjerge and oute shows how local case work also connects to configurations or categories made in practices elsewhere, and how these ‘narrow boxes’ or categories sometimes needs to be suspended or worked around – ‘tinkered with’ – in order to make things work. organising case work involves navigating both overlapping or imbricated practices, but also interstitial spaces where the discretion of the professional is challenged in other ways. østergaard møller introduces a critical geography to the sociology of health care professions, and schepelern johansen shows the consistency of professional capital across different contexts and projects. borrelli unpacks several forms of ignorance, both at a structural and an individual level. her work, as well as that of kirwan, mcdermont and clarke, discusses the ‘fragile futures’ of organisations and the impact of constant uncertainty and ambiguity. while they should not be seen to form a coherent theoretical approach, these themes – managing uncertainty, tinkering with cases and maintaining or overcoming professional divisions – are key issues that need to be explored in the context of b. bjerge, t. eule, and k. elmholdt: a qualitative gaze on how mundane public administration works qualitative studies 5(2), pp. 49–56 ©2018 55 complex welfare systems riddled with imbrications and interstices. in conclusion, we may say that problems at the interface of different kinds of work or services are not new problems. the problems could also be related to old discussions of the consequences of the division of labour and increased functional differentiation, which has been part and parcel of sociological theory since durkheim (1933) and luhmann (1997). similarly, the problem of welfare ‘gaps’ has been addressed in much of the public administration literature (hupe and buffat, 2014). as the articles collected in this issue show, however, these issues persist and do not seem to go away, even if particular efforts are made to ‘streamline’ and ‘integrate’ different service provisions. we believe that a practice-based and qualitative approach, as well as the concepts of imbrication and interstices, provide helpful devices for opening up work, problems and solutions at the interface of public sector organising. interstitial spaces are always to some extent discernable; they emerge from architectural boundaries, professional differences and an overflow of formal organisation and so on. in one way these spaces have their advantages, for example in terms of ensuring citizens´ rights or clear cut boundaries in relation to who does what, yet, in another way, the interstitial spaces that we indicate are indeed also causing many problems, and require extremely hard work to stabilise. similarly, imbrications are also always at stake, practices overlap, cultural norms fold into architecture, and may both enable each other but also at times constrain each other: figuratively speaking, the tiles may overlap more than needed. academics thus need to keep studying these issues, and reminding policy makers that they persist. these ways of exploring the organisation of welfare services also have practical implications, since no service provider can be seen as successful if it fulfills its own goals, but in doing so collides with or hinders the broader goals of welfare provision and social equity. similarly, providing a service but not reaching key populations cannot be successful welfare delivery. scholars thus need to be careful not to have a blinkered view in terms of the complexity of a given welfare system. acknowledgements the idea to the theme of the collected papers of this special issue is the result of research presentations and discussions at the workshop »change and continuities at the intersections of welfare domains: ethnographic insights into the wider impact of public sector reforms?«. this workshop was held in november 2017 and hosted by the ethnographic research into public sector reform network. the network was funded by the independent research fund denmark. endnotes 1. due to limitations in space, this special issue mainly focuses on the perspective of professionals dealing with interstitial spaces across welfare sectors and nation-states, and less 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(2011). ethnography, reality, and truth: the vital need for studies of ‘how things work’in organizations and management. journal of management studies, 48(1), 202-217. • about the authors bagga bjerge, phd, is associate professor at centre for alcohol and drug research, aarhus university. she is trained within anthropology and sociology. her research activities are mainly based on qualitative methods focusing on policies and policy implementation, bureaucracy, social work as well as social marginalization. currently, her research projects focus on poverty, drug scenes in copenhagen, marginalized greenlanders in denmark and the management of citizens with complex cases. tobias georg eule, phd, is professor of sociology of law in the »department of law«, university of bern. his research interests include policy implementation, migration control, decision-making as well as anthropological and sociological theories of the state. kasper trolle elmholdt, phd, is an assistant professor of organisation and public management in the department of political science, centre for management, organisation and administration (coma), at aalborg university, denmark. his research interests include management consulting, the performativity of management theories and practice-based studies, which he typically explore through an ethnographic stance. https://doi.org/10.1177/009145090503200306 https://doi.org/10.1177/009145090503200306 https://doi.org/10.3167/sa.2014.580306 https://doi.org/10.3167/sa.2014.580306 https://doi.org/10.1080/14719037.2013.854401 https://doi.org/10.1080/14719037.2013.854401 paper 1: a qualitative gaze on how mundane public administration works introduction accomplishing public sector service: theorising interstices and imbrications from a qualitative stance contributions in this special issue a case study of casework tinkering health care professionalism without doctors: spatial surroundings and counter-identification in local health houses using ignorance as (un)conscious bureaucratic strategy: street-level practices and structural influences in the field of migration enforcement assembling advice treatment of dual diagnosis in denmark — models for cooperation and positions of power cross-pollinating discussions and contributions of the special issue acknowledgements about the authors paper 3: spatial surroundings and counter-identification in local health houses introduction theoretical framework: professionalization in site-specific contexts identification and counter-identification mixed methodological research design: case selection and vignette construction analytical section: observations and interviews in two distinct types of health houses the medical–clinical health house: “press if you have an appointment” health professionals in a medical–clinical health house: “we are health consultants” former cancer patient, now in rehabilitation: “i meet people facing the same struggles as myself” the community–based health house: “a flat screen promotes various events” health professional in a community-based health house: “i miss my work when i am on vacation” citizens on the edge of the city: “it's the best the municipality has ever done for its citizens” conclusion: counter-identification with hospitals and doctors acknowledgements about the author appendices paper 4: street-level practices and structural influences in the field of migration enforcement introduction theoretical framework defining structural violence in bureaucratic encounters the relation between indifference and ignorance understanding uncertainty understanding ignorance methodological framework ignorance in street-level encounters migrants' use of ignorance ignorance as inherit feature of the state conclusion — what is the cost of ignorance? acknowledgements about the author paper 5: ethnographic explorations of the changing relationship between voluntary advi… introduction research methods citizens advice: some background theoretical tools: on assemblage thinking an advice service as an assemblage: the data the use of volunteers on funding, funders and regulatory effects legal aid funding the funding mosaic: entrepreneurialism and independence fragile futures acknowledgements about the authors paper 6: models for cooperation and positions of power introduction the problems of dual diagnosis the dual diagnosis field in denmark empirical material cooperation between psychiatry and substance use treatment — organizational interfaces an under-organized interface learning points concluding remarks acknowledgements about the author microsoft word brinkmann hvad handler kvalitativ psykologi om.docx qualitative studies vol. 7, no. 1, 2022, pp. 7-23 issn 1903-7031 hvad handler kvalitativ psykologi om? henimod en deltagerpsykologi svend brinkmann1 1 institut for kommunikation og psykologi, aalborg universitet, teglgaards plads 1, 9000 aalborg i artiklen spørger jeg, hvad kvalitativ psykologi handler om. jeg tager udgangspunkt i en tese om, at en psykologisk videnskab må have et normativt udgangspunkt, idet dens genstand er normativt bestemt. psykologien studerer nemlig ikke blot, hvad der sker i verden, men hvordan levende mennesker agerer og retter sig intentionelt mod verden gennem deres tanker, handlinger og følelser, hvilket kun kan forstås, hvis man erkender, at disse fænomener er normativt konstitueret. jeg vil hævde, at det, der nu kaldes kvalitativ psykologi, har de bedste forudsætninger for at begribe psykologiens normativitet og intentionalitet. jeg vil argumentere for, at distinktionen mellem kvalitative og kvantitative metoder er mindre fundamental end en distinktion mellem en deltagerog tilskuerpsykologi, som anden del af artiklen udfolder. keywords: normativitet, deltagerpsykologi, tilskuerpsykologi, kvalitativ psykologi introduktion: hvad er normativitet? da jeg første gang blev præsenteret for ideen om, at psykologien er en normativ videnskab, virkede ideen ganske mystisk for mig. jeg tror, at det var ved at læse rom harrés (1983) bog om personlig væren – eller personal being, som den hedder på engelsk – som fortsat er et af de værker, der har præget mig mest som psykolog. det tog noget tid, før jeg forstod, hvad ideen indebar, men siden er den blevet en grundsten i mit videnskabelige arbejde. selve ordet ”normativitet” lyder måske fremmedartet, men det henviser dybest set bare til alt det, der ikke bare er – som blot og bart foreliggende – men som vedrører, hvad der bør være. når noget er normativt, kunne det være anderledes, end det er. man har ikke et valg med hensyn til, om man vil følge naturlovene, for de gælder ubønhørligt de givne ubøjelige kausale kræfter, men man har et valg med hensyn til, om man vil gå over for rødt. det er normativt forkert at gøre det, men alligevel kan man vælge at bryde normen. det er netop muligheden for at blive brudt, der gør noget til en norm s. brinkmann: hvad handler kvalitativ psykologi om? qualitative studies 7(1), pp. 7-23 ©2022 8 snarere end en kausallov som tyngdeloven. man kan også skrive 5 efter regnestykket 2+2= selv om man ikke bør gøre det, hvis man ønsker at regne rigtigt. normativitet kan derfor også kaldes ”børhed”, hvilket ofte er udtrykt ved bestemte normer. mange vil nok umiddelbart tænke på etiske eller moralske normer, når talen falder på normativitet, men der er mange andre typer normativitet, som dog ofte kan overlappe på tværs af de forskellige slags. ud over etiske normer er der fx logiske, matematiske, æstetiske og juridiske normer, ligesom der også findes helt simple konventioner, som egentlig bare er vaner, der dog også kan få normativ karakter. men kernen i al slags normativitet er altså denne børhed: etiske normer handler om, hvordan man bør agere som menneske for at være et godt et af slagsen. logisk normativitet vedrører gyldige slutningsformer (fx modus tollens: hvis p så q; q er falsk; ergo er p falsk). æstetisk normativitet er udtryk for skønhedsnormer, fx at der er mere eller mindre smukke måder at synge på. juridiske normer handler om korrekte og velbegrundede domme. her kan man også tale om gyldighed, men det er ikke en gyldighed som i logikken, for i juraen har den menneskelige dømmekraft betydning. en strafudmåling er fx ideelt et resultat af en afbalanceret afgørelse med vægt på en lang række faktorer, der skal afvejes. nogle mennesker lader til at mene, at hvis ikke vi kan få logisk eller matematisk sikkerhed i et spørgsmål, så er det bare en smagssag baseret på subjektive præferencer. vi kan udregne kvadratroden af 25 helt præcist, så hvis man svarer 4,5 tager man fejl, og kun 5 er korrekt, men når man fx inden for humaniora diskuterer fortolkninger af litterære værker, kan man ikke opnå et facit med tilsvarende matematisk sikkerhed. det betyder dog ikke, at der ikke er en normativitet i spil ved litteraturlæsning og -fortolkning. det er blot en anden og mindre eksakt normativitet. allerede aristoteles (2001) udtrykte det grundprincip, at det er tegn på et modent intellekt, at man ikke kræver større grad af nøjagtighed, end et givent emne tillader. hvis man kræver matematisk præcision og sikkerhed i fortolkningsmæssige anliggender, er der noget, man har misforstået. og således også inden for psykologien, hvor vi i de fleste tilfælde forstår os selv og hinanden hermeneutisk. netop det er denne artikels omdrejningspunkt: jeg vil undersøge, hvad psykologien dybest set er en videnskab om. jeg vil argumentere for, at psykologien er bestemt både ved en grundlæggende intentionalitet, hvilket er kendt og ikke særlig kontroversielt, og s. brinkmann: hvad handler kvalitativ psykologi om? qualitative studies 7(1), pp. 7-23 ©2022 9 ved en lige så grundlæggende normativitet, hvilket både er et sjældnere udtrykt synspunkt og nok også vanskeligere at begribe. derfor er det normativiteten, jeg primært vil søge at indkredse. dette står i modsætning til en psykologi, der bygger på en ide om variable og mekaniske årsagsforklaringer, som har domineret videnskaben gennem det meste af dens moderne historie. i anden halvdel af artiklen vil jeg argumentere for, at en videnskab, der beskæftiger sig med intentionelle og normative fænomener – som i grunden er to sider af samme sag – må begribe sin genstand ”indefra” i en bestemt forstand. jeg vil kalde den påkrævede videnskab for en deltagerpsykologi og stille den over for en tilskuerpsykologi. jeg vil mene, at det, der i de senere år er blevet kendt som ”kvalitativ psykologi” er en væsentlig tilnærmelse til en deltagerpsykologi, men der kan være en fordel i at bestemme den psykologiske videnskab ud fra dens genstandsfelt (som man må have et ”deltagende” forhold til, som vi skal se) snarere end ud fra bestemte (kvalitative) metoder. distinktionen mellem deltagerog tilskuerpsykologi, vil jeg derfor hævde, er mere fundamental end distinktionen mellem kvalitative og kvantitative metoder inden for psykologi. ikke desto mindre vil jeg konkludere, at det, en kvalitativ psykologi handler om, er personer, deres liv og erfaringer, som kun kan begribes med et deltagerblik for både intentionalitet og normativitet. jeg afviser ikke, at der kan findes årsagsforklaringer i psykologien, som kan anskues tilskuerpsykologisk, men mit argument er, at dette i så fald er en mindre fundamental del af videnskaben end de deltagerpsykologiske dele. psykologiens normativitet min grundlæggende påstand er altså, at ideen om psykologien som en normativ videnskab ikke blot betyder, at det videnskabelige arbejde med at studere sindets virkemåde bygger på metodiske normer som stringens, systematik, objektivitet og pålidelighed, men også at psykologiske fænomener som sådan er normativt defineret. det første er en banalitet: både den psykologiske videnskab og en psykologisk professionsudøvelse er aktiviteter, der kan udføres mere eller mindre godt og derfor naturligvis er underlagt bestemte normer, som det bl.a. er et videnskabsteoretisk arbejde at udfolde. det andet er den ide, der først slog mig som mystisk, men som siden er blevet en præmis for mit arbejde: at psykologiske fænomener selv kan betragtes som aktiviteter, der kan udføres mere eller mindre godt og derfor er underlagt bestemte normer. det er nok lettest at begribe, når det gælder erkendelsesaktiviteter: det at tænke er en aktivitet, der kan udføres mere eller s. brinkmann: hvad handler kvalitativ psykologi om? qualitative studies 7(1), pp. 7-23 ©2022 10 mindre godt, og ofte vil stringent tænkning følge logikkens slutningsregler som den modus tollens, jeg nævnte ovenfor. man kan både tænke korrekt og tænke forkert om en sag. det at huske er tilsvarende en aktivitet, som man kan være mere eller mindre god til, og som baserer sig på en banal skelnen mellem korrekt og forkert genkaldelse af fortiden. det at percipere er også umiddelbart et normativt forehavende, idet man kan tage fejl (det var faktisk ikke en slange i skovbunden, som det ellers først lignede) eller opfatte en situation korrekt (i virkeligheden var det bare en kroget gren) (harré & moghaddam, 2012). men også vores følelser er normative, hvilket igen er en indsigt, der går tilbage til aristoteles’ (2001) humanvidenskab i den græske antik. de er dels normative på samme måde som perceptionen eller tænkningen, da de kan være mere eller mindre pålidelige kilder til omverdenserkendelse. når man føler berettiget vrede, er det fordi, vreden faktisk oplyser en om, at legitime rettigheder er blevet krænket. men man kan selvfølgelig også føle uberettiget vrede. på samme måde fortæller den berettigede stolthed en person, at vedkommende har gjort noget prisværdigt (og igen kan også stoltheden være uberettiget, hvis det prisværdige fx blev opnået gennem snyd). som harré demonstrerede for mange år siden frem til, at grunden til, at fænomener som udmattelse og forstoppelse tilhører fysiologien, hvorimod følelser som vrede og stolthed overhovedet er følelser – og dermed psykologiske fænomener – er, at kun de sidstnævnte tilhører en normativ orden (harré, 1983). i modsætning til fysiologiske fænomener, som sker mekanisk i kroppen, så er følelser (såvel som andre psykologiske fænomener) responsive. de gøres eller udføres i specifikke situationer og kan derfor udføres mere eller mindre korrekt og adækvat. selvfølgelig fortæller vores følelser ikke på samme måde som tænkningen noget om, hvad der sker i verden, men nærmere hvordan det sker (brinkmann, 2018). for eksempel kan man sige, at jeg kender til ”hvad-kendsgerningen”, at syv bevæbnede mænd peger på mig med deres våben, fordi jeg kan tælle og altså bruge mine rationelle evner (til at tælle til syv). men jeg kender til ”hvordan-kendsgerningen” at disse mænd er farlige og truende som et resultat af en følelsesmæssig forståelse af situationen. begge erkendelser er normative, fordi begge kan være forkerte (eller korrekte). måske var de syv mænd ikke reelt truende, men bare en del af en teatertrup, der var i gang med at øve til en forestilling. følelser er også normative i en anden betydning: de kan nemlig (igen ligesom tanker) selv vurderes med henvisning til korrekthedsnormer. vi roser og bebrejder folk s. brinkmann: hvad handler kvalitativ psykologi om? qualitative studies 7(1), pp. 7-23 ©2022 11 for deres følelser i hverdagslivet, hvilket ville være unfair, hvis følelser bare hændte os kausalt – som fysiologiske processer – uden aktørens mellemkomst. hvis jeg fx bliver meget vred på et lille barn, fordi det spilder lidt mælk, da er min vrede i en simpel forstand normativt forkert (da den er ude af proportioner). andre kan irettesætte mig for mit overdrevne vredesudbrud i situationen. en væsentlig side ved den menneskelige socialisering består i at give børn en forståelse af, hvilke følelser, der er adækvate i hvilke situationer over for hvilke genstande (denne tilgang til følelsernes normativitet går igen helt tilbage til aristoteles, 2001). i den forstand er følelser måder, hvorpå situationer forstås af personer, hvilket forklarer, at følelserne selv er genstand for normativ moralsk bedømmelse. hvis et barn fx får en gave, som det ikke ønsker (fx en blød pakke til jul) og reagerer ved at råbe og skrige, da vil en korrekt respons fra forælderen i de fleste tilfælde være at henlede barnets opmærksomhed på giverens gode intentioner. på den måde lærer barnet, at en følelse af taknemmelighed er en normativt gyldig respons på situationen – snarere end en følelse af vrede og forurettethed – selv om det kan være svært at videregive denne forståelse til barnet her og nu. men pointen er, at det at lære at føle taknemmelighed i en sådan situation, er forbundet til en dybere forståelse af situationen, som ellers er skjult, hvis man bare reagerer impulsivt med vrede. den berettigede taknemmelighed fortæller personen noget om situationen, som man ikke får øje på uden denne følelse. i den forstand viser følelser hen til og fortæller noget om en persons tilknytning til genstande i en meget bred forstand; genstande som endda er uden for personens fulde kontrol. ifølge martha nussbaum involverer følelser en slags værdiladet ”syn” på verden, som er en vigtig måde at erkende og forstå den på (nussbaum, 2001, s. 88). ud fra forståelsen af følelser som en erkendende aktivitet i analogi med synet får vi mulighed for at ordne dem med baggrund i den specifikke relation, der er mellem personen og den genstand, som følelsen er rettet mod: man føler glæde, når en attrået genstand (i meget bred forstand, der inkluderer andre mennesker) kommer indenfor rækkevidde; frygt når den trues; sorg når den mistes; taknemmelighed når nogen gør noget godt for genstanden; vrede når den beskadiges; misundelse når en anden besidder det attråede og endelig jalousi når en anden bliver en rival med hensyn til genstanden (s. 87). pointen er altså, at uanset om vi har at gøre med psykologiske fænomener, der oplagt er kognitive (og dermed naturligt normative) – som eksempelvis tænkningen – eller vi har at gøre med s. brinkmann: hvad handler kvalitativ psykologi om? qualitative studies 7(1), pp. 7-23 ©2022 12 affektive fænomener som følelser, så er der en grundlæggende normativitet i spil. det er ikke blot en lille del af psykologiens genstandsfelt, der er normativt bestemt, men formentlig langt det meste. normativitet og intentionalitet her kommer vi også i berøring med et andet grundbegreb, der traditionelt har været bedre kendt i forsøg på at bestemme psykologiske fænomeners natur, nemlig intentionalitet. for eksemplet med følelser viser jo, at de er rettet mod verden på forskellige måder. uden rettetheden mod et objekt er følelsen højest en diffus kropssansning, der først bliver en egentlig følelse, når man forstår den situation, sansningen foregå i og det objekt, man er rettet mod. vi skal nu se, at intentionalitet og normativitet er tæt forbundne. intentionalitetsbegrebet optrådte allerede i middelalderfilosofien, men i moderne tid er det brentano, der er bedst kendt for at have formuleret intentionalitetstesen: at intentionalitet er et centralt kendemærke ved det mentale. det er altså ikke blot børheden (normativiteten), men også rettetheden, der er konstituerende for psykologiske fænomener. intentionalitet oversættes nemlig ofte til rettethed, hvilket vil sige at ethvert psykisk fænomen er karakteriseret ved at være rettet mod noget andet end sig selv. ikke blot vores følelser er – som vi så ovenfor – karakteriseret ved at være rettet mod personer, genstande og begivenheder i verden, hvilket er det, der gør dem til de specifikke følelser, de er. vores tanker er ligeledes tanker i det omfang, at de handler om noget, og vores perceptioner er nødvendigvis perceptioner af noget – uanset hvor diffust ubestemt dette noget så ellers kan være. fænomener viser sig altid for en bevidsthed, hvilket især edmund husserl gjorde til en grundsten i sin fænomenologiske filosofi efter brentano. den erfarede og oplevede verden er den verden, mennesket grundlæggende befinder sig i, og husserl benævnte denne verden ”livsverdenen” (husserl, 1954). verden er ikke primært, hvad jeg intellektuelt tænker eller erkender, men, som en anden fænomenolog, maurice merleau-ponty (2002), skrev, hvad jeg ”lever gennem” (s. xviii). livsverdenen er den verden, vi som mennesker lever igennem, hvor en følelse fx er forelskelse, før den kan objektiveres som en proces i hormonog centralnervesystemerne. for at det overhovedet giver mening at studere de neurofysiologiske korrelater til forelskelse, må vi først vide, hvad forelskelse er i vores erfaring og livsverden, og det er den fænomenologiske forsknings opgave at beskrive og analysere fænomenerne, som de s. brinkmann: hvad handler kvalitativ psykologi om? qualitative studies 7(1), pp. 7-23 ©2022 13 fremtræder for os. det er ofte vanskeligere, end man skulle tro, for selv om vi lever i livsverdenen, og derfor har et intimt kendskab til den, er netop nærheden det, der kan gøre det vanskeligt at forstå det ene eller det andet. er forelskelse fx primært rettet mod en person som helhed eller mod enkelte af den attråede persons egenskaber? er forelskelse overhovedet én bestemt følelse, eller er den sammensat af flere? er forelskelse primært en indre erfaring eller et ydre udtryk – eller måske begge dele? selv om alle, der har prøvet at være forelsket, selvfølgelig kender til erfaringen, er det ikke nødvendigvis let at forstå, hvad det er, man kender til. både hos husserl og senere fænomenologiske psykologer som eksempelvis amedeo giorgi findes metodiske skridt til en erkendelse af fænomenernes grundlæggende struktur, væsen eller deres eidos (fx giorgi & giorgi, 2003). og arbejder man sig gennem disse skridt, er man beskæftiget med én form for kvalitativ forskning. det har de fleste stiftet bekendtskab med, hvis de er blevet undervist i kvalitative forskningsmetoder. til gengæld er det ofte overset, at den velkendte intentionalitetsforståelse hænger tæt sammen med den mindre kendte normativitetstese om det mentale. men allerede husserl vidste, at det var to sider af samme sag. husserl (2001) arbejdede især med normativitet i sin kritik af den daværende psykologisme, dvs. den filosofiske teori om, at logikken i sidste ende kan forklares ud fra menneskers psykologiske evner til at tænke og ræsonnere. psykologisme betyder dermed, at logikken udspringer af psykologien og kan reduceres til denne. det kritiserede husserl, netop fordi det ville reducere logikkens normativitet til kausale forklaringer af, hvordan det psykologiske system fungerer. og så ville logikken i en vis forstand blive tilfældig. grunden til at logikkens love gælder, skyldes ikke, at vores tankeprocesser fungerer på en bestemt måde. det er omvendt sådan, at vi bør øve os i at tænke på måder, der er i overensstemmelse med logikken. vi kan altså bedømme vores tanker med henvisning bl.a. til logikkens normativitet, fordi vores tanker selv er normativt bestemte som psykologiske fænomener. i en redegørelse for husserls filosofi har crowell (2009) beskrevet, hvordan intentionalitet for husserl ikke blot var ”the static presence of a ‘presentation’ in a mental experience (erlebnis) but a normatively oriented claim to validity.” (s. 13). vores erfaringer og oplevelser er sandt nok rettet mod objekter og begivenheder (intentionaliteten), men det kan de kun være, fordi der er mere eller mindre korrekte måder – i normativ forstand – at erfare på. hvis vi fx går en tur i skoven og ser en farlig s. brinkmann: hvad handler kvalitativ psykologi om? qualitative studies 7(1), pp. 7-23 ©2022 14 slange i skovbunden – som før nævnt – så har vi en oplevelse af noget farligt, der kan skræmme os, men det kan jo være, at det i virkeligheden bare var en gren, hvilket vi kunne opdage, hvis vi kiggede grundigere efter. vores intentionelle orientering mod objektet er altså underkastet en normativ fordring om korrekt erfaring. vi ser noget som noget og kan dermed også se forkert, fordi der er normativt set mere eller mindre gyldige måder at opfatte verden på. det er så elementært, at det næsten er svært at forstå. i vores hverdagsliv tages den umiddelbare erfaring selvfølgelig for givet, så vi opdager som regel først, at den er normativ, idet vi fx bliver i tvivl og kigger grundigere efter. men det, vi så opdager, er, at vores erfaring hele tiden var orienteret mod verden ud fra en normativ gyldighedsfordring. både fænomenologer og andre kvalitative forskere inden for psykologien har så siden diskuteret, hvordan vi kan være normativt rettet mod verden. er det i kraft af rene bevidsthedsakter, som man sommetider får indtryk af i husserls filosofi? er det på grund af en væren-i-verden som hos heidegger (1962), hvor vores dybeste fortrolighed med virkeligheden er bundet til en praktisk omgang med tingene i deres brugssammenhænge? eller er det – som hos merleau-ponty (2002) – fordi vi er erfarende kroppe, der kender verden først og bedst gennem vores bevægelser i og greb om den? måske har flere af dem ret – og måske har vi kun en livsverden, fordi vi både er praktisk og kropsligt engageret i verden, hvilket giver os et forhold til objekterne? disse spørgsmål angår koblingen mellem subjekt og objekt, og hvor den traditionelle filosofis epistemologiske problem siden descartes har handlet om, hvordan et erkendende subjekt kan repræsentere ydre objekter i sit sind (dette problem er overtaget af en stor del af den moderne kognitionsforskning), så vil flere af de fænomenologiske filosoffer (herunder heidegger og merleau-ponty) afvise, at dette skulle være problemet. der er lige så lidt en metafysisk dualisme mellem subjekt og objekt, som der er mellem vores hænder og det, vi griber om med hænderne. vores erkendelse af verden er intentionel – altså rettet mod objekter i verden – og vi bruger vores krop og deltagelse i forskellige praksisser til at erkende verden, hvilket bringer normativiteten ind, idet der er bedre og dårligere (mere eller mindre gyldige og frugtbare) måder at begribe og erkende på. intentionalitet og normativitet er med andre ord to sider af samme psykologiske mønt. s. brinkmann: hvad handler kvalitativ psykologi om? qualitative studies 7(1), pp. 7-23 ©2022 15 deltagerog tilskuerpsykologi indtil nu har jeg søgt at bestemme psykologiske fænomeners natur ved at pege på normativitet og intentionalitet som to sider af samme sag. sådanne fænomener udviser altså både børhed og rettethed. vi mangler dog stadig en diskussion af, hvordan man udvikler metoder og tilgange i psykologien og andre humanvidenskaber, der er egnede til at studere normative og intentionelle fænomener. svaret er på sin vis enkelt, fordi vi jo allerede har en forståelse af hinanden i livsverdenen, som understøttes af hverdagslivets samtaler, interaktioner og iagttagelser. alle mennesker er på en måde allerede kvalitative forskere, der bruger deres almene evner til at spørge, lytte og observere, når verden skal begribes. dette har jeg bl.a. argumenteret for i bogen kvalitativ udforskning af hverdagslivet (brinkmann, 2013), hvor udgangspunktet er, at den kvalitative forskning grundlæggende ikke er andet end en trænet og systematisk anvendelse af måder at undersøge verden på, som alle mennesker i forvejen anvender i deres hverdagsliv. i vores hverdagsliv er vi nemlig allerede deltagere i en lang række forskellige sociale praksisser og interpersonelle relationer. at mennesket er en deltager, er måske det mest fundamentale, der kan siges om os, også selv om den moderne filosofi siden descartes snarere har fremhævet tilskueren som grundlæggende figur. hos descartes er erkendelse en form for observation af bevidsthedens indhold, som gerne skulle være i overensstemmelse med verden uden for bevidstheden, selv om vi strengt taget ikke kan vide det. i moderne kognitionsforskning kaldes de indre, observerede objekter for mentale repræsentationer, men erkendelse er fortsat fremstillet som en slags tilskuerrelation. den ovenfor omtalte eksistentielle fænomenologi, fx hos heidegger og merleau-ponty, forsøgte netop at erstatte denne passive erkendelsesrelation med en mere aktiv, hvor det er en grundlæggende erfaring af ”jeg kan”, der ligger under erkendelsen af, at ”jeg ved” eller descartes´ ”jeg tænker”. hos merleau-ponty går den muskulære bevægelsesintention eksempelvis forud for den bevidste erkendelse. som han skrev, er vores bevidste intentionalitet, herunder vores evne til refleksivt at ville noget, afledt af en mere primitiv og oprindelig operativ intentionalitet, der ”producerer den naturlige og forudindtagende [sic] enhed af verden og vores liv, og som er åbenbar i vores begær, vores vurderinger og i det landskab, vi ser” (merleau-ponty, 2002, s. xx). i kraft af vores krop har vi almindeligvis en naturlighed i omgangen med verden (se brinkmann, 2009, hvor det følgende er udfoldet). hvis vi fx åbner døren til et ukendt rum og går ind, føler s. brinkmann: hvad handler kvalitativ psykologi om? qualitative studies 7(1), pp. 7-23 ©2022 16 vi normalt ingen trang til at undersøge, om rummet har et gulv, hvilket skyldes at perception er en kropsligt rettet aktivitet mod omgivelserne, hvoraf langt det meste er naturligt og ureflekteret. som et væsen, der deltager i sin verden, er mennesket ifølge merleau-ponty ikke en psyke, der er ”påklistret” en organisme. i stedet er den levede, fænomenologiske krop med dens bevægelsesmønstre, reflekser og vaner som en ”kropspsyke” den instans, som giver os erfaring af verden. kroppen bevæger sig grundlæggende ikke, fordi en indre ukropslig psyke har perciperet noget eller vil søge at opnå noget bestemt. i stedet er perception, tænkning og erkendelse en funktion af kroppens bevægelser og handlinger. dette er også en hovedindsigt i james gibsons økologiske psykologi, der på flere måder minder om merleau-pontys kropsfænomenologi (gibson, 1986). gibson demonstrerede, at vi får viden om objekters egenskaber i tid og rum via den måde, hvorpå vi bevæger os i forhold til dem. informationen om egenskaber ved verden er så at sige indeholdt i verden selv, eller i hvert fald i den relation en erkendende organisme står i til verden gennem sin deltagelse i den, og ikke i indre mentale repræsentationer, som ifølge gibson er overflødige til at forklare perceptionen. vores erkendelse af afstanden mellem objekter kan fx forklares ud fra den måde, vi bevæger os på i forhold til dem. hvis vi går til siden og kigger lige frem, vil ting, der er langt væk, flytte sig relativt mindre i synsfeltet end ting, der er tæt på. derigennem kan vi erkende genstandes placering i det fysiske rum ud fra rent optiske forhold. hvis vi går fra elementær perception, der altså forklares bedst ud fra vores kropslige verdensdeltagelse gennem handlinger (hvis merleau-ponty og gibson ellers har ret), og bevæger os til mellemmenneskelig erkendelse, så bliver deltagerperspektivet blot endnu mere påtrængende. vi mennesker har måder, hvorpå vi deltager i hinandens liv, der går forud for videnskabelige undersøgelser, der søger efter årsager ud fra variable. hvis vi forklarer andre menneskers adfærd ud fra bagvedliggende årsager (hvilket selvfølgelig kan være relevant i visse tilfælde – fx hvis personen har en organisk hjerneskade eller er under påvirkning af narkotika), da reducerer vi den anden til et objekt i årsagskæder, hvilket i sidste ende er at underkende den andens status som en person, der kan handle og drages til ansvar for vedkommendes handlinger. i videnskabsteoretisk sammenhæng blev dette diskuteret tilbage i 1950’erne og de følgende årtier af den norske filosof hans s. brinkmann: hvad handler kvalitativ psykologi om? qualitative studies 7(1), pp. 7-23 ©2022 17 skjervheim – især i et berømt essay, hvor han introducerede den distinktion mellem deltager og tilskuer, som jeg har søgt at videreføre i denne artikel. skjervheims arbejde angik især den positivisme, som var stærkt fremherskende i midten af det 20. århundrede. han mente, at positivismen var ude af stand til at begribe mennesket som deltager og reducerede os til tilskuere til hinandens liv, hvilket ikke blot er videnskabeligt problematisk, men også etisk tvivlsomt. i sit mest berømte essay, der først blev udgivet i 1957, argumenterede han for, at der er mindst tre slags forholdemåder, mennesker kan indtage over for hinanden (skjervheim, 1996): (1) hvis nogen siger noget – og skjervheims eksempel er ”leveomkostningerne er på vej til at stige endnu mere” – kan en person, der lytter, orientere sig mod det tema, der omtales og altså engagere sig i selve den rejste problematik og diskutere den. er det korrekt, at leveomkostningerne vil stige? hvad betyder det for de berørte? dette er ifølge skjervheim udtryk for en deltagerattitude, hvor der er et triangulært forhold mellem to samtalende personer og så det fælles tredje, nemlig indholdet i det sagte, og denne deltagende holdning er vores primære forholdemåde i hverdagslivet. vi tager den andens ord for gode varer, ikke fordi vi nødvendigvis er enige, men fordi vi anser den anden for at være oprigtig. nogenlunde samtidig beskrev k.e. løgstrup (2013) i danmark livsytringer som eksempelvis tillid og talens åbenhed, der indkredser samme fænomen: at vi i udgangspunktet er deltagende i hinandens liv, hvor vi anser medmennesket for at være oprigtigt og tale sandt. selvfølgelig kan dette udgangspunkt forlades, hvis vi får grund til at tro, at den anden lyver eller manipulerer, men pointen er, at dette netop kræver en grund, hvorimod den umiddelbare tillid til den anden er spontan og normalt ikke kræver en begrundelse. det er svært at forestille sig, at kommunikation overhovedet kunne være mulig, hvis løgnen var reglen (og sandheden undtagelsen), eller hvis vi som udgangspunkt regnede med, at den anden ville bedrage os. en anden måde at sige det på er, at tilskuerperspektivet kræver en begrundelse, hvorimod deltagerperspektivet er den ubegrundede grund i menneskelige relationer. her spørger vi ikke, hvorfor en anden siger eller gør noget (som i en art motivforskning), men søger at forstå den andens udtryk for eksempelvis at erklære enighed eller uenighed og indlede en samtale. man kan grundlæggende sige, at en deltagerrelation er en samtalende relation. (2) en anden mulighed er, at man simpelthen hører den andens ytring og registrerer den. altså opfatter udsagnet som en slags rapport eller et faktum, der fx kan analyseres s. brinkmann: hvad handler kvalitativ psykologi om? qualitative studies 7(1), pp. 7-23 ©2022 18 videnskabeligt (”subjektet ytrede x”). her opfattes personen som en producent af data, og der er intet responsivt forhold mellem de to mennesker, hvorfor der ikke indledes en egentlig samtale. denne mulighed er ofte anvendt i kvalitativ forskning, hvor man fx indsamler beskrivelser eller narrativer, men uden at man som forsker og interviewer går ind i en egentlig dialog med den person, der udspørges. en kvalitativ psykologi kan altså godt bero på en tilskuerrelation til andre mennesker. (3) endelig er der muligheden for, at man koncentrerer sig om de lyde, den anden udtrykker og dermed reducerer vedkommende til et rent fysisk objekt i verden, som skjervheim siger, og han mente, at dette i sidste ende er behaviorismens videnskabelige ambition (skjervheim, 1996, s. 128). her fjernes enhver form for responsiv deltagelse, og det andet menneske bliver et element i kæder af årsager og virkninger, hvor man kan interessere sig for, at noget bliver sagt eller gjort, samt hvorfor det bliver sagt eller gjort (i betydningen: hvilke årsagsfaktorer har frembragt udsagnet eller adfærden?), men man kan ikke forstå motiverne eller begrundelserne bag, og man kan ret beset slet ikke opfatte den anden som et handlende væsen, men kun som en slags kompleks maskine. skjervheim mente, at den objektiverende attitude, som er indeholdt i tilskuerrelationen, gør den andens udtryk til rene fakta snarere end til invitationer til fortløbende samtaler, og derfor er det grundlæggende en aggressiv og etisk problematisk holdning (skjervheim, 1996, s. 130). i tilskuerperspektivet ligger nemlig et angreb på den andens frihed. og hvis det at være et handlende menneske – en person med et vist ansvar – er centralt som udgangspunkt for psykologien, hvilket gerne skulle stå klart efter gennemgangen tidligere af det intentionelle og normative ved psykologiske fænomener, da må psykologien basere sig på en deltagerrelation, hvis denne videnskab skal gøre sig nogen forhåbning om at være adækvat i forhold til at forstå sit genstandsfelt. de væsentligste aspekter ved vores psykologiske liv er simpelthen kun synlige ud fra et deltagerperspektiv. et ofte citeret udsagn af antropologen jean lave underbygger dette, hvor hun svarer på steinar kvales spørgsmål om, hvorvidt der findes en antropologisk metode: sk: er der en antropologisk metode? og hvis det er tilfældet, hvordan vil du så beskrive den? s. brinkmann: hvad handler kvalitativ psykologi om? qualitative studies 7(1), pp. 7-23 ©2022 19 jl: jeg mener, det er helt meningsløst at sige, at vi har en metode. for det første mener jeg ikke, at nogen burde have en metode. men i den forstand, at der er nogle ’redskaber’, som kendetegner ’metoderne’ i forskellige discipliner – sociologiske analyser, spørgeskemametoder, i psykologien forskellige slags test og også eksperimenter – er der nogle meget specielle tekniske måder at udforske verden på. antropologer afviser at opfatte disse som de rigtige måder at udforske mennesket på. jeg tror, at den mest almindelige opfattelse er, at det eneste redskab, der er komplekst nok til at forstå og lære om menneskelig eksistens, er et andet menneske. så det, man bruger, er ens eget liv og ens egne erfaringer i verden. (her citeret efter lave & wenger, 2003, s. 184) frem for at nære mistillid til vores almindelige evner til at observere og kommunikere om vores liv inde fra de hverdagslige deltagerrelationer, bør vi som psykologiske forskere insistere på, at det netop er her, at de primære og vigtigste kilder til en forståelse af menneskelige fænomener ligger. forskerens person er det primære (men selvfølgelig ikke det eneste) forskningsredskab, som humanistiske, psykologiske og samfundsvidenskabelige forskere kan og skal arbejde med. der er et videre argument hos skjervheim, som handler om, at man som forsker ikke bør søge at forklare andre menneskers adfærd på måder, som man ikke ville acceptere som forklaring på ens egen adfærd. han gjorde klart, at eftersom det er umuligt at opnå en objektivering af en selv – altså at få et tilskuerforhold til ens eget liv – er det også noget, vi almindeligvis bør undgå i relationen til andre. han argumenterede for, at man måske godt kan registrere ens egne ytringer og adfærd som fakta, men man kan ikke opfatte selve det, at man registrer noget sådant, som et faktum. der vil altid være et ”jeg”, skrev han (skjervheim, 1996, s. 129), som kan objektivere uden selv at kunne objektiveres. det er tæt på det, som fænomenologer i traditionen fra husserl kalder det transcendentale ego, og det er her, at friheden ultimativt ligger. man kan også udtrykke det ved at sige, at jeg som person er et handlende væsen, men jeg kan ikke opdele min personhed i enkeltdele for at finde den handlende instans. det er irreducibelt mig – som person – der handler, og ikke mine arme, hænder eller centralnervesystem. personbegrebet er med andre ord primitivt, da det ikke meningsfyldt kan brydes ned i enklere dele (harré, 1983). s. brinkmann: hvad handler kvalitativ psykologi om? qualitative studies 7(1), pp. 7-23 ©2022 20 kvalitative konklusioner der er selvfølgelig andre tænkere og videnskabsfolk, der fra forskellige udgangspunkter har argumenteret for, at den skjervheimske deltagerattitude har primat i menneskelige relationer. i etikken er det fx førnævnte løgstrup med de suveræne livsytringer, og i diskussionen om viljens frihed i filosofien kunne man nævne strawson (1974), der talte om de ”reaktive attituder”, der nødvendigvis kendetegner vores deltagelse i mellemmenneskelige sammenhænge. strawsons argument er, at uanset om viljen er fri i metafysisk forstand eller ej, så kan vi ikke leve som om, at vi selv eller andre er determineret i ét og alt. vi kan – som skjervheim også pointerede – ikke objektivere os selv, men faktisk heller ikke systematisk objektivere andre. i psykologien er det ud over de nævnte fænomenologiske strømninger fx også diskursog kulturpsykologiske tilgange, der netop sætter personbegrebet i centrum. harré og moghaddam (2012) har fx defineret kulturpsykologi som studiet af, hvordan personer udfører handlinger og realiserer projekter med henvisning til regler og konventioner i sociale og materielle miljøer (s. 6). og de understreger, at kulturpsykologien derfor er normativ. det er selvfølgelig ofte nødvendigt at måle og tælle psykologiske fænomener eller undersøge deres sammenhæng med andre fænomener rent kvantitativt. hvis man vil vide, om særlige demografiske betingelser øger risikoen for depression, så må man arbejde statistisk med at belyse sammenhængen mellem disse faktorer. men det er dybest set kun noget, der giver mening, når man allerede har en kvalitativ forståelse af, hvad depression er for et fænomen. hvordan erfares det? hvordan er det konstitueret følelsesmæssigt, kropsligt, handlingsmæssigt? det er også først, når man har den kvalitative deltagerviden om fænomenet, at det giver mening fx at lægge deprimerede personer i en hjernescanner for at undersøge, om der sker noget særligt i deres hjerne i sammenhæng med depressionen. objektiveringen af det psykologiske fænomen gennem statistiske variable eller neurovidenskabelige perspektiver snylter nødvendigvis på livsverdensperspektivet, hvor vi må kende til depressionen indefra. enten fordi vi selv har oplevet det, eller fordi vi gennem samtaler og iagttagelser (som kaldes interviews og observationer i den kvalitative metodelitteratur) har opnået en forståelse af fænomenets grundlæggende struktur. i modsætning til den almindelige forestilling i den videnskabelige psykologi, hvor den kausalforklarende tilskuerrelation, der anvender kvantitative metoder, opfattes som den primære, og en kvalitativ, deltagende psykologi opfattes som sekundær (hvis s. brinkmann: hvad handler kvalitativ psykologi om? qualitative studies 7(1), pp. 7-23 ©2022 21 den da overhovedet tillades en plads ved videnskabens bord), må vi vende hierarkiet om: den kvalitative deltagerpsykologi er en førstepsykologi, og tilskuerpsykologien er en anden psykologi. den er et væsentligt supplement, der kan kaste lys på en masse vigtige psykologiske spørgsmål, men ikke desto mindre et supplement (harré, 2004). i denne artikel har jeg ikke haft en ambition om at udfolde de forskellige kvalitative metoder: interviewformerne, observationsmetoderne, dokumentanalyserne eller andet. det er der en lang række metodebøger, der gør, og jeg har selv været forfatter eller medforfatter til flere af dem. min ambition har i stedet været at svare på, hvad en kvalitativ psykologi i grunden handler om. og mit svar er, at den handler om normative og intentionelle fænomener i personers liv. disse fænomener – vores tanker, følelser, handlinger, perceptioner, motivationer osv. – kan kun forstås gennem deltagerrelationer, hvor den anden (eller personen selv) opfattes som en aktør, der ikke blot er determineret af kausale kræfter, men som lever og handler under henvisning til kulturelle, sociale og moralske normer. det udgangspunkt gør psykologien til en moralvidenskab – en moral science som det kaldtes i 1800-tallet (brinkmann, 2011) – og selv om det nok er en minoritet i den videnskabelige psykologi, der tilslutter sig dette udgangspunkt, kan jeg ikke se, at det kan undværes, hvis der fortsat skal være en psykologisk udforskning af menneskers liv og sind. tak denne artikel er baseret på en keynoteforelæsning på en konference om kvalitativ psykologi på aalborg universitet den 25.-26. maj 2021 arrangeret af alfred sköld. tak til alfred for invitationen og til tilhørerne for den efterfølgende diskussion af mit indlæg. s. brinkmann: hvad handler kvalitativ psykologi om? 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(2001). upheavals of thought: the intelligence of emotions. cambridge: cambridge university press. skjervheim, h. (1996). selected essays: in honor of hans skjervheim´s 70th birthday. bergen: the department of philosophy. strawson, p. f. (1974). freedom and resentment and other essays. london: methuen. about the author: svend brinkmann, phd, is professor of psychology in the department of communication and psychology at the university of aalborg, denmark. his research is particularly concerned with philosophical, moral, and methodological issues in psychology and other human and social sciences. in recent years, he has been studying the impact of psychiatric diagnoses on individuals and society and the current culture of grief. stevns a virtue ethical approach to interpretation of the suffering other.pdf qualitative studies vol. 6, no. 1, 2021, pp. 142-157 issn 1903-7031 142 a virtue ethical approach to interpretation of the suffering other anne eggert stevns1 1aarhus university, department of philosophy and history of ideas, jens chr. skous vej 7, 1465/523, 8000 aarhus c, danmark in this article my aim is to take up a thread from an article by svend brinkmann, wherein he is anxious to show that mental suffering cannot exclusively be explained within the narrow vocabulary of medical diagnosis systems, but can, an should be, be articulated through a large range of ‘interpretive vocabularies’ (brinkmann 2014). in line with brinkmann’s emphasis on the large range of possible interpretive vocabularies, i will engage the moral philosopher iris murdoch to show how the exploration of different possible interpretations of a particular client’s situation is in fact an ethical task, which requires the practitioner’s personal development of virtue in terms of selfless, loving attention as the precondition for a realistic interpretation of the client’s situation. keywords: mental suffering, interpretation, ethics, selfless love, iris murdoch introduction mental suffering occurs in a vast variety of forms, and there is an equally vast variety of articulations of the experience of it. a prolonged sense of sadness could be understood in many different ways, and perhaps more at the same time. it could for instance be understood as a clinical depression, a result of political suppression, a moral mistake of infidelity, or be given a religious explanation in terms of sin, etc. if we relate this to the professional area that has specialised in dealing with mental distress, how should mental health professional then ideally try to understand the suffering patient or client in order to help him or her in the best possible way? should they only turn to scientifically tested diagnostic explanations, or should they allow for other kinds of articulations of suffering, as for instance religious, moral or political ones? in this article my aim is to take up a thread from an article by svend brinkmann, wherein he is anxious to show that mental distress cannot exclusively be explained within the a. stevns: a virtue ethical approach to interpretation of the suffering other qualitative studies 6(1), pp. 142-157 ©2021 143 narrow vocabulary of medical diagnosis systems, but can, and should be, be articulated through a large range of ‘interpretive vocabularies’ (brinkmann 2014). in line with brinkmann’s emphasis on the large range of possible interpretive vocabularies, i will engage the moral philosopher iris murdoch to show how the exploration of different possible interpretations of a particular client’s situation is in fact an ethical task, which requires the practitioner’s personal development of virtue in terms of selfless, loving attention as the precondition for a realistic and helpful interpretation of the client’s situation. interpretive agents before turning to murdoch’s attempt to connect the process of interpretation with the ethical task of selfless love, i begin by looking at brinkmann’s suggestion that human beings are primordially meaning-creating (interpretive), which means that the practitioner needs to focus on and develop a broader awareness of different kinds of vocabularies than the narrow biomedical diagnostic one, when trying to make sense of the situation of a suffering client. however, his aim is not to reject the legitimacy of – and need for – highly specialised medical explanations of mental distress or suffering. rather his aim is to point to the limits of reductive bio-medical explanations, which indicate the need for other types of interpretations. very briefly put, the limit consists in the fact that a diagnostic explanation, when taken as a strict reductive bio-medical explanation, can only articulate causal relations in physical objects, in this case the brain and perhaps other parts of the body (brinkmann 2014, p. 644). but this kind of explanation excludes a very important part of human reality, namely the fact that that the body is the body of a human person, who is not merely an object of physical causes, but a subjective agent, who is able to articulate experience through language and to actively position herself and give reasons for her actions in light of these articulations (brinkmann 2014, p. 640). brinkmann is of course aware that the current diagnostic manuals within psychiatry (dsm 5) do not merely approach patients as a bunch of physio-biological mechanisms, but in fact often help patients to externalise their symptoms in order for them to be able to cope with their problems. thus, psychiatrists do in fact respond to patients as self-positioning agents that can learn to actively cope with their problems through for instance psychoeducation, patient communities, development of personal responsibility for daily exercises etc. (brinkmann 2014, p. 644). however, brinkmann’s point is that the vocabularies that are used in relation to such externalisations are exactly those kinds of vocabularies that “specialise” in agential language, such as for instance a political, religious or moral one. his suggestion is thus not to reject the a. stevns: a virtue ethical approach to interpretation of the suffering other qualitative studies 6(1), pp. 142-157 ©2021 144 usefulness of reductive bio-medical explanations, but to emphasise that in relation to mental health issues, we should always see languages that position patients as agential persons as primary and of main importance (brinkmann 2014, p. 644). brinkman finds his main inspiration in the pragmatism of richard rorty and the hermeneutics of charles taylor. from rorty he takes the idea that the vocabularies through which we try to understand reality should not aim at ‘objective truth’ in terms of traditional correspondence-truth, but should rather aim for providing fruitful options for agency and enhance the client’s ability for autonomous self-positioning (brinkmann 2014, p. 644). however, the limitation of the pragmatist approach is that its strong emphasis on the enhancement of human autonomy and agency runs the risk of unrealistic subject-positioning. brinkmann thus argues that the pragmatist appeal to vocabularies as ‘tools’ for agency must be supplemented by a ‘hermeneutic interest’ in describing (interpreting) the particular context of the client, so that an overly optimistic agent-positioning can be avoided, for instance by positioning clients as agents in relation to matters where there is no realistic possibility for actions that can relieve suffering (e.g. kinds of incurable or chronical disease, psychosis, severe depression etc.) (brinkmann 2014, p. 645). it is this last appeal to careful attention to the particular situation of the client that is of main importance for my argument here. in relation to the task of creating a realistic interpretation of the client, it is important that brinkmann emphasises the inherently normative task for the practitioner to decide through what kind(s) of vocabulary(ies) she can possibly make sense of a client’s experience of suffering, and that very often it is possible to make sense of the same experience of suffering through several vocabularies at the same time. for instance, it is possible to make sense of the experience of a prolonged sense of sadness in several ways: it can be described as clinical depression, as the result of an unhappy marriage, a troubled childhood, a stressful working environment, worries about economics or the climate crisis and so on. each of these interpretations open up for different possibilities for subject-positioning (self-interpretation) and action, and it might be that more of these descriptions would be fitting at the same time in different degrees. however, what brinkmann does not develop is an account of what the normative task of creating a realistic interpretation of the client exactly amounts to. how does one know, when one has gained a realistic picture of the client? what does ‘realistic’ even mean in this context? and how does one do it? these questions do of course lie beyond the aim of brinkmann’s article, which is rather an attempt to map and appeal to the importance of different interpretive vocabularies that accommodate individuals as agents responsive to norms rather than merely a. stevns: a virtue ethical approach to interpretation of the suffering other qualitative studies 6(1), pp. 142-157 ©2021 145 physio-biological causal chains as it is found in most medical diagnostic systems (brinkmann 2014, p. 644). my aim is to look at how iris murdoch could provide a possible answer to the questions that arise from brinkmann’s suggestion. with murdoch, i will argue that by looking at the phenomenology of interpretation, which in this context amounts to looking at the process of interpretation from a first-person perspective of experience,1 we can become aware of how realistic (truthful)2 interpretation is, not ‘merely’ a task of finding fitting normative spaces for the client to move within (in the sense that various vocabularies set up different ‘dos and don’ts’ for agency, i.e. different ‘spaces of reasons’). it is also an explicitly personal ethical (or moral)3 task inevitably connected with the practitioner’s development of the virtue of loving, selfless attention as the precondition for realistic interpretation and positioning of the client. this means that, to exemplify, we could say that a ‘space of reasons/norms’ would be opened up if a client’s suffering was, for instance, interpreted as a result of an unhappy marriage. this reading would be a reason for the client to consider a divorce, which would again position her as someone (at least partly) responsible for taking action and finding a solution. on murdoch’s view, a part of the task for the practitioner would be to attend carefully to the client’s account of the marriage, which inevitably involves that the practitioner tries to describe (to picture) the relation for herself in order to be able to orient herself in the complex situation of the client as realistically as possible, and to search for new possible vocabularies for her to move within. the ability to evaluate, compare and finally decide the most proper and helpful and hence good course of action is what murdoch takes to be the core of plato’s idea of virtue as the ‘striving for the good’. an illuminating example of virtue as the ability to make a right decision based on a careful and proper view of the situation can be found in her platonic essay the sovereignty of good. here murdoch at one point compares virtue to what the greeks called techne, which refers to crafts, sciences, and various intellectual disciplines (murdoch 1997, p. 373). in our context, this could mean that for a mental health professional to be virtuous, she 1 murdoch’s view of the phenomenological tradition as a ‘philosophical school’ is in some regards critical and she does not identify herself as a phenomenologist in the way for instance husserl, heidegger and sartre do. however, her aim of exploring human morality is very much in line with traditional phenomenological approaches to questions of value and morality that begin from a first-person perspective of experience with the aim of understanding how ethical questions become meaningful to subjective experience in the first place, and commits itself to work within the limits of experience (loidolt 2018, p. 699; browning 2018, p. 52; murdoch 1989; murdoch 1992, p. 241). 2 it is very important that the terms ‘realistic’ and ‘truthful’ do not refer to the classical epistemological realismidealism debate, but are being used as moral virtue-terms referring to every day experiences of being ‘honest’ and ‘faithful’ to a situation. 3 murdoch uses the terms ethical and moral interchangeably without differentiating between the two. a. stevns: a virtue ethical approach to interpretation of the suffering other qualitative studies 6(1), pp. 142-157 ©2021 146 ought at least to be skilled and is for instance required to have a lot of scientific and theoretical background knowledge. the important thing is, however, that virtue (knowing what is good to do in a particular situation) can never be reduced to knowledge of various kinds of techne. rather, knowing the good is knowing, for instance, when a certain skill should be used or held back, what facts one should take to be decisive in a contradictory and pressing situation, etc. to exemplify that understanding, what is good is ultimately superior to possessing certain teachable skills. murdoch for instance says: “a serious scholar has great merits. but a serious scholar who is also a good man knows not only his subject but the proper place of his subject in the whole of his life” (murdoch 1997, p. 378). as is already implicit here, this means that ‘learning’ to discern what is good is not something one can ‘be taught’ in the same way that one can be taught a craft, but an inner, personal development of careful, just, and loving ways of looking at (and hence also describing) particular situations (a certain ‘way of being’), through which one becomes able to do what one is able to see as good.4 to return to the practitioner’s inevitably descriptive evaluation of her client, murdoch would argue that these descriptions and re-descriptions almost inevitably contain (sometimes very subtle) uses of metaphors and adjectives that inform us of the outlook of the practitioner and her implicit or explicit morally sensitive evaluations of better or worse, true and false (murdoch 1992, p. 243). this could for instance appear in uses of colour (a sense of a greying relation, a faded glow) or space (a claustrophobic relation) or mood (a roaring lion, a state of war), or in the preference of one vocabulary over another (e.g. a view of the ‘darkness’ of a religious response to suffering in terms of sin as compared to a less ‘heavy’ and more ‘gentle’ secular interpretation in terms of a moral error). what i will demonstrate in the following is thus murdoch’s claim that the use of various vocabularies or ‘spaces of reasons’ for action are always already morally ‘coloured’ by the user (here the practitioner) because they inevitably already contain (at least to some degree) her own continuous discriminations of true and false, better and worse. i will show how murdoch is anxious to emphasise that the task of describing another person’s situation is morally significant in the sense that it moves within a continuum from ‘selfish distortion’ to ‘selfless vision’, which amounts to the ability to see from the perspective of the client’s situation and not automatically impose one’s own preferred perspective on the situation. murdoch’s claim is that ‘quality of consciousness’ is morally significant, because it forms the entire evaluative imaginative background against which we 4 for a detailed discussion of the platonic notion of ‘knowing the good’ see also gadamer’s illuminating text on the matter (gadamer 1986, pp. 33-63). a. stevns: a virtue ethical approach to interpretation of the suffering other qualitative studies 6(1), pp. 142-157 ©2021 147 discern good from bad, right from wrong, and that it is morally important that this evaluative background is as true to reality outside the egoistic mind as possible (murdoch 1997, p. 369). to be rather crude, one could say that murdoch introduces the problem of evil (in terms of a human egoistic refusal to attend properly to others) into brinkmann’s picture as an obstacle to realistic interpretations that cannot easily be ‘switched off’ and ‘bracketed out’, but is present as a continuous threat that must be kept on a tight leash: “the egoistic (personal) formulation and distortion of reality reaches right down to the base of unenlightened cognition, and one cannot by a [single] reflective move cancel it” (murdoch 1992, p. 241). we shall return to this issue shortly. however, the challenge of egoism means that acquiring a realistic vision of the other (a realistic description of her situation) is inevitably connected to the development of a ‘good quality of vision’, which involves the subtle business of description and redescription, undistorted by egoistic desires that tend to ‘colour’ our world, often below the levels of immediate awareness. this exercise requires the virtue of selfless, loving attention: “should a retarded child be kept at home or sent to an institution? should an elderly relation who is a trouble-maker be cared for or asked to go away? […] the love which brings the right answer is an exercise of justice and realism and really looking. the difficulty is to keep the attention fixed upon the real situation and to prevent it from returning surreptitiously to the self with consolations of self-pity, resentment, fantasy and despair. the refusal to attend may even induce a fictitious sense of freedom: i may as well toss a coin. […] it is a task to come to see the world as it is” (murdoch 1997, p. 375). of course, there is also a task for the client to develop a truthful vision of her own situation, but due to the limited scope of this article, i shall only relate murdoch’s position as to the interpretive task of the practitioner faced with a suffering other (the client) and not go into the (of course not entirely unrelated) task of the client to create a realistic picture of her own situation. this is also related to the nature of murdoch’s philosophical project, in which she conceives of the ethical task of human beings as the continuous movement away from the ego and towards reality beyond it. thus, her strength lies in describing this movement of individual consciousness (here the practitioner) trying to imagine the reality of the world and others (here the client) as they exist outside her, often limited, vision of reality. this is of course not an attempt to say that practitioners faced with clients are generally egoistic and narrow-minded and that murdoch’s suggestions are necessarily the only tools for improvement. rather, it is an attempt to yield an honest picture of how all human beings are (to some degree) limited and a. stevns: a virtue ethical approach to interpretation of the suffering other qualitative studies 6(1), pp. 142-157 ©2021 148 self-protective creatures, raised within different contexts with a limited amount of psychological resources for careful attention to others, and to argue that the process of realistic interpretation is inevitably a personal moral task of transcending selfishness through loving attention.5 thus, the main thesis of the article is that if murdoch’s picture of the human experience of the world and others is accepted, this means that a realistic interpretation of others is necessarily connected to the virtue of loving attention, which would require the personal development of this attitude of ‘selfless attention’ in practitioners trying to understand and help suffering clients as autonomous and independent individuals. however, before moving on it should be noted that murdoch’s moral philosophy has not before been discussed in relation to the practical field of mental health care, or indeed any ‘applied’ field. in this context it is not my intention to develop any sort of murdochian ‘code of conduct’ for mental health practitioners, and i believe it was never murdoch’s intention to do any such thing either. rather, i suggest, her thought can provide fields engaged in understanding and/or helping other people with a critical awareness of, and a vocabulary for articulating, the moral challenges inherent in the concrete and context-bound task of understanding others. in spite of their different approaches to the question of love and care for others, i suggest that murdoch could be placed within a similar category of proximity-ethics as philosopher k. e. løgstrup, who is already a well-known figure within the scandinavian healthcare system.6 for both, the primary ethical phenomena are the concrete needs that occur in particular individual contexts, as opposed to for instance universally valid principles for duty (deontology) or maximation of utility (consequentialism). however, for murdoch the primary focus on the personal development of loving attention, of ‘unselfing’, does not exclude other kinds of moral reasoning (e.g. utilitarian or deontological), but these should be “seen in [the] wider landscape” of the continuous imaginative and evaluative activity of the human mind (murdoch 1992, p. 302). thus, murdoch’s ‘ethics of love’ would not be directly applicable as for instance a political tool for setting rules and standards regarding recruitment of health-care professionals, patient rights, prioritization of economic resources etc. in these matters she refers us to political morality, which is not entirely unrelated to personal moral orientations, 5 to avoid misunderstandings regarding the ontological status of intersubjectivity, it should be noted that murdoch is sympathetic to heidegger’s phenomenological rejection of the old cartesian problem about how the subject reaches the world and others, which means that, at an ontological level, we are always already affectively involved with our surroundings and others humans (murdoch 1993, p. 25). the barrier of selfishness that she refers to is thus, as far as i can see, a psychological one (murdoch 1997, p. 377). 6 see for instance kari martinsen’s care and vulnerability (2006). a. stevns: a virtue ethical approach to interpretation of the suffering other qualitative studies 6(1), pp. 142-157 ©2021 149 but nevertheless works at a different level mainly governed by general principles and rights claims (murdoch 1992, p. 348). egoism and distorted interpretation in the following, i will take a closer look at murdoch’s claim about the moral orientation of the self and relate it to the question about the practitioner’s moral task of relating to a suffering client. as it is perhaps already partly clear from the above, the main source of our inability to ‘see’ others clearly cannot be reduced to a lack of ‘factual objective information’ in a morally neutral sense, but is, on murdoch’s view, directly connected to the “more or less fantastic reverie” of selfish desire that distorts our inevitably evaluative descriptions and imaginations of others (murdoch 1997, p. 364). as maria antonaccio has already thoroughly developed, a distinct feature of murdoch’s moral philosophy is her suggestion that moral philosophy should not find its main inspiration from attempted value-neutrality of the domain of the natural sciences, but rather find its main inspiration in the field of aesthetics (antonaccio 2012). an important aspect of this suggestion can, i suggest, be described as a naturalist critique not far from the one brinkmann directs at reductive and value-neutral natural science. as murdoch and brinkmann would agree, the important critique is that we do not primordially relate to the world as a neutral world of (scientific) objects and then subsequently prescribe value to them, but instead we primordially come to construct interpretively ‘fabricate’ the world in light of our aims and desires before we come to look at it through the detached lens of the natural sciences (murdoch 1997, pp. 199201; bagnoli 2011, p. 209). the distinct feature of murdoch’s position regarding our ‘aims and desires’ is that, in contrast to for instance a pragmatic (rorty, brinkmann) or heideggerian explanation of the fundamental ‘guiding principle’ of our intentions, she sees love, in terms of a platonic notion of desire-love (eros), as the moving principle and ‘spiritual-sexual energy’ of all human endeavours (murdoch 1992, p. 343-44)7. however, it is important that the concept of eros (love) signifies human desire-love as a continuous tension, mythically depicted in the symposium as an “ambiguous spirit, the child of poverty and ingenuity […] poor and homeless and without shoes like his mother, but brave and ingenious like his father” (murdoch 1992, p. 343). thus, human desire-love works at different levels and can, on the one hand, signify the most degraded being of humans, for instance when love works as an imprisoning vehicle for 7 see for instance gary browning’s short analysis of murdoch’s reading of heidegger (browning 2018, 44-54). a. stevns: a virtue ethical approach to interpretation of the suffering other qualitative studies 6(1), pp. 142-157 ©2021 150 the satisfaction of the ego. however, eros is at the same time also the ‘cure’ to the problem of selfishness and the distorted vision of egoistic desire, because when properly cultivated, it can express the highest form of satisfaction available to humans (murdoch 1992, p. 346). this kind of purified satisfaction comes about when love (eros) is actively turned away from the ‘easy rat-runs’ of the ego and directed selflessly towards the world and others outside of the self, simply for the sake of the goodness we experience as inherent in such kind of love that joins us to the world and others instead of isolating us in anxious self-protection (murdoch 1997, p. 384). murdoch borrows the guiding idea of this re-orientation from plato’s idea of perfect virtue in terms of ‘the good’ as the ideal moral standard for all human desire, depicted in plato’s republic in the analogy of the sun. i will return to murdoch’s defence of the good as the sovereign moral ideal for human desire-love below, but first we shall look at what murdoch’s idea of human selfishness (low eros) amounts to, in order to make sense of how this can be related to our case about a practitioner trying to understand her client. in the sovereignty of good, murdoch draws both on plato’s vision of the self in terms of eros-love as a continuous movement between illusion and truthful vision of reality (the parable of the cave in the republic), but she also adds modern psychological findings in order to, i suggest, substantiate her use of platonic imagery and deploy it in a modern context. in this regard, she implicitly refers to freud’s major influence on her time when she states that in relation to human selfishness, “modern psychology has had something to tell us” (murdoch 1997, p. 364). thus, she defines human selfishness as the ‘lower’, ‘base’ and almost ‘mechanical’ part of the self that fundamentally functions as a selfprotective ‘machine’ moving along in continuous striving for self-preservation and satisfaction: “the psyche is a historically determined individual relentlessly looking after itself. in some ways it resembles a machine; in order to operate it needs sources of energy, and it is predisposed to certain patterns of activity. […] it is reluctant to face unpleasant realities. its consciousness is not normally a transparent glass through which it views the world, but a cloud of more or less fantastic reverie designed to protect the psyche from pain. it constantly seeks consolation, either through imagined inflation of self or through fictions of a theological nature. even its loving is more often than not an assertion of self. i think we can probably recognise ourselves in rather depressing picture” (murdoch 1997, p. 364). a. stevns: a virtue ethical approach to interpretation of the suffering other qualitative studies 6(1), pp. 142-157 ©2021 151 murdoch’s main claim is thus that egoism reveals itself not merely as outward ‘bad behaviour’, but already at the level of our ‘inner’ conversation with ourselves and the often slightly dishonest or simplified pictures and fantasies we create of ourselves and others. on murdoch’s view, this activity should thus be conceived of as a continuous threat to our interpretive orientation that potentially influences the whole of our outlook, and not something that merely happens occasionally as for instance minor ‘slips’ or outrages of fear and anger. rather, murdoch argues, our “minds are continuously active, fabricating an anxious, usually self-preoccupied, often falsifying veil which partially conceals the world”, and because of this our ‘states of consciousness’ are morally important because they are “profoundly connected with our ability to choose and act” (murdoch 1997, p. 369, original emphasis). to relate this to our case about the practitioner trying to make sense of her client, this means that the practitioner would be, like everyone else, perhaps without even noticing it, continuously more or less drawn towards the easy satisfaction of the ego, which inevitably influences her ability to ‘see’ from the perspective of the client and make the best choices of what to do. as it was already hinted at above, murdoch sees this self-protective aspect of our attachment to the world and others as potentially dangerous when we (here the practitioner) try to understand the reality of other people, because we might turn to easy, pleasing, but false interpretations and thus fail to see the particular and complex situation that confronts us. the main drive of selfishness is, on murdoch’s view, strongly connected to our inescapable need to protect our frail and incomplete being; we want to avoid painful realities that disturb our psychological need for a sense of harmony and being in control, and we surreptitiously work on reality to make it more harmless and manageable than it often is. we are full of more or less fantastic illusions about our own capacities, and we very often turn the reality that confronts us into something familiar and pleasing in order to conceal possible disturbances of our stable self-being. reflecting upon our common use of simplified aesthetic forms to make sense of others, murdoch thus suggests: “the true story may not even look like a story because it will inhibit the automatic movement of egoism, with its imposition of pleasing and innocuous form. we want to control the tale ourselves and give it our ending […]. we want to make a move to a conclusion, our conclusion” (murdoch 1992, p. 105). as already exemplified above, this can also be observed in more subtle forms that immediately does not seem to have anything to do with egoism, for instance the setting of a professional practitioner trying to understand a client. this could, for instance, show itself as a practitioner’s personal preference of some kinds of interpretive vocabularies as opposed to others, which could a. stevns: a virtue ethical approach to interpretation of the suffering other qualitative studies 6(1), pp. 142-157 ©2021 152 perhaps be a result of a too dogmatic endorsement of one particular methodology, personal indolence, unrecognised trauma, personal career plan, fear of the sometimes insurmountable complexity of particular others that surpass theoretical categorisations etc. as exemplified above, murdoch’s point is that all such biases reveal themselves in the very ‘fabric’ of the progressive picturesque evaluations of true and false, better and worse that makes up the life of the individual consciousness and gives it its particular ‘colour’, and this already establishes a very complex and often opaque background for any deliberations on what we can (and should) realistically do to help the other. i thus agree with carla bagnoli when she, in her recent comparison of murdoch and kant, argues that what matters most to murdoch is “how the fabric is woven, and the irreducible particularity of the weft”, whereas for a kantian “what matters is the warp, that is, the structure that sustains particular fabrics” (bagnoli 2018, p. 83). a result of this, the solution to the threat of egoism is not primarily the control of contingent ‘fabric’ of desires through moral principles, but rather the development and transformation of the quality of the individual weft. love and truthful interpretation what murdoch suggests is that if the continuous presence of the ‘fat relentless ego’ is a truthful picture of (at least a part of) the human mind, “then everything which alters consciousness in the direction of unselfishness, objectivity and realism is to be connected with virtue” (murdoch 1997, p. 369). we have now looked at murdoch’s claim about the inevitable aspect of egoism in our attachment to the world and others, which strongly influences our ability to interpret their situation without the distortion of ego. but how does she reach the conclusion that realistic and hence good interpretations require the virtue of selfless, loving attention? she does so by investigating the connection between the experience of selflessness, goodness, and truthfulness from within experience itself (from a first-person perspective), which is the only place where it can be seen how “the concept of virtue is tied on to the human condition” (murdoch 1997, p. 371). as fiona tomkinson has drawn attention to, murdoch’s conception of virtue as the transcendence of the self, marks her departure from a freudian model that would suggest an ‘integration’ of the divided self as the best to be hoped for, i.e. the balancing of the ego between the id and the super ego (tomkinson 2019, p. 59). in murdoch’s comparison of freud and plato in the essay the fire and the sun she expresses her disagreement with freud’s exclusively sexual reading of the concept of the libido that he found in plato, whereby freud reduced the a. stevns: a virtue ethical approach to interpretation of the suffering other qualitative studies 6(1), pp. 142-157 ©2021 153 general moving principle of human motivation to the attainment of sexual satisfaction (murdoch 1997, pp. 418-19; murdoch 1992, p. 23). instead, murdoch turns to plato’s more ‘ambitious’ vision of the fundamental source and locus of human motivation in the myth of eros-love as necessarily related to the idea of goodness as the perfection of this love (the idea of the good), which comes about as active transcendence of the self that happens through a self-forgetful integration with the world and others. in sovereignty murdoch finds the cue to the connection between a loving selfless vision/interpretation and virtue in certain kinds of experiences that occasion ‘unselfing’ – a term murdoch translates from simone weil’s decreation8 – through which initial narrowminded preoccupation is thwarted, followed by the joyful and liberated experience of joining a more truthful picture of the world beyond initial prejudice, fear, indolence etc. (murdoch 1997, p. 369). initially, murdoch turns to a very simple and common-sense example of how the experience of beauty in nature can occasion moments of selfless attention. she explains how one’s anxious and resentful state of mind due to a trivial preoccupation with a possible damage done to one’s prestige can suddenly be interrupted by the appearance of hovering kestrel outside the window. suddenly attention is entirely fixated on the beauty of the kestrel and the vain self-preoccupation disappears for a moment (murdoch 1997, p. 369). in turning to nature, “we take a self-forgetful pleasure in the sheer alien pointless independent existence of animals, birds, stones and trees” (murdoch 1997, p. 370). here we see the first attempt to exemplify how goodness is connected with the immediate self-forgetful integration with external reality. but a single example with the perception of a bird outside a window will not do the trick to convince us that selfless vision (love) of the other is required to interpret her situation adequately. for our purposes, it is important that if a good interpretation is connected with good quality of attention, this makes the (virtue of) purification of (eros-love) a necessary personal practice for the practitioner. murdoch uses the example with attention to nature to link our immediate selfless love of natural beauty to the much more complex region of our love of beauty in human made works of art and relates these to the development of virtuous attention. initially, she admits, love of beauty in nature or art does not seem to have much to do with the moral task of loving attention to others, but, she suggests, if we take plato’s point seriously that “beauty is the only spiritual thing we love by instinct”, we shall soon be able to see how love of beauty in works of art is, if not completely identical to (love of) goodness, at least very close 8 see simone weil’s gravity and grace (2002). a. stevns: a virtue ethical approach to interpretation of the suffering other qualitative studies 6(1), pp. 142-157 ©2021 154 to it (murdoch 1997, p. 370). in contrast to most other – typically neo-aristotelian – virtue ethical positions, murdoch insists that “art is the great clue to morals”, because it is in great works of art, particularly the novel, full of truthful portrayals of the detailed and complex reality of the human scene, that a truthful and loving vision of human individuals can be seen and experienced as genuinely good (murdoch 1997, p. 372). murdoch’s emphasis on beauty as a primary source of inspiration of eros is remarkably underexposed in much recent literature on murdoch’s philosophy, where it is often framed as one possible experience among a range of others that occasion the aspiration for a truthful vision of the world and others.9 much attention is generally given to the role of creative imagination as a way to practice unselfing, but very little attention is given to beauty as that which sets the whole process in motion. in contrast, i would argue that murdoch places the experience of beauty as the key source of moral inspiration. this means that, on murdoch’s view, the beauty we enjoy in art should be understood as the enjoyment of a truthful vision of reality, which amounts to the beauty of human virtue, the purified love through which the artist portrays (that is interprets) reality as good as she can. this is, i contend, what murdoch means when she argues that “[great art] invigorates our best faculties and, to use platonic language, inspires love in the highest part of the soul. it is able to do this partly by virtue of something which is shares with nature: a perfection of form which invites unpossessive contemplation and resists absorption into the selfish dream life of the consciousness” (murdoch 1997, p. 370). as was already hinted at above, a truthful (realistic) interpretation of others cannot be reduced to the collection of ‘factual information’, but is the result of a sustained attempt to try to imagine reality from the point of view of the other. murdoch gives an illuminating example from henry james’ novel the golden bowl, where we follow the inner experience of the main character maggie, who has slowly realised that her husband has an affair with her best friend. james’ achievement is that he succeeds in picturing the whole atmosphere of this emerging awareness in a way not entirely unlike (although much more loaded with symbols) the way we continuously picture and evaluate ourselves and our surroundings “this situation has been occupying, for months and months, the very centre of the garden of her life, but it had reared itself there like some strange tall tower of ivory, or perhaps rather some wonderful, beautiful, but outlandish pagoda, a structure plated with hard bright porcelain, coloured and figured 9 see for instance (antonaccio 2012, p. 114) or (broackes 2011). a. stevns: a virtue ethical approach to interpretation of the suffering other qualitative studies 6(1), pp. 142-157 ©2021 155 and adorned, at the overhanging eaves, with silver bells that tinkled, ever so charmingly, when stirred by chance airs” (murdoch 1992, p. 170). thus, the achievement of great artists is obviously not an ability to strip their depictions of characters and their surroundings from evaluative words. the point is rather that language is inevitably evaluative, deeply influenced by the direction of our desires. the task of the artist, in relation to his work, is thus to purify his desire in the sustained struggle for a truthful understanding of the matter at hand: “the realism of a great artist is not a photographic realism, it is essentially both pity and justice” (murdoch 1997, p. 371). this is the sense in which ‘the perfection of form’ in art resembles the perfection of form in morals, because both are ‘unified’ by the same aspiration towards the perfection of love: “art and morals are, with certain provisions, one. […] the essence of both of them is love. love is the perception of individuals. love is the extremely difficult realisation that something other than oneself is real. love, and so art and morals, is the discovery of reality” (murdoch 1997, p. 215). this idea of the perfection of love directed at particular others, never entirely psychologically reachable for limited, mortal human beings, is what murdoch articulates through plato’s idea of the good, pictured in the analogy of the sun in the republic – it is both the light through which we come to see reality, since we cannot escape continuously discriminating between true and false in our depiction of reality, but it is at the same time the unreachable (and as such transcendent) magnet that draws us towards its centre as the ideal moral standard for the truth-seeking mind. finally, we should ask how this relates to the everyday setting of a practitioner trying to understand a client? obviously, we are not all great artists, and if truthful understanding only occurs in the greatest of art, the hopes are not high for the lot of us. however, murdoch’s reference to the work of great artists is not to be read as elitist as one might immediately do in the sense that only artists have the capability of moral development. on the contrary, murdoch insists that the beauty of great art can, and often does, work as an inspiration for the ‘artists’ that we all are, in so far as we are imaginative creative users of language, through which we continuously describe and redescribe ourselves and others (murdoch 1992, p. 322). murdoch thus insists that “[t]he work of imagination in art may be seen as a symbol of its operation elsewhere”, and defines it, in opposition to egoistic ‘fantasy’ as the “ability to picture what is quite other [than oneself]” (murdoch 1992, p. 322). we are now able to see how the requirement of loving attention to the client is not a question of ‘falling in love’ in a romantic sense of the term, but refers to virtue as the need for the practitioner to perform a kind of continuous ‘double movement’ when attending to a client; on the one hand she must actively a. stevns: a virtue ethical approach to interpretation of the suffering other qualitative studies 6(1), pp. 142-157 ©2021 156 ‘unself’ in order to make sure that she is not distorted by personal preference, fear, envy, etc., and one the other, she must aim for empathetic imagination of the situation of the client, in order to be able to make the best suggestions of what to do in relation to the clients experience of suffering. this is the way in which i suggest that murdoch’s picture could very well be seen as an extension of brinkmann’s view by adding a moral-psychological perspective on what is required to interpret the concrete situation of a particular client. references: antonaccio, maria (2012): a philosophy to live by – engaging iris murdoch, oxford university press. bagnoli, carla (2011): ‘the exploration of moral life’ in iris murdoch – philosopher, j. broackes (ed.), oxford university press. _______ (2018): ‘constrained by reason, transformed by love: murdoch on the standard of proof’ in murdoch on truth and love, palgrave macmillan. brinkmann, svend (2014): ‘languages of suffering’ in theory & psychology 2014, vol. 24(5) 630–648. broackes, justin (ed.)(2011): iris murdoch – philosopher, oxford university press. browning, gary (2018): why iris murdoch matters, bloomsbury. gadamer, hans-georg (1986): the idea of the good in platonic-aristotelian philosophy, yale university press. martinesen, kari (2006): care and vulnerability, akribe. loidolt, sophie (2018): ‘value, freedom, responsibility: central themes in phenomenological ethics’ in the oxford handbook of the history of phenomenology, dan zahavi (ed.), oxford university press. murdoch, iris (1992): metaphysics as a guide to morals, penguin vintage. ______ (1997): existentialists and mystics – writings on philosophy and literature, penguin books. ______ (1993): heidegger (unpublished book manuscript), iris murdoch archive, university of kingston kuas6/5/1/4. ______ (1989): sartre – romantic rationalist, london: penguin books. tomkinson, fiona (2019): ‘murdoch’s question of the work of art: the dialogue between western and japanese conceptions of unity’ in reading iris murdoch’s ‘metaphysics as a guide to morals’, n. hämäläinen and g. dooley (eds.), palgrave macmillan. a. stevns: a virtue ethical approach to interpretation of the suffering other qualitative studies 6(1), pp. 142-157 ©2021 157 weil, simone (2002): gravity and grace, routledge. about the author: anne eggert stevns is a phd-student in philosophy, aarhus university. she is currently working on iris murdoch’s reception of the existential-phenomenological tradition via a study of her book manuscripts on j.-p. sartre and martin heidegger. her main academic interests are existential and moral philosophy. microsoft word hogstad den kvalitative psykologiens kraft til å forstyrre fenomenene.docx qualitative studies vol. 7, no. 1, 2022, pp. 45-63 issn 1903-7031 den kvalitative psykologiens kraft til å forstyrre fenomenene 1ingrid johnsen hogstad1 1avdeling for helseog sosialfag, høgskolen i molde, pb 2110, 6402 molde, norge psykologisk forskning på mennesket tilbyr selvforståelser som kan fungere selvoppfyllende og dermed være med å (re)produsere de psykologiske fenomenene vi forsker på. kunnskapsproduksjonen har helt reelle konsekvenser for individ og samfunn, og forskere har et etisk ansvar i å være kritiske i sin forskning og jobbe for å unngå at forskningen skader mennesker, samfunn, natur og miljø. forfatter av denne artikkelen har tidligere vært opptatt av hvordan psykologisk forskning kan bidra til å reprodusere kunnskap om barns sorg som støtter praksiser som kan fungere ekskluderende for de yngste barna. denne artikkelen argumenterer for at den kvalitative psykologien bærer i seg en kraft til å «forstyrre» de psykologiske fenomenene vi forsker på heller enn å reprodusere dem, og at denne kraften særlig ligger i analysen og med den i anvendelse av teori. i artikkelen søker forfatteren å demonstrere den forstyrrende kraften i kvalitativ psykologi ved å anvende to ulike teoretisk informerte lesninger av et empirisk eksempel om barns sorguttrykk fra intervjuer med barnehagelærere. de to forskjellige «analytikkene» utvikles fra to ulike teoretiske perspektiver fra utviklingspsykologi, piagets konstruktivistiske teori om kognitiv utvikling og sosiokulturell utviklingsteori. lesningene demonstrerer hvordan det teoretiske perspektivet har konsekvenser for hvordan vi avgrenser og lokaliserer psykologiske fenomen, hva vi antar intervjutranskript kan representere av fenomenet og for hva slags kunnskap vi ender opp med å produsere. keywords: forskningsetikk, barns sorguttrykk, representasjonsfellen, sosiokulturell utviklingspsykologi, teoretisk informerte analyser introduksjon en gjengs oppfatning av hva forskningspraksis handler om, er at forskere i fellesskap skal strebe etter ny innsikt og å produsere pålitelig kunnskap for å bidra til et velfungerende, kunnskapsbasert og demokratisk samfunn (nesh, 2021). men forskning vil alltid være underbygget av verdier og ikke-empiriske antakelser som har betydning for hvilken kunnskap vi produserer. psykologi og andre vitenskaper som befatter seg med forskning på-, med og om mennesket, står i en særstilling fordi forskningen tilbyr forståelser som kan fungere selvoppfyllende (nafstad, 2005). professor emerita i psykologi, hilde nafstad (2005) har påpekt psykologiens etiske forpliktelse til å klargjøre hvilke verdier i. hogstad: den kvalitative psykologis kraft til å forstyrre fenomenene. qualitative studies 7(1), pp. 45-63 ©2022 46 og ikke-empiriske antakelser den psykologiske forskningen er underbygget av, fordi disse har konsekvenser for hvilken kunnskap som produseres (nafstad, 2005). psykologisk kunnskap tilbyr premisser for politikkutforming, og forståelsesrammer for profesjonell praksis (burman, 2008), og videre vil politiske beslutninger og profesjonell praksis inngå som betingelser for hvordan de psykologiske fenomenene får spille seg ut og utvikle seg, dermed være med på å (re)produsere fenomenene vi observerer i forskning (højholt & kousholt, 2018). psykologien er slik med på å produsere de psykologiske fenomenene vi forsker på (schraube, 2015). forfatteren av denne artikkelen har selv vært opptatt av hvordan tradisjonell utviklingspsykologisk forskning kan være med på å reprodusere sosiokulturelle forståelser av barns sorg, det er tatt-for-gitte ‘sannheter’ om hvordan barn sørger (røkholt et al., 2018), som kan bidra til å understøtte profesjonelle praksiser som ekskluderer de minste barna (hogstad, 2021). i denne artikkelen vil jeg argumentere for at kvalitativ psykologisk forskning bærer i seg en kraft som kan være med på å forstyrre de psykologiske fenomenene vi forsker på, heller enn blott å reprodusere dem. denne kraften ligger særlig i analysen, og i dens mulighet til kritisk å utfordre det tatt-for-gitte (schraube, 2015). for å illustrere betydningen av å foreta analyser, brukes innledningsvis et eksempel om tolkning av tekstmeldinger. eksempelet er tenkt å vise hvordan antakelser alltid legges til grunn når tekst tolkes, og videre at det er forskjell på om antakelsene er implisitte (skjulte eller tatt-for-gitte forforståelser) eller om de gjøres åpne og reflekterte. videre vil jeg foreslå at flere og ulike teoretisk informerte «analytikker» i lesning av empiri kan gjøre antakelser åpnere. deretter vil jeg ved hjelp av et eksempel om barns sorguttrykk fra egne forskningsintervjuer med barnehagelærere (hogstad, 2021) bruke to ulike teoretiske perspektiver fra utviklingspsykologi og vise at disse har konsekvenser for hvordan vi avgrenser og lokaliserer psykologiske fenomen, hva vi antar intervjutranskript kan representere av fenomenet og for hva slags kunnskap vi produserer. hensikten er ikke å vise at det ene teoretiske perspektivet er bedre tolkningsutgangspunkt enn det andre: ideen er at selve øvelsen som foretas i løpet av artikkelen, altså å benytte disse to analytikkene, demonstrerer den forstyrrende kraften i kvalitativ psykologi. i. hogstad: den kvalitative psykologis kraft til å forstyrre fenomenene. qualitative studies 7(1), pp. 45-63 ©2022 47 teksten snakker ikke for seg selv, den må tolkes året var 1999. jeg var 15 år og midt i verste «fjortistid1» da jeg fikk min første mobiltelefon. mobiltelefonen gav flørting en ny arena å spille seg ut på: short message system – sms tekstmeldinger. på den tiden var det bare plass til 100 tegn i hver tekstmelding og det kostet en norsk krone av kontantkortet å sende hver melding, så det var mangelvare. de korte tekstene som kom i svar fra en ny, spennende flamme ble tolket opp og ned av meg og mine venninner: hva mente han med det smiletegnet? hvorfor skrev han punktum, og ikke spørsmålstegn? betydde dette at han ville treffe meg eller betydde det at han var usikker? gav han meg ballen nå, eller var han ikke interessert? hva mente han egentlig? det er mange fra min generasjon som kan kjenne seg igjen i dette. det er et eksempel på at når vi analyserer tekst, enten det er i forskning eller i fjortislivet, så snakker aldri teksten for seg selv: vi må tolke den. hvilken tolkning vi ender opp med, vil være avhengig av hva vi visste eller antok i utgangspunktet. selv om vi jentene ikke tenkte over det selv, så utgjorde den kjennskapen vi fra før hadde om gutta vi tekstet med, hva som hadde skjedd i går, vårt eget selvbilde som populær eller ikke populær, og så videre, en bakgrunn som vi tolket teksten opp mot eller ut fra. videre hadde den tolkningen jeg endte opp med konsekvenser for hva jeg svarte tilbake i neste, korte tekstmelding. hermeneutikken forteller oss at forforståelse eller et tolkningsutgangspunkt er nødvendig for å tolke tekst (gadamer, 2003). ulike tolkningsutgangspunkt vil gi ulike tolkninger og ulik kunnskap selv om det er den samme teksten som analyseres. det betyr at vi alltid vil legge noen antakelser til grunn når vi søker å forstå en tekst, også når vi ikke er bevisst på hvilke antakelser som ligger der. da venninnene mine og jeg tolket tekstmeldinger, utgjorde nok psykologiske teorier en del av det vi kan kalle vår «folkepsykologiske forståelse»: en intuitiv forståelse eller «lekmannsteori» som ikke gjøres eksplisitt (olson & bruner, 1996). antakelsene vi gjør og som muliggjør våre tolkninger, er heller implisitte: de er skjulte eller tatt-for-gitte forforståelser, men er likevel virksomme ved at de gir ulike tolkninger. 1 «fjortis» er et norsk begrep som brukes for fjortenåringer og andre barnslige tenåringer (https://ordbok.uib.no/perl/ordbok.cgi?opp=fjortis&ant_bokmaal=5&ant_nynorsk=5&begge=+&ordbok =begge) i. hogstad: den kvalitative psykologis kraft til å forstyrre fenomenene. qualitative studies 7(1), pp. 45-63 ©2022 48 kvalitative analyser og «representasjonsfellen» ved å ikke være bevisste på antakelsene mine venninner og jeg la til grunn i våre tolkninger, endte vi med å gå ut fra at tekstmeldingene representerte guttenes meninger, følelser eller intensjoner. de uvitende guttene ble stadig vekk påført meninger, følelser og intensjoner de ikke ville kjent seg igjen i: «han er redd for å binde seg» «han er forelska i deg!» «han er bare ute etter en ting!». da venninnene mine og jeg tolket tekstmeldinger, hadde vi ingen “strategi” for hvordan vi skulle tolke disse. også var det heller ikke forskning vi drev med. kvalitativ forskning, herunder den kvalitative psykologien, befatter seg med mening og kvaliteter ved fenomener heller enn årsaksforhold og kvantitet. kvalitative analyser er kjennetegnet med at de er utforskende og har en åpen tilnærming: heller enn å måle variabler eller finne sammenhenger med utgangspunkt i forhåndsdefinerte kategorier, er målet med analysene gjerne å søke å forstå et fenomens framtreden (bøttcher et al., 2018a). i forskningsartikler som formidler kvalitative analyser av for eksempel intervjudata, er det vanlig at analysebeskrivelsen forteller om hvordan forskeren eller forskerne har brukt koding og kategorisering for å utarbeide tema, eller eventuelt for å skrive ut narrativ på tvers av intervjuer (st. pierre & jackson, 2014). forskerne beskriver gjerne hvordan de har benyttet dataprogrammer for kvalitativ analyse, som for eksempel nvivo, eller mer manuelle hjelpemiddel som for eksempel tabeller. i bruk av slike metoder, advarer jackson og mazzei (2013) kvalitative forskere mot de samme feilene som vi fjortisene gjorde: å jakte på hva studiedeltakerne egentlig, innerst inne, mener, føler eller opplever. de kaller det the representational trap, her oversatt til representasjonsfellen, når forskere forføres av ønsket om å representere studiedeltakeres meninger, følelser eller intensjoner som koherente narrativer eller tydelige tema i resultatpresentasjoner. i eksempelet jeg vil presentere under, kunne vi for eksempel fanges i ønsket om å vise frem barnehagelæreres opplevelse av barns sorguttrykk: at forskningen skal bidra til å representere deres opplevelse eller stemme. representasjonsfellen er en felle fordi det ikke er mulig for forskere å representere essensen av studiedeltakernes meninger, følelser eller opplevelser. vi vil ikke kunne falle ned på en riktig tolkning – sosiale og psykologiske fenomener blir til i møte mellom mennesker, de er i kontinuerlig endring og tolkningen i. hogstad: den kvalitative psykologis kraft til å forstyrre fenomenene. qualitative studies 7(1), pp. 45-63 ©2022 49 vil være avhengig av kontekst. bakgrunnen vi tolker med utgangspunkt i, vil alltid få betydning for hva vi ender med å representere. forskere som går i representasjonsfellen kan ende opp med å presentere som autentiske opplevelser eller meninger det som egentlig er en reproduksjon av tatt-for-gitte, kulturelle forståelser (se for eksempel carnevales (2020) diskusjon av mulighetene for å representere «children’s voices»). for å unngå representasjonsfellen, må vi ifølge jackson and mazzei (2012) bevisst bruke teori som redskap i tolkning og lesning av tekst slik at vi åpner for nye lesninger som avkler det vi tar for gitt og som har potensiale til å forstyrre fenomenene. det er gjennom bruk av teori den kvalitative psykologien kan hjelpe til å åpne opp forog reflektere over det tatt-for-gitte. hvordan kan vi bruke teori som redskap i tolkning og lesning av tekst? la oss i det videre se hva teoretisk informerte kvalitative analyser kan tilby. teoretisk informerte kvalitative analyser når vi gjør teoretisk informerte analyser, ligger det til grunn en antakelse om at det ikke gir mening å skille skarpt mellom deduktiv og induktiv tilnærming fordi både fenomenet, teksten og lesningen allerede vil være strukturert av språk, kultur, historie, forforståelser og kategorier. i en teoretisk informert kvalitativ analyse «tenker du data med teori og teori med data»: thinking with theory. dette er også tittelen på jackson og mazzeis bok om kvalitativ forskning fra 2012. tittelen henspiller på at teori kan utgjøre et slags tenkeverktøy. teori kommer av det greske ordet theoria som betyr ‘betraktning’. vi kan definere teori som «sammenhengende systemer av begreper og underbygde antakelser om et fenomen» (gulbrandsen, 2017b, p. 17). teori er altså betraktninger om noe, og til teorien tilhører et språk (begrepene) som også bærer i seg antakelser. for eksempel vil teorier om barns utvikling tilby begreper vi kan bruke for å beskrive hvordan barn forandrer seg slik at de framtrer som større, eldre og mer modne gjennom oppveksten (gulbrandsen, 2017b). videre vil teorier om utvikling bære med seg grunnleggende antakelser om hva et barn er, hvordan vi kan få kunnskap om barns utvikling og hva utvikling er. det er flere enn jackson og mazzei (2012) som tar til orde for at teorier bør utgjøre en viktig del av tolkningsutgangspunktet vårt når vi gjør kvalitative analyser. det gjør også bøttcher, kousholt & winther-lindqvist (2018b) i sin bok «kvalitative analyseprocesser» som handler om teoretisk informerte kvalitative analyser. i denne boka i. hogstad: den kvalitative psykologis kraft til å forstyrre fenomenene. qualitative studies 7(1), pp. 45-63 ©2022 50 bruker bøttcher et al. (2018b) begrepet «analytikk» til å betegne en hel rekke kvalitative, analytiske lesestrategier. analytikk er en metafor som spiller på ordet optikk: at det finnes flere forskjellige linser å se gjennom, som gir ulike konsekvenser for hva du ser når du skal analysere og lese en tekst. de teoretiske begreper og inspirasjonskilder forskeren nærmer seg datamaterialet med, åpner for bestemte spørsmål og oppmerksomhetspunkter (bøttcher et al., 2018a). helt konkret kan utforming av en analytikk bestå i å fokusere lesningen sin mot bestemte dimensjoner av teksten: det kan være at man fokuserer spesielt på gjentakende språklige fraser og hvilken sammenheng de opptrer i, kanskje vil man fokusere på motsetninger, eller overganger fra et tema til et annet. analytikken er ikke bare en teknisk eller systematisk lesestrategi, den kan også innebære å innta et modus. et gjennomgående grep på tvers av forskjellige teoretisk informerte kvalitative analyser er at forskeren utformer analysespørsmål som teksten leses gjennom med. analysespørsmål er spørsmål som kan ligne på forskningsspørsmål, men de er mer konkrete og spesifiserte i den forstand at det blir mulig å stille spørsmålene til teksten og få informasjon tilbake gjennom sin lesning av teksten (søndergaard, 2018). de har likevel fortsatt med seg kraften av de teoretiske begrepene de er informerte av. spørsmålene blir således en viktig del av analytikken. i det videre tar jeg leseren med i en utforskning av et empirisk eksempel med to forskjellige analytikker. før tekstutdraget forklarer jeg kort hvor eksempelet er hentet fra. empirisk eksempel om forståelser av små barns sorg i forbindelse med et forskningsprosjekt om profesjonelles møter med små barn som opplever alvorlig sykdom og død hos en forelder (hogstad, 2021), intervjuet jeg blant annet 18 barnehagelærere som hadde hatt et eller flere barn ved sin avdeling som hadde opplevd å ha en livstruende syk mor eller far. i intervjuene spurte jeg dem om å fortelle meg om sine erfaringer fra de fikk vite om sykdommen og kronologisk fram til i dag. de fleste ble intervjuet om dette etter at moren eller faren var død, og derfor fikk jeg også historier om erfaringene med barna etter dødsfallet. noen av disse barnehagelærerne hadde erfaring med barn som var i alderen ett til tre år da moren eller faren døde. det er spesielt en ting jeg vil trekke fram blant det jeg har lagt merke til når barnehagelærerne forteller om disse aller yngste barnas reaksjoner. det er hvordan barnehagelærerne kan sies å merke eller oppleve at barnas situasjon og i. hogstad: den kvalitative psykologis kraft til å forstyrre fenomenene. qualitative studies 7(1), pp. 45-63 ©2022 51 opplevelse er endret som følge av forelderens dødsfall: det er at barna klagende, konstaterende eller spørrende sier «mamma» eller «pappa» eller gjør andre korte referanser til den som er død, som «pappa borte» eller «hente mamma». flere av barnehagelærerne gir uttrykk for at de opplever dette som krevende, både å tolke, men også å møte i situasjonen. dette blir en analysespire som jeg ønsker å utforske videre i en mer systematisk lesning av materialet. dorte kousholt (2018) kaller det en analysespire når man tidlig i analyseprosesser får fornemmelser av noe i teksten som gir en nysgjerrighet til videre utforskning. det er gjerne en teoretisk forståelse som gjør at noe trer fram som analysespirer. en av deltakerne som fortalte om korte referanser til den døde, var «paula». paula er førskolelærer. hun ble utdannet før de begynte med tittelen barnehagelærer for å betegne dem som har tre års høgskoleutdanning innen småbarnspedagogikk. paula har mange års erfaring i barnehage og nærmer seg snart pensjonsalder. jeg intervjuet paula i barnehagen der hun jobber, en liten barnehage i ei lita bygd på sør-vestlandet, der alle kjenner alle. i utdraget under, forteller paula om «inger», ei 2 år gammel jente på hennes avdeling som nylig opplevde mammaens død. mammaen ble alvorlig syk av kreft og døde etter et ganske kort sykdomsforløp. paula fortalte meg først at de i barnehagen ikke hadde sett så mye reaksjoner hos inger. da paula begynte å fortelle, husket hun likevel noen episoder. utdraget under var en bakgrunnshistorie for hvorfor hun hadde snakket med tanta til inger om hva hun skulle si til inger om «hvor mamma er». presten rådet til å si at mamma er i himmelen, og det sa de hjemme hos inger. paula: både før mora var død og etterpå, gråt hun og sa: mamma, mamma eller pappa, pappa. det var jo greit da hun sa ‘pappa’, men det var så sårt da hun sa ‘mamma’. jeg tenkte, hva svarer jeg nå? hva skal jeg si? jeg må bare vite hva de sier hjemme. ingrid: m. men hun gråt litt etter mamma da…? før hun døde også? paula: ja, jeg kommer på det nå. men det var mest etterpå. alle reaksjoner kom egentlig mest etterpå. vi var forundret over at det var mest sånn som det pleide. som jeg har sagt før, så kunne hun sutre for å oppnå ting, eller sutre hvis det var noe. hvis hun frøs, så istedenfor å si at hun var kald, så sutret hun. selv om hun var ganske god språklig. det var etterpå, det var da hun begynte å gråte etter mamma, sa: mamma, mamma. satt ved bordet under frokosten i i. hogstad: den kvalitative psykologis kraft til å forstyrre fenomenene. qualitative studies 7(1), pp. 45-63 ©2022 52 barnehagen og kunne si mamma, mamma. da kunne vi støtte henne på det, møte henne med det at «mamma er død» og «mamma er i himmelen» og «skjønner at du er lei deg». og ta henne på fanget, stryke håret og vise at vi bryr oss. to teoretiske perspektiv blir i det videre brukt til å utforme analytikker med. hensikten er, som nevnt innledningsvis, at selve øvelsen som foretas når vi leser med to forskjellige analytikker, demonstrerer den forstyrrende kraften i kvalitativ psykologi. den oppmerksomme leser vil nok allerede nå bemerke at det er en hel del tolkning på spill i utdraget, og det er et metodologisk poeng jeg vil komme tilbake til når vi leser utdraget med den andre analytikken. her vil jeg også komme inn på de mer vitenskapsteoretiske grunnantakelsene. allerede nå røper jeg at jeg skal vise at det å bruke analytikker med utgangspunkt i forskjellige teorier har konsekvenser for hvordan vi avgrenser og lokaliserer fenomen. ser vi bare på barnets atferd eller ser vi på det som skjer mellom den profesjonelle og barnet? valg av teori har også konsekvenser for hva vi antar at intervjutranskriptet kan representere eller vise fram av det fenomenet vi er opptatt av, og videre for hvilken kunnskap vi ender med å produsere ved bruk av de ulike analytikkene. kognitivt inspirert analytikk kognitiv teori er et dominerende perspektiv innen fagfeltet barns sorg og barns forståelse av døden. i et dominerende kognitivt teoretisk perspektiv har «å forstå døden» blitt definert som å kunne demonstrere at man vet hva som forårsaker døden, og at den er irreversibel, universell, uunngåelig, og medfører at alle funksjoner opphører (hogstad & wold, 2016; rosengren et al., 2014). standardteorien fra jean piaget om stadier i barns kognitive utvikling (piaget, 1929) er godt kjent og mye brukt teori innenfor sorgforskningen (rosengren et al., 2014). utviklingspsykologisk kunnskap om kognitiv utvikling-, om de minste barnas manglende kapasitet eller ikke-ervervede kompetanse til å forstå og håndtere døden som konsept og fenomen (rosengren et al., 2014), har blant annet blitt brukt som begrunnelse for praksiser som begrenser barns «tilgang til informasjon, diskusjon og fellesskap ved sykdom og død i familien (mahon, 2011)» (hogstad & wold, 2016, p. 10). piagets teori er kjent for sin beskrivelse av stadier i den kognitive utviklingen, hvor barn i en bestemt rekkefølge beveger seg fra evnen til å erkjenne det konkrete, i. hogstad: den kvalitative psykologis kraft til å forstyrre fenomenene. qualitative studies 7(1), pp. 45-63 ©2022 53 håndgripelige – mot stadig høyere formalitet i tenkningen og evnen til å begripe abstrakte begreper og sammenhenger (hundeide & gulbrandsen, 2017). små barn i alderen to år, som inger her, vil normalt sett kunne oppfatte at ting de ikke ser for øyeblikket kan være der likevel, men skjult. for eksempel barneleken «bø-tittei» hvor en voksen holder hendene foran ansiktet for så å plutselig ta dem vekk slik at ansiktet blir synlig imens hun eller han sier «bø!»: barnet vil kunne oppfatte at mamma er bak hendene sine selv om jeg ikke kan se henne. videre vil de etter hvert kunne oppfatte at mor fortsetter å eksistere selv om hun er på kjøkkenet, eller på jobb (mens jeg er i barnehagen). evnen til å forstå at objekter eksisterer permanent og ikke avhengig av din egen sansning av dem, kalles objektpermanens (hundeide & gulbrandsen, 2017; piaget, 1937). inger vil normalt sett også ha begynt å utvikle evnen til med symboler å representere fraværende objekt og situasjoner – altså at hun kan bruke ordet «mamma» for å referere til mammaen sin også når hun ikke er der. tenkningen er imidlertid fortsatt veldig bundet til det konkrete og håndgripelige, til her og nå-situasjonen og barn på ingers alder vil ifølge stadiebeskrivelsene normalt sett ikke kunne tenke om abstrakte størrelser. hvis vi inntar et kognitivt perspektiv og utarbeider en analytikk som vi ser på teksten med, vil en mulig konsekvens være at vi retter blikket mot jentas kognitive forutsetninger for å erkjenne morens død. analysespørsmålene kan her være: hvordan refererer barna til den som er død? er det forskjell på barna i alder når det gjelder hvordan de snakker om eller spør etter den døde? hvilke håndfaste, konkrete kilder til kunnskap har barna å støtte seg til i prosessen med å erkjenne morens død? hva legger vi merke til med dette som analytikk? jeg vil trekke fram to ting. først, med dette som analytikk vil vi legge merke til at jenta refererer til mamma. referansen til mamma vil kunne tolkes som et tegn på at morens død ikke er erkjent. vi vil kanskje også legge merke til at jenta faktisk også refererer til pappa: «både før mora var død og etterpå, gråt hun og sa: mamma, mamma eller pappa, pappa.» så, samtidig vil vi se at referansene til mamma sammen med gråt kom mest etter at moren var død. «alle reaksjoner kom egentlig mest etterpå.» konsekvensen av denne analytikken er at vi legger merke til de kognitive erkjennelsesprosessene knyttet til tapet, og disse er plassert i barnet – dette er kognitive, «indre» prosesser: barnets tenkning. «mamma mamma og pappa pappa» blir uttrykk som kan reflektere en slags indre kognitiv kompetanse eller grad av erkjennelse (hundeide, 1992). dette bærer med seg en i. hogstad: den kvalitative psykologis kraft til å forstyrre fenomenene. qualitative studies 7(1), pp. 45-63 ©2022 54 antakelse om at kognitiv erkjennelse eller forståelse kan eksistere «ferdige» i det enkelte barns sinn: ikke nødvendigvis at erkjennelsen er ferdig forstått, men at det barnet tenker og begriper, er i barnet. her må vi stoppe opp et øyeblikk. for, fra et kognitivt perspektiv, hva kan egentlig en teoretisk informert kvalitativ analyse av datamateriale fra intervju med en barnehagelærer gi oss kunnskap om? så lenge vi med den kognitivt inspirerte analytikken retter oppmerksomhet mot barns erkjennelsesprosesser som indre, kognitive prosesser, får vi ikke tilgang til det via intervjumateriale. med utgangspunkt i et kognitivt perspektiv ville man jo tross alt hatt andre forskningsspørsmål og brukt andre metoder enn kvalitative analyser av intervjumateriale: for eksempel har forskere fra en sterk kognitiv tradisjon undersøkt barns forståelse av døden både gjennom eksperimentelle og longitudinelle studier, hvor barns forståelse av døden har blitt målt og kvantifisert ved hjelp av strukturerte intervjuer og tester (johnsen, 2011). man kan dessuten spørre seg om et kognitivt perspektiv i det hele tatt ville egne seg som perspektiv når man undersøker barns sorg, all den tid kognitive perspektiver vil se kun språk, tenkning og erkjennelsesprosesser, og ikke tilbyr noen begreper til å se relasjonelle, emosjonelle prosesser. intervjumateriale kan altså ikke representere det fenomenet man ville være interessert i om man inntok et kognitivt perspektiv: indre prosesser. det ville være en felle å la intervjumaterialet representere dette. la oss ta et nytt teoretisk perspektiv og se hvilke konsekvenser det har å bruke et nytt blikk på det samme utdraget. sosiokulturelt inspirert analytikk sosiokulturell utviklingspsykologi er valgt til å utvikle analytikk her fordi det bærer med seg grunnleggende antakelser om kunnskap (epistemologi) og om hva som er virkelig (ontologi), som er vesentlig ulike fra det kognitive (hogstad, 2021), og som utgjør et viktig, forstyrrende bidrag til de tatt-for-gitte oppfatningene innen en del sorgforskning. barns sorg, ligger ikke klar “der ute” slik at forskeren skal “finne” den og framstille objektiv kunnskap om barns sorg. ved å bruke sosiokulturell utviklingspsykologi flytter vi blikket fra individuelle prosesser lokalisert inne i barnet over til barnet i samspill med andre innenfor en sosial og kulturell kontekst. utvikling kan ikke forstås uten deltakelse i fellesskaper: sosiokulturell utviklingspsykologi legger til grunn at barnet er en aktør: en i. hogstad: den kvalitative psykologis kraft til å forstyrre fenomenene. qualitative studies 7(1), pp. 45-63 ©2022 55 sosial aktør som gjennom et spekter av både språklige og ikke-språklige, kroppslige innspill deltar i sosiale og kulturelle praksiser (gulbrandsen, 2017a; højholt & kousholt, 2018). det psykologiske fenomenet «barns sorg», altså hvordan barns sorg kommer til syne, vil henge sammen med for eksempel hvordan barn involveres i kulturelle praksiser knyttet til dødsfall (menendez et al., 2020). sorg blir et relasjonelt fenomen, som blir til i møte mellom mennesker innenfor en sosial, historisk, kulturell sammenheng. en grunnleggende antakelse i sosiokulturell utviklingsteori er at psykologiske fenomener og prosesser ikke er «ferdig laga» inne i barnet, men formes og spilles ut i samspill med andre. konteksten blir dermed betydningsfull for hvordan noe blir meningsfullt, for eksempel hvilken mening et utsagn får i den sammenhengen det blir sagt. (et illustrerende eksempel på dette er følelsen av at noe «kom ut» annerledes enn du hadde tenkt før du sa det.) når inger sier noe, for eksempel «mamma mamma og pappa pappa», kan dette ses som en språkhandling: innspill til dialog og meningsskaping, som får sin mening i møte med andre i den konkrete sammenhengen det blir sagt. hvordan innspillene blir tatt imot legger føringer for hva de ender om med å bety, og for dialogen videre. hvordan våre innspill og initiativ sammen med andre blir forstått og tatt imot betyr noe for hvordan vi forstår oss selv og videre for hva vi opplever er våre muligheter til å bidra inn i det sosiale neste gang: både hvorvidt vi kommer med innspill i det hele tatt og hvordan vi opplever mulighetene til deltakelse (højholt & kousholt, 2018). hvis vi utarbeider en sosiokulturelt inspirert analytikk som vi leser tekst med, vil en mulig konsekvens være at vi ser på den felles meningsskapingen, både i det aktuelle samspillet, og i sosiokulturelle praksiser. vi får øye på den profesjonelle, og hennes bidrag inn i samspillet. i lesningen av datamaterialet kunne vi stille analysespørsmål som: hvordan forstår den voksne barnets uttrykk og hvordan blir hennes innspill tatt imot? hvilken betydning kan samspillet med den voksne ha for hvilke muligheter barnet får i den videre deltakelsen i samspill med andre? nå ser vi helt andre ting i materialet vårt. det er spesielt to ting jeg vil trekke fram som jeg legger merke til ved bruk av denne analytikken i lesning av utdraget over. det første er at paula sier: «vi var forundret over at det var mest sånn som det pleide.» hvilke forventninger hadde de til hvordan «det» skulle være som gjorde at de ble forundret? hvordan utgjorde forventningene til barnets sorguttrykk betingelser for jentas muligheter til å bli forstått som sørgende? i. hogstad: den kvalitative psykologis kraft til å forstyrre fenomenene. qualitative studies 7(1), pp. 45-63 ©2022 56 det andre er at paula videre forteller om måter hun og de andre ansatte i barnehagen møtte jentas utspill på: «da kunne vi støtte henne på det, møte henne med det at ‘mamma er død’ og ‘mamma er i himmelen’ og ‘skjønner at du er lei deg’». hvordan åpner disse svarene for videre samtale? åpner de muligheter for barnets videre innspill? svarene framstår som noe konkluderende. samtidig er de svar, og man kan si at bruken av disse formuleringene er med på å innvie jenta i kulturelle forståelser av døden: begrepet himmelen, at død er forbundet med å være lei seg. at det er greit og riktig å være lei seg når mamma er død (hogstad & wold, 2016). med den kognitivt inspirerte analytikken blir vi opptatt av barnets forståelse. det man med den sosiokulturelt inspirerte analytikken ser som sorguttrykk, blir kanskje ikke sorguttrykk i det hele tatt med den kognitivt inspirerte analytikken, men heller et uttrykk for en manglende erkjennelse av døden. med den sosiokulturelt inspirerte analytikken lokaliserer vi det psykologiske fenomenet «sorguttrykk» ikke kun i eller hos barnet, men i situasjonen som involverer både paula og inger. sorguttrykket blir til i samspillet mellom paula og inger. det betyr videre at sorguttrykket kan bli til på nye måter i nye møter, i andre sammenhenger. kunnskap og praksis reproduseres de to analytikkene avgrenserog lokaliserer det psykologiske fenomenet sorguttrykk på forskjellig måte og produserer ulik kunnskap. et enkelt poeng med å bruke den kognitiv teori-inspirerte analytikken, og deretter den sosiokulturelt inspirerte, er at sistnevnte kan fungere som et slags korrektiv til den første: vi blir i stand til å se kritisk på tidligere forskning om barns sorg fordi den sosiokulturelle teorien gir en alternativ tolkning som utfordrer etablert kunnskap. dette korrektivet trengs innen sorgforskningen, hvor feltet framstår nærmest mettet på forskning som reproduserer forståelser av at små barn ikke kan forstå døden, og med det reproduksjon av praksiser hvor barn holdes utenfor felles meningsskaping om sorg og død. vi trenger forskning som inntar teoretiske perspektiver som hjelper oss til å se små barns sorg på nye måter. men det er ikke så enkelt som at vi kan bruke sosiokulturell teori og tro at vi har funnet «den rette» teorien eller trumfe gjennom en «riktig» tolkning. en slik riktig tolkning finnes fortsatt ikke. tidligere presenterte jeg begrepet representasjonsfellen, og stilte spørsmålstegn ved hva intervjutranskript egentlig kan vise oss. det som er både i. hogstad: den kvalitative psykologis kraft til å forstyrre fenomenene. qualitative studies 7(1), pp. 45-63 ©2022 57 kompliserende og interessant med å innta det sosiokulturelle perspektivet, er antakelsen om at paulas tolkning og forståelse av barnet vil være strukturert av kulturelle forestillinger. når hun gjør erfaringene i det konkrete møtet, gjør hun allerede en tolkning. forståelsesbriller tilbys for eksempel fra kulturelle forestillinger om sorg og barn, som folkepsykologiske varianter av piagets utviklingspsykologi (andenæs, 2012; olson & bruner, 1996). videre blir erfaringene med dette møtet prosessert; bearbeidet i etterkant, kanskje noe er glemt og andres meninger har kommet til underveis. intervjuet er en sosial situasjon og når paula intervjues, så skjer enda en konstruksjon: kanskje er det noe som filtreres bort fordi hun tenker det ikke er relevant ut fra hvordan hun oppfatter min agenda som forsker, eller ikke ønsker å framstå slik eller slik. samtidig var jeg som intervjuer med på å dreie samtalen inn mot min forskningsinteresse, og vi kan se at paula «kommer på» ting underveis i intervjuet. dette er kompliserende fordi intervjutranskriptet bærer med seg lag på lag med mening, og samtidig vil det alltid være delvis og ukomplett. et så komplekst, sammensatt materiale kan heller ikke brukes til å konkludere med ny, objektiv kunnskap. forskning som reproduksjon for forskere som starter ut med en grunnleggende forståelse av at små barn ikke kan sørge fordi de ikke forstår døden, gir det ikke mening å forske på små barns sorg. de minste barnas sorg er også et understudert fenomen innen sorgforskningen (hogstad, 2021). om jeg som forsker skulle finne på å forske på barns sorg med utgangspunkt i en antakelse om at små barn ikke kan forstå døden, kan det hende det er barns manglende forståelse som er akkurat det jeg ender opp med å se. som jeg har vist i denne artikkelen, har antakelsene betydning som tolkningsutgangspunkt, men det er ikke kun slik de har kraft. antakelser om menneskenaturen, om kunnskap og om hva som er virkelig, utgjør en slags metateori (nafstad, 2005). metateorien har betydning for hele forskningsprosessen: for hva vi forstår som et problem, hva vi søker å undersøke, hvordan vi designer studier, for hvordan vi går fram i empiriske undersøkelser av fenomenet. uten åpenhet omkring de metateoretiske antakelsene, står man i fare for å framstille forskningsresultatene som sannheter. når forskningsbasert kunnskap utgjør grunnlaget for politikkutforming og profesjonell praksis, vil denne kunnskapen være med å reprodusere fenomenene. la meg forklare hvordan dette kan skje. i. hogstad: den kvalitative psykologis kraft til å forstyrre fenomenene. qualitative studies 7(1), pp. 45-63 ©2022 58 profesjonell praksis som reproduksjon når utviklingspsykologiens etablerte kunnskap om at barn ikke kan forstå døden før de er minst 6 år (hogstad & wold, 2016), nedfelles som en folkepsykologisk teori, har denne betydning for hvordan barnehagelæreren tolker og forstår barnets atferd og uttrykk i barnehagen i forbindelse med foreldresykdomog død. er det i det hele tatt sorguttrykk? hvis det implisitt er en teoretisk gitt umulighet at barnet «kan forstå» døden, vil barnehagelæreren begrenses fra å tolke uttrykk som forståelse. eller sagt på en annen måte: om barnehagelæreren implisitt antar at barnet er for ung til å forstå, vil hun se manglende forståelse. det kan medføre at barnets atferd og uttrykk ikke tolkes som sorguttrykk. dette legger videre føringer for hvordan hun svarer på barnets utsagn, og hennes utspill vil videre legge føringer for barnets mulige gjensvar. hvis paula og kollegaene forstår det som at inger ikke kan vite «hvor» mammaen er når hun er død, vil de kanskje søke å hjelpe henne mot en erkjennelse av tingenes faktiske tilstand? da gir det mening å svare i en konkluderende tone: «mamma er død» og «mamma er i himmelen», noe som antakelig ikke vil åpne for nye innspill fra inger selv. paula og kollegaene vil dermed kunne få bekreftet en oppfatning om at inger «ikke forstår». denne oppfatningen kan befestes og reproduseres videre i nye situasjoner og sammenhenger senere. bruk av forskjellige analytikker forstyrrer fenomenet hvordan kan øvelsen med å anvende forskjellige analytikker på det samme empiriske materiale, ha implikasjoner for videre forskning og for praksis som ikke blott reproduserer? et ytterligere poeng med å bruke den kognitiv teori-inspirerte analytikken, og deretter den sosiokulturelt inspirerte, er at selve øvelsen vi har gjort med de to lesningene gjør at teksten «kommer i spill». den umiddelbare tolkningen av teksten, eller av ingers uttrykk og situasjon, framstår plutselig ikke så selvfølgelig. en følge av dette er at det blir lettere å få øye på de metateoretiske antakelsene som har ligget til grunn: de blir ikke lenger tatt-for-gitte og udiskuterbare. det åpner seg nye muligheter for å stille nye spørsmål i forskningen. nye spørsmål gir også andre svar, slik vi så at de ulike analysespørsmålene vi brukte med de to forskjellige analytikkene, gjorde. særlig vil jeg her legge vekt på betydningen av hvordan vi avgrenser fenomenene. det å lokalisere fenomenet barns sorg som noe som ikke bare kommer til uttrykk i-, men også blir til i i. hogstad: den kvalitative psykologis kraft til å forstyrre fenomenene. qualitative studies 7(1), pp. 45-63 ©2022 59 samspill mellom mennesker, har vesentlig betydning for hvordan vi går fram for å forske på barns sorg. en annen studie som kan tjene som et eksempel på dette, er hvordan den danske psykologen dorte marie søndergaard gjennom en teoretisk informert analyse av barn og unges gaming, utfordrer tatt for gitte grenser mellom det ekte og det virituelle (the ‘real–virtual divide’) og med det åpner opp for å innlemme gaming i forståelsen av «ekte» sosiale prosesser blant barn og unge (søndergaard, 2013). den virkelige kraften i analysen som jeg har gitt en smakebit på i denne artikkelen, vil komme fram om de forskjellige lesningene oppleves av de profesjonelle som møter små barn. undervisningsopplegg, for eksempel i barnehagelærerutdanningene, eller som innlemmes som kursopplegg for aktive barnehagelærere og assistenter, kan presentere empiriske eksempler med forskjellige tolkningsmuligheter hvor utøverne selv trekkes inn i tolkningsarbeidet. målet skal ikke være å vise en riktig tolkning, men å demonstrere hvordan vi alltid tolker mot en bakgrunn som får betydning for hva vi ser og blir virksom i den videre produksjonen av praksis. i praksis medfører det å vise mangfoldet i tolkningsmuligheter potensiale for et mer utforskende blikk i senere situasjoner. istedenfor å se det forventede, vil det åpne for å legge merke til nye ting, og for mer undring. med et nytt blikk og mer undring tilhører nye muligheter for handling, både for den profesjonelle og for barnet som inngår i samspill med den profesjonelle. det utforskende blikket kan bidra til å endre forståelsen og støtten til barnet ved at barnet får andre spørsmål, kanskje mer åpne spørsmål. dette åpner for barnet nye muligheter for andre innspill, som videre kan være med på å gi den profesjonelle nye forståelser av barnet. endrede profesjonelle praksiser vil ha potensiale til å forstyrre fenomenet barns sorg. i. hogstad: den kvalitative psykologis kraft til å forstyrre fenomenene. qualitative studies 7(1), pp. 45-63 ©2022 60 referanser andenæs, a. (2012). hvilket barn? om barneliv, barnehage og utvikling. tidsskrift for nordisk barnehageforskning, 5(1), 1-14. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.7577/nbf.316 burman, e. (2008). deconstructing developmental psychology (2. utg.). routledge. bøttcher, l., kousholt, d., & winther-lindqvist, d. a. (2018a). indledende refleksioner over analyseprocesser og kvalitetsdimensioner. i l. bøttcher, d. kousholt, & d. a. winther-lindqvist (red.), kvalitative analyseprocesser: med eksempler fra det pædagogiske psykologiske felt (s. 17-38). latgales druka: samfundslitteratur. bøttcher, l., kousholt, d., & winther-lindqvist, d. a. (red.). (2018b). kvalitative analyseprocesser: med eksempler fra det pædagogiske psykologiske felt. latgales druka: samfundslitteratur. carnevale, f. a. 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(2017). jean piaget: en konstruktivistisk teori om barns utvikling. i l. m. gulbrandsen (red.), oppvekst og psykologisk utvikling: innføring i psykologiske perspektiver (2. utg., s. 212-234). oslo: universitetsforlaget. højholt, c., & kousholt, d. (2018). children participating and developing agency in and across various social practices. i m. fleer & b. van oers (red.), international handbook of early childhood education (vol. 2, s. 1581-1597). dordrecht: springer. jackson, a. y., & mazzei, l. a. (2012). thinking with theory in qualitative research: viewing data across multiple perspectives (1. utg.). london: routledge. jackson, a. y., & mazzei, l. a. (2013). plugging one text into another. qualitative inquiry, 19(4), 261-271. https://doi.org/10.1177/1077800412471510 johnsen, i. h. (2011). barns forståelse av døden. impuls, 64(1), 44-49. kousholt, d. (2018). praksisteoretisk analyse: børnefamiliers hverdagsliv som eksempel. i l. bøttcher, d. kousholt, & d. a. winther-lindqvist (red.), kvalitative analyseprocesser: med eksempler fra det pædagogiske psykologiske felt (s. 263285). latgales druka: samfundslitteratur. mahon, m. m. (2011). death in the lives of children. i v. talwar, p. l. harris, & m. schleifer (red.), children's understanding of death (s. 61-97). cambridge university press. menendez, d., hernandez, i. g., & rosengren, k. s. (2020). children’s emerging understanding of death. child development perspectives, 14(1), 55-60. https://doi.org/10.1111/cdep.12357 nafstad, h. e. (2005). assumptions and values in the production of knowledge: towards an area ethics of psychology and the social sciences. i s. robinson & c. katulushi (red.), values in higher education (s. 150-158). vale of glamorgan, cardiff: aureus publishing. nesh (2021). forskningsetiske retningslinjer for samfunnsvitenskap og humaniora. gitt av den nasjonale forskningsetiske komité for samfunnsvitenskap, humaniora, juss og teologi (nesh). ny utgave 2021. hentet 1.5.2021, fra https://www.forskningsetikk.no/ressurser/publikasjoner/retningslinjer-nesh/ i. hogstad: den kvalitative psykologis kraft til å forstyrre fenomenene. qualitative studies 7(1), pp. 45-63 ©2022 62 olson, d. r., & bruner, j. s. (1996). folk psychology and folk pedagogy. i d. r. olson & n. torrance (red.), the handbook of education and human development: new models of learning, teaching, and schooling (s. 9-27). blackwell publishers. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1111/b.9780631211860.1998.00003.x piaget, j. (1929). the child's conception of the world. london: routledge & kegan paul. piaget, j. (1937). the construction of reality in the child (m. cook, trans.; english translation, 1954 ed.). new york: basic books. rosengren, k. s., miller, p. j., gutiérrez, i. t., chow, p. i., schein, s. s., anderson, k. n., & bauer, p. j. (2014). children's understanding of death: toward a contextualized and integrated account (vol. no. 312). boston, mass: wileyblackwell. røkholt, e. g., bugge, k. e., sandanger, h., sandvik, o., & hansson, k. (2018). forhold som påvirker sorg. i e. g. røkholt, k. e. bugge, o. sandvik, & h. sandanger (red.), sorg (2. utg., s. 53-73). fagbokforl. schraube, e. (2015). why theory matters: analytical strategies of critical psychology. estudos de psicologia (campinas), 32(3), 533-545. st. pierre, e. a., & jackson, a. y. (2014). qualitative data analysis after coding. qualitative inquiry, 20(16), 715-719. søndergaard, d. m. (2013). virtual materiality, potentiality and subjectivity: how do we conceptualize real-virtual interaction embodied and enacted in computer gaming, imagination and night dreams? subjectivity, 6(1), 55-78. søndergaard, d. m. (2018). analytiske læsestrategier analoge of digitale tilblivelsesprocesser som eksempel. i l. bøttcher, d. kousholt, & d. a. wintherlindqvist (red.), kvalitative analyseprocesser: med eksempler fra det pædagogiske psykologiske felt (s. 139-162). latgales druka: samfundslitteratur. i. hogstad: den kvalitative psykologis kraft til å forstyrre fenomenene. qualitative studies 7(1), pp. 45-63 ©2022 63 about the author: ingrid johnsen hogstad, phd, mphil i psykologi, er førsteamanuensis ved avdeling for helseog sosialfag ved høgskolen i molde, tilknyttet bachelorutdanning i vernepleie. sentrale forskningstema for hogstad er barns medvirkning og deltakelse, sorgog sorguttrykk hos barn og kulturelle forståelser av barn og barndom. i sin forskning er hogstad særlig opptatt av hvordan velferdsstatens profesjonsutøvere er med på å skape utviklingsbetingelser i barns oppvekstog hverdagsliv (på arenaer som barnehage, skole og helsetjenester). hogstad har siden 2021 ledet et forskningsog undervisningsprosjekt ved him om vernepleieren i skolen. vol. 5, no. 1, 2018, pp. 29–38 issn 1903-7031 striving for experiential resonance: critique, postcritique, and phenomenology jesper aagaard  aarhus university, department of psychology and behavioral sciences, barholins allé 11, bldg. 1350, #223, 8000 aarhus c: denmark (jaagaard@psy.au.dk) • given that qualitative researchers have (rightly) abandoned the idea of social scientific truths as mirrors of nature, what kindof truth do we hope to provide to our readers? in other words, what is the point of reading qualitative research? taking inspiration from paul ricoeur’s distinction between a hermeneutics of suspicion and a hermeneutics of faith, this article sketches out two possible answers. it first presents a critical approach that exposes hidden truths to educate and emancipate its readers. the concept of ‘critique’ has recently come under scrutiny, however, with postcritical scholars denouncing its tautological reasoning, its reductionist analytical strategies and its arrogant approach to other people. acknowledging these criticisms, the article then goes on to present a phenomenological approach that points out unnoticed truths to reverberate and resonate with its readers. it is argued that this self-consciously ‘weak’ approach helps us circumvent the analytical issues currently associated with critique. keywords: critique, interpretation, phenomenology, post-critique, resonance. • introduction knowledge. evidence. truth. qualitative researchers often refrain from using such grandiose terms (in fact, some of us even have problems writing these words without using ironic capitalization or metaphysical scare quotes), because they seem tainted by a metaphysical realism in which social reality is ‘out there’, waiting to be empirically studied and causally explained by the objective methods of social science (denzin, lincoln & giardina, 2006). in other words, these extravagant terms convey the idea of social science as a neutral purveyor of objective facts about the world, the so-called correspondence theory of truth. opposing this idea, qualitative researchers have long insisted that social scientific knowledge is socially, culturally, historically and politically embedded (gergen, 1973). this rhetorical strategy, however, raises an important question: if qualitative researchers embrace a philosophy of flux and abandon the idea of social scientific truths as mirrors of nature (rorty, 1979), what kind of truth do we hope to provide to our readers? in other words, what is the point of reading qualitative research? taking inspiration from paul ricoeur’s (1970) distinction between a hermeneutics of suspicion1 and a hermeneutics of faith, this article sketches out two possible answers: a critical approach and a phenomenological approach. the article first examines the critical approach, which exposes hidden truths to educate and emancipate its readers. in the past few years, however, this approach has come under scrutiny. eve sedgwick (2003), for instance, has forcefully rejected what she calls paranoid reading; bruno latour (2004b) has provocatively argued that critique has ‘run out of steam’, and rita felski (2015) has cogently identified the limits of critique. summarizing these arguments, we can say that the critical approach has been faulted for its tautological reasoning, its reductionist analytical strategies and its arrogant approach to other people. the article then goes on to explore the phenomenological approach, which points out unnoticed truths to reverberate and resonate with its readers. it is argued that this self-consciously ‘weak’ approach helps us circumvent the issues associated with the critical approach. in the interests of full disclosure, i should state that i consider my own research 29 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3260-7005 mailto:jaagaard@psy.au.dk 30 j. aagaard: striving for experiential resonance qualitative studies 5(1), pp. 29–38 ©2018 to belong to this latter camp, so this special issue constitutes a welcome opportunity to explore the phenomenon of resonance: what is it? when does it occur? and what does it do? to enhance readability, i here provide a schematic preview of the differences between the critical approach and the phenomenological approach (see table 1): table 1 the critical approach: a hermeneutics of suspicion what since ricoeur (1970) has become known as the hermeneutics of suspicion is a collection of interpretive strategies that relies on an architecture of meaning layered in terms of surface/depth, manifest/latent or apparent/hidden, with a deep gulf separating these two layers. as marx (1971) famously declared: ‘all science would be superfluous if the outward appearance and the essence of things directly coincided’ (p. 817). accordingly, while the hermeneutics of suspicion views the social world as inherently meaningful, it treats all surface meanings with suspicion, because such outward appearances are presumed to conceal a deeper and truer layer of meaning. for marx, this hidden truth was class struggle; for freud, it was libidinous drives; for nietzsche, it was the will to power. although operating beneath the surface, these structures are taken to regulate people’s behaviour and condition their experiences. ricoeur’s masters of suspicion therefore shared a profound mistrust of people’s ordinary everyday experiences, which they primarily approached in terms of false consciousness. as a result, the critical approach does not take its analytical object (whether this be a statement, a dream or a common household item) at face value, but treats it as a symbol in which ‘a direct, primary, literal meaning designates, in addition, another meaning which is indirect, secondary, and figurative and which can be apprehended only through the first’ (ricoeur, 1974: 12f). in other words, the hermeneutics of suspicion uses its analytical object as a gateway to a deeper level of meaning. freud, for instance, saw the manifest content of a dream as little more than a carrier for the significant content, which is latent. as frieden (1990) explains: ‘freud’s dream theories rely on the basic opposition between manifest and latent dream contents, between actual dream images and concealed meaning, explicit and implicit layers, surface and depth structures’ (p. 21). to unlock its secrets, critical interpreters read the analytical object in accordance with a theoretical apparatus such as psychoanalysis or marxism. using this theoretical master key, the critical interpreter performs a symptomatic reading of the object, which plumbs its depths and digs out ‘a latent meaning behind a manifest one’ (jameson, 2013: 45). the hermeneutics j. aagaard: striving for experiential resonance qualitative studies 5(1), pp. 29–38 ©2018 31 of suspicion thus involves an element of esotericism in that it presupposes the specific style of reading that is necessary for that particular form of decoding (josselson, 2004). the purpose of a symptomatic reading is to penetrate the surface of the analytical object, get in touch with its underlying layer of meaning and unmask this repressed truth. such demystification eschews the object’s apparent meaning in order to uncover the truth that lurks beneath its surface. as ricoeur (1970) argues, ‘this hermeneutics is not an explication of the object, but a tearing off of masks, an interpretation that reduces disguises’ (p. 30). the quest for such hidden truth presupposes some sort of explanatory structure that lies beneath and explains the surface appearances (e.g. class struggle, libidinous drives, will to power). while a recourse to such grand metanarratives has lost some momentum in our postmodern times, felski (2015) convincingly argues that many strands of poststructuralism can still be characterized as suspicious, since they retain the basic architecture of meaning while simply inverting the relationship between surface and depth: ‘it is superficiality that is now the hidden truth, while interiority is demoted to a deceptive façade’ (p. 80). while suspicious scholars traditionally ‘dig down’ to excavate a hidden layer, and poststructuralists ‘stand back’ to denaturalize the analytical object, both approaches require the interpreter to tear away a veil of appearances in order to expose what is really going on to the reader. in both forms of interpretation, the researcher is thus positioned as an enlightened authority that has already discovered some truth and must now lead others to see it, too. since this truth transcends everyday experience, it is not important that lay people and other outsiders immediately understand or agree to it. in fact, a cardinal objective of the hermeneutics of suspicion is to debunk ordinary people’s beliefs and educate them on the hidden forces that drive their existence. this is thought to emancipate them from the thrall of false consciousness. ‘it is the lesson of spinoza’, ricoeur (1970) argues, ‘one first finds himself a slave, he understands his slavery, he rediscovers himself free within understood necessity’ (p. 35). the truth shall set you free. truth in the critical approach can thus be understood as a movement from secrecy to exposure, from ignorance to knowledge, or from darkness to light. this kind of learning can be considered as a formation of critical consciousness, the ability to see through deceptive appearances, or simply as the ‘unlearning of bullshit’ (colaizzi, 1978). brinkmann (2012) calls this critical strategy ‘making the hidden obvious’ and uses ian parker’s (1996) analysis of the directions on the back of a tube of children’s toothpaste as an example (p. 188f): directions for use choose a children’s brush that has a small head and add a pea-sized amount of »punch & judy«–toothpaste. to teach your child to clean teeth, stand behind and place your hand under the child’s chin to tilt head back and see mouth. brush both sides of teeth as well as tops. brush after breakfast and last thing at night. supervise the brushing of your child’s teeth until the age of eight. if your child is taking fluoride treatment, seek professional advice concerning daily intake. contains 0.8 per cent sodium monofluorophosphate. to the untrained eye, these directions may at first glance look like innocuous instructions for caring for one’s child, but parker argues that they actually contain a rich tapestry of power, violence and domination. according to parker’s analysis, ‘punch initiates the infant and the audience (of children) into a form of violent (ir)rationality, a surplus of enjoyment in the puppet narrative which is also, for the battered baby, and judy, beyond the pleasure principle’ (p. 191f). this symptomatic reading unmasks the exercise of power that lurks behind an otherwise innocuous everyday object. as a result, the toothpaste text can no longer be read with an innocent eye. distrusting the hermeneutics of suspicion for many years, the merits of the critical approach seemed self-evident as social science prided itself on exposing hidden power structures. additionally, the very notion of ‘critique’ is normatively powerful: after all, who wants to be associated with the uncritical, the gullible 32 j. aagaard: striving for experiential resonance qualitative studies 5(1), pp. 29–38 ©2018 and the naïve? gayatri spivak (1996), however, has argued that ‘deconstruction, if one wants a formula, is, among other things, a persistent critique of what one cannot not want’ (p. 28). in that spirit, the concept of critique has recently come under scrutiny in academic fields like queer theory, sociology and literary studies: eve sedgwick (2003), for instance, has forcefully rejected what she calls paranoid reading; bruno latour (2004b) has provocatively argued that critique has ‘run out of steam’, and rita felski (2015) has cogently identified the limits of critique. two things need mentioning with regard to this burgeoning field of so-called ‘postcritique’ (anker & felski, 2017). first, while a backlash against critique may sound like nostalgic yearning for natural scientific realism, these postcritical scholars are emphatically not seeking to replace meanings and interpretations with objectivity and brute facts. paraphrasing susan sontag (1990), they readily accept interpretation in the broad sense in which ‘there are no facts, only interpretations’, but protest the narrower sense in which critical interpreters say, ‘look, don’t you see that x is really—or, really means—a?’. secondly, any critique of critique can logically be faulted for having critical aims itself, for having a blind spot regarding its own hermeneutics of suspicion (barnwell, 2016). postcritical scholars are well aware of this performative paradox. felski (2015), for instance, explicitly avoids lapsing into a metasuspicion that exposes, subverts and dismisses critique. her book is not ‘against’ disagreement, objection or negative judgment. ‘i have engaged in all these activities in the preceding pages’, as she states in its conclusion (p. 187). the goal of postcritique is not to do away with critique, but to treat it simply as one language game among others, to challenge the fact that critique has become ‘a mandatory injunction rather than a possibility among possibilities’ (sedgwick, 2003: 125). apart from its hegemonic status, however, what seems to be the matter with critique? according to postcritical scholars, there are at least three additional problems. the first issue is the strongly tautological nature of critique. according to sedgwick (2003), its fierce aversion to surprise means that critical interpretation requires bad news to be known in advance. presuming the inescapability of some harmful entity x, however, leads researchers to circularity: it is first argued that no area of inquiry is immune to the influence of x, because x is an omnipresent systemic condition that colours everything that we say and do. this assumption leads to an ‘anticipatory mimetic strategy’, in which the influence of x is presumed so as not to catch us off guard. in the end, this interpretation ends up proving its own assumption, namely that x is significant. we inevitably end up at the predetermined destination, but, as felski (2008) asks, ‘what virtue remains in the act of unmasking when we know full well what lies beneath the mask?’ (p. 1). this circular reasoning leads us to a second flaw of critical interpretation, namely that it is (or at least can be) peculiarly reductionist. the critical approach treats its analytical objects as symbols that, when properly read, yield hidden truths about large-scale, »hypostasized villains« (fleissner, 2017) like neoliberalism, patriarchy, technocracy or capitalism. the analytical object thereby serves as a reflection, expression, or manifestation of one of these larger entities. the problem with this interpretive strategy is not that it is necessarily wrong (in fact, it might be alarmingly accurate), but that the analytical object is reduced to allegory and ceases to matter. as latour (2005) argues: ‘if some “social factor” is transported through intermediaries, then everything important is in the factor, not in the intermediaries. for all practical purposes, it can be substituted by them without any loss of the nuances’ (p. 105). the critical approach strips the analytical object of agency and reduces it to a neutral instrument that simply transports meaning from one domain to another. finally, there is the arrogant demeanour of critique. according to latour (2004b), critical scholars have always known better than ordinary actors, often dismissing and deconstructing these people’s naïve beliefs. ‘you have to learn to become suspicious of everything people say because of course we all know that they live in the thralls of a complete illusio of their real motives’ (p. 229). critical interpreters are presumed to have privileged access to the world compared to ordinary actors, whose understandings are taken to spring from hidden enj. aagaard: striving for experiential resonance qualitative studies 5(1), pp. 29–38 ©2018 33 tities of which they remain blissfully unaware. accordingly, critique adopts a rather condescending stance towards other people, who are treated as self-deluded pawns: ‘forgive them father, for they know not what they do’ (latour, 1996: 199). when language is taken to speak through people, for instance, individuals become unwitting mouthpieces for certain discourses, and we can safely brush away their own understandings of what they say and do. this critical strategy can also be found outside the walls of academia. not too long ago here in denmark, for instance, a male member of parliament suggested that female left-wing politicians who oppose increased immigration control are acting under the sway of repressed sexual desire for middle eastern men.2 conversely, politicians who favour increased immigration control are often accused of acting out of latent racism rather than legitimate political concerns. in both cases, the assumption is not only that the other party is mistaken about their own motives (‘look, don’t you see that what you’re doing, x, is really—or, really means—a?’), but also that, if they only realized the truth of this interpretation, they would presumably change their wicked ways. just like that, political disagreement turns into epistemological deficiency. in the words of ricoeur (1981): ‘ideology is the thought of my adversary, the thought of the other. he does not know it, but i do’ (p. 186). summarizing these arguments, we can say that the critical approach has been faulted for its tautological reasoning, its reductionist analytical strategies and its arrogant approach to other people. the phenomenological approach: a hermeneutics of everydayness how do we overcome the shortcomings of the critical approach? there are almost as many suggestions as there are detractors. in this section, however, i want to sketch out a phenomenological approach derived from division i of martin heidegger’s magnum opus being and time (1927/2008). according to hubert dreyfus’s (1991) highly influential interpretation of this book, this first division relies on a hermeneutics of everydayness (equivalent to ricoeur’s hermeneutics of faith), while the second division goes on to apply a hermeneutics of suspicion. ‘the job of division i is thus to call attention to those aspects of everyday activity that that activity itself makes it difficult for us to notice’ (p. 36). calling attention to unnoticed aspects of everyday activity is in fact a succinct characterization of the phenomenological approach that follows. the overarching principle of heidegger’s – and, indeed, any—phenomenological approach is captured in the famous maxim ‘to the things themselves!’ (zu den sachen selbst!) (carman, 2006). but what exactly are such things? according to heidegger, they are neither physical objects nor brute matters of fact, but phenomena defined as ‘that which shows itself in itself’ (p. 51). importantly, such phenomena cannot be reduced to mere appearances, and heidegger ferociously opposed any such metaphysical distinctions between appearance and reality: ‘behind the phenomena of phenomenology’, he argued, ‘there is essentially nothing else’ (p. 60). phenomenology thus relies on a flat architecture of meaning: human being is interpretation ‘all the way down’ (dreyfus, 1991). there is nothing lurking behind our everyday practices that can be invoked to explain them; there is only interpretation within these practices, and the researcher’s job is to ‘interpret the interpretation embodied in our current practices in as comprehensive and responsible a way as possible’ (dreyfus, 1980: 14). but if phenomenological inquiry is concerned with ‘that which shows itself in itself’, then what is the point of doing it? what does it let us see that we do not already know? ‘manifestly, it is something that first and foremost precisely does not show itself’, heidegger argued, ‘something that, in contrast to what first and foremost shows itself, is hidden, but is at the same time something that essentially belongs to that which first and foremost shows itself, and belongs to it in such a way as to constitute its meaning and ground’ (p. 59). the first law of phenomenology states that what is closest to us in our everyday activity remains furthest from us in terms of our ability to take it up and understand it (thomson, 2009). as wittgenstein (2009) said: ‘the aspects of things that are most important for us are hidden because of their simplicity and familiarity. (one is unable to notice something—because it 34 j. aagaard: striving for experiential resonance qualitative studies 5(1), pp. 29–38 ©2018 is always before one’s eyes.)’ (§129). the purpose of phenomenology is to point out these obvious but unnoticed aspects. this process is known as disclosure, heidegger’s translation of the greek word aletheia, which means to discover or draw out of concealment—to make the unnoticed noticed. in this process, the phenomenological researcher acts as an experiential guide who uses meticulous attention to detail and evocative examples to convey their analysis. the phenomenologist’s job is to point out details and make them ‘light up’ in order to get the reader to notice them. the phenomenologist’s endeavour is thus somewhat similar to toril moi’s (2017) description of sherlock holmes’s investigative process: ‘it’s not that the others look at the surface, whereas sherlock looks beneath it. it is that he pays attention to details they didn’t think to look at’ (p. 186). in other words, the phenomenological researcher applies the hermeneutical conception of interpretation as explication (auslegung), which means to lay out, unfold and elucidate (dreyfus, 1980). such explication is related to what albert borgmann (1984) calls deictic discourse: ‘the word “deictic” comes from greek deiknýnai, which means to show, to point out, to bring to light, to set before one, and then also to explain and to teach. speakers of deictic discourse never finally warrant the validity of what they tell but point away from themselves to what finally matters; they speak essentially as witnesses’ (p. 178). to achieve disclosure, phenomenological inquiry takes departure in human experience in its average everydayness. contrary to the hermeneutics of suspicion, the hermeneutics of everydayness has faith in people’s experiences of the world. this is not to say that people always know with certainty why they are acting (phenomenology is not seeking a return to the self-transparent cartesian subject), but that it is imperative to trace meaning back to people’s lived experiences. as felski (2015) puts it, ‘i strive to remain on the same plane as my object of study rather than casting around for a hidden puppeteer who is pulling the strings’ (p. 6). phenomenology thus offers understanding from within: truth may be unnoticed, undiscovered, or hidden in plain sight, but it is there. the devil is in the details. in my own research on digital technology, i subscribe to an actor-network-inspired variant of phenomenology called postphenomenology (aagaard, 2017). while the topic of technology will not be further explored here, i find it instructive to follow postphenomenology’s refusal to treat its analytical objects (i.e. technologies) as mere epiphenomena. instead, postphenomenology follows latour’s (2005) injunction to treat things as concrete and ‘worthy’ actors in their own right. the analytical object has to be treated as a fully fledged and irreducible phenomenon that is investigated in its specificity. as don ihde (1998) maintains: ‘the postmodern hermeneutics of things must find ways to give voices to things, to let them speak for themselves’ (p. 158). this insistence on letting things speak impedes large-scale critiques of capitalism, technocracy or neoliberalism, because, at this level of abstraction, technologies are often reduced to mute symbols of such nebulous entities (aagaard, 2017). resonance: the phenomenological nod of recognition but if phenomenology neither discovers objective facts nor unmasks hidden truths, then what does it do? according to max van manen (1990), a good phenomenological description resonates with life and evokes the phenomenological nod of recognition. the concept of resonance derives from the words re (back, again) and sonare (to sound) and means to echo, reverberate, or ‘re-sound’. the goal of phenomenology is thus not to shock or surprise, but to strike a chord of familiarity with its readers. when a text resonates with the reader, it excites, stimulates and sets the person in motion. it moves the reader. what van manen calls the ‘phenomenological nod’ is the embodied expression of such experiential resonance. as michaele ferguson (2009) argues, applying resonance as a validity criterion helps us steer between the tricky extremes of false universalism (‘everybody shares the same experiences’) and idiosyncratic subjectivism (‘each person’s experiences are unique’): ‘we can only generalize from these experiences for those with whom they resonate’ (p. 54). a phenomenological interpretation offers itself to anyone readj. aagaard: striving for experiential resonance qualitative studies 5(1), pp. 29–38 ©2018 35 ing the article, but does not lay claim to universality. one of phenomenological research’s ardent critics, john paley (2017), raises a critical objection to using resonance as a validity criterion, namely that, if the phenomenological nod is the litmus test of good research, then phenomenology cannot tell us anything that we did not already know: ‘in which case, what’s the point of it?’ (p. 71). so, is phenomenology just trite, predictable and uninformative? not at all. by pointing toward something that has remained unnoticed and overlooked, but which we immediately recognize when it is pointed out, phenomenological research helps us notice and spell out certain important aspects of our everyday practices. brinkmann (2012) calls this phenomenological strategy ‘making the obvious obvious’ and uses iris marion young’s seminal article throwing like a girl (1980) as an example. in this article, young describes how women are socialized to comport their bodies in inhibited ways when throwing (but also when walking, lifting, and so forth): while boys step forward, rotate their hips and shoulders, and hurl the ball forward, girls do not bring their whole bodies into motion. ‘rather, the girls tend to remain relatively immobile except for their arms, and even the arm is not extended as far as it could be’ (p. 142). girls, in other words, throw only with their forearm and elbow joint. in accordance with the criterion of resonance, young notes that this analysis is not necessarily applicable to all women and may also apply to some men (there is a famous picture of then president barack obama ‘throwing like a girl’ as he throws the ceremonial first pitch at the washington nationals’ 2010 home opener). nevertheless, young’s analysis (sadly) resonates with many of us. as bonnie mann (2009) puts it: ‘“like a girl” is one of those phrases we wish didn’t make sense, and hope one day will not’ (p. 84). young does not simply describe the overt physical movements involved in feminine body comportment, however, but meticulously analyses the meaning of such comportment: inhibited intentionality. this meaning does not lie hidden behind, beneath or beyond the phenomenon, but originates from the steady repetition of restricted movements over time. the issue is not spatial, but chronological. young’s article certainly is not uncritical, but alters the usual direction of attack: instead of finding patriarchy hidden behind everyday practices, young demonstrates how it is constituted within them. patriarchy is not so much expressed in baseball as it is performed or enacted within it. it should be mentioned that the phenomenological approach described here is more akin to a broad, qualitative stance than a substantial theoretical allegiance. accordingly, the concept of resonance is in no way limited to texts that self-identify as phenomenological. in fact, the first time i remember having the phenomenological nod of recognition evoked was not at all while reading phenomenology, but when, as an undergraduate, i read erving goffman’s descriptions of behaviour in public places. goffman’s knack for dissecting the micro-dramas of everyday life has led pierre bourdieu (1983) to characterize him as a ‘discoverer of the infinitely small’ and howard becker (2003) to describe his work accordingly: ‘to begin with, many of the things he gives names to are well known to us, his readers. we recognize them immediately; they are familiar experiences we have had or events we have witnessed. but, and this is a very important but, we don’t have names for these experiences and events […] we feel that we have always known it but, until goffman gave it to us, did not know its name’ (p. 663). as an example of this uncanny ability, here is a brief excerpt from goffman’s (1963) descriptions of civil inattention: ‘where the courtesy is performed between two persons passing on the street, civil inattention may take the special form of eyeing the other up to approximately eight feet, during which time sides of the street are apportioned by gesture, and then casting the eyes down as the other passes – a kind of dimming of lights’ (p. 84). reading this passage, i immediately recognized the phenomenon goffman describes and thought to myself, ‘how have i never noticed that before?’. it’s not that my previous way of perceiving the world was somehow false or mistaken; i simply had not noticed that particular aspect of life before and was now struck by it. accordingly, resonance does not so much penetrate a veil of ignorance as sharpen the reader’s sensory apparatus. as latour (2004a) 36 j. aagaard: striving for experiential resonance qualitative studies 5(1), pp. 29–38 ©2018 puts it: ‘the more you learn, the more differences exist’ (p. 213). and after reading goffman’s texts, one’s world becomes slightly more articulated. conclusion the critical and phenomenological approaches share a number of family resemblances. they both view mainstream psychology as flawed in its objectivism and instead take departure in an inherently meaningful social world (i.e. they are both hermeneutic). as a result, both approaches take an interpretive approach to studying human beings. although quite similar in that respect, however, the two approaches are far from identical, and it was this article’s contention that the phenomenological approach helps us circumvent the problems that postcritical scholars have pinpointed. first, there is the tautological notion of already knowing what you are going to find. the phenomenological approach tries to avoid this circular disposition by remaining modest, attentive and inquisitive concerning its analytical objects. using sedgwick’s distinction between weak and strong theory, we might say that the phenomenological approach has deliberately fashioned itself as a ‘weak’ theory that strives to give credence to the things themselves. does this lead us back to the naïve realism that we so desperately want to avoid? to an indiscriminate acceptance of the myth of the given? this is certainly an understandable concern, since some phenomenological scholars claim that phenomenology liberates us from theory and allows us to see the light of lived experience (see aagaard, 2017). phenomenology, however, is emphatically not a neutral lens through which we perceive a pre-given phenomenon, but an intellectual tool that shapes our research process all the way down to data collection: it influences what we see, which questions we ask, and what ultimately stands forth as significant (aagaard, 2017). a weak theory, in other words, is not the same as an empty theory. this clarification clears the way for an important distinction: although phenomenology dictates what to look at (i.e. experience), it remains open as to what we may find. by mediating the research process without determining its outcome, it thereby helps us break out of the tautological loop. secondly, there is the issue of reductionist analytical strategies. the critical approach treats the analytical as a symbol that has to be deciphered by an enlightened authority. this manoeuvre often leads us back to the usual suspects of discourse, power and capitalism. the phenomenological approach, however, does not grant much explanatory power to these macroscale entities, but treats its analytical objects as fully fledged and irreducible phenomena. we have to beware of one seemingly obvious consequence of this analytical move: to grant the idea that phenomenology is well suited for exploring phenomena at the individual level, but struggles to account for larger political and socio-economic structures. this kind of concession plays right into the stereotypical characterization of phenomenology as naïve and subjectivist (for an excellent discussion of this long-standing critique, see greiffenhagen & sharrock, 2008). but phenomenology does not advocate political complicity and quietism, nor does it endorse the status quo or hinder critique, as we have seen with young’s (1980) article. on the contrary, to give an account of political structures without attention to how we live them is to risk an abstract objectivism that cannot grasp the lived experience of structural injustice (mann, 2009). finally, there is the idea that critical scholars possess an acute awareness of the hidden structures that prefigure and mould other people’s experiences. in the situated perspective of phenomenology, there is no external vantage point from which the researcher can assume this privileged position vis-à-vis their analytical object. on the contrary, phenomenology wants to lead us back to the everyday world, and in this endeavour it considers people’s lived experience as a helpful ally against overly restrictive understandings: when sufficiently probed, lived experience exhibits nuances that cannot be contained by crass philosophical binaries. although it was not this article’s intention to let critique serve as a dialectical foil to phenomenology (things are not always simply as they appear, and critique certainly has its rightful place in qualitative research), this last issue constitutes a challenge to critique: when critical interpreters challenge j. aagaard: striving for experiential resonance qualitative studies 5(1), pp. 29–38 ©2018 37 or contradict the sentiments expressed by ordinary people, they owe us an account of the privileged position from which they make that call. endnotes 1. ricoeur’s now-famous phrase ‘hermeneutics of suspicion’ is actually nowhere to be found in freud and philosophy (1970), but came up at a later date (scottbaumann, 2009). 2. incredible as it may sound, this accusation actually happened. here is a link to the published letter (in danish): http://www.fyens.dk/debat/socialdemokratersvigter-kvinderne/artikel/3130263. references aagaard, j. 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(1970). freud and philosophy: an essay on interpretation. new haven: yale university press. ricoeur, p. (1974). existence and hermeneutics. in: the conflict of interpretations: essays in hermeneutics. evanston, il: northwestern university press. ricoeur, p. (1981). science and ideology. in: hermeneutics and the human sciences. cambridge: cambridge university press. rorty, r. (1979). philosophy and the mirror of nature. princeton, nj: princeton university press. scott-baumann, a. (2009). ricoeur and the hermeneutics of suspicion. new york: continuum. sedgwick, e. (2003). paranoid reading and reparative reading, or, you’re so paranoid, you probably think this essay is about you. in: touching feeling: affect, pedagogy, performativity. durham: duke university press. sontag, s. (1990). against interpretation. in: against interpretation and other essays. new york: anchor books. spivak, g. 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(1980). throwing like a girl: a phenomenology of feminine body comportment, motility and spatiality. human studies, vol. 3(2), p. 137-156. • about the author jesper aagaard is an assistant professor in the department of psychology and behavioural sciences at aarhus university, denmark. his research interests include qualitative methods, postphenomenology and media technologies. his phd study explored the relationship between using digital devices, paying attention and becoming distracted as these phenomena coalesce and intertwine in the contemporary classroom. paper 1: resonance in a hurried world paper 2: collaborative resonant writing and musical improvisation to explore the concept of resonance background and first step of the method method and process: further steps methodology and the intimacy of resonant writing conceptual dramework for the understanding of resonance physical vibrations and acoustic resonance psychological and dyadic resonance resonance and implicit knowledge in music therapy resonant learning exploring and processing the resonance phenomenon through group discussion and musical improvisation arts-based input and processing emerging metaphors discussion and collaborative writing analogy and metaphor negative resonance the opposite of resonance subtle nuances resonant exploring reflections on methods in collaborative writing and publishing: a nine-step model the discovery of a resonant, collaborative procedure conclusion and perspectives about the authors paper 3: resonant experience in emergent events of analysis process ontology in research methodology the becoming of self as a dynamic in analysis taking the attitude of process theory situating resonant experience in emergent events: the "when" of resonant experience case listening to the interview recording: becoming the one to understand the other researcher’s autobiographical narrative: being the possibly excluded resonant experience generative reflexivity implications for future research: iterative analysis and responsive reorganizing of knowledge and acknowledged experience concluding remarks about the author paper 4: striving for experiential resonance introduction the critical approach: a hermeneutics of suspicion distrusting the hermeneutics of suspicion the phenomenological approach: a hermeneutics of everydayness resonance: the phenomenological nod of recognition conclusion about the author microsoft word thøgersen & glintborg at udføre kvalitativ forskning med personer med kognitive funktionsnedsættelser.docx qualitative studies vol. 7, no. 1, 2022, pp. 132-152 issn 1903-7031 at udføre kvalitativ forskning med personer med kognitive funktionsnedsættelser metodiske udfordringer og styrker cecilie marie thøgersen1 & chalotte glintborg1 1aalborg university, department of communication and psychology, teglgårds plads 1, 12. sal, 9000 aalborg i takt med et øget fokus på det psykosociale bidrag til rehabiliteringen efter erhvervet hjerneskade og andre sygdomme som leder til kognitive funktionsnedsættelser, er behovet for at kunne foretage kvalitativ forskning af høj kvalitet med denne gruppe steget. derfor er formålet med denne artikel at belyse og diskutere nogle af de metodiske udfordringer samt styrker vi har mødt i det forskningsdrevne møde med personer med erhvervet hjerneskade (eh). dermed bidrager denne artikel til en metodisk diskussion som i høj grad er anerkendt som vigtig, men kun i begrænset omfang diskuteres (glintborg, 2019; paterson & scott-findlay, 2002). gennem artiklen diskuteres det, hvordan tilpasningen af metodiske tilgange til interviewet, kan lade sig inspirere af den allerede veldokumenterede viden om tilpasningen af terapeutiske samtaler med personer med eh (f.eks. gallagher et al., 2019). der arbejdes ud fra fem overordnede grupper af kognitive vanskeligheder og hvordan interviewet som metode bedst muligt tilpasses disse, samtidig med at berettigelse af de kvalitative metoder diskuteres indenfor forskningsområdet. keywords: kognitive funktionsnedsættelser, interview, metode, hjerneskade, rehabiliteringspykologisk forskning indledning i 2007 skrev carlsson og kollegaer: “people with communication impairments have expressed that they are more or less invisible in society” (carlsson et al., 2007, p. 1367). med udgangspunkt i aktuel forskning på området, synes denne problemstilling fortsat at gøre sig gældende – ikke bare for personer med kommunikative vanskeligheder, men generelt for personer med kognitive vanskeligheder efter erhvervet hjerneskade (glintborg, 2019; thøgersen & glintborg, 2021). studier viser at personer med erhvervet c. thøgersen & c. glintborg: at udføre kvalitativ forskning med personer med kognitive funktionsnedsættelser qualitative studies 7(1), pp. 132-152 ©2022 133 hjerneskade oplever at blive ramt på deres identitet og agency (dickinson et al., 2017; taubner et al., 2021), og at deres eget narrativ ikke længere vurderes validt af omgivelserne (glintborg, 2019). begrebet narrativ agency dækker over det at være i stand til og have mulighed for som individ at skabe sit eget narrativ om selvet. muligheden for at opnå narrativ agency kræver derved både, at den enkelte har individuel mulighed for at skabe et narrativ, men lige så vigtigt, at den enkeltes narrativ accepteres i en social kontekst (baldwin, 2005; taubner et al., 2021). det er derfor vigtigt at finde forskningsmetoder, der rummer og kan inkludere deltagere med kognitive vanskeligheder. det er som forsker vores ansvar at udvikle metoder og rammer, som muliggør deltagelse i forskning, for personer med kognitive vanskeligheder, så deres oplevelser også repræsenteres. den kvalitative forskning bidrager med vigtig viden, når målet er at indhente viden om den ramtes oplevelse af konkrete fænomener eller situationer. en autentisk historie, bundet på konteksten og øjeblikket hvori oplevelsen undersøges (nunkoosing, 2005). forskningsmetoden skal altid matche forskningsspørgsmålet og den kvalitative metode, må forstås som en fortolkningsproces fremfor en afrapportering af en sandhed givet ved konkrete citater fra informanten (saldana, miles, & huberman, 2019). dette åbner op for en større forståelse af bidraget fra personer med kognitive vanskeligheder og hvordan empiri fra forskellige modaliteter kan bidrage i en analyseproces. med denne artikel ønsker vi, på baggrund af flere års klinisk og forskningsmæssig erfaring indenfor dette område, at belyse og diskutere nogle af de metodiske udfordringer og styrker vi har mødt i det forskningsdrevne møde med personer med erhvervet hjerneskade. dermed bidrager denne artikel til en metodisk diskussion og med konkrete strategier, der generelt kan anvendes i interviews med personer med kognitive funktionsnedsættelser (glintborg, 2019; paterson & scott-findlay, 2002). interview som metode når vi som forskere kvalitativt skal undersøge et fænomen, eller en målgruppes oplevelse af et fænomen, søges ofte en omfangsrig og præcis beskrivelse, f.eks. gennem et interview. der er varierende bestemmelser af kvalitative metoder. denzin & lincoln definerer i deres håndbog “handbook of qualitative research” (2005) kvalitativ c. thøgersen & c. glintborg: at udføre kvalitativ forskning med personer med kognitive funktionsnedsættelser qualitative studies 7(1), pp. 132-152 ©2022 134 forskning som: ”a situated activity that locates the observer in the world. it consists of a set of interpretative, material practices that make the world visible. these practices transform the world” (s. 3). denne definition sammenfatter udmærket de mange variationer over temaet. med denzin & lincolns definition af kvalitativ forskning afgrænses denne til fortolkninger. disse fortolkninger kan være såvel tekst som tal, og afgrænser dermed den kvalitative forskning som en videnskab baseret på fortolkning i forhold til en kvantitativ videnskab, der baserer sig på manipulation af objekter. uden at udfolde en mere videnskabsteoretisk anskuelse på kvalitativ forskning, kan vi sige, at empiri indsamles eller opstår i mødet mellem informanter og forskere. hermed fremhæves vigtigheden af informantens rolle i forskningen. at informant såvel som forsker spiller en central rolle i den kvalitative forskning, kan medføre udfordringer, specielt hvis informanten oplever kognitive udfordringer. i denne artikel, vil vi primært beskæftige os med interviewet som kvalitativ metode. gennem tiden har interviewet være kritiseret ud fra forskellige perspektiver. et perspektiv er forskerens betydning for forskningen. f.eks. viser studier at forskerens køn og alder i nogle tilfælde kan have en betydning for hvordan informanten svarer (coolican, 2013). forskeren er aldrig bare interviewer, men har ofte flere positioner, som vedkommende bringer med i interviewsituationen og i den relation, der opstår mellem informant og forsker. en relation som yderligere er præget af at være en ulige relation, men som på flere måder søger at ligne en uformel samtale, for at give informanten en følelse af tryghed og derved lede informanten til at være mere aktiv i interviewet (nunkoosing, 2005). dette kan lede videre til det forhold at netop informanten selv bestemmer, hvilke historier han eller hun fortæller under et interview, men også at de historier afgøres af, hvad informanten husker (nunkoosing, 2005). i de tilfælde hvor man som forsker er uddannet psykolog og informanten ved dette, kan der også opstå en situation, hvor dette har en betydning for interviewets forløb. både som en styrke, men også en risiko, idet der kan opstå en situation, hvor det er svært at skelne mellem en udforskende og en terapeutisk samtale. evnen til at kunne reflektere og udtrykke sig verbalt spiller en stor rolle i den kvalitative forskning (nunkoosing, 2005). når informanter inkluderer personer med kognitive funnktionsnedsættelser udfordres interviewet som metode. det ses f.eks. c. thøgersen & c. glintborg: at udføre kvalitativ forskning med personer med kognitive funktionsnedsættelser qualitative studies 7(1), pp. 132-152 ©2022 135 indenfor hjerneskadeforskningen, hvor der har været en forståelse af, at udsagn fra hjerneskaderamte ikke kunne anskues som valide på baggrund af de kognitive vanskeligheder, en hjerneskade kan medføre (f.eks. paterson & scott-findlay, 2002). samtidig er der et stort behov for at indefra perspektivet fra netop disse målgrupper og en validering af hjerneskaderamtes oplevelser kommer frem. et punkt, som netop den kvalitative forskning kan bidrage til. tidligere fokus på tilpasning af interviewet som metode indenfor hjerneskadeområdet har der været initiativer med fokus på tilpasningen af forskningsmetoder til informanter med afasi (f.eks. luck & rose, 2007), mens behovet for tilpasning af metoder til de kognitive vanskeligheder i begrænset omfang har været belyst. tilbage i 2002 diskuterede paterson & scott-findlay (2002) metodiske udfordringer i forbindelse med at interviewe personer efter erhvervet hjerneskade. fokus på metodiske udfordringer er ofte begrænset til diskussioner af designmæssige begrænsninger i empiriske studier og kun i meget begrænset omfang belyst, som et selvstændigt emne i forhold til generelle kognitive udfordringer. annabel jones og kollegaer (2021) diskuterer etiske og metodiske udfordringer i forbindelse med at udføre fokusgruppe interview med deltagere med neurodegenerative sygdomme. de fremhæver vigtigheden af, at forskning involverer den pågældende population, men samtidig at der er behov for metodiske tilpasninger. de identificerede problematikker omhandler primært kognitive funktionsnedsættelser med et specielt fokus på kommunikation (jones et al., 2021). der er en del litteratur med fokus på metodiske udfordringer i forbindelse med kommunikative vanskeligheder (f.eks. carlsson et al., 2007; simmons-mackie & lynch, 2013; wilson & kim, 2021). med denne artikel ønsker vi nu at bidrage til den metodiske diskussion med et fokus på, hvordan de kvalitative metoder kan styrkes i forbindelse med ikke bare kommunikative vanskeligheder, men også kognitive vanskeligheder. kognitive udfordringer og betydningen heraf artiklens ærinde er ikke at diskutere de kognitive vanskeligheders ophav, men udelukkende at forholde os til deres udtryk og betydning for at indgå i forskning. på baggrund af flere års klinisk og forskningsmæssig erfaring på området, har vi identificeret og opstillet seks overordnede temaer/grupper af udfordringer som kræver tilpasning for at lave kvalitative studier: kommunikative vanskeligheder; opmærksomhed, igangsætning c. thøgersen & c. glintborg: at udføre kvalitativ forskning med personer med kognitive funktionsnedsættelser qualitative studies 7(1), pp. 132-152 ©2022 136 og udtrætning; hukommelse; konkret tænkning; indsigt, forsvar og identitet samt forudgående kendskab. temaerne stemmer overens med tidligere forskning, der har identificeret lignende temaer (f.eks. paterson & scott-findlay, 2002). samtidig er temaerne i overensstemmelse med de vanskeligheder, som i et review af gallagher et al. (2016) identificeres, som værende nødvendige at imødekomme gennem tilpasning af psykoterapeutisk intervention til personer med erhvervet hjerneskade. vi er opmærksomme på, at denne diskussion kan være forsimplet for nogle mennesker med erhvervet hjerneskade og at tilpasning af metoder altid bør tage udgangspunkt i det enkelte menneske. a. kommunikative vanskeligheder kommunikative vanskeligheder efter erhvervet hjerneskade kan være forskelligartede og derfor er der også behov for forskellige former for tilpasning. i denne diskussion vil vi primært beskæftige os med de vanskeligheder, der er knyttet til kognitive forandringer, herunder afasi. overordnet set er der et øget behov for fleksibilitet i mødet med deltageren med kommunikative vanskeligheder, f.eks. i form af anvendelsen af flere modaliteter (taubner et al., 2021). som tidligere nævnt spiller tænkning og tale en stor rolle i kvalitativ forskning (nunkoosing, 2005). på trods af dette, er det dog muligt at foretage interviews med personer med kognitive funktionsnedsættelser, også selvom der er kommunikative vanskeligheder. det kræver dog at kommunikationen i højere grad foregår gennem flere modaliteter. i denne sammenhæng skal modaliteter forstås som forskellige udtryksformer, f.eks. det talte sprog, skriftsprog, tegninger, billeder eller andre illustrationer. når en person er ramt af sproglige vanskeligheder, som resultat af en skade på hjernen, kan det betyde, at vedkommende kan have svært ved at finde de rigtige ord, men godt ved hvad vedkommende vil sige. informanten kan fortælle om en oplevelse gennem hjælpemidler, som det fremgår af et studie af dalemans og kollegaer (2010), hvor social deltagelse undersøges blandt personer med afasi. her anvendte man piktogrammer, billeder og muligheden for at skrive stikord for at støtte kommunikationen. lignende metoder er anvendt i et studie af heard og kollegaer (2010), hvor kommunikationen blev støttet af tegninger eller stikord. en anden vigtig modalitet er repræsenteret ved kropssprog. kropssprog og andre non-verbale cues anerkendes i forhold til den brede forståelse af kommunikation under et interview (robson, 2011). informanten kan fortælle eller vise meget uden anvendelse af det talte sprog. når der foretages forskning med c. thøgersen & c. glintborg: at udføre kvalitativ forskning med personer med kognitive funktionsnedsættelser qualitative studies 7(1), pp. 132-152 ©2022 137 personer med kommunikative vanskeligheder, bliver den non-verbale kommunikation ekstra vigtig (panda et al., 2020). under interviewet kan forskeren evt. anvende en observatør, som fokuserer på den non-verbale kommunikation (thøgersen et al., 2022a), eller interviewet kan optages på video. andre tilpasninger, i forhold til kompleksiteten af de stillede spørgsmål og brugen af prompts eller svarmuligheder, kan også være hjælpsomme for at støtte kommunikationen. f.eks. ekstra tid til respons, mulighed for gentagelse og verificering af forskerens forståelse (panda et al., 2020). dette vil vi udfolde yderligere senere, da det også kan bidrage med kompenserende støtte i forhold til andre kognitive vanskeligheder. b. opmærksomhed, igangsætning og udtrætning de fleste som rammes af en skade på hjernen, oplever udtrætning. hertil kommer at mange yderligere oplever udfordringer med opmærksomheden og nogle med igangsætning (rabinowitz & levin, 2014). disse kognitive udfordringer kan have en stor indvirkning på deltagelsen i interviews. konsekvenserne af sådanne udfordringer kan spænde helt fra let afledelighed, ved indre eller ydre stimuli, til udfordringer med at holde tråden i en fortælling, fordi man afledes af f.eks. indre associationer. her er det vigtigt at forskere er forberedt på, bedst muligt at støtte og guide samtalen. vanskeligheder omkring opmærksomheden knyttet til ydre stimuli kan i høj grad imødekommes af en opmærksomhed på de fysiske rammer, hvor interviewet foretages, samt brugen af øvrige kompenserende strategier, som f.eks. visuelle støttende stimuli som noter eller illustrationer. i et observationsstudie fra 2011 identificerede o´halloran og kollegaer 126 faktorer, som havde betydning for kommunikationen mellem sundhedspersonale og patienter (o’halloran et al., 2011). de identificerede faktorer blev inddelt i syv overordnede temaer, hvor de fire første er knyttet til sundhedspersonalets viden om: kommunikationsrelaterede vanskeligheder, kommunikations-færdigheder, tilgang og individuelle forskelle. de øvrige tre temaer var: tilstedeværelse af familie, det fysiske miljø og hospitalsprocedurer (o’halloran et al., 2011). kommunikationen i forbindelse med forskning kan lade sig guide af disse faktorer. i forhold til opmærksomhed, igangsætning og udtrætning kan tilpasningen lade sig inspirere af de 14 faktorer som relaterede sig til miljøet og ydre stimuli omkring samtalen. hvis man f.eks. har en informant, som oplever kommunikative vanskeligheder og er let afledelig på ydre stimuli, er det vigtigt at vælge kommunikative støttende strategier, som ikke afleder c. thøgersen & c. glintborg: at udføre kvalitativ forskning med personer med kognitive funktionsnedsættelser qualitative studies 7(1), pp. 132-152 ©2022 138 opmærksomheden. konkret kan det f.eks. være kun at have et eller to stikord skrevet ned ad gangen, således at personen ikke lader sig aflede af stikord brugt tidligere i samtalen. denne fremgangsmåde er i overensstemmelse med sca metoden (supported conversation for adults with aphasia). sca metoden er udviklet for at reducere psykosociale konsekvenser af afasi og for at gøre den enkelte i stand til i højere grad at kunne kommunikere med sine omgivelser (kagan, 1998). kommunikation anses her for at være et partnerskab, hvor personen uden afasi har ansvaret for kommunikationen. derudover bygger metoden på princippet om at kommunikationen støttes gennem stikord eller korte konkrete sætninger, som nedskrives løbende for at understøtte kommunikationen gennem visuel stimuli. et eksempel på dette kan ses i illustration 1. her er anvendt flere af teknikkerne beskrevet ovenfor. illustrationen viser hvordan der løbende er anvendt få konkrete stikord til at understøtte spørgsmålene. derudover kommer det gennem eksemplet til udtryk, hvordan intervieweren havde et forudgående kendskab til informanten, i det at der kunne spørges ind til en formodet vanskelighed, her sproget. det er ligeledes vigtigt at vide, at informanten kun lider af ekspressiv afasi og derfor er i stand til at forstå spørgsmålene og er i stand til at svare ja/nej. illustration 1. uddrag fra transskription indsamlet i forbindelse med ph.d.-projekt ved cecilie marie thøgersen, 2021. er der tale om opmærksomhedsudfordringer på baggrund af afledelighed af indre stimuli, er der i højere grad brug for, at man som forsker er styrende i samtalen og guider informanten, når han eller hun bliver afledt. til dette kan man f.eks. anvende opsummerende kommentarer eller gentagelse af spørgsmålet, som der også ses i illustration 1. c. thøgersen & c. glintborg: at udføre kvalitativ forskning med personer med kognitive funktionsnedsættelser qualitative studies 7(1), pp. 132-152 ©2022 139 personer med erhvervet hjerneskade kan også blive udfordret i forhold til igangsættelse. denne form for kognitiv udfordring kan komme til udtryk ved, at personen har svært ved at igangsætte et svar, men når først vedkommende er i gang med en fortælling eller en anden handling, vil talen flyde frit. her kan det som forsker være vigtigt at undgå større skift i samtalen eller overveje muligheden for at afholde interviewet i forbindelse med en fysisk aktivitet, da dette kan støtte personer med disse typer af udfordringer til at forblive i et sprogligt flow. man må altså som forsker tilpasse rammerne til den enkeltes behov og ikke tænke interview i traditionel forstand, som en samtale, der finder sted i en statisk setting (glintborg, 2019). kvale og brinkmann (2009) fremhæver også hvordan det at foretage et interview i forbindelse med daglig aktivitet eller f.eks. en gåtur generelt kan være en styrke for interviewet som metode. som nævnt ovenfor er en almindelig følge efter erhvervet hjerneskade udtrætningsproblematik, også kaldt fatigue. et billede på dette kan gives ved at forestille sig hjernens neurale baner som et vejnet i en storby. rammes et område af vejarbejde kan det medføre at man ikke kan køre til området, men skal man bare forbi området, må man også finde en anden vej – en omvej. det vil resultere i at turen tager både længere tid og sikkert også kræver mere brændstof. mange med erhvervet hjerneskade oplever at blive udtrættede når de udfører handlinger, som kræver ekstra af dem rent kognitivt, som f.eks. et interview vil gøre. det er altså forventeligt at personer med erhvervet hjerneskade, vil opleve fatigue efter en vis tids deltagelse i et interview. fatigue kan lede til fejltolkninger og ufuldendte svar (carlsson et al., 2007). det er derfor vigtigt at være ekstra opmærksom på dette som forsker og derfor tilpasse længden af interviewet til deltagerens funktionsniveau. i sidste ende kan det betyde at man som forsker har mindre tid til at foretage interviewet og det er derfor ekstra vigtigt at lave en nøje afvejning af interviewspørgsmålenes vigtighed. c. hukommelse problematikken omkring hukommelsesvanskeligheder kan i høj grad knytte sig til, hvis informanten oplever vanskeligheder i forhold til at huske oplevelsen af det som undersøges. her er det vigtigt at man som forsker gør sig klart, hvad der præcist undersøges. f.eks. kan en person med erhvervet hjerneskade opleve ikke at have nogen c. thøgersen & c. glintborg: at udføre kvalitativ forskning med personer med kognitive funktionsnedsættelser qualitative studies 7(1), pp. 132-152 ©2022 140 artikulerede minder om perioden lige efter skaden, men nyere forskning har vist at erindringer for emotionelle begivenheder lagres stærkere end neutrale begivenheder pga. ændringer i aktivitet og aktuelle styrkeforhold af sammensætning af neurotransmittere og neurohormoner i hjernen (fx van stegeren, 2008; le doux 2003; baddeley et al., 2009). der kan være andre eksempler på situationer, hvor den hjerneskaderamte på trods af hukommelsesvanskeligheder kan bidrage med vigtig viden, idet der stadig er et narrativ omkring oplevelser. forskning indenfor erhvervet hjerneskade har vist, at voksne med en hjerneskade ikke mestrer deres liv ved blot at acceptere deres hjerneskade, men ved ”revising their self-narratives” (nochi 2000, p. 1799). nochis studier viste et hul i hukommelsen (a void) i mange af de narrativer, der blev fortalt. ifølge nochi bærer mange af informanterne på noget ukendt, som udgør en krise for selvet, da dette ”hul” i hukommelsen afstedkommer barrierer i forhold til forståelsen af sig selv. cloute et al. (2008) fandt, i tæt relation hertil, at disse tabte minder ofte er udfordret af pårørende, der forsøger at lukke dette hul med deres version af det skete. for at der kan foregå en positiv udvikling af selv-narrativer, er det, ifølge nochi, nødvendigt at udviklingen sker i interaktion med andre mennesker, samfundet og kulturen fremfor i isolerede rehabiliteringsprogrammer (nochi, 1998). dette – samt nyere forskning i identitets rekonstruktion efter hjerneskade (glintborg, 2019), får os igen til at rette et fokus på vigtigheden af kvalitativ forskning indenfor målgrupper med kognitive vanskeligheder, for at bringe os viden om disse identitetspåvirkningsprocesser. denne type hukommelsesvanskeligheder må ikke ses som en hindring i deltagelse i forskningen, men kan imødekommes gennem tilpassede spørgeteknikker. hukommelsesvanskelighederne kan også være knyttet til korttidshukommelse. i sådanne tilfælde handler det i højere grad om at forskeren støtter hukommelsen under interviewet gennem f.eks. opsummeringer eller stikord. d. konkret tænkning kognitive udfordringer relateret til eksekutive vanskeligheder, kan også repræsentere en udfordring i forbindelse med udførelse af et interview. i vores forskning har dette især gjort sig gældende ved informanter med konkret tænkning som følge af hjerneskaden. for at imødekomme den konkrete tænkning hos informanten er det nødvendigt at forskeren c. thøgersen & c. glintborg: at udføre kvalitativ forskning med personer med kognitive funktionsnedsættelser qualitative studies 7(1), pp. 132-152 ©2022 141 anvender konkrete spørgsmål, fremfor free recall (paterson & scott-findlay, 2002). hermed menes åbne spørgsmål, som kræver at deltageren selv producerer fyldestgørende svar. f.eks. vil et spørgsmål som: ”hvad oplevede du som værende godt i dit rehabiliteringsforløb?” være svært at besvare for informanten, som oplever konkret tænkning. der vil i højere grad være brug for spørgsmål, som knytter sig til en konkret, tidsbegrænset oplevelse. ønsker man at undersøge en større, mere kompleks oplevelse, som f.eks. den samlede oplevelse af et rehabiliteringsforløb, kan det være nødvendigt at opstille spørgsmål knyttet til konkrete oplevelser i løbet af rehabiliteringsforløbet, hvorved det vil være muligt gennem den analytiske bearbejdning for forskeren at opnå et samlet nuanceret billede. at svar i interview i højere grad har karakter af scripts fremfor detaljerede redegørelser, begrænser sig ikke kun til interviews med personer som er ramt af erhvervet hjerneskade. men det er dog et fænomen, som vi har erfaret ofte gør sig gældende hos denne gruppe, som følge af de kognitive udfordringer. et script kan forstås, som en generel gengivelse af en oplevelse som har gentaget sig flere gange, og hvor konkrete detaljer fra forskellige oplevelser supplerer hinanden til en samlet generel oplevelse. i tråd med tidligere litteratur på området, skal denne type svar ikke anskues som mangelfulde, men blot som en anden type af svar, af samme værdi som de mere detaljerede svar (paterson & scottfindlay, 2002). en generel anbefaling for interviewet som metode, er at forskeren skal lytte mere end hun/han taler (robson, 2011). vi vil dog understrege, at denne anbefaling ikke nødvendigvis bør være gældende, når man foretager interview med personer med kognitive vanskeligheder og i særdeleshed afasi, idet der ofte er behov for at forskeren, i højere grad end ellers, faciliterer og leder samtalen. der kan dog være brug for at give tid eller prompts (forslag eller svarmuligheder) (robson, 2011). der kan være udfordringer forbundet med brugen af prompts i interview, idet svar her ofte bliver meget konkrete og der kan være en fare for response bias, hvilket betyder at folk har en tendens til hellere at ville erklære sig enig end uenig (coolican, 2013). på trods af de udfordringer der kan være forbundet med prompts, vil den konkrethed sådanne kan bidrage med, være en stor støtte for informanten. det er derfor vigtigt allerede i forbindelse med forberedelserne af interviewet at afklare mulige prompts for at imødekomme at disse ikke bliver værdiladet c. thøgersen & c. glintborg: at udføre kvalitativ forskning med personer med kognitive funktionsnedsættelser qualitative studies 7(1), pp. 132-152 ©2022 142 på en sådan måde at de bliver ledende. en anden måde at arbejde med den konkrete tilgang, er at gøre spørgsmålene så simple og konkrete som muligt, sådan at der ikke kan herske tvivl om, hvad der skal svares på (jones et al., 2021). dette er i overensstemmelse med generelle anbefalinger for god spørgeteknik i forbindelse med kvalitative interview, hvor det anbefales at undgå spørgsmål, der er lange og indeholder flere spørgsmål på en gang (robson, 2011). ved en deltagergruppe med kognitive udfordringer kan det være nødvendigt at gøre spørgsmålene mere simple end ellers og nogle gange kan det være acceptabelt at stille ja/nej spørgsmål. et eksempel herpå kan ses i illustration 1, hvor der både er anvendt promts, korte konkrete spørgsmål og mulighed for ja/nej svar. en anden mulighed i forhold til at fremme svar og folde et spørgsmål eller emne ud, kan være ved at opstille to modsatrettede svarmuligheder. herefter kan der stilles yderligere uddybende spørgsmål, som bevæger sig dybere ind i oplevelsen. et eksempel er givet i illustration 2, hvor der ses et uddrag fra en transskription, hvor der er opstillet tre modsatrettede svarmuligheder og uddybende spørgsmål, som tjener det formål at udfolde en mere nuanceret besvarelse af det overordnede spørgsmål. dette er en anerkendt teknik til at støtte kommunikationen med personer, som oplever sproglige vanskeligheder som følge af erhvervet hjerneskade (kagan, 1998). c. thøgersen & c. glintborg: at udføre kvalitativ forskning med personer med kognitive funktionsnedsættelser qualitative studies 7(1), pp. 132-152 ©2022 143 illustration 2. uddrag fra transskription indsamlet i forbindelse med ph.d.-projekt ved cecilie marie thøgersen, 2021. der er dog en indbygget risiko for at kommunikationen kan opleves for banal eller endda nedværdigende for informanten, jo mere simpel den bliver og jo flere hjælpeteknikker, der inddrages. selvom man har kognitive vanskeligheder, kan ens intellekt være det c. thøgersen & c. glintborg: at udføre kvalitativ forskning med personer med kognitive funktionsnedsættelser qualitative studies 7(1), pp. 132-152 ©2022 144 samme, og det kan derfor opleves nedværdigende med f.eks. meget simple og konkrete spørgsmål. e. indsigt, forsvar og identitet bevidste og ubevidste ønsker for hvordan den enkelte ønsker at fremstille og forstå sig selv, kan have en stor indvirkning på de svar personen giver i forbindelse med et interview. dette er et fænomen, som gør sig gældende generelt i forbindelse med deltagelse i forskning og deltagelse i samtale. et begreb herfor er social desirability, det at man ønsker at fremstille sig selv på en måde, som fordrer social anerkendelse (coolican, 2013). hos personer med erhvervet hjerneskade, som oplever store forandringer fysisk, kognitivt, psykologisk og socialt, kan deres svar være præget af et behov for at opretholde narrativ agency (taubner et al., 2021). interviewet bidrager med en oplagt arena til dette, hvilken kan være medvirkende til, at man tidligere har fundet udsagn fra personer med erhvervet hjerneskade ugyldige, idet der kan være uoverensstemmelser mellem pårørende og fagpersoners opfattelse og narrativer, og den ramtes opfattelse og narrativer. det er her vigtigt at huske forskningsspørgsmålet som guidende for design og metodevalg. er man interesseret i at belyse oplevelsen af et fænomen eller en situation, ud fra et førstepersons perspektiv, må personens narrativ tillægges værdi og gyldighed, da det repræsenterer et indefra perspektiv fra netop denne person. f. forudgående kendskab forberedelse er altid en vigtig del af det at foretage et interview (robson, 2011; kvale & brikmann, 2009). når man inkluderer informanter med kognitive vanskeligheder, er det ekstra vigtigt, at man som forsker har et forudgående kendskab til den enkeltes behov. det gør sig generelt gældende, når man kommunikerer med personer, som oplever kognitive vanskeligheder, at man som professionel besidder gode kommunikative færdigheder (o'halloran et al., 2011). det er dog ikke nødvendigvis altid nok at have et generelt kendskab til mulige kognitive vanskeligheder. der er også behov for, at man som forsker har et grundigt kendskab til den enkelte informant og netop denne persons kognitive udfordringer, således at man kan forberede interviewet bedst muligt, og derved også har de bedste forudsætninger for at støtte informanten under selve interviewet. dette blev for os tydeligt i arbejdet med to konkrete studier. i studierne undersøgte vi oplevelsen af at deltage i henholdsvis individuel terapi og parsamtaler i forbindelse med et c. thøgersen & c. glintborg: at udføre kvalitativ forskning med personer med kognitive funktionsnedsættelser qualitative studies 7(1), pp. 132-152 ©2022 145 rehabiliteringsophold efter erhvervet hjerneskade (thøgersen et al., 2022a; thøgersen et al., 2022b). i begge studier blev de evaluerende interviews foretaget af en anden forsker, end den der havde forestået terapien. inden interviewene briefede terapeuten den som skulle foretage interviewet i, hvilke kognitive vanskeligheder informanten havde og hvordan vanskelighederne var forsøgt imødekommet i terapien. på trods heraf var det ikke muligt at opnå en kommunikation af samme kvalitet som den, terapeuten oplevede at have med informanten, efter et langt forudgående forløb. f.eks. kunne intervieweren kun i begrænset omfang trække på tidligere viden eller bistå informanten, når det var svært at genkalde sig indhold eller konkrete oplevelser. et eksempel herpå kan ses ved følgende citat: ” i: og [terapeuten], hun startede os også op derover, med sådan en planche. hun tegnede nogle forskellige ting vi skulle igennem. f: jah. kan du huske noget af det? i: nej” transskription fra thøgersen et al., 2022a informanten kan ikke selv genkalde sig temaerne, der er talt om i terapien, men da interviewer senere spørger ind til et konkret tema, kan informanten huske dette: f: ja. ja. hvad med i forhold til (.) individuelle forløb, der snakkede du lige om: øh: du kunne ikke rigtigt helt huske hvad for nogle temaer, [terapeuten] hun var inde på da i snakkede, men det var i hvert fald noget i forhold til nogle tanker og nogle følelser i: lige nøjagtig” transskription fra thøgersen et al., 2022a dette understreger vigtigheden af det forudgående kendskab til kognitive udfordringer, men også fordele ved et relationsarbejde forudgående for interviewet, som også understreges i litteraturen (panda et al., 2020; paterson & scott-findlay, 2002). c. thøgersen & c. glintborg: at udføre kvalitativ forskning med personer med kognitive funktionsnedsættelser qualitative studies 7(1), pp. 132-152 ©2022 146 strategier til tilpasning af metode på baggrund af ovenstående analyse af de enkelte temaer, vil vi opsummere en række anbefalinger for tilpasningen af metoden i forbindelse med udførelse af kvalitative forskningsinterviews med personer med kognitive funktionsnedsættelser. udover at være baseret på erfaringer fra forskning, kan det være aktuelt at se på erfaringer fra klinisk praksis. indledningsvis gjorde vi rede for, hvordan der er overensstemmelse mellem de udfordringer, der kan være forbundet med kognitive vanskeligheder efter en erhvervet hjerneskade, i forbindelse med terapeutiske samtaler og de udfordringer der kan opstå i forbindelse med kvalitativ forskning. derfor kan tilpasningen af metodisk tilgang til interviewet lade sig inspirere af den allerede veldokumenterede viden om tilpasningen af terapeutiske samtaler med personer med erhvervet hjerneskade (f.eks. gallagher et al., 2019; thøgersen, 2022). terapeutiske samtaler med personer med kognitive funktionsnedsættelser, som følge efter erhvervet hjerneskade, bør altid tilpasses den enkelte (thøgersen, 2022). der angives nogle overordnede anbefalinger i litteraturen, hvor specielt anbefalinger i forhold til struktur og tilpasning af den enkelte session også kan være relevante i forhold til forskning. her anbefales det f.eks. at der sker tilpasninger i forhold til længde, tempo og pauser, samt støtte til hukommelse, opmærksomhed og kommunikation (gallagner et al., 2019; thøgersen, 2022). konkret anbefales f.eks. brugen af klare og strukturerede spørgsmål, skrevne noter og løbende opsamlinger (gallagher et al., 2019). i tabel 1 er opstillet en række anbefalinger, til hvordan tilpasning af interviewet som metode kan gøres på baggrund af erfaringer fra forskning og klinisk praksis. strategier for at imødekomme kognitive udfordringer • tilpas længden af interviewet • hold pauser undervejs • del evt. interviewet op i flere dele • afpas tempoet • giv tid til overvejelse • skab en tydelig struktur for samtalen • brug opsummeringer • støt hukommelse med noter/stik ord • brug konkrete eksempler • tag udgangspunkt i konkrete situationer og oplevelser • eftertjek at forskeren har forstået deltageren korrekt • være fleksibel i at brugen af forskellige modaliteter • støt opmærksomheden med visuelle cues udarbejdet på baggrund af gallagher et al. (2019) og thøgersen (2022) c. thøgersen & c. glintborg: at udføre kvalitativ forskning med personer med kognitive funktionsnedsættelser qualitative studies 7(1), pp. 132-152 ©2022 147 begrænsninger og alternativer behovet for at få belyst og undersøgt kvaliteten af socialog sundhedsfaglige tilbud til personer med funktionsnedsættelser er stort. dog kan der stilles spørgsmålstegn ved, hvor repræsentativ forskningen bliver, hvis personer med kognitive funktionsnedsættelser ekskluderes i disse undersøgelser, som har været tilfældet tidligere (lennox et al., 2005; townend, 2007; jones et al., 2021). derfor er der behov for, i højere grad at kunne inkludere denne gruppe af personer. på baggrund af ovenstående anbefalinger vil vi argumentere, at det er muligt, at tilpasse interviewet som metode, således at det i højere grad bliver muligt at inkludere og lave kvalitativ forskning med personer med kognitive funktionsnedsættelser. anbefalingerne til tilpasning af metode kan i nogle tilfælde virke modstridende, og man må da gå med det, som passer til den enkelte deltagers behov. et konkret eksempel herpå er et tidligere givet eksempel; at brugen af stikord ikke må have et omfang, hvor tidligere stikord afleder opmærksomheden. det er ligeledes nødvendigt at være opmærksom på at strategierne, for tilpasning af metoden, ikke opleves negativt eller nedværdigende for deltageren og bliver en begrænsning i forhold til narrativ agency. for at undgå dette er det derfor altid vigtigt, at være opmærksom på at metodiske strategier altid bør anvendes understøttende og tilpasses den enkeltes behov. på trods af nødvendigheden af metodiske tilpasninger viser tidligere studier, at muligheden for deltagelse i forskning bidrager med en oplevelse af empowerment og social inklusion hos deltageren (span et al., 2018). tilsvarende er vores erfaringer, at deltagerne giver udtryk for, at deltagelsen i forskning giver en oplevelse af at give noget til andre, og være noget i kraft af sit bidrag. på et tidspunkt i deres liv, hvor det ellers kan være svært at få øje på, hvad de kan bidrage med. der vil dog unægtelig opstå situationer, hvor tilpasning ikke længere er mulig, og det må anerkendes at interviewet som metode, ikke er den rette metode at anvende i arbejdet med en konkret informant/informantgruppe. i de tilfælde vil det være nødvendigt at overveje hvilke alternative forskningsmetoder man kan anvende, for at kunne inkludere personer med kognitive funktionsnedsættelser i forskningen – eksempelvis video eller andet grafisk materiale. to spørgsmål melder sig umiddelbart i denne forbindelse: hvornår kan man ikke længere anvende interviewet som metode, og hvilken metode kan man da anvende, for at sikre repræsentation fra også de sværest ramte. c. thøgersen & c. glintborg: at udføre kvalitativ forskning med personer med kognitive funktionsnedsættelser qualitative studies 7(1), pp. 132-152 ©2022 148 det første spørgsmål må bero på en vurdering i det konkrete forskningsprojekt, og i forhold til den enkelte informant. på baggrund af tidligere erfaringer fra vores forskning, er interviewet som metode ikke brugbart i de situationer, hvor en informant lider af impresiv afasi (altså ikke forstår det talte sprog). derudover må det vurderes, om interviewet som metode er nok til at opnå en nuanceret viden om, hvordan et emne opleves af informanten. eller om der er brug for at supplere med andre metoder, som f.eks. observationer, interviews med pårørende eller personale, spørgeskemaer eller gruppeinterviews med flere informanter. dette leder fint videre til det andet spørgsmål, omkring hvilke alternative kvalitative metoder, der kan anvendes, når der er behov for at inkludere personer med kognitive funktionsnedsættelser. hvor netop ovennævnte eksempler kan inddrages. derudover kan der være en styrke i at kombinere flere metoder (lyons & mcallister, 2019) eller en større fleksibilitet i forskningsdesign. f.eks. kunne der laves observationer kombineret med flere små korte interviews. centralt er det, at der er sammenhæng mellem forskningsspørgsmål og design, samt at metoden er tilpasset til at inkludere den informantgruppe, man primært undersøger og de behov de eventuelt måtte have. konklusion på trods af de vanskeligheder der kan være forbundet med at foretage kvalitativ forskning, som f.eks. interview, med en målgruppe med kognitive udfordringer, er det fortsat den bedst mulige måde at belyse de ramtes oplevelser. det er afgørende at netop personer med kognitive vanskeligheder også inkluderes i forskningsstudier. der må blot tages forbehold og laves tilpasninger, sådan at metoden bedst muligt matcher ikke bare forskningsspørgsmålet, men også den enkelte informants behov. at lave forskning med personer med kognitive funktionsnedsættelser kræver derfor tilpasning og fleksibilitet. det er vores ønske at denne artikel kan bidrage til en videre diskussion af, hvordan forskningsmetoder generelt bedst muligt tilpasses de behov, informanter måtte have. c. thøgersen & c. glintborg: at udføre kvalitativ forskning med personer med kognitive funktionsnedsættelser qualitative studies 7(1), pp. 132-152 ©2022 149 referencer baddeley, a. eysenck, m., w. & anderson, m., c. 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(2021). qualitative data collection: considerations for people with aphasia, aphasiology, 35:3, 314-333, https://doi.org/10.1080/02687038.2019.1693027 about the authors: cecilie marie schmidt thøgersen, ph.d. studerende i rehabiliteringspsykologi ved aalborg universitet og neurocenter østerskoven, region nordjylland. hendes forskningsområde fokuserer på psykosociale følger af erhvervede lidelser, pårørende og professionelle i rehabilitering samt klinisk implementering af rehabiliteringspsykologien. chalotte glintborg er ph.d. i psykologi og lektor i rehabiliteringspsykologi på aalborg universitet. hendes forskning inkluderer studier af de psykosociale følger af at få og leve med erhvervede lidelser, sygdoms narrativer og identitets rekonstruktion endvidere psykologisk rehabilitering samt effekterne af denne. vol. 5, no. 1, 2018, pp. 20–28 issn 1903-7031 resonant experience in emergent events of analysis line revsbæk aalborg university, department of political science, fibigerstræde 3, 9220 aalborg øst: denmark (revsbaek@learning.aau.dk) • theory, and the traditions of thought available and known to us, give shape to what we are able to notice of our field of inquiry,and so also of our practice of research. building on g. h. mead’s philosophy of the present (1932), this paper draws attention to ‘emergent events’ of analysis when working abductively with interview data in a process of re-experiencing interview material through listening to audio recordings of qualitative research interviews. the paper presents an emergent event of analysis in which the theoretical argument of (the researcher’s) self as a process of becoming in responsive relating to (case study) others is made generative as a dynamic in and of case study analysis. using a case of being a newcomer (to research communities) researching newcomer innovation (of others), ‘resonant experience’ is illustrated as a heuristic in interview analysis to simultaneously deconstruct/reconstruct dichotomous concept categories known to organize the research literature in a field. keywords: analysis, interview analysis, process ontology, resonant experience, emergent event, g. h. mead. • it is true of all our experience that it is the response that interprets to us what comes to us in the stimulus. (mead, 1934: 114) process ontology in research methodology an ‘ontological realm of inquiry’ (shotter, 2015) has recently been heralded by the introduction of process philosophy to organization studies (see for example helin et al., 2014; langley & tsoukas, 2017) and by ‘thinking with theory’ in qualitative inquiry (jackson & mazzei, 2017; see also jackson & mazzei, 2013; st. pierre, 2011). the turn to ontology in methodology that a process disposition suggests is often referred to by the idiom of inquiring from within. thus, in ‘strong’ process-ontological views on methodology, the researcher’s position towards the researched is understood in terms of ‘a participant from within’ the flow of experience, rather than of ‘an outside observer’ of it (fachin & langley, 2017). elaborating on this paradigm shift concerning assumed researcher positionality, organization scholar john shotter, a significant figure in exploring the implications of process ontology for the understanding of methodology in process organization studies, states: ‘all our usual representational methods – that place us over against the reality we are trying to understand – are all excluded by our primary assumption of being ourselves participant parts of a larger indivisible’ process (shotter, 2010: 75). shotter argues that adopting a process orientation in our practice of research confronts us ‘with the task of evolving new ways of relating ourselves (bodily, i.e., sensitively and emotionally) to the others and othernesses around us’ (shotter, 2010: 74), and, consequently, such different relating will affect the ‘what’ of ourselves, and that of others, made noticeable in a research encounter. in opposition to the ‘about-ness’ knowledge (shotter, 2006) characteristic of cartesian knowledge claims on things ‘already there’ independent of a researcher subject, and of research practices identifying them, the aspiration among process scholars to develop understanding from within evolving phenomena is sometimes referred to by a signifier of ‘with-ness thinking’ (ibid.). the becoming of self as a dynamic in analysis arguments characteristic of the emergent paradigm of post-qualitative research have, 20 mailto:revsbaek@learning.aau.dk l. revsbæk: resonant experience in emergent events of analysis qualitative studies 5(1), pp. 20–28 ©2018 21 from similar process-relational ontology, troubled assumptions about the ‘always-already subject’ researcher dealing with ‘alwaysalready object’-ified and fixed data which are inherent in conventional qualitative methodology (jackson & mazzei, 2013; st. pierre, 2011). working from postmodern and poststructuralist challenges to humanist assumptions about the researcher subject ‘over against’ a reality to be explored, post-qualitative researchers emphasize that ‘data’ to the process of analysis is not only that which is textualized and fixed prior to analysis, but also aspects of experience transgressive to different modalities (st. pierre, 1997), different participants, and voices of informants and theorists, and as such collected and re-collected during the process of analysis rather than exclusively prior to it (st. pierre, 2011). the debate among post-qualitative researchers drawing on derrida and on deleuze and guattari has drawn attention to the circumstance of working with and as ‘unstable subjects’ in research: ‘if the “i” of the participant is always becoming in the process of telling, so too the “i” of the researcher is always becoming in the process of researching, listening, and writing’ (jackson & mazzei, 2013: 266). illustrating the performative stance of such process ontology in methodology, bronwyn davies suggests engaging in qualitative inquiry ‘to access that which is becoming true, ontologically and epistemologically, in the moment of the [research] encounter’ (davies, 2016: 75). drawing on barad, davies proposes focusing ‘on the ongoing intra-active processes through which selves come into being and go on coming into being in complex emergent relationality’ (davies, 2016: 75). similarly, shotter (2010) points out that we as investigators ‘ourselves can be radically changed in such encounters’ (ibid.: 15). a different kind of ‘embodied sensings or feelings’ (ibid.: 4) and ‘spontaneously responsive understanding’ (ibid: 13), shotter suggests, becomes available and noticeable to us when we relate in ‘an inner fashion to the becoming of things (rather than observing them from the outside)’ (ibid.: 15). this paper explores the contribution of mead’s notion of ‘the emergent event’ for understanding researcher and participant becoming in the process of analysing. the paper presents an emergent event of interview analysis in which the theoretical argument of (the researcher’s) self as a process of becoming in the responsive relating to (case study) others is made generative in the interview analysis, thus serving as a dynamic in and of analysis. resonant experience is presented as the shaping of lived experience which takes place as a case study participant’s expressed experience is perceived to challenge established concept categories, thus evoking a reorganization of researcher’s own experience to the resonance it holds to that expressed by the case study other. drawing on mead’s concept of the emergent event (mead, 1932), the paper accounts in detail for the ‘when’ of resonant experience in interview analysis. taking the attitude of process theory elaborating on the role of theory, and of process philosophy to stances in methodology, spivak’s account (2014) of the reading of theory may offer perspective. spivak explains her own and her students’ practice as one of reading the theory ‘as if we were writing it’ (spivak, 2014: 77). by entering ‘the protocol of the other person’s theory, [and] its private grammar, so that the theory transforms you’ (spivak, 2014: 77), one ‘internalizes’ the theory to the point of it becoming ‘part of our mental furniture’ (ibid.). from spivak, we understand theory to come in ‘as a reflex’ (ibid.), that is, as part of our researcher sensitivity evoked in research encounters, giving shape to what we are able to notice both of our field of inquiry, and of our practices of research. »taking the attitude« (mead, 1934) of a process philosophy/philosopher as that of our own towards the doings and dealings of our research is one such way of relating differently to materials and participants in our practice of research, as advocated by shotter. by emphasizing the ‘i-me’ dialectic in g.h. mead’s theory of becoming a self in a collective (mead, 1934), we understand such relating (differently) as taking place, responsively, in spontaneous enactments of a research practice, as the researcher in a specific situation responds to everything at hand in her doing. all the methodological theory that we as researchers are familiar with, and are able to witness enacted in practised research 22 l. revsbæk: resonant experience in emergent events of analysis qualitative studies 5(1), pp. 20–28 ©2018 methodologies, becomes, in meadian terminology, our methodological ‘me’ (ibid.) to which we respond in our own situated practising of research by the spontaneity of the meadian ‘i’. taking a ‘strong’ process-ontological stance in methodology is, in a meadian vocabulary, understood as ‘taking the attitude’ of the process philosophy in the doing of the research. situating resonant experience in emergent events: the »when« of resonant experience it is idle, at least for the purposes of experience, to have recourse to a ‘real’ past […] for that past must be set over against a present within which the emergent appears, and the past which must then be looked at from the standpoint of the emergent, becomes a different past […] it is the ‘what it was’ that changes. (mead, 1932: 36-37) in his paradoxical notion of time, argued as one of the most radical in social science (fine & flaherty, 2001), mead (1932) seats ontological reality in the living present, in here-andnow present situations. ‘the world is a world of events’, he argues (1932: 35), explaining ‘a present […] is not a piece cut out anywhere […] its chief reference is to the emergent event’ (mead, 1932: 52). to mead, the ‘emergent event’ is key in understanding time and temporality, and it is characterized by the occurrence of novelty, that is, of something not previously present in the processes that led up to it (ibid.). hence, mead considers time not primarily as a chronologically unfolding series of occurrences (although he acknowledges the irrevocability of time, stating ‘that which has happened is gone beyond recall’, mead, 1932: 37). much more, mead’s philosophy of the present (1932) is about understanding the structure of time in the living present, which means the organizing of past and future in the occasion of the emergent event of a living present. it is this structuring of time, in emergent events of analysis, that is described as a dynamic of analysis in this paper. according to mead, past and future, themselves nowhere else to be found but in the present, are understood as ‘epistemological resources’ for continuous acting, partaking and understanding in the living present (simpson, 2014). related to pragmatism’s concept of abductive reasoning (pierce, 1978), constituting the relationship between situation and inquiry (brinkmann, 2014), mead states: ‘data are such emergent events as fail to fit into the accepted structure of relations, and become nodal points from which a new structure of relations arises’ (mead 1932: 116). characteristic of the emergent event is that it ‘marks out and in a sense selects what has made its peculiarity possible. it creates with its uniqueness a past and a future’ (ibid: 52) and reorganizes past (experience) and (anticipations of) future in the living present. the peculiarity of (such ‘data’ as) emergent events is thus generative of a reordering of (past) experience. it is this reordering that drives the analysis through resonant experience argued in this paper. listening to interview audio recordings is an occasion for re-experiencing the interview material, and this experience is different from that of reading interview transcripts, in that the listening is rich in ‘sense data’ such as intonations, rhythm, timing and our own recalled sense of being present in the interview as interviewer (revsbæk & tanggaard, 2015). daza and gershon (2015) have recently described methodologies of sound—in contrast to that of visuals—as a means to consider ‘complex interrelations’, ‘echoes across time and contexts’, ‘the breaking down of barriers between siloed fields’ and ‘an opening up of relationships within and between ecologies’ (daza & gershon, 2015). responses evoked in us when listening to an interview recording answer to such broader contextuality. as is illustrated in a later section, the peculiarity and paradox of the expressed experience of a case study other, may, in relation to existing knowledge structures in a field, constitute a deconstruction and a ‘breakdown-inunderstanding’ (alvesson & kärreman, 2011), thus eliciting recollections of the researcher’s own experience brought, then, to relate to that expressed by the case study other by the deconstruction it poses to established concept categories. l. revsbæk: resonant experience in emergent events of analysis qualitative studies 5(1), pp. 20–28 ©2018 23 case the following originates from a case study on organizational socialization and newcomer innovation in a large industrial company in denmark (revsbæk, 2014).1 an interview design inclusive of organizational newcomers, their veteran co-workers and hiring managers portrays ‘being insider’ and ‘being outsider’ as situational attributes—at times inhabited by organizational veterans, at times by newcomers—more so than appearing as fixed participant categories reflecting seniority of employment. listening to the interview recording: becoming the one to understand the other a veteran co-worker to a newly employed engineer project manager in the company supply chain management department talks extensively in the interview recording about an institutionalized practice of ‘team training’ and related principles of ‘process leadership’. apparently, the practice of doing a monthly team training workshop conducted by company external consultants was introduced by the business unit president a few years back. the business unit president sponsors the programme of team training, and the training is meant for team members to get to know each other better and gain an understanding of the various individual ways of working, thus fostering wellbeing in work and team collaborations. as the interviewer of the veteran coworker, it turns out that i am not being sensitive to the situation that he and i share early in the interview. and i am reminded of this as i listen to the interview recording. acting in the interview like an elephant in a china shop, i let an ironic remark on the practice of team training slip spontaneously from my tongue. in case study interviews prior to this one, i have heard other case study participants talk about this practice of team training in a reasonably loyal, but also disengaged and somewhat ironic manner, implying to me a low degree of ownership with regard to this practice. i then accidentally assume that this veteran co-worker will express the same ironic attitude towards the practice, but i am wrong. he appreciates the team training and speaks extensively about it. his preoccupation with the training contrasts with his new manager’s and newcomer colleague’s disengagement towards it. i dwell on the question of why this veteran co-worker speaks with a confidently committed voice with regard to some aspects of the work, those to do with ‘team training’ and ‘process leadership’, whereas he speaks with an inferior voice with regard to those aspects of the work to do with ‘engineering’ and ‘engineerdriven project management’ (advocated by his new manager as a key lever for improving their department status in the company). the veteran co-worker states in a disparaging and inferior voice that he feels ‘uncertain about what is going to happen [in the light of announced future layoffs], because—this is just my own self-image—but, i am an economist by education and the others are engineers’. i am reminded of gallagher and sias’s study (2009) on ‘uncertainty management’ as relevant not only to organizational newcomers, but also to veterans concerned with their job security in times of managerial rehiring—a study in stark contrast to most studies on organizational socialization focused on the uncertainty experienced by newcomers and the positioning of organizational veterans exclusively as ‘socialization agents’ to the newcomers (feldman, 2012). as researcher at the time, i was seeking to convey (and understand) this story of the veteran co-worker who speaks with a marginalized voice concerning some aspects of the work, yet a superior and almost corrective voice with regard to other aspects of the work. listening to the recorded interview, getting caught up in this paradox of ‘inferior yet superior’, an experience of my own springs to mind as if explaining the ambiguity in the story of the veteran coworker. i start writing an autobiographical narrative on this resonant experience to see what insights into the veteran co-worker’s story can be created by doing so. researcher’s autobiographical narrative: being the possibly excluded in a seminar in the research community that i was visiting, the doctoral students and faculty members of the community were discussing the recent withdrawal/exclusion of a student from the programme. the head of faculty said that the withdrawing student had been really strug24 l. revsbæk: resonant experience in emergent events of analysis qualitative studies 5(1), pp. 20–28 ©2018 gling with the work. in an email responding to my work, prior to the seminar, the same faculty member had used the same choice of words on my work: ‘it seems you are struggling’, he wrote. as any researcher knows, the word ‘struggle’ is often a positive term describing researcher dedication, commitment and intense engagement with the materials at hand. thus, ‘struggle’ might be a quality stamp on my work if i was said to be ‘struggling’ in this sense. but it didn’t quite ‘sound’ like that when i read the email, though i can’t exactly say why. perhaps it was the way he stated his critique of my writing rather directly before concluding that i seemed to be ‘struggling’. or perhaps i was reading in impressions from prior face-to-face meetings contributing to this sense of not exactly being complimented on researcher virtues with this remark. situated in the research community meeting, with its members discussing the departure of this recent community member by reference to his ‘struggles’, it seemed to me that a criterion of exclusion was possibly emerging. and it occurred to me as such because i was sensing that i too might fall short in relation to this criterion of ‘a struggle’ or, rather ‘too much of a struggle’. i was becoming the possibly excluded. the community members were now more explicitly discussing inclusion-exclusion criteria: a commitment to reading theory, familiarizing oneself with the theoretical heritage of the community, meeting deadlines, engaging in the frequent peer-review process of fellow students’ work and paying attention to the process of personal development emergent in the research process. almost as if settling and agreeing on such criteria might secure the sense of security of the involved. i felt a need to speak up. i was uncomfortable, falling short of exclusion criteria sensed yet not explicated. the courage to speak came with the thought that i might not be the only one feeling like this. and since i was only visiting the community, i might as well attempt to find the voice i did not dare to use. ‘i guess exclusion criteria emerge’, i started out, expecting this opening discourse to be in resonance with the theoretical stance shared among community members, ‘in what we say, and how it is taken up by others; i think i might be struggling’. i had identified myself with the member who had just left/been asked to leave. i had to mobilize my courage in order to convey the thought and make visible the vulnerability i felt. i remember looking at the faculty member who had, in conversations prior to this one, been most supportive in my attempts at putting words to the interactions between us, and implicitly addressing him as i closed my statement. i did so, describing how i was thinking we might be creating a criterion of exclusion related to ‘struggling’ from the way we were making sense of the departure of the recent student member, further explaining that i was guessing this from my own sense of possibly being excluded or losing community status with reference to this criterion, since i was definitely struggling, and had also been described as doing so by a faculty member. i closed my statement by saying ‘at least i took up voice’, hoping it would be acknowledged. anticipating that it would, from the familiarity with the community values i was starting to get a sense of. almost instinctively and certainly unaware of it at the time, i was pleading for another cult value of the community, one in which i would be included. ‘voicing’. and i was recognized. by the supportive faculty member. he nodded. that was enough. ‘struggling’ did not remain a criterion of exclusion. it equated to one at some stage in the conversation, at least in my perception. then, the conversation changed, and so did the criterion of exclusion. i was no longer the possibly excluded. i no longer sensed the exclusion criteria, but i guess they were still there. perhaps to do with ‘voicing’. but they were not calling me out. at least not currently. resonant experience following mead (1932), the lived experience of a listening researcher (like that of a case study participant) is not shaped in a fixed manner prior to their encounter. on the occasion of listening to an interview recording, the researcher’s lived experience is not even shaped prior to the post-interview listening. it finds shape in the listening, from and as the resonance between the expressed experience of the case study participant and researcher’s own. the incident described in the autobiographl. revsbæk: resonant experience in emergent events of analysis qualitative studies 5(1), pp. 20–28 ©2018 25 ical narrative took place in july 2013. it was written in november that year, coming back to me in memory in response to listening to the case study participant’s account of his experience in the audio-recorded interview originally conducted in february 2011 and made an object of analysis in november 2013. the case illustrates making the temporal process of experience work as a dynamic in and of analysis, allowing the novelty of the expressed experience of the case study other to evoke resonant experience of researcher’s own. recalling my own experience as one of becoming ‘the possibly excluded’, enabled considering the veteran co-worker’s story and his inferior voice concerning some aspects of the work, yet superior voice concerning other aspects of the work, as a case of the veteran co-worker, in the face of perceived possible exclusion, making a plea for another community cult value: one that would allow him to stay included, that of ‘process leadership’ and ‘team training’. the shaping of experience to the resonance between that expressed by the case study other and the evoked of researcher’s own in an emergent event of analysis takes place beyond vocabulary and theory, and it does so as the expressed experience of the other becomes ‘meadian data’ in the sense of an ‘emergent event’ failing to fit into the structure of concept relations that otherwise organize the field of research. with a deconstructive effect, the expressed experience by the case study other becomes a nodal point from which a new structure, a reorganization of past experience (including researcher’s own), takes place. dwelling ‘in the moment of the pause before difference emerges’ (davies, 2016: 74), the expressed experience of the other takes shape in this emergent event of analysis, at first, in and by the resonance it holds to that elicited by researcher’s own. eventually, this shaping does not become a particular identified shape without theory and vocabulary also coming in ‘as a reflex’ (cf. spivak, 2014). in the reported case study on organizational newcomers and veterans, theory and the words of complexity theorist ralph stacey helped shape the expressed and resonant experience to the reminder that ‘values have the effect of including those who adhere to them and excluding those who do not, so establishing collective or “we” identities for all the individuals in both groupings’ (stacey, 2010: 165). mead reminds us: ‘there may be and beyond doubt is in any present with its own past a vast deal which we do not discover, and yet this which we do or do not discover will take on different meaning and be different in its structure as an event when viewed from some later standpoint (mead, 1932: 40). hence, resonant experience of our own, evoked in emergent events of analysis, may be such perhaps previously-notdiscovered aspects of experience which take on new meaning and new structure from the standpoint of grasping those aspects of the expressed experience of a case study other that are ill-captured by, or even in discord with, inherent knowledge categories and structures characteristic of the research field in question. as researchers we may not know prior to the process of analysing what aspects of our own experience could serve as a lever in understanding that expressed by case study others. in my own doctoral study reported above i more so arrived at being the newcomer (to research communities) who was researching newcomer innovations others, than i started out as such. generative reflexivity necessary to any social conceptualization of self, mead argues the need for understanding individual experience from a standpoint of society, and describes the scope of social psychology as one of determining ‘that which belongs to [the individual’s] experience because the individual himself belongs to a social structure’ (mead, 1934: 1). as process sociologist norbert elias reminds us about being social scientists, we are ourselves part of the (societal) figurational patterns of participation that we investigate (elias, 1956). hence, deconstruction of the knowledge structure (in a field of research) assumed to represent societal or general social/organizational figurations of participation stipulates a reorganization of concept structures implicating identity categories also significant to the organization of the researcher’s own lived experience. by this ‘impossibility of standing outside experience’ (cf. stacey, 2012), attention is brought to researcher reflexivity and the role of researcher’s reflexivity in case study analyses. 26 l. revsbæk: resonant experience in emergent events of analysis qualitative studies 5(1), pp. 20–28 ©2018 from the case of being a newcomer, researching the newcomer innovation of others, what is suggested here is for the researcher’s own history of experience to feature as a kind of ‘field-shaped’ sensitivity (müller, 2016: 707), constitutive of the ‘what’ that a researcher is able to make hearable, noticeable and thus understandable of that which is encountered. mead will have us recognize of the relationship between an organism and its environment, that ‘the nature of environment answers to the habits and selective attitudes of organisms, and the qualities that belong to the objects of the environment can only be expressed in terms of sensitivities of these organisms’ (mead, 1932: 53). thus, situating research in emergent events of analysis draws attention to what a subject matter is able to become in the encounter of specific participants engaged in (case study) inquiries. from the simultaneity of ‘the two’ in the emergent event of analysis, the ‘who’ of the identifier and the ‘that’ of the identified constitute simultaneously and in resonance. it is not only a ‘who’ of the identifier that reflects into and influences the identification of the ‘that’ of the encountered (as is characteristic of a cartesian distinction between subject and object as antecedent entities). instead, the identified ‘that’ (of the encountered) reflects into and selects out the ‘who’ of the identifier identifying this. such a dynamic of emergence in responsive interaction is, in this paper, understood from mead’s conceptualization of the emergent event. researcher reflexivity thus becomes less about relativizing knowledge claims and self-critical subtracting from results, and more about a generative settling of identification of what we take to be characteristic of the other from the resonance it holds to ourselves, recalling this paper’s introductory quote: ‘it is the response that interprets to us what comes to us in the stimulus’ (mead, 1934: 114). hence, we may learn about what we encounter from what we become in encountering it. implications for future research: iterative analysis and responsive reorganizing of knowledge and acknowledged experience paying attention to resonant experience in emergent events of analysis would most often, in my work, be one aspect of a broader strategy of analysis to explore ‘what’, of case study experiences, is serving the emergence of new (concept and identity) categories grasping a current circumstance and quality of participation in the field under investigation. davies writes on listening that ‘allowing the resonance of the other to register in one’s body involves opening oneself to an ongoing process of deleuzian differenciation, to become other, to a process of evolution that takes one beyond the already known’ (davies, 2011: 1). in the case of ‘the possibly excluded’, such registering of the other in oneself is argued situated in emergent events of expressed experience of a case study other posing a challenge to existing knowledge structures (in which the researcher is inherently a participant). ‘our whole being’, it is argued by french philosopher of the phenomenology of listening jean-luc nancy, ‘is involved in listening, just as it is involved in interpreting what it hears’ (nancy & mandell, 2007: xx). my argument is not one of claiming the expressed experience of the case study other to be the same as mine, or that identifying mine would be representational of that of the other. the aim of working responsively in analysis, as here suggested, in drawing attention towards resonant experience in emergent events of analysis, is not one of representation. rather, it concerns iterating the consequence of a break posed by expressed experience of case study others to the conceptual organizing of experience: which account and experience becomes possible to be with when the expressed experience of another, breaking away from dominant structures of categorization, is made a nodal point for the emergence of a new conceptual structuring? questions like this are analytic levers when analysing and developing understanding through resonant experience. the responsive and iterative way of analysis might be extended by iterating the emancipatory effect through other parts of the case study material, and through the literature, to see what pattern of association and what concept figurations emerge when working abductively and iteratively like that in analysis. analysis, then, becomes a process of responding, by the organizing and reorganizing of material, experience and knowledge structures, to the epistemologil. revsbæk: resonant experience in emergent events of analysis qualitative studies 5(1), pp. 20–28 ©2018 27 cal emancipation performed in emergent events of the analysis with expressed experience posing a challenge to existing knowledge structures. iterating an emergent event of analysis, captured by resonance in experience, across a vast variety of case study materials, research literature and future occurrences produces, over time, new figurations in and of the case study material. concluding remarks resonant experience has in this paper been suggested as a process-ontological heuristic in case study interview analysis. as illustrated, resonant experience may serve to ‘capture’ the abductive element of the expressed experience of a case study participant, giving this element its first iterative shape by the resonance it holds to the evoked experience of the (listening) researcher. social categories organizing a field of research may over time evolve into simplistic dichotomies no longer helpful in grasping current circumstance in social and organizational life. in times of increased alienation with regard to such acknowledged and reified identity positions, iterating resonant experience from emergent events of analysis may serve as an analytic heuristic to arrive at new/altered social categories both enabling and requiring a reorganization of current concept structures. drawing on g. h. mead’s philosophy of the present (1932), the paper has illustrated the process of becoming a self in continuous processes of relating as a possible dynamic in and of analysis. g. h. mead’s concept of ‘the emergent event’ has been explored in terms of the deconstructing/reconstructing dynamic of working with resonant experience in interview analysis. the paper is a contribution to the present endeavours of process scholars exploring what process ontology in research methodology entails for the enactment of research practice. endnotes 1. the case is a revised version of one published in revsbæk, 2014, and presented at the annual symposium on process organizational studies (pros), june 2015, kos. references alvesson, m. & kärreman, d. 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(2015). on “relational things”: a new realm of inquiry—pre-understandings and performative understandings of people’s meanings. the emergence of novelty in organizations, 56-79. simpson, b. (2014). george herbert mead (1863-1931). in j. helin, t. hernes, d. hjorth, & r. holt (eds.), the oxford handbook of process philosophy and organization studies (pp. 272-286). oxford, uk: oxford university press. st. pierre, e. a. (1997). methodology in the fold and the irruption of transgressive data. international journal of qualitative studies in education, 10(2), 175-189. st. pierre, e.a. (2011). post qualitative research: the critique and the coming after. in n.k. denzin & y.s. lincoln (eds), the sage handbook of qualitative research, 4th ed. (pp. 611-625). thousand oaks, ca: sage. stacey, r.d. (2010). complexity and organizational reality. uncertainty and the need to rethink management after the collapse of investment capitalism, 2nd ed. oxon, uk: routledge. stacey, r. (2012). tools and techniques of leadership and management. meeting the challenge of complexity. oxon, uk: routledge. • about the author line revsbæk phd, msc in psychology, is an associate professor at the department of learning and philosophy, aalborg university, aalborg, denmark. she has held positions at the university of southern denmark and was a visiting student at the complexity and management group, hertfordshire university, uk, during her doctoral studies. her research focuses on organizational socialization, employee induction and the social dynamics of collaboration and organizational life. she works from process ontology, pragmatism and complexity theory perspectives to develop research practice and methodology in terms of complex responsive processes. she has been engaged in participatory action research on employee induction/onboarding in academic, state government and private sector organizations, and is currently (together with lærke gelineck berg and søren willert) researching collaborative reflexive writing as a method of leadership development in a danish municipality. recent publications include revsbæk, l. (2014), adjusting to the emergent. a process theory perspective on organizational socialization and newcomer innovation, aalborg university press, aalborg; revsbæk, l. & tanggaard, l. (2015), analyzing in the present, qualitative inquiry, vol. 21(4), 376-387; mosleh, w. s. & revsbæk, l. (2017), fieldworking relational complexity: entangled in managerial dynamics, conference paper, egos, july 6th-8th, copenhagen; ylirisko, s., revsbæk, l. & buur, j., resourcing experience in co-design, conference proceedings from dtrs11 (2017); revsbæk, l. (2016), making methodology a matter of process ontology, organisation und methode. beiträge der kommision organisationspädagogik, springer vs (eds. göhlich, m., weber, s. m., schröer, a. and schemmann, m., 2016). paper 1: resonance in a hurried world paper 2: collaborative resonant writing and musical improvisation to explore the concept of resonance background and first step of the method method and process: further steps methodology and the intimacy of resonant writing conceptual dramework for the understanding of resonance physical vibrations and acoustic resonance psychological and dyadic resonance resonance and implicit knowledge in music therapy resonant learning exploring and processing the resonance phenomenon through group discussion and musical improvisation arts-based input and processing emerging metaphors discussion and collaborative writing analogy and metaphor negative resonance the opposite of resonance subtle nuances resonant exploring reflections on methods in collaborative writing and publishing: a nine-step model the discovery of a resonant, collaborative procedure conclusion and perspectives about the authors paper 3: resonant experience in emergent events of analysis process ontology in research methodology the becoming of self as a dynamic in analysis taking the attitude of process theory situating resonant experience in emergent events: the "when" of resonant experience case listening to the interview recording: becoming the one to understand the other researcher’s autobiographical narrative: being the possibly excluded resonant experience generative reflexivity implications for future research: iterative analysis and responsive reorganizing of knowledge and acknowledged experience concluding remarks about the author paper 4: striving for experiential resonance introduction the critical approach: a hermeneutics of suspicion distrusting the hermeneutics of suspicion the phenomenological approach: a hermeneutics of everydayness resonance: the phenomenological nod of recognition conclusion about the author microsoft word møller abduktive bevægelser mellem mysteries og my-stories.docx qualitative studies vol. 7, no. 1, 2022, pp. 112-131 issn 1903-7031 abduktive bevægelser mellem ’mysteries’ og ’my-stories’ britta møller1 1 aalborg universitet, institut for kommunikation og psykologi, teglgaards plads 1, 9000 aalborg denne artikel retter blikket mod kvalitativ forskning som abduktive bevægelser af levede og levende erfaringer i interaktioner med konkrete situationer. med afsæt i to centrale pragmatiske begreber, brud og kontinuitet, relateret til forståelsen af erfaringer, betegnes dette som bevægelser mellem ’mysteries’ (brud) og ’my-stories’ (kontinuitet). artiklen trækker på forfatterens erfaringer, som er gjort i et længerevarende eksperimentelt og kollaborativt studie af læring i ældreplejen og på en socialog sundhedsskole. begreberne ’levende resonanskasse’ og ’levet database’ anvendes til at beskrive aspekter af forskerens mystory, som bringes i samspil med det, som sker i konkrete situationer. artiklen reflekterer over, hvordan forskerens fortælling og identitet kommer i tilblivelse gennem forskningens tilblivelse, og hvordan dette bidrager til vidensudvikling. dette er således, at forskerens my-stories tager form i takt med, at forskningen skaber viden om feltet. artiklen bidrager dermed med et perspektiv på, hvordan forskeren kan gå kvalitativt til verden på en nytænkende måde, der kan bidrage til gensidig erfaringsdannelse og fælles vidensudvikling. keywords: abduktion, pragmatisme, brud, kontinuitet, mysterier, erfaringer ”nåh, hva’ så?”, spurgte læreren mig i pausen, da vi sammen gik fra matematiktimen over mod kaffeautomaten i frokoststuen på socialog sundhedsskolen. ”hvad ser du?”. jeg vidste først ikke, om jeg skulle svare, og i så fald, hvad jeg skulle svare. ville det være i overensstemmelse med god forskning at dele mine iagttagelser og analyser på et så umodent tidspunkt uden at have mulighed for at lave en grundig analytisk fortolkning og fremstilling? det rumsterede i mit hoved, men jeg måtte svare læreren nu, da hun jo havde stillet mig et spørgsmål. jeg kunne ikke tøve for længe. ”hmm. jeg oplever rigtig mange ting. mit hoved er fuldt af iagttagelser og tanker”, b. møller: abduktive bevægelser mellem ’mysteries’ og ’my-stories’ qualitative studies 7(1), pp. 112-131 ©2022 113 indledte jeg med at sige. ”en af de ting, der gjorde indtryk, er, at jeg ser, at det er rigtig vigtigt for eleverne, at matematikken gøres så konkret og visuel som muligt”. læreren svarer, at det netop er et af hendes opmærksomhedspunkter for undervisningen. vi taler frem og tilbage om denne problemstilling og om vores iagttagelser og overvejelser, mens vi tanker kaffe op og går tilbage til klasselokalet. feltnoter, shadowing af undervisning, socialog sundhedsskolen introduktion – at tage erfaringer seriøst. denne artikel handler om ’mysteries’ og ’my-stories’ i kvalitativ forskning. artiklen tilbyder disse begreber som optik til at forstå og analysere betydningen af forskerens erfaringer i kvalitativ forskning. en præmis for at læse artiklen er antagelsen om, at erfaringer kan og skal tages seriøst, i livet generelt og i kvalitativ forskning specifikt. antagelsen præsenteres fra en pragmatisk forståelse af, at erfaringer er radikalt sociale, og ikke kan analyseres som eksklusivt tilhørende det enkelte menneske isoleret fra omgivelserne (dewey, 1934). det bevirker, at vi må anerkende, at vores erfaringer er påvirket af de situationer, vi befinder os i, og at vores erfaringer tillige påvirker situationerne. rationalet er, at det, vi ser, sanser og oplever kan analyseres som tegn på noget, der er på spil i de situationer, vi indgår i, når vi bedriver kvalitativ forskning. dewey (1916) udtrykker erfaringens sociale grund ved at fremhæve, at det er umuligt at afgøre, hvor den enes erfaring adskiller sig fra den andens: ”it is impossible to draw sharp lines such as would enable us to say, here my experience ends, there yours begins” (s. 194). fra denne grund må vi erkende, at den enes erfaring altid er viklet ind i den andens, og at erfaringer derfor må analyseres som sociale begivenheder, snarere end som afgrænset til specifikke enkeltpersoners oplevelser. på samme grund forstås forskerens erfaringer at være viklet ind i de sociale kontekster, hun interagerer i. dette er afsættet for at forstå ’my-stories’, forskerens fortælling. det er denne artikels interesse at undersøge, hvordan det at tage erfaringer seriøst kan forstås og analyseres som en del af kvalitativ forskning. herfra er ønsket at etablere et sprog, der kan hjælpe til at analysere de erfaringer, som forskeren gør sig i interaktion med et specifikt forskningsfelt. artiklens anliggende er at dele erfaringer i et sprogbrug, der potentielt kan vække genkendelse hos b. møller: abduktive bevægelser mellem ’mysteries’ og ’my-stories’ qualitative studies 7(1), pp. 112-131 ©2022 114 læseren, og med en forståelse af mysteries og my-stories som et samspil, der kan medvirke til produktion af viden om sociale fænomener. denne tænkning om at tage erfaringer seriøst foreslås allerede i pragmatismens tidlige år som et paradigmeskifte fra et iagttagerperspektiv (‘spectator theory of knowledge’) til en forståelse af forskning som engageret deltagelse (dewey, 1916, 1929). i nyere tid ses synet praktiseret indenfor procesfilosofi, hvor opdraget om forskerens involvering aktualiserer nytænkende måder at relatere sig som forsker kropsligt og sanseligt, og som giver anledning til nye typer af data og måder at analysere data. denne forskningstilgang beskrives gerne som en post-kvalitativ metode ’efter kodning’ (lather & st. pierre, 2013; st. pierre & jackson, 2014). intentionen er at udføre forskning, hvor fokus ikke er på at repræsentere givne realiteter via systematisk kodningsarbejde, men på at engagere sig på måder, der muligør hidtil ’unimagined configurations’ (ellingson & sotirin, 2020) og rekonstruktioner af erfaringer (rosiek, 2013). shotter (2006) beskriver denne måde at engagere sig som ‘withness’, der indebærer, at forskeren tager “a different form of engaged, responsive thinking, acting, and talking, that allows us to affect the flow of processes from within our living involvement with them” (s. 585). som adresseret i dette temanummer, vil artiklen bidrage til at undersøge, hvordan forskeren kan gå kvalitativt til verden på en nytænkende måde for at undersøge sociale fænomener i konkrete kontekster. i den processuelle måde at beskrive forskeren og forskningen anses individuelle handlinger og erfaringer som sammenvævet med andres erfaringer i et ”web of chains of action into which each individual act within this differentiated society is woven” (elias, 2000, s. 368, citeret i stacey & griffin, 2005). det bevirker, at forskerens position som objektiv observatør må opgives, mens forskerens forbindelse til det observerede, herunder forskerens følelser, oplevelser og erfaringer må tages seriøst som datamateriale (stacey & griffin, 2005). denne forståelse af forskning som kvalificering af erfaringer, der gøres med feltet, giver form til en dobbelt bevægelse, hvor noget tages ind og gør indtryk, og noget gøres og får udtryk (møller, in press). med begreberne mysteries og my-stories vil jeg zoome ind på denne bevægelse, og gennem en analyse af en mikrosituation i forskningen laver jeg en in-depth analyse af, hvordan den engagerede forsker interagerer med sine levede og levende erfaringer. mens den iagttagende forsker ikke oplever ansvar for den aktuelle situation og ikke bekymrer sig om handlingers konsekvenser, da det ene kan være lige så godt som det b. møller: abduktive bevægelser mellem ’mysteries’ og ’my-stories’ qualitative studies 7(1), pp. 112-131 ©2022 115 andet, har den engagerede forsker noget på spil i situationen (dewey, 1916). engagementet drives af, at forskeren har omsorg og bekymring for hvad, der er på spil og hvad, som må ske som konsekvens. det vil sige, at som forskeren lever sit liv, vil man, som brinkmann (2013) udtrykker det, falde over problemer eller situationer, som overrasker og bekymrer, og at sådanne situationer er ofte meget nyttige som anledninger til kvalitativ forskning, der ikke alene sætter dig i stand til personligt at få en klarere opfattelse af, hvad der overraskede eller bekymrede dig, men som måske også kan kaste lys over mere omfattende sociale spørgsmål (s. 14). disse situationer kan forstås som mysterier i forskningen, som både har potentiale til at igangsætte en læreproces for forskeren og til at virke produktive i videnskabelsen omkring de studerede sociale fænomener. fra disse overvejelser undersøger artiklen: hvad bliver det muligt at få øje på, når forskerens engagement i kvalitativ forskning analyseres som abduktive bevægelser mellem erfaringers brud og kontinuitet beskrevet som mysteries og my-stories? artiklen struktureres på følgende vis. i første del gennemgås det teoretiske grundlag for at analysere forskerens erfaringer som mysteries og my-stories. dette afsnit tager udgangspunkt i den amerikanske pragmatiske filosof john deweys (1916) forståelse af erfaringer med begreberne brud, kontinuitet og samspil. ydermere inddrages alvesson og kärremans (2007) konceptualisering af mysterie-drevet forskning, revsbæk og tanggaards (2015) forståelse af forskeren som levet database, min egen beskrivelse af forskeren som ’levende resonanskasse’ (møller, in press) samt revsbæks (2018) beskrivelse af resonante erfaringer. fra denne grund opbygger artiklen forståelsen af mystories og mysteries som begreber for forskerens engagement i vidensproduktionen. i anden del af artiklen beskrives design og metoder for det empiriske studie, som artiklen hviler på, samt de metoder til analyse, som artiklen betjener sig af. dette leder til fremstillingen af et narrativ, som udledes af artiklens indledende vignet og som uddybes i analyse. i analysen undersøges, hvad det bliver muligt at få øje på, når forskerens engagement forstås som bevægelser mellem my-stories og mysteries. i sidste del, på bagkant af analysen, diskuteres vigtigheden af at kende sine my-stories som forsker for b. møller: abduktive bevægelser mellem ’mysteries’ og ’my-stories’ qualitative studies 7(1), pp. 112-131 ©2022 116 at kunne etablere en refleksivitet over, hvad man er modtagelig overfor i feltet, og hvilke fortællinger, man som følge af sin modtagelighed, skaber om feltet. desuden berøres aspekter af magt, som præger såvel modtagelighed og tilgængelighed, særligt i kollaborativ vidensproduktionen. efter en kort opsamling i konklusionen retter artiklen fokus på, hvilke implikationer dette blik på kvalitativ forskning kan have for forskning og organisatorisk praksis. teoretisk analyseramme analyse af erfaringer med udgangspunkt i den pragmatiske erfaringsforståelse fremlægger jeg i dette afsnit det teoretiske grundlag for at analysere forskning som bevægelser mellem mysteries og mystories. dette vedrører temporale og spatiale aspekter knyttet til erfaringens kontinuitet og samspil (dewey, 1938). mysterier som bryder og skaber resonans betegnelsen mysteries repræsenterer brud i erfaringer (dewey, 1916), som opstår gennem forskerens interaktioner med feltet, og dermed vedrører et samspilsaspekt i erfaringer – at erfaringer altid er vævet ind i samspil med sociale og historiske kontekster (dewey, 1938). den pragmatiske forståelse er, at data tager form som brud, der muliggør, at forskeren konstruerer mysterier (alvesson & kärreman, 2007). det betyder, at forskeren så at sige falder over et problem, idet der opstår uventede begivenheder, som forvirrer og overrasker (brinkmann, 2013). der er tale om en type af situationer, der har en særlig ufuldendt og åben karakter, og som bringer forskeren i tvivl om, hvordan situationen skal forstås og håndteres (dewey, 1916). det er situationer, som forskeren erfarer som urolige, utilregnelige og ubestemte, og hvor det, som bryder, kan identificeres og analyseres som et mysterium, der kan udforskes og evt. blive opklaret (alvesson & kärreman, 2007). i samspillet fungerer forskeren som en erfarende deltager, der såvel registrerer som producerer data. for at forstå forskerens funktion i samspillet, foreslår jeg, at anse denne som en ’levende resonanskasse’, der interagerer med aktører og fænomener i den sociale kontekst. willert (2011) beskriver som metafor for hjælpersamtalen terapeuten som en resonanskasse, der med et mylder af strenge i forskellige tykkelser, længder, spændstigheder og klangfarver suger til sig af indtryk. som metafor for forskning, kan data sige at blive tilgængelige, idet de skaber medsvingninger i forskerens erfaringer. b. møller: abduktive bevægelser mellem ’mysteries’ og ’my-stories’ qualitative studies 7(1), pp. 112-131 ©2022 117 brud registreres ved, at forskeren tager sine erfaringer seriøst og sensitivt agerer som levende resonanskasse, der lader det signifikante og urolige i situationen gøre indtryk (møller, in press). dette er en æstetisk kropslig interaktion, der kræver værdsættelse, hvor forskeren som sansende subjekt gør sig modtagelig for situationers og fænomeners indtryk, og omsætter disse indtryk analytisk og resonant i den sociale kontekst til et ’udtrykkende objekt’ (dewey, 1934). mysteriet peger mod, hvad dewey (1934) kalder, en erfaring, som er hans betegnelse for en type af erfaringer, som har en særlig signifikant kvalitet, der får den til at træde ud af strømmen af erfaringer og blive særlig mindeværdig. revsbæk (2018) beskriver denne type erfaringer som ’resonante erfaringer’. der er tale om erfaringer med æstetiske og refleksive træk, som opstår i samspil og svingning med tilgængelige fænomeners udtryksfuldhed. my-stories som tidslig kontinuitet i erfaringer my-stories er i tæt forbindelse med mysteries, og er allerede implicit berørt i udredningen heraf. mysterierne resonerer i forskerens levede og levende erfaringer, i hvad der kan beskrives som forskerens my-stories; i fortællinger, der er skaber kontinuitet mellem tidligere, aktuel og fremadrettet erfaringsdannelse. my-stories indebærer dermed den pragmatiske forståelse af erfaringer (dewey, 1916; 1938), der beskrives med tre temporale aspekter: i) forskerens informerede forventninger (tidligere erfaringer), ii) forskerens sanselige nærvær til en situation (aktuelle erfaringer), samt iii) forskerens forestillinger om konsekvenser (fremtidige erfaringer). forskerens erfaringer med forskning, feltarbejde, engagementer med bestemte mennesker og praksisser, læsning af specifikke teorier og det levede liv generelt kan siges at forme en ’levet database’ (revsbæk & tanggaard, 2015). denne database aktiverer en specifik disposition for modtagelighed, resonans og fortolkning, hvor noget bliver muligt at få øje på og analysere, mens andet ikke er tilgængeligt. tidligere erfaringer former således, hvilke erfaringer det bliver muligt at gøre i en specifik kontekst. det betyder, at forskerens resonanskasse (aktuelle modtagelighed) tager form af de erfaringer, som tidligere er gjort. den levede database disponerer en sanselig og analytisk parathed i forskerens my-stories. databasen af levede erfaringer skaber strengenes specifikke klangfarver og dermed deres tilbøjelighed til at gå i medsvingninger med bestemte klange i feltet. b. møller: abduktive bevægelser mellem ’mysteries’ og ’my-stories’ qualitative studies 7(1), pp. 112-131 ©2022 118 abduktive loops rettet mod kvalificering af erfaringer det tredje element i my-stories vedrører forskerens forestillinger om fremtiden. udover at forskeren interagerer som levende resonanskasse og levet database interagerer forskeren tillige med de bekymringer, som hun gør sig om konsekvenser af det ene eller det andet i den aktuelle situation og kontekst. dette aspekt giver anledning til etableringen af nye my-stories, når forskeren gennemgår og analyserer forskningens konsekvenser (dewey, 1916). i relation til dette element virker en pragmatisk forståelse af, at forskerens idéer og teorier (her den levede database) kan fungere som et muliggørende redskab, der åbner for refleksivitet; ikke blot ved at forskeren lytter og observerer, men særligt ved, at forskeren interagerer og tager egne og andres responser seriøst (alvesson & kärreman, 2007). som sammenhængende bevægelse giver de tre temporale aspekter mulighed for at forstå forskning som abduktive loops, der bevæger sig fremad mod stadig mere kvalificerede erkendelser i samspil med et specifikt felt. det betyder, at kvaliteterne i mystories som levet database og levende resonanskasse fortsat kvalificeres, så forskerens grundlag for at forstå, håndtere og beskrive specifikke fænomener til stadighed udbygges og nuanceres. dermed skærpes iagttagelsesog analyseberedskabet, så forskeren kan opstille stadig mere kvalificerede hypoteser. det kan muliggøre endnu rigere erfaringer og medføre vækst (dewey, 1916) for forskeren og i forskningens resultater, vidensproduktionen. kontekst og metode til studiet af mysteries og my-stories baggrunden for denne artikel er et længerevarende empirisk studie, der undersøgte læring i omsorgsarbejde. studiet involverede aktører fra den kommunale ældrepleje og fra en socialog sundhedsskole, som uddanner elever og medarbejdere til omsorgsarbejdet. fra et pragmatisk ståsted inspireret af dewey (1916, 1934) trak studiet på en eksperimentel og kollaborativ metodologi, hvor aktørerne sammen udforskede læring forstået som samskabende udforskning af tvivl i usikre situationer. fra dette pragmatiske perspektiv anlagde studiet en normativ tilgang med et ønske om at muliggøre stadig rigere erfaringer for de involverede aktører i deres praksisser og organisationer. metoden ’shadowing’ (czarniawska, 2007; mcdonald & simpson, 2014) tillod forskeren at følge de daglige arbejdspraksisser, som de udfoldede sig på mikroniveauer og i forskellige kontekster på plejehjem og skole. samtidig gav shadowing forsker og forskningsdeltagere mulighed for b. møller: abduktive bevægelser mellem ’mysteries’ og ’my-stories’ qualitative studies 7(1), pp. 112-131 ©2022 119 at engagere sig i ’in-the-moment-interpretations’, hvor gensidige iagttagelser og analyser kunne udveksles og udvikles (buchan & simpson, 2020, s. 10). det er i denne sammenhæng, at jeg fik behov for at forstå, på hvilket grundlag jeg kunne engagere mig i analyser af øjeblikke på et, set i et traditionelt forskningsperspektiv, stadigt umodent tidspunkt, idet jeg endnu ikke havde gennemgået og kvalificeret mine iagttagelser på videnskabelig og analytisk vis. jeg ville forstå, hvorvidt jeg kunne tage mine erfaringer seriøst som led i forskningen, og som resultat af disse overvejelser ønskede jeg at udrede et analytisk redskab, der kan styrke forskerens refleksivitet over sine erfaringer. som den indledende vignet illustrerer, faldt jeg ofte over disse muligheder for ’inthe-moment-interpretations’ i situationer, som kunne virke tilfældige og spontane. ved at lægge mærke til, hvad der skete i disse hændelser, tog data imidlertid form som erfarede, sanselige og responsive (shotter, 2006; st. pierre, 1997) og som snarere ’snublet’ over end indsamlet (brinkmann, 2014). i denne sammenhæng fremkom studiets analyser i en abduktiv proces mellem noget, jeg endnu ikke helt kunne forstå og min iver efter at komme til at forstå mere på vegne af såvel forskningens som forskningsaktørernes praksis. min erkendelsesproces er dermed såvel en personlig erfaringsdannelse som en videnskabelig konstruktion af viden. for at forstå mere i detaljer om, hvad der skete i og omkring disse øjeblikke af analyse, vil jeg vende tilbage til den indledende vignet. herfra undersøger jeg, hvad det bliver muligt at få øje på, når mit engagement i situationen analyseres som bevægelser mellem erfaringers brud og kontinuitet, mysteries og my-stories. i gennemgangen af vignetten træder særligt én sætning frem, som repræsenterer et betydningsfuldt øjeblik i situationen, som jeg i den følgende analyse vil zoome nærmere ind på. det drejer sig om sætningen det rumsterede i mit hoved, men jeg måtte svare læreren nu. denne sætning vil jeg udfolde i et narrativ, som efterfølgende analyseres i lyset af erfaringers brud og kontinuitet for at undersøge, hvad det bliver muligt at få øje på, når det som sker analyseres som bevægelser mellem mysteries og my-stories. b. møller: abduktive bevægelser mellem ’mysteries’ og ’my-stories’ qualitative studies 7(1), pp. 112-131 ©2022 120 narrativ: det rumsterede i mit hoved, men jeg måtte svare læreren nu det rumsterede i mit hoved, men jeg måtte svare læreren nu. jeg måtte ikke tøve for længe. men hvad kunne jeg svare? jeg var fuld af indtryk efter opmærksomt at have fuldt undervisningen, men jeg havde jo slet ikke samlet disse iagttagelser ordentligt i tematikker og afklarede pointer, ville jeg komme til at sige noget, som ville virke som en ubetydelig bagatel eller som kunne opleves som en uberettiget kritik? det føltes modstridende, fordi jeg samtidig gerne ville bidrage med noget, der kunne gøre en forskel for læreren. det virkede næsten forræderisk og egoistisk at holde mine iagttagelser for mig selv, når nu hun havde været så venlig at invitere mig med i undervisningen. kunne jeg overhovedet komme uden om at svare? jeg måtte beslutte mig. jeg kunne ikke tøve længere. feltnoter, shadowing af undervisning, socialog sundhedsskolen et brud i min fortælling om forskning ovenstående narrativ kan forstås som beskrivelse af en hændelse, der skaber et brud i mine erfaringer (dewey, 1916) med, hvad der kan forstås og praktiseres som forskning. narrativet viser forvirringen, konflikten og tvivlen, som lærerens forespørgsel skaber, når jeg sammenholder, hvad der sker med min forestilling om, hvordan jeg burde gøre for at praktisere forskning rigtigt og med høj kvalitet. jeg er faldet over situationen, fordi den forvirrer og overrasker (brinkmann, 2014). den fremstår ufuldendt og åben (dewey, 1916), idet jeg ikke ved, hvordan jeg skal reagere. jeg oplever, at de svar, jeg har til rådighed, som del af min levede database (revsbæk & tanggaard, 2015) ikke rækker til at vejlede mig i forhold til, hvordan jeg kan agere i min position som forsker. i min gennemgang af dette brud skabes et mysterium (alvesson & kärreman, 2007). situationen vækker modsatrettede følelser; den gør mig urolig og rådvild. mysteriet spænder mig ud mellem forskellige muligheder; skal jeg afvise eller imødekomme lærerens ønske om at få min respons? ved at afvise læreren, viser narrativet, at jeg oplever det som ’forræderi og egoisme’, fordi det kan virke som om jeg blot vil have adgang til lærerens praksis og ikke give noget tilbage. modsat peger narrativet på, at jeg ved at imødekomme læreren, er i tvivl om, hvorvidt jeg vil overskride kvalitetsmæssige kriterier for kvalitativ forskning. disse forskellige overvejelser knytter an til forskellige teorier, som jeg har til rådighed i ’my-story’ og som medvirker til at trække mig i forskellige retninger. teorierne medskaber det brud, jeg oplever. i nogle teorier beskrives forskerens b. møller: abduktive bevægelser mellem ’mysteries’ og ’my-stories’ qualitative studies 7(1), pp. 112-131 ©2022 121 påvirkning af det observerede som forstyrrelser eller bias. dette er fx repræsenteret af den fænomenologiske interesse i, at forskeren sætter sin forforståelse i parentes, så menneskers oplevelsesverden kan belyses fra et førstepersons-perspektiv (jacobsen et.al, 2010). analyseret i lyset af denne forståelse, kan min tøven forstås som en kvalificeret refleksivitet over, at forskeren må beskrive virkeligheden, som den er, uden at påvirke den. i tråd med denne tænkning vil jeg, ved at dele mine foreløbige analyser på et umodent grundlag, risikere at manipulere og forurene datamaterialet, så det ikke fremstår rent. modsat påvirker andre teorier mine overvejelser og skaber spænd i my-story, idet fx pragmatiske og procesfilosofiske teorier antager, at forskeren må engagere sig aktivt i emergerende øjeblikke for direkte at undgå et passivt iagttagerperspektiv (dewey, 1916; shotter, 2006; stacey & griffin, 2005). dette spænd river i mig, og jeg oplever at mangle levede erfaringer i ’my-story’, som kan hjælpe mig til at praktisere dette engagement. hvordan ser det ud, når forskeren engagerer sig i ’i-øjeblikkets-fortolkning’? (buchan & simpson, 2020). hvordan kan kvaliteten i forskning i bevares, når forskeren er medvirkende og transformerende i et felt? narrativet peger på, at jeg oplever øjeblikkets karakter, idet jeg føler mig tvunget til at handle og respondere på lærerens forespørgsel. jeg har i situationen ikke mulighed for at grave dybere ned i ’my-story’ efter teorier eller erfaringer, der kan vise vejen til, hvordan jeg skal respondere. jeg er tvunget til at agere in-situ som resonanskasse, der bringer det i spil, som har bragt mig i svingninger i det sanselige nærvær, som jeg har etableret til undervisningssituationen, og som kalder mig til at reagere i samtalen med læreren (dewey, 1934). jeg oplever, at jeg må tage mine erfaringer seriøst og have tiltro til, at teorier herom (dewey, 1916; shotter, 2006; stacey & griffin, 2005) er pålidelige, og at jeg derfor kan stole på, at det kan gøre en kvalitativ forskel, at forskeren viser sin omsorg for det, som er på spil, og tager medansvar for konsekvenserne af det erfarede (dewey, 1916). det betyder, at jeg må tage erfarede my-stories som en seriøs fortælling, der både har noget at gøre med og at sige til den konkrete situation, jeg erfarer, og at mine fortællinger dermed potentielt vil og med fordel kan virke positivt forandrende på situationen. analysen af mysteriet giver anledning til, at jeg kommer til at forstå my-story endnu bedre, idet jeg får mulighed på at gennemgå, hvad i my-story, der får mig til at støde ind i situationen. dette giver anledning til at fremsætte forskellige hypoteser om, hvad der b. møller: abduktive bevægelser mellem ’mysteries’ og ’my-stories’ qualitative studies 7(1), pp. 112-131 ©2022 122 kan sikre mine intenderede ønsker for såvel situationen som for min forskning generelt. mysteriet er således medskabende af fremtidige my-stories; historien udvides og udvikles i mødet med dette brud, som jeg umiddelbart ikke kunne forstå og håndtere. erfaringen tog form, som det dewey (1934) beskriver som en erfaring, som bryder ud af rækken af episoder i projektet, og gjorde signifikant indtryk, idet den blev medskabende for en fremtidig forskningspraksis, hvor ’in-the-moment-interpretations’ (buchan & simpson, 2020) blev en del af en praktiseret forskningstilgang. således formede denne situation fremtidige situationer, idet både min levede database (revsbæk & tanggaard, 2015) og min levende resonanskasse blev nuanceret mod nye klange fra feltet. jeg blev styrket i at få øje på situationers invitationer til dialog om samskabelse. det var vel at mærke interaktioner, der virkede skabende på såvel aktørernes praksis som på forskningens resultater, idet jeg gennem dialogen kom til at vide mere om lærerens overvejelser om sin undervisning, samtidig med at jeg fik efterprøvet virkninger af mine indledende iagttagelser og analyser. tilgængelighed og modtagelighed et overordnet analyserende blik på vignetten giver muligheder for at forstå, hvordan mystories var medvirkende til, at vignettens situation overhovedet blev tilgængelig for mig. i den periode, hvor jeg befandt mig på socialog sundhedsskolen, havde jeg etableret en arbejdsplads ved et af spisebordene i personalets frokoststue, når jeg et par gange om ugen sad på skolen og arbejdede. jeg satte mig der, fordi jeg havde en forventning om, at jeg der kunne observere og tage del i det organisatoriske liv, som jeg ikke eksplicit kunne bede om lov til at deltage i, og som ikke ville være tilgængeligt i formelle undervisnings og mødeaktiviteter. denne forventning var formet af min levede database, der er teoretisk informeret af situeret læringsteori (eraut, 2004; hager, 2004; lave & wenger, 1991) og rummer erfaringer af, at læring, refleksion og innovation sker på forskellige måder og steder i korte møder på gangen, foran kaffemaskinen og i arbejdet (dixon, 1997; marsick & volpe, 1999; wegener, 2013). ved at sætte mig i frokoststuen gjorde jeg mig tilgængelig som levende resonanskasse i rum og interaktioner, hvori jeg forventede, at disse fænomener ville komme til udtryk. min tilstedeværelse i frokoststuen gav anledning til, at jeg opbyggede kontakt til denne lærer, og til at hun denne dag inviterede mig med i sin undervisning. med min tilstedeværelse i frokoststuen opstod der altså anledning til b. møller: abduktive bevægelser mellem ’mysteries’ og ’my-stories’ qualitative studies 7(1), pp. 112-131 ©2022 123 at ’ramle ind’ i sådanne muligheder, fordi jeg var til stede i rum, der gjorde mig tilgængelig for det, som skete, og hvor det som skete blev tilgængeligt for mig. ydermere blev mine ’in-the-moment-interpretations’ (buchan & simpson, 2020) påvirket af, at jeg trådte ind i feltet ’omsorgsarbejde og -uddannelse’ med en særlig parathed til at iagttage og forstå læring i arbejdet som et pædagogisk anliggende og til at analysere didaktiske principper for undervisning. denne disposition er dannet af årtiers arbejde med pædagogikken som videnskabsog handlingsområde, hvor jeg har læst teorier om og gjort mig erfaringer med den pædagogiske og didaktiske tilrettelæggelse for læring. det betyder, at min levede database (revsbæk & tanggaard, 2015) har skabt et iagttagelsespotentiale, der gør mig særligt modtagelig for, hvordan pædagogikken (som tilrettelæggelse af læring) tager form i det specifikke felt. som levende resonanskasse er jeg resonant for sådanne pædagogiske ’klange’ fra feltet. det betyder, at pædagogiske klange er tilgængelige for mig, mens andre ’klange’ forbliver utilgængelige, idet de ikke resonerer med my-stories, og jeg derfor ikke har dispositionen til at få øje på og forstå disse klange. refleksivitet at søge en forståelse af, hvilke klange fra et felt, der er tilgængelige, peger på, at det er betydningsfuldt, at forskeren etablerer en refleksivitet overfor sine specifikke my-stories. at etablere refleksivitet og at tydeliggøre rammerne for sin levede database har en anden karakter end opdraget om at skulle sætte ’parentes om sin forforståelse’, som gerne anbefales indenfor fænomenologisk funderet forskning (jacobsen et.al, 2010). med forståelsen af my-story som klangbund for forskerens resonanskasse retter forskeren sig mod til stadighed at komme til at kende sine egne strenges klangfarver, og at komme til forståelse af, hvilke klange i et felt, man bringes i svingning af. min kobling af revsbæks og tanggaards (2015) forståelse af forskerens levede database med willerts (2011) forståelse af ’hjælperen’ som resonanskasse hjælper til at zoome ind på, at forskeren har bestemte klange, der er mulige at registrere, mens hun ikke har dispositionen til at opfange andre klange. samtidig kan forståelsen skærpe forskerens refleksivitet over, hvordan man med sin resonanskasse selv sætter det observerede i svingninger. det giver et perspektiv på forskerens tilstedeværelse i bestemte rum og sine specifikke måder at interagere på. med en sådan refleksivitet kan forskeren få øje på sin virkning som resonanskasse, b. møller: abduktive bevægelser mellem ’mysteries’ og ’my-stories’ qualitative studies 7(1), pp. 112-131 ©2022 124 ligesom der er mulighed for kvalificeret at udvide sin egen modtagelighed, sin levede database. tænkningen om mysteries og my-stories kan rette forskeren mod i højere grad at have en opmærksomhed omkring sit teoretiske og erfaringsmæssige afsæt for iagttagelse og analyse. derved kan forskeren øge sin bevidsthed om, hvordan hun med sin modtagelighed deltager i definitionen af de fænomener, hun iagttager, og at forståelsen af data og verden vil påvirkes af, hvilke erfaringer forskeren har med i sin fortælling. hvilken litteratur har man læst? hvilke fortællinger har forskeren med sig om hvad der er ’rigtig forskning’? hvilke erfaringer har forskeren gjort gennem sit professionelle og personlige liv gennem mødet med forskellige mennesker, situationer, kontekster og fænomener? på hvilke måder former disse forestillinger og erfaringer modtageligheden i et specifikt forskningsfelt, og de mysterier, der bliver mulige at konstruere? herunder er det relevant for forskeren at overveje kontekstens betydning. i dette studies tilfælde, hvorledes den specifikke kontekst af uddannelse til omsorgsarbejde var medvirkende til formning af mysteries og my-stories. mødet med brud i forskerens praksis, som vignetten og narrativet i denne artikel illustrerer, kan give anledning til at konstruere mysterier. gennem analyser af sådanne mysterier vil resultater gradvist vokse frem. i studiet, som ligger til grund for denne artikel, blev analyser foretaget, når oplevede brud gav anledning til at gennemgå situationen. dette fandt til i en proces mellem forsker og forskningsdeltagere både spontant i ’in-the-moment-interpretations’ og gennem faciliterede processer. dette bevirker, at forskningens resultater, der rummer såvel forandringer i den organisatoriske praksis som vidensproduktion, skabtes gennem interaktioner og fælles analyse. her virkede det analytiske møde med bruddet som et mysterium til, at forskerens forståelse af sig selv og sit handleberedskab var under kontinuerlig udvikling. gennem refleksion over disse forskningens mysterier i samspil med feltet skete en tilblivelse af forskerens mystories. forskeren blev til gennem forskningens tilblivelse. kvalificeringen af forskeren som levet database muliggjorde en stadig mere nuanceret funktion som levende resonanskasse for forskellige klange i feltet. jeg erfarede derved, at forskeren ikke på deterministisk vis er prisgivet sin levede database, idet man kontinuerligt vil udbygge databasen med de levende erfaringer, som gøres med fænomener, feltarbejde, litteratur, mennesker etc. konteksten former forskeren. b. møller: abduktive bevægelser mellem ’mysteries’ og ’my-stories’ qualitative studies 7(1), pp. 112-131 ©2022 125 at tage erfaringer seriøst i forskning betyder ikke, at forskerens erfaringer er samstemmende og identiske med det, som sker i feltet. jeg hævder derfor ikke, at forskerens fortælling om situationen kan repræsentere den andens fortælling eller fortællinger om feltet. det handler mere, som revsbæk (2018) beskriver det, om at forme en forståelse af, hvad forskeren opfatter som karakteristisk for den anden (det undersøgte) ud fra den resonans, som skabes i forskeren, og at denne forståelse kan være generativ for forståelser af den anden/det andet. willert (2011) beskriver om hjælperrelationen, at resonansen kan gives tilbage som spejlinger uden eller med ’buler’. ’uden buler’ i spejlet giver ’hjælperen’ det tilbage, som opleves, så kildenært som muligt med den andens egne ord og billeder. ’med buler’ i spejlet resoneres det, som opleves i ’hjælperens’ resonansrum. det, som gives tilbage, er derfor selekteret gennem hjælperens ”personog livshistorieforankrede resonanskasse” (s. 170). i denne artikels terminologi; gennem forskerens my-stories. det betyder, at det, som sker kommer til at hænge sammen med myriader af andre og andres strenge af klange. derfor kan det i forskningen være vanskeligt at afgrænse den ene fortælling fra den anden, og at isolere og præsentere hændelser som helheder i sig selv, sådan som er gjort med vignetten i denne artikel. vi må forstå, at denne fortælling, som her er præsenteret, er indlejret i et net af fortællinger, levede og levende erfaringer (dewey, 1916; stacey & griffin, 2005). det rejser en problemstilling om, hvordan forskere med kvalitative tilnærmelser kan undgå at reproducere hegenomiske forståelser af sociale fænomener. det peger på aspekter af magt, som er til stede i vidensproduktion, herunder hvordan magt konstrueres diskursivt og vidensproduktion styres af forskellige parters interesser, verdensbilleder og sociale status (enosh et al., 2008). disse forhold betyder, at forskeren skal være opmærksom på sin magt til at definere virkeligheden (enosh & buchbinder, 2005), og at de fortællinger, som skabes, kan opleves anderledes fra andres perspektiv. forskeren er uundgåeligt og nødvendigvis subjektivt tilstede i vidensproduktionen, men det samme kan siges, særligt i kollaborativ forskning, om forskningens andre deltagerne. også de er subjektivt tilstede med deres levede databaser, oplevelser af mysterier, resonans med særlige klange og analyser, som gøres på baggrund heraf. det betyder, at magtrelationerne i vidensproduktionen er vanskelige at definere, og at der kan være en risiko for, at der opstår kampe om fortællingen snarere end samarbejde (enosh & buchbinder, 2005). forskningens deltagere kan have særlige interesser, som påvirker b. møller: abduktive bevægelser mellem ’mysteries’ og ’my-stories’ qualitative studies 7(1), pp. 112-131 ©2022 126 interaktionen mellem forsker og det studerede fænomen, og som så at sige afgrænser tilgængeligheden af klange i feltet til nogle bestemte, defineret af forskningsdeltagernes særlige præg på situationen. konklusion med denne artikel satte jeg mig for at undersøge, hvad det bliver muligt at få øje på, når forskerens engagement i kvalitativ forskning analyseres som abduktive bevægelser mellem erfaringers brud og kontinuitet beskrevet som mysteries og my-stories. med inspiration fra pragmatisk filosofi (dewey, 1916; dewey, 1934; dewey & bentley, 1949) defineres læring som en transaktionel reorganisering struktureret af brud i erfaringer (mysterier) og kontinuitet i erfaringer (my-stories). artiklen udvikler og bidrager med et redskab til analyse af betydningen af forskerens levende og levede erfaringer som resonanskasse og database (forskerens my-stories), der muliggør en specifik disposition for at registrere situationer, hvori der opstår brud, forvirring, overraskelse og tvivl (mysteries) i samspil med feltet. med afsæt i en mikroanalyse af erfaringer med et sådant brud i forskningen bliver det muligt at se, at den kvalitative forsker i sin tilstedeværelse kan bruge sig som resonanskasse, der registrerer det, som foregår. ved at give den registrerede resonans tilbage som respons kan forskeren sammen med forskningens aktører medvirke i fortolkning og analyse af det, som foregår, og dermed virke i en samskabende vidensproduktion. dermed kan begge komme til at forstå mere af det, som foregår og mere om dem selv i dette. dette kan bevirke, at forskeren både anvender og udvikler sine my-stories som en metode til registrering og analyse af fænomener, mysterier, i den kvalitative forskning. dermed kvalificeres de konklusioner, som bliver mulige at drage om de undersøgte fænomener. implikationer i forskning det sker, at forskerens og feltets klange ikke harmonerer, og at der i sådanne disharmonier skabes brud, der som led i forskningen kan virke igangsættende for læring. det kræver, at forskeren løfter blikket og åbner for iagttagelse og analyse, således at mysteries og mystories tages i anvendelse i forskningens aktiviteter, som afsæt for at lære noget. som adresseret i dette temanummer undersøger artiklen, hvordan forskeren kan gå kvalitativt til verden på en nytænkende måde, der bidrager til fælles vidensudvikling og styrket b. møller: abduktive bevægelser mellem ’mysteries’ og ’my-stories’ qualitative studies 7(1), pp. 112-131 ©2022 127 erfaringsgrundlag; det vil sige til at kvalificere my-stories virkning som levende resonanskasse og den levede database som kvalitativt redskab i forskningens vidensproduktion. i tilfælde af kollaborative og praksisbaserede studier, som artiklens er baseret på, kan udviklingen af forskerens my-stories skabe vidensperspektiver, der kan bidrage til udvikling af organisationer og/eller organisatorisk praksis. man kan som forsker bringe noget tilbage til feltet, der er ligegyldigt. man kan også bringe noget tilbage, der er vigtigt og nyttigt. noget, som kan bringe det, der sker videre. noget, som bryder med det, der sker og som hjælper til at bygge videre. det handler ikke blot om at se hinanden og beskrive den fælles verden, men også om hvordan vi ser og beskriver hinanden og verden. med bevidsthed om sin virkning som resonanskasse og sin rækkevidde som database vil forskeren i højere grad kunne sikre en vis kvalitet i den måde, hun formidler iagttagelser og analyser til forskningens aktører. implikationer i forskningen vedrører dog mere end kvalificering af forskerens mystory og organisatorisk praksis. når willert (2011) anvender begrebet resonanskasse relaterer han til terapeutiske relationer, hvor ’hjælperens’ spejlinger anvendes som potential igangsætter af klientens erkendelsesproces. dette er en proces, hvor hjælperens resonanskasse tillige afstemmes på ny, hvorfor interaktionen omkring resonansen tillige kan eller bør igangsætte en læreproces for hjælperen. på samme måde vil ’hjælperen’ i undervisningsog omsorgsarbejde fungere som levende resonanskasse, som både kan igangsætte en læreproces for ’den anden’ og for ’hjælperen’ selv. det er tale om relationelle møder, der har til formål at igangsætte gensidige personlige og/eller personfaglige læreprocesser for deltagerne. forskeren derimod har et højere formål med sit engagement i mødet; nemlig et formål om at producere viden om de sociale fænomener, der studeres. det betyder, at engagementet ikke blot har til formål at generere gensidige læreprocesser for forskeren og de involverede forskningsdeltagere og at udbygge mystories, men derimod at udvikle vidensperspektiver. det vil, som dewey (1916) udtrykker det, sige at udvikle teorier, der kan anvendes som redskaber til at forstå og håndtere fx psykologiske og sociale problemstillinger i verden. pointen er, at hvad der foregår i verden, socialhistorien og hvad der foregår i mennesket, menneskets historie krydser hinanden og er vævet sammen, og at kvalitativ forskning kan udforske og skabe viden netop ud fra disse skæringslinjer (brinkmann, 2013). b. møller: abduktive bevægelser mellem ’mysteries’ og ’my-stories’ qualitative studies 7(1), pp. 112-131 ©2022 128 implikationer i organisatorisk praksis forståelsen af mysteries og my-stories som afsæt for videnskabelse kan have positive implikationer i håndteringen af læring og udvikling af praksis på arbejdspladser og i organisationer. der kan trækkes en analog til organisatoriske sammenhænge, hvor også medarbejderen på en arbejdsplads med fordel kan komme til at kende egne my-stories grænser, kvaliteter og virkninger. samtidig kan det være givtigt i et kollegialt fællesskab få øje på, at forskellig parathed til at registrere bestemte klange giver varieret modtagelighed for forskellige aspekter i kommunikationen og i arbejdet. et sådant perspektiv fordrer en anerkendelse af, at andre kan få øje på noget i kraft af de levende erfaringer, de gør sig med et fænomen (via deres resonanskasse), og de levede erfaringer, som de gennem tiden har gjort med lignende fænomener (via deres levede database). denne opmærksomhed kan i en organisatorisk kontekst bruges til kvalitativt at udvikle forståelsen af situationer og fænomener. at tage erfaringer seriøst i forskning og organisatorisk arbejde kan være et redskab til at skabe viden om såvel det, som sker og om de mennesker, der handler i og analyserer det, som sker. et sådant fokus vil henlede opmærksomheden på, at der kontinuerligt sker en samskabende erfaringsdannelse af mystories, og som konsekvens, at læring sker i alle rum, på alle niveauer og potentielt hele tiden. udfordringen er dog, som jeg ser det, at erfaringer ofte privatiseres og individualiseres. skal vi lykkes med at udnytte læringspotentialet i at tage erfaringer seriøst, og herfra kunne udvikle ny viden, skal vi afprivatisere vores erfaringer. at tage erfaringer seriøst med henblik på at lære mere om vores fælles verden, kræver, at vi finder et sprog til at tale om, det vi oplever – sammen. forståelsen af erfaringer som bevægelser mellem my-stories og mysteries giver et bud på, hvordan vi kan arbejde kvalitativt nytænkende i såvel forskning som organisatoriske kontekster på en sensitiv, sanselig og refleksiv grund. b. møller: abduktive bevægelser mellem ’mysteries’ og ’my-stories’ qualitative studies 7(1), pp. 112-131 ©2022 129 referencer alvesson, m., & 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(red) fokus på samtalen. hans reitzel forlag. about the author: britta møller, phd student at the department of communication and psychology, and research assistant at the department of culture and learning, both at aalborg university. her topics of research are pedagogy, workplace learning, organizational learning and management, welfare work and education, especially care work and vocational education and training. the main philosophical and theoretical inspirations are in pragmatism, and from here she explores collaborative and experimental research methods. microsoft word nielsen kvalitativ psykologi som tilfældets psykologi.docx qualitative studies vol. 7, no. 1, 2022, pp. 24-44 issn 1903-7031 kvalitativ psykologi som tilfældets psykologi klaus nielsen1 1dept. of psychology, university of aarhus, bartholins allé 9, bygning 1350, kontor 224, dk-8000 aarhus c, denmark hensigten for denne artikel er at komme med et bud på, hvad der kendetegner en kvalitativ psykologi. artiklen tager udgangspunkt i tilfældet, som et centralt erfaringsmæssigt omdrejningspunkt for en kvalitativ psykologi. tilfældet eller oplevelsen af det tilfældige vil fungere som teoretisk prisme til at reflektere og sammenholde forskellige overvejelser over, hvad en kvalitativ psykologi er for en størrelse og hvilke kritiske potentialer denne tilgang kunne besidde, hvis den blev udviklet yderligere. det tilfældige kan forstås på mindst tre måder: 1) at noget er en tilfældighed, hvilket vil sige, at det tilfældige betegner her det uforudsete og det uventede. 2) at noget er tilfældet. her henviser det tilfældige til det konkret eksisterende og enkeltstående. 3) at noget er tilfældigt henviser til et mere grundlæggende organiserende princip for mennesker, handlinger og sociale samspil. med tilfældet som udgangspunkt formulerer artiklen en kritik af mainstreampsykologiens forståelse af mennesket som et informationsbehandlingssystem, hvor der ikke er plads til den ”anden”, til meningsbegrebet eller til tilfældet. artiklen diskuterer kort psykologiens replikationskrise som et udtryk for at mainstreampsykologien netop ikke kan undgå at forholde sig til tilfældet eller det tilfældige. afslutningsvist diskuteres hvad en kvalitative psykologi som tilfældets psykologi kan bidrage med konstruktivt. her ligger fokus på det social, det konkrete og meningsaspektet. keywords: kvalitativ psykologi, tilfældet, tilfældigheden, replikationskrise, mening. at skrive er også en slags hævn over livets tilfældigheder: uheld, tab, smerte. hvis du skaber noget ud af det, så har disse begivenheder ikke længere magten over dig. louise glück k. nielsen: kvalitativ psykologi som tilfældets psykologi. qualitative studies 7(1), pp. 24-44 ©2022 25 introduktion formålet med denne artikel er at afdække og komme med et bud på, hvad der kendetegner en kvalitativ psykologi1. mit bud er, at vi må begynde med tilfældet, som et centralt erfaringsmæssigt omdrejningspunkt for en kvalitativ psykologi. indledningsvist vil jeg kort skitsere, hvordan mit forslag adskiller sig fra tidligere forslag. en skitse, der er langt fra uddybende. tidligere bud har søgt at definere en kvalitativ psykologi enten inden for en fænomenologisk/humanistisk (se eksempelvis giorgi, 1970) eller en emancipatorisk ramme (se eksempelvis parker, 2005). den fænomenologiske/humanistiske position opererer med en individforståelse, hvor bestræbelsen på at konstituere mening i det enkelte individs eksistens er det definerende omdrejningspunkt for en kvalitativ psykologi. inden for den emancipatoriske ramme er en kvalitativ psykologi defineret ved dens konfrontation med social uretfærdighed, og en kvalitativ psykologi legitimeres ved dens konfrontation med disse sociale uretfærdigheder. begge positioner er vigtige og indeholder vægtige analyser af den menneskelige eksistens, men begge positioner legitimerer sig ud fra deres idealforestillinger (mening og social retfærdighed), der hurtigt lukker sig om sig selv, mens de erfaringer, der kendetegner den menneskelige eksistens ikke bliver tilstrækkeligt udfoldet og udforsket. inspireret særligt at kierkegaard, vil jeg fremhæve, at en formulering af en kvalitativ psykologi legitimeret gennem forskellige idealforestillinger (mening eller social retfærdighed), risikerer at negligere de hverdagserfaringer, der kendetegner den menneskelige eksistens. kierkegaard viser i sine analyser, hvordan bestemte æstetiske, etiske og religiøse idealforestillinger i hverdagslivet konstant bryder sammen i mødet med eksistensens tilfældigheder (se nielsen 2018 for en uddybning). den akademiske centrifugalkraft i kierkegaards imponerende forfatterskab er, for mig at se, kærlighedshændelsen, hvis mulige tilfældigheds karakter fastholdes i kierkegaards samlede analyser. det paradoksale er, at på ene side er kærlighedshændelser i den menneskelige eksistens de mest transformerende hændelser, på den anden side, er disse hændelser i høj grad underlagt tilfældighedens karakter (se sköld, 2021; sköld & roald, 2021 for en nærmere fænomenologisk/eksistentiel analyse af kærligheden og lykkens tilfældigheds karakter)2. 1 artiklen er en videreudvikling af et oplæg jeg gav i forbindelse med en konference om kvalitativ psykologi, og dens karakter er spekulativ filosofisk. 2 i sin analyse af kærligheden konkluderes det: ”our life trajectories are in each moment colored by an accidental arbitrariness” (sköld & roald, 2021, p. 9) k. nielsen: kvalitiativ psykologi som tilfældets psykologi. qualitative studies 7(1), pp. 24-44 ©2022 26 samlende vil fremstillingen være bygget op om tilfældet (til fælles/til en fælle) som en samlebetegnelse for en kvalitativ psykologi. tilfælde kan leksikalt bestemmes som en begivenhed eller omstændighed, der ikke er forudset (sproget.dk)3. altså, det centrale i tilfældet er, at det både drejer sig om det uforudsigelige og også om det konkrete. desuden ligger der i begrebet i dets oldnordiske betydning også en henvisning til, at vi har noget til fælles – altså at tilfældet, altså i form af det uforudsigelige, er en livsbetingelse som vi deler – tilfældet er også det vi har til-fælles, som vi deler med vore fæller. tilfældets psykologi i denne artikel, vil jeg bruge tilfældet eller oplevelsen af det tilfældige som teoretisk prisme til at reflektere og sammenholde forskellige overvejelser over, hvad en kvalitativ psykologi er for en størrelse og hvilke kritiske potentialer denne tilgang kunne besidde, hvis den blev udviklet yderligere. ligesom prismet spalter lysets stråler i mange forskellige retninger, så sætter begrebet om det tilfældige også en lang række forskellige betydninger på spil, og skaber dermed et felt, der åbner for refleksion. tilfældet er et mangetydigt begreb, der peger mange steder hen, og jeg vil i denne fremstilling fastholde prismets logik, og ikke søge at udvikle en samlet og logisk sammenhængende teori på, hvad en kvalitativ psykologi er men derimod tilbyde en mangfoldighed af refleksioner. det er en indgang til at tale om mennesket som et konkret eksisterende socialt og historisk betinget individ, som ligger til grund for en kvalitativ psykologi og det forenes, for mig at se, i tilfældet. tilfældet kalder altså på en genkendelig oplevelsesdel og på en begrebslig udredning af forholdet mellem hverdag og videnskab. jeg vil kort udfolde de forskellige betydninger og dernæst vil jeg kort præcisere, hvad der for mig at se er betingelserne for det tilfældige. det tilfældige kan forstås på mindst tre måder: 1) at noget er en tilfældighed, hvilket vil sige, at det tilfældige betegner her det uforudsete og det uventede. 2) at noget er tilfældet. her henviser det tilfældige til det konkret eksisterende og enkeltstående. 3) at noget er tilfældigt henviser til et mere grundlæggende organiserende princip for mennesker, handlinger og sociale samspil. 3 her ligger der også en anden betydning nemlig, at noget ”rent faktisk er tilfældet” – altså at noget er sandt. k. nielsen: kvalitativ psykologi som tilfældets psykologi. qualitative studies 7(1), pp. 24-44 ©2022 27 at noget er en tilfældighed denne forståelse af det tilfældige er grundlæggende og peger på det socialt relationelle som betingelse for tilfældets psykologi, hvor samtidighed er en betingelse. den grundlæggende antagelse er her, at vi deler den menneskelige eksistens med andre mennesker, der ligesom vi selv, er handlende personer, der har intentioner, ønsker og ambitioner på samme måde som vi selv har det. i denne forståelse er samtidighed mellem selv og anden en betingelse, men mit anliggende med at gøre samtidigheden til udgangspunkt er ikke primært at etablere en forståelsesdimension, som man eksempelvis ser hos buber (2013) eller honneth (1996). mit anliggende er derimod at fokusere på samtidighedens handledimension. konsekvensen af mødet med den anden er altid, at det uventede og uforudsigelige kommer til syne i form af det vi i denne sammenhæng vil kalde tilfældigheden. når vi møder andre i det sociale liv, i dagligdagen eller til uformelle eller formelle møder, så ender vi ofte helt andre steder end det vi har planlagt eller forventet (wittgenstein, 1969). som jeg vil vende tilbage til, så stiller mainstreampsykologien sig ofte tilfreds med at undersøge de planer og forventninger individet har til mødet og den anden, men sjældent udforskes mødet eller det uforudsete, tilfældigheden, der skabes i mødet. at noget er tilfældet den anden forståelse af det tilfældige, jeg vil fremhæve, knytter sig til det konkret-særlige tilfælde. netop fordi mødet kalder på tilfældigheden, så vil tilfældigheden altid vise sig som det konkret-særlige tilfælde og det er naturligvis også derfor, at man i den kvalitative forskning ofte arbejder med et begrænset sample, så der er plads til blandt andet at udforske, det, der er tilfældet. som jeg vil uddybe i et senere afsnit, når mødet kalder på tilfældigheden, så er det fordi, at mødet er kendetegnet ved et møde med en konkret anden og dennes intentioner og interesser, hvilket åbner for nye tilfældigheder. når man læser forskning baseret på kvalitativ forskning, så er det endda ofte enkelte beskrivelser af enkelte hændelser, der påkalder sig opmærksomhed og mere analyse – hvis vi vender os mod psykologiens klassikere, så kan her nævnes piagets dvælen ved bestemte observationer af børn, der leger eller freuds minutiøse analyser af enkelte personers drømme, fortalelser, forglemmelser og fortrængninger, der er i centrum. der ligger en k. nielsen: kvalitiativ psykologi som tilfældets psykologi. qualitative studies 7(1), pp. 24-44 ©2022 28 antagelse om, at hvis man forskningsmæssigt fordyber sig i enkelttilfældene, så åbner det for en relationel forståelse af selv og socialitet. det er bemærkelsesværdigt, at mange af de landvindinger, som psykologien har gjort, har den gjort gennem studier af enkelte tilfælde (kvale, 2003). det vender jeg tilbage til. at noget er tilfældigt det tilfældige peger på, at den sociale eksistens i mange tilfælde er konstitueret tilfældigt som et grundvilkår og fundament. hvis jeg ikke havde været til stede til en ganske bestemt fest, havde jeg aldrig mødt min kommende ægtefælle; havde jeg ikke stødt ind i en bestemt person på et bestemt tidspunkt, så havde jeg aldrig fået et bestemt job. en væsentlige del af den menneskelige sociale eksistens er konstitueret tilfældigt. det tilfældige kalder på et forståelsesarbejde, der ofte gennemføres både socialt og individuelt. vi afviser og værner os mod tilfældet og udvikler hurtigt en systematik, hvor vi udvikler en ’dybere’ mening med, at det netop var os, der skulle være ægtefæller eller at jeg fik det job, som jeg jo altid var ’skabt’ for. det er netop dette forståelsesarbejde, der er vigtigt for en kvalitativ psykologi fordi det er igennem forståelsesarbejdet, at både den personlige og sociale identitet skabes. som beskrevet ovenfor, så betragtes tilfældet i dens konkrete fremtrædelser, som konsekvensen af en relationel socialitet båret af menneskelige autonomi, frihed og forskellighed. netop dette må være udgangspunktet for en kvalitativ psykologi. hvis vi tager udgangspunkt i det tilfældige, så skaber vi også et rum, hvor indenfor det er muligt at spørge og undersøge de intentioner, der er indbygget i og som er konsekvenser af det tilfældige. der skabes med andre ord en position af tilstræbt spørgende åbenhed og en konstruktiv uvidenhed overfor tilfældet, hvilket for mig at se skaber et konstruktivt udgangspunkt for en kvalitativ psykologi. min tilgang til tilfældet og en kvalitativ psykologi mine overvejelser om en kvalitativ psykologi som tilfældets psykologi kommer selvfølgelig forskellige steder fra. jeg har allerede nævnt kierkegaard, som for mig at se er en tænker, der rastløst vender kærlighedshandlingens tilfældighedskarakter som uundgåelige del af den menneskelige eksistens igennem de mange forskellige k. nielsen: kvalitativ psykologi som tilfældets psykologi. qualitative studies 7(1), pp. 24-44 ©2022 29 pseudonymer, der er kernen i kierkegaards forfatterskab. overvejelser om tilfældighedens natur kommer selvfølgelig også fra mine egne erfaringer. der er meget i mit liv, hvor jeg tænker, at tilfældigheden spillede en overordentlig stor rolle for, at tingene gik som de rent faktisk gik. en anden erfaring, der har betydning for min tilgang til en kvalitativ psykologi knytter sig til mit arbejde med kvalitativ forskning. her oplever jeg tit, at jeg tænker igennem enkelte tilfælde for at kunne forstå de menneskelige eksistenser, som jeg søger at forstå. jeg ved godt at i de fleste metodebøger i kvalitativ forskning foreskriver systematik, når det gælder design, kodning og analyse, hvorefter mønstrene i materialet gerne skulle træde frem nærmest af sig selv. i virkeligheden er det dog ofte enkelttilfældene, der har klæbet sig fast i min tænkning, og som det er vanskeligt at slippe og som jeg må vende tilbage til igen og igen for at overveje, hvilke betydninger, de indeholder. eksempelvist, da jeg for mange år siden udarbejdede min ph.d. afhandling om, hvordan pianister på konservatoriet lærer at spille klaver et højt kunstnerisk niveau (nielsen, 1999), var der enkelte passager i et enkelt interview, hvor eksempelvis en kvindelig pianiststuderende gav en skarp og kritisk beskrivelse af den forlorenhed og det hykleri, der også knyttede sig til læringsmiljøet på konservatoriet, som jeg havde vanskeligt ved at slippe i mine videre analyser. en beskrivelse, der var vanskeligt at slippe og en beskrivelse, der i den grad stred i mod, hvordan de andre studerende og lærere beskrev miljøet på konservatoriet. en tredje inspirationskilde er hentet fra diskussionen af det postmoderne og særligt lyotards analyser af sammenbruddet af de store narrativer i den vestlige tænkning og i den vestlige kultur (lyotard, 1996). lyotard påpegede i sine analyser af det postmoderne, at de store narrativer har mistet deres legitimitet og troværdighed. lyotards kritik er rettet mod ideen om, at historien og historiens udvikling er båret af en samlende ide eller plan, som er forudsigelig og som vi kan få indsigt i via videnskaben, og at denne indsigt fungerer emanciperende for den menneskelige eksistens. både ideen om at historien er båret af en samlet ide og at denne ide kan fungere frigørende har vist sig at være fortællinger, hvis legitimitet har lidt skibbrud i de seneste årtier. der er meget få, der i dag tror på, at ideen om at vi ved hjælp af videnskab og teknologi kan frigøre os fra kapitalismens åg og etablere et kommunistisk idylsamfund eller frigøre os fra drifterne i det ubevidste dyb for kun at lade os styre alene af vores fornuft eller rationalitet. vi kan tilføje, at vi lever i en tid, hvor endnu en af de store narrativer er ved at støde på grund k. nielsen: kvalitiativ psykologi som tilfældets psykologi. qualitative studies 7(1), pp. 24-44 ©2022 30 nemlig den neoliberale fortælling, hvor markedet er styret af en usynlig hånd, der stiltiende organiserer individernes handlinger og fordeler rigdom efter fortjeneste. finanskrisen i 2008 og den voldsomt stigende sociale ulighed (piketty, 2014) har undergravet tiltroen til denne tilgang og vist den for hvad den er, nemlig en fortælling. uagtet at lyotard er lidt bedaget i forhold til den historiske udvikling, så er hans pointe vigtig, nemlig at vi efter sammenbruddet ikke længere kan tage udgangspunkt i de store fortællinger, når vi skal teoretisere i forhold til den menneskelige eksistens. vi bliver tvunget til at tage udgangspunkt i det kontekstuelle, det historiske betingede, det tidsmæssigt begrænsede – i det tilfældige. i de store fortællinger ligger også de store planer og med dem ambitionen om forudsigelsen. vi må teoretisere en kvalitativ psykologi fra et andet perspektiv, hvor det uforudsigelige og det tilfældige indgår som grundelementer. inden jeg går videre med, hvad der kan ligge i en kvalitativ psykologi baseret på tilfældet, så vil jeg kort udfolde de kritiske potentialer, der kan ligge i en kvalitativ psykologi baseret på et sådant grundlag. forvaltningens psykologi en kvalitativ psykologi åbner ideelt set for at andet sæt spørgsmål end de som mainstreampsykologien i dag stiller og det er der behov for. netop behovet for at stille andre spørgsmål var også det, der drev både den humanistiske og emancipatoriske version af den klassiske kvalitative psykologi tidligere. den humanistiske kvalitative psykologi (giorgi, 1970) kritiserede den empiristisk inspireret behaviorisme for at mangle et individ og et meningsbegreb, mens den emancipatoriske kvalitative psykologi formuleret af parker kritiserer mainstream psykologiens positivistiske idealer for at dække over en normativ-politisk konservatisme (parker, 2005). som jeg vil uddybe i det følgende, så har både den humanistiske og emancipatoriske version af en kvalitativ psykologi ret i deres kritik, men inden vi når så langt, vil jeg præcisere hvori en kvalitativ psykologi baseret på tilfældet adskiller sig fra mainstreampsykologi og præcisere, og hvilke spørgsmål den giver mulighed for at stille. mainstreampsykologien er i dag det, som jeg vil betegne som en forvaltningspsykologi. den dominerende forståelse af mennesket i forvaltningspsykologien er hentet fra en gren af den kognitive psykologi, der betegnes som informationsprocespsykologien. i den k. nielsen: kvalitativ psykologi som tilfældets psykologi. qualitative studies 7(1), pp. 24-44 ©2022 31 forståelse knytter forvaltningspsykologien sig til at en bestemt forståelse af mennesket, som er blevet alt dominerende inden for psykologien, nemlig en forståelse af mennesket som et informationsbehandlingssystem. i informationsprocespsykologien fremstår mennesket som en størrelse, der forvalter et input fra den ydre verden. et input, der i menneskets kognitive system transformeres til en informationsenhed, der så behandles, lagres og i sidste ende i gangsætter en handling. som steinar kvale allerede for mange år siden påpegede, så forstås menneskets relation til sig selv, som et forvaltningssystem eller et bureaukrati: ”the psychology of memory has become the science of a mental bureaucracy” (kvale, 1977, p. 176). kvales pointe er, at denne menneskeforståelse ikke baserer sig på en systematisk forskning af den menneskelige eksistens, men derimod er en afspejling af nogle historiske tendenser, hvor bureaukratiet er blevet den dominerende form for organisering af menneskelige aktiviteter i et senmoderne samfund og ved at være funderet på denne menneskeforståelse har psykologien afskrevet sig muligheden for at formulere en genuin forståelse af, hvad der kendetegner den menneskelige eksistens. den grundlæggende pointe er her, at den menneskelige autonomi, frihed og forskellighed, som den leves i praksis, ikke spiller nogen rolle for psykologien. det formelle og abstrakte informationsbehandlingssystem bliver genstandsfeltet for mainstreampsykologien, og, som præciseret af kvale, så fungerer den menneskelige informationsbehandling ligesom et ethvert andet administrativt system. at forvaltningspsykologien bliver dominerende, er en historisk konsekvens af en commonsense antagelse om, at den sociale og individuelle verden er styret af lovmæssigheder. hacking (1990) viser gennem sine historiske analyser, hvordan den moderne statistik i midten af det forrige århundrede bliver et centralt redskab til forstå menneskelige handlinger og hvordan den moderne statistik selv kommer til at fremstå som en repræsentation for, at den sociale og individuelle verden tilsyneladende er styret af en lang række lovmæssigheder, som videnskaben og det rationelle menneske skal processere for at kunne handle rationelt (hacking, 1990). som wilhelm wundt, en af psykologiens grundlæggere, skriver så tidligt som i 1862: ”it is statistics that first demonstrated that love follows psychological laws” (wundt, 1862 in hacking, 1990). statistikken, og dermed troen på at den sociale og individuelle verden er styret af lovmæssigheder, erstatter middelalderens tro på, at naturens verden er reguleret af guds love. i denne sammenhæng bliver mainstream k. nielsen: kvalitiativ psykologi som tilfældets psykologi. qualitative studies 7(1), pp. 24-44 ©2022 32 psykologiens individforståelse et subjekt, der skal forvalte disse lovmæssigheder gennem en evindelig informationsprocessering4. hvis vi ser nærmere på mainstream psykologiens historie, så bliver det tydeligt, at informationsprocespsykologien helt konkret har sine rødder i en administrativ forvaltningspraksis. den amerikanske psykolog herbert simon er et levende eksempel på denne historiske sammenhæng. simon er formentligt den moderne psykolog, der har sat det kraftigste aftryk på den moderne mainstreampsykologi og er den forsker, der har sat informationsproces psykologien på dagsordenen inden for den psykologiske forskning. i 1957 publicerer simon “models of man”, som revolutionerede psykologien ved at skifte en behavioristisk forståelsesramme ud med en informationsprocesseringstilgang til mennesket og denne bog kom til at sætte dagsordenen for en kognitive revolution, der stadigt spiller en afgørende rolle for mainstreampsykologien i dag (simon, 1957). det interessante i denne sammenhæng er at den informationsprocesstænkning, som danner grundlaget for mainstreampsykologiens menneskeforståelse, og som simon udvikler, er hentet fra studier af administrative praksisser i store organisationer. i 1947 udgav simon sin doktorafhandling ”administrative behavior: a study of decision-making processes in administrative organizations” – en bog, der blev og fortsat er en klassiker inden for organisationspsykologien. i denne bog udvikler simon ideen om mennesket som en administrativ størrelse (det han betegner som ’administrative’ man) og det, der kendetegner det administrative menneske er, at det konstant konfronteres med informationer, som må behandles for at vedkommende kan agere fornuftigt: “(…) administrative man can make his decisions with relatively simple rules of thumb that do not make impossible demands upon his capacity for thought” (p. 22)5. med en menneskeforståelse, der baserer sig på informationsprocespsykologien, så bliver en særlig metodisk logik alt afgørende for mainstreampsykologien som videnskab. kun gennem at kontrollere de ’input’ som mennesket modtager kan man gennem systematisk analyse af de output, der følger systematisk slutte sig til det, der er imellem input og 4 som fremhævet af reinertsen (2020) så lever vi i en tid, hvor viden i form af informationer aldrig har været mere omfattende i volumen, men samtidigt så synes viden og informationer at spille en stadig mindre betydning socialt og politisk – se overvejelser over det polyfaktuelle samfund. 5 simons begreb om ‘rules of thumb’ bliver senere til et begreb om bounded rationality og som han igen senere videreudvikler til begrebet om heurestikker, som styrende for menneskelige handlinger. k. nielsen: kvalitativ psykologi som tilfældets psykologi. qualitative studies 7(1), pp. 24-44 ©2022 33 output altså de processeringesprocesser, der tilsyneladende styrer den menneskelige eksistens. dette metodemæssige greb bliver altdominerende for forståelsen af mennesket, og det er naturligvis derfor at kvantitative metoder, særligt med det randomiserede kontrollerede eksperiment bliver guldstandarden for psykologisk forskning og undervisning over det meste af kloden. her kan input systematisk opdeles og tilføres en eksperimentgruppe, mens en kontrolgruppe ikke modtager input og output kan systematisk aflæses. kærlighed, sprog, historie, mening, emotioner, konflikter, bevidsthed, politik og økonomi og meget andet spiller en begrænset rolle i forvaltningspsykologien fordi disse fænomener er vanskelige at efterprøve inden for rammerne af de stringente metodemæssige regler, som dominerer brugen af kvantitative metoder. konsekvensen af at forvaltningspsykologien bliver dominerende betyder, at det, der er metodemæssigt muligt for psykologien at beskæftige sig med og udsige noget om beskæres betydeligt. betoningen af de metodemæssige dimensioner bliver så dominerende, at mainstreampsykologiens evne til at producere ny viden indskrænkes og svinder langsomt ind til stort set ingenting. denne faglige og forskningsmæssige indskrænkning viser sig særligt historisk, hvor psykologien fra dens fødsel var en af de dominerende videnskaber i den offentlige diskurs, til at psykologiens rolle langsomt er svundet ind til stort set ingenting i dag. hvis vi kort sammenligner den dominerende rolle som psykologien havde i begyndelsen af det tyvende århundrede med den rolle som psykologien har i begyndelsen af det enogtyvende århundrede i det offentlige rum og i forhold til andre videnskaber, så bliver konsekvensen af forvaltningspsykologiens indtog tydelig. jeg vil kort skitsere denne historiske udvikling: i begyndelsen af det tyvende århundrede forandrer freud og hans udvikling af psykoanalysen grundlæggende det vestlige menneskelige menneskes syn på den menneskelige seksualitet, begær og selvforståelse. udviklingen af psykoanalysen sætter dybe spor i kunst, kultur, politik og i en lang række andre videnskaber. også anden psykologisk forskning er med til at sætte psykologien på det akademiske verdenskort eksempelvis udviklingen af behaviorismen, binet og simons udvikling af intelligenttesten og piagets udviklingspsykologi spiller en væsentlig rolle. i midten af det tyvende århundrede var skinner en verdens 10 mest citerede forskere, mens psykologiske forskere som rogers og maslow havde stor k. nielsen: kvalitiativ psykologi som tilfældets psykologi. qualitative studies 7(1), pp. 24-44 ©2022 34 indflydelse på både tilrettelæggelsen af den pædagogiske praksis og på arbejdsog organisationspsykologien i den vestlige verden. men samtidigt med at forvaltningspsykologien vinder frem inden for den moderne psykologi i slut 1960’erne og i begyndelsen af 1970’erne, så forsvinder psykologien langsomt ud af det offentlige og akademiske liv som en faktor, der har betydning. den amerikanske pædagogiske forsker bloom observerer i 1978 i ”closing of the american mind”: “psychology is mysteriously disappearing from the social sciences. its unheard-of success in the real world may have tempted it to give up the theoretical life” (bloom, 1987). i 1992 konstaterer kvale ligeledes, at mainstreampsykologiens forsimplede og formaliserede menneskesyn som forvaltningspsykologien repræsenterer, ikke længere har noget at byde ind med i forhold til den kompleksitet, som den moderne menneskelige eksistens er konfronteret med. kvale konkluderer:” the current emptiness and irrelevance of a psychological science to culture at large may be due to psychology’s rootedness in modernity, in the study of the logic of an abstracted ‘psyche’, which is out of touch with a postmodern world (we leave out here the issue whether modern psychology was ever adequate for understanding modern man)” (p. 52). i dag er psykologien stort set forsvundet ud af den offentlige debat og dets indflydelse på andre videnskaber er minimal. de fleste psykologiske tidsskrifter ligger med en beskeden impact factor på mellem to og tre. men selvom forvaltningspsykologien har trukket sig ind i sig selv i en teoretisk pindsvineposition, så slipper den ikke fri af at tilfældets logik, som langsomt indhenter den. det viser sig for mig at se i den replikationskrise, som den mest ’højvidenskabelige’ del af den moderne psykologi er havnet i. replikationskrisen drejer sig om, at en lang række eksperimentelle undersøgelser inden for forskellige områder af psykologien ikke kommer frem til de samme resultater, hvis de gentages. replikation er et vigtigt kriterium indenfor særligt naturvidenskabelig forskning fordi det peger på, at en undersøgelse har en høj grad af intern reliabilitet og validitet, hvis dens resultater kan gentages. hvis den samme undersøgelse gentages af et andet forskerteam end det, der oprindeligt havde lavet undersøgelsen, og det nye forskerteam følger nøjagtigt de samme metodemæssige forskrifter, som udarbejdet af det første forskerteam, så skulle det ideelt set være muligt for det andet forskerteam at nå frem til nøjagtigt de samme resultater, som det første k. nielsen: kvalitativ psykologi som tilfældets psykologi. qualitative studies 7(1), pp. 24-44 ©2022 35 forskerteam opnåede. så er der en høj grad intern reliabilitet, hvilket vil sige, at der ikke er fejl ved forskningsdesignet, og nok så vigtigt, så er det fænomen, som undersøges, stabilt over tid, hvilket er forudsætningen for at undersøgelsen er valid, hvilket vil sige, at undersøgelsen undersøger det fænomen, som den har til hensigt at undersøge. problemet som replikationskrisen peger på er, at når man gentager en række eksperimentelle psykologiske undersøgelser, som følger strikte metodemæssige forskrifter som forvaltningspsykologien opstiller, så er det ikke muligt at opnå de samme resultater. i en større analyse gennemført af brian nosek viser det sig, at i gennemsnitlig kan kun 36% af alle empirisk kvantitative studier repliceres inden for psykologien (wiggins et. al, 2019). nosek undersøger primært kvantitative undersøgelser udgivet højimpact faktor tidsskrifter, altså empiriske undersøgelser, der er udgivet i tunge empiriske tidsskrifter (biswas-diener et. al, 2020). kvantitative socialpsykologiske forsøg ligger helt nede på 23%, mens eksperimentelle kognitive studier ligger på 53%. indimellem ligger eksperimentelle studier, der undersøger læring, hukommelse og kognition på 48%, mens studier, der har undersøgt sociale forhold kan repliceres i 29% af tilfældene. med andre ord, så peger replikationskrisen inden for psykologien på, at der er noget grundlæggende galt med den måde, som mainstreampsykologien bedriver forskning på. den forventelige reaktion fra psykologer inden for forvaltningspsykologien er naturligvis at argumentere for, at der er behov for et endnu stærkere fokus på metoder. i lyset af replikationskrisen har kahnemann (2011) argumenteret for at empirisk psykologisk forskning er a ”mess” og det er nødvendigt, at psykologisk forskning skal have ”cleaned up its act”. den gængse respons på replikationskrisen er således at fokusere på metodemæssige tematikker eksempelvis større sample, mere fokus på falsifikationsmuligheder og open access til reviews (wiggins et. al, 2019). ved at betone tilfældigheden som en central gestalt er mit argument et andet, nemlig at argumentere for, at problemet ligger i det psykologiske genstandsfelt, som ikke kan tematiseres på samme måde som et naturvidenskabeligt forskningsfelt. hvis vi ser på noseks tal, så peger de jo på, at så snart menneskelig social interaktion er på spil, så bliver det markant vanskeligere at reproducere resultaterne, mens når det gælder kognitive processer, hvor der ofte er tale om enkeltpersoner, der skal løse afgrænsede opgaver alene i et lukket rum, så stiger replikationen markant til ca. 50%. det tyder med andre ord på, at der er noget uforudsigeligt og foranderligt over menneskelig interaktion, som ikke lader sig k. nielsen: kvalitiativ psykologi som tilfældets psykologi. qualitative studies 7(1), pp. 24-44 ©2022 36 reproducere i stringente eksperimentelle undersøgelser. det peger videre på, at psykologiens replikationskrise ikke alene drejer sig om metodemæssige spørgsmål, men må inddrage spørgsmålet om, hvad der kendetegner psykologiens genstandsfelt. psykologiens replikationskrise understøtter mit argument om, at tilfældigheden er en væsentlig betingelse for den menneskelig eksistens og dermed det helt naturlige genstandsfelt for en kvalitativ psykologi. tilfældets psykologi – konstruktivt betraget? nu bevæger vi os væk fra kritikken til at beskæftige os mere med den konstruktive del af en kvalitativ psykologi baseret på det tilfældige. i det følgende vil jeg pege på særligt tre aspekter, som jeg finder, er væsentlige for en kvalitativ psykologi: betoningen af det sociale, det konkrete og meningsaspektet. selvom jeg behandler disse aspekter adskilte, så hører de naturligvis sammen. det tilfældige møde og udviklingen af det sociale et af de mest underbelyste områder af psykologien er forståelsen af det sociale. det er forbløffende, at mainstreampsykologien den dag i dag tilsyneladende kan blive ved med at undre sig over, at mennesket kan/skal forstås som grundlæggende forankret i det sociale. der er en vedvarende diskussion inden for den psykologiske forskning, en forskning som jeg ofte møder den gennem mine studerende, hvor diskussionen fortsat går på om mennesket skal forstås som en social eller individuel størrelse. som allerede hegel pegede på for et par hundrede år siden, så hviler spørgsmålet om individualitet og socialitet på en falsk dikotomi (pippin, 2000). som hegel påpeger i sine analyser, så forudsætter individ og socialitet hinanden, og kan aldrig være hinandens modsætninger. som jeg var inde på indledningsvist, så kalder begrebet om tilfældigheden på, at det sociale betones og udvikles yderligere i en kvalitativ psykologi. at der opstår tilfældigheder, forudsætter for mig at se netop, at der eksisterer autonome andre, der også har intentioner og naturligvis har disse intentioner med til mødet med mig og omvendt, og det er derudfra, at det tilfældige udspringer. tilfældigheder peger på det uforudsigelige i sociale situationer. og det sociale eksisterer netop fordi, der eksisterer andre mennesker, der eksisterer en andethed, der er afgørende for min autonomi. netop at der er eksisterer andre og en andethed er med til at konstituere tilfældigheder/tilfældets psykologi. med k. nielsen: kvalitativ psykologi som tilfældets psykologi. qualitative studies 7(1), pp. 24-44 ©2022 37 betoningen af det tilfældige peges der på, at psykologien her savner begreber for, hvad sker i hverdagens sociale interaktion, hvor det uforudsete skabes som en konsekvens af mødet. meget af den klassiske socialpsykologi har paradoksalt nok ikke fokus på mødet, men derimod alene opmærksom på de planer og holdninger, som individet bringer med til mødet med den anden, og hvordan disse transformeres gennem mødet. her kan nævnes den omfattende social-psykologiske forskning i konformitet, hvor andre forsøgspersoner forsøger at manipulere forsøgsindividet til at ændre adfærd, holdning eller planer (asch mfl.). den sociale situation betragtes med mistro, og den anden som en hæmmende aktør i forhold forsøgspersonen. der er ingen forståelse for at mødet kan betragtes transformerende ud over de forventninger, intentioner eller planer som individerne hver især bringer med til mødet. der er ganske enkelt brug for en kvalitativ psykologi, som har fokus på mødet og den anden, som grundlæggende for individets konstitution (buber, 2013; honneth, 1996). det vigtige er i denne sammenhæng at fokusere på og tænke inden for rammerne af det tilfældige. for ud at udvikle forståelsesrammen af det tilfældige vil jeg i denne sammenhæng trække på renæssancefilosoffen michiavelli, som netop tager udgangspunkt i, at tilfældighederne råder i verden, og at vi konstant konfronteres med dem. michiavelli tager udgangspunkt i den praktiske verden, han er optaget af at udforske det politiske liv, optaget af at give gode råd til kommende fyrster og herskere (michiavelli, 2016). således er udgangspunktet for michiavelli det han kalder fortuna, altså det man kan kalde det gode tilfælde. i den danske udgave er det oversat med begrebet ”held”. det centrale for michiavelli er ikke om tilfældet råder, men derimod om, hvordan vi fortolker, forstår og bruger de tilfældigheder, vi konfronteres med i hverdagen: ”af og til har jeg tænkt på dette og har nærmet mig den holdning. men for ikke helt at aflive vores frie vilje mener jeg, at det nok kan passe, at heldet afgør halvdelen af vore handlinger, men også at det lader os styre omtrent den anden halvdel” (2016, p. 107). det interessante for michiavelli er, at han ikke stiller spørgsmål ved, om den sociale eksistens består af tilfældigheder. det gør den. det interessante er, hvad vi gør i forhold til tilfældet og det vigtige for michiavelli er at vi lærer at handle og reflektere i forhold til de tilfældigheder, som møder os. for michiavelli kræver tilfældet et forståelsesarbejde og en aktiv forholden sig: ”jeg mener helt klart, at det er bedre at være fremfarende end k. nielsen: kvalitiativ psykologi som tilfældets psykologi. qualitative studies 7(1), pp. 24-44 ©2022 38 forsigtig. heldet er en kvinde, og vil man holde på hende, er man nødt til at slå og puffe hende. man ser jo, at hun lettere lader sig besejre af dem, der gør sådan end af dem, der går køligt til værks” (2016, p. 109). man må med andre ord ikke lade sig styre af tilfældet, men søge at gribe de muligheder, der ligger i de tilfælde, som man konfronteres med. der er for mig at se to pointer hos michiavelli. den ene pointe er, at vi skal lære at leve med og konstant søge at mestre fortuna – særligt i forhold til at være i stand til at realisere et større gode. vi må ikke lade os underkaste tilfældighederne, men vi må derimod gribe dem og søge at mestre dem. den anden pointe michiavelli har er, at vi skal lære at handle klogt og det at handle klogt i forhold til tilfældet indbefatter, at vi netop ikke skal følge en bestemt forudbestemt metode: ”men samler vi os om enkelte tilfælde, ser man, hvordan en fyrste har fremgang i dag og går til grunde i morgen, uden at hans natur eller egenskaber har ændret sig synligt” (2016, p. 108). hvis vi skal realisere et større gode, så skal vi netop ikke følge en bestemt allerede fastlagt metode. og det er egentligt den pointe jeg gerne vil frem og som jeg gerne vil fremhæve i forhold til tilfældets psykologi. altså det, der er vigtigt, hvis et større gode som eksempelvist at hjælpe et andet menneske skal realiseres, så skal psykologiens pædagogiske dimensioner i langt større grad være rettet mod at lære at håndtere det konkrete tilfælde og det tilfældige. baggrunden for denne pointe er naturligvis igen forvaltningspsykologiens praktiske implikationer, som er rettet mod, at alle praktikere skal følge bestemte manualer og forskrifter på nøjagtigt samme måde, når de intervenerer i forhold til en bestemt problemstilling. hvis vi tager michiavelli alvorligt her, så skal vi gøre lige præcist det modsatte. vi skal forsøge at forstå det tilfælde, som vi står over for, og handle adækvat i forhold til netop dette særlige tilfælde. hvis vi handler på samme måde hver gang, så er vi tvunget til at fejle. forskning i det konkrete, i enkelttilfældet og det relationelle en anden konsekvens af en kvalitativ psykologi funderet på tilfældet er, at vi må have fokus på det konkrete. det konkrete må i denne sammenhæng forstås ikke som det tingslige, men derimod som det relationelle. der er formentligt ingen, der har formuleret det mere præcist end marx i grundrisse: “the concrete is concrete because it is a combination of many determinations, i.e. a unity of diverse elements. in our thought it therefore appears as a process of synthesis, as a result, and not as a starting point, although it is the real starting point and, therefore, also the starting point of observation and k. nielsen: kvalitativ psykologi som tilfældets psykologi. qualitative studies 7(1), pp. 24-44 ©2022 39 conception” (marx, 1993, p. 34). det konkrete er i følge marx bestemt af de relationer, som det er en del af, og vores analyser må begynde med det konkrete i forståelsen det relationelle, frem for en abstrakt forståelse af individualitet og socialitet, som kendetegnede forvaltningspsykologien. vores analyse må bevæge sig frem mod det konkrete som marx understreger i sine feuerbach-teser. hvis vi vender os mod psykologien, så er det tankevækkende, at psykologien som videnskab har tager kvantespring fremad gennem grundige studier af konkrete enkelttilfælde med fokus på det relationelle (kvale, 2003). her vil jeg kort eksemplificere med freuds videnskabelige undersøgelser som eksempel, men jeg kunne også have nævnt piagets, skinner, festingers, milgram eller zimbardos forskning. hvis vi fokuserer på freud, så ligger der et enormt paradoks i freuds forhold til mainstreampsykologien. på den ene side er der vel ingen enkelt retning/person, der har øvet større indflydelse på det vestlige menneskes selvforståelse, på vores kultur, kunst og også udøvelsen af psykologi i praksis end freud og den psykoanalyse, han udvikler. men på trods af, at psykoanalysen og freud på mange måder har skabt fundamentet for den moderne psykologi, så har den moderne forvaltningspsykologi det vanskeligt med psykoanalysen primært fordi den jo ikke lever op til de kvantitative metodekrav, der er så definerende for mainstreampsykologien i dag. hvis freud rejste sig af graven og i dag søgte ind som ph.d.-studerende på aarhus universitet, så ville han blive blankt afvist. der er ingen klare hypoteser i hans design, sample er for lille, der er klare selektionsbias, interventionen er ikke velbeskrevet, der er ingen kontrolgruppe og der er ingen klare målbare outcome mål. set ud fra forvaltningspsykologiens side, så repræsenterer freud ganske enkelt ikke en videnskabelig psykologi, selv om han, paradoksalt nok, er den, der har skabt den vigtigste psykologiske teori af alle. vi kan dog lade os inspirere af freuds ”metode”, hvis vi skulle forsøge at konkretisere hvordan man kunne udvikle en metodisk tilgang til en kvalitativ psykologi, hvor der er plads til at udforske tilfældet: 1) udvikling af teorier og begreber (”hypoteser”) opstilles og udvikles løbende som en del af forskningsprocessen. 2) sample bør kun indeholde meget få personer (lidt men godt ligesom mad på en fransk restaurant), som undersøges over tid og relationelt – dvs med fokus på hvilke relationer (nutidige, fortidige og fremtidige), der konstituerer personen, og hvordan disse relationer ændrer sig over tid. 3) forskeren forsøger ikke at etablere en distance til den/de personer vedkommende undersøger, men engagerer sig i undersøgelsesprocessen, og gør sit eget k. nielsen: kvalitiativ psykologi som tilfældets psykologi. qualitative studies 7(1), pp. 24-44 ©2022 40 engagement til en del af forskningsprocessen, 4) mulige hændelser beskrives grundigt og det er vigtigt, at der hele tiden er en åbenhed overfor den uventede hændelse/tilfældighed, og den betydning som den kan have for forskningsprocessen, 5) sidst men ikke mindst, ”outcome” kan ikke standardiseres, men må forstås i forhold til det enkelttilfælde, der undersøges. eksempelvis er freud er kendt for, at ’outcome’ i hans interventioner kunne komme i mange former og at man på ingen måder kunne forudsige, hvad der helt præcist ville føre til ændringer i patientens adfærd. freud var optaget af hvorvidt de mennesker, som han undersøgte ændrede adfærd, begyndte at drømme anderledes, ændrede holdninger til andre, således kunne ’outcome’ vise sig på mange måder. afslutningsvist, så peger freud også på en mulighed for, hvordan en opøvelse i tilfældighedens psykologi kunne foregå. freud foreskriver, at ethvert forståelsesarbejde forudsætter en kategorisk åbenhed overfor tilværelsens små tilfældigheder: en fortalelse, en forglemmelse, en vittighed, en fejltagelse eller en halv glemt drøm er måske ikke ligegyldige hændelser men afgørende indsigter, der åbner for dynamiske forståelser af det enkelte menneskes eksistens og for at forstå disse tilfældigheders betydning forudsættes åbenhed. freud forstod, at en kategorisk åbenhed er ikke noget der bare er medfødt eller eksisterer sig i selv. det er en sensibilitet, der kræver hård og vedvarende træning at opøve og fastholde. fokus på forståelsesarbejde og skabelsen af mening det sidste begreb, som jeg vil fokusere på, er meningsbegrebet. som allerede nævnt, så har den klassiske humanistiske psykologi gjort et stort stykke arbejde ved at insistere på at meningsbegrebet er af afgørende betydning for psykologien (giorgi, 1970). i denne sammenhæng vil vi forfølge denne ide, men udvikle meningsbegrebet, så det rettes mere mod det tilfældige og mod det sociale forståelsesarbejde. oplevelsen af det tilfældige står i et dialektisk forhold til meningsbegrebet forstået på den måde, at konfrontationen med det tilfældige kalder på mening og på et forståelsesarbejde. vi trækker lynhurtigt på de kulturelle idealforestillinger for at forstå, hvorfor dette eller hint sker i mit liv. der ligger med andre ord en drivkraft i retning af, at vi som eksisterende individer altid producerer mening med de tilfældigheder vi møder, vi er med merleau-pontys ord ”dømt til mening” (merleau-ponty, 1981). vi benytter ofte de idealforestillinger, som kulturen stiller til rådighed: det var guds, skæbnen, nødvendigheden eller noget prædestineret i min natur, der gjorde at dette eller hint hændte og det fik denne betydning for mit liv. problemet er, k. nielsen: kvalitativ psykologi som tilfældets psykologi. qualitative studies 7(1), pp. 24-44 ©2022 41 som tidligere beskrevet, at de kulturelle idealforestillinger, som kulturen stiller rådighed mistet deres legitimitet (lyotard, 1996), og det kræver, at vi i høj grad investerer os selv og hinanden i det forståelsesarbejde, som konfrontationen med det tilfældige ligger op til og det er dette sociale forståelsesarbejde, som en kvalitativ psykologi skal studere. jeg vil i denne sammenhænge trække festingers overvejelser om kognitive dissonans som illustration på det sociale forståelsesarbejde som tilfældet ligger op (festinger, 1957). kognitiv dissonans ligner på mange måder det dialektiske forståelsesarbejde, som tilfældets psykologi kalder på. festinger udviklede sin teori om kognitiv dissonans på baggrund af sin deltagelse som skjult observatør i en dommedagskult, der mente at jorden gik under på en bestemt dato. det skete som bekendt ikke, og der opstod en diskrepans mellem medlemmernes forståelse af verden og af dem selv i forhold til, hvad der rent faktisk skete. denne kognitive dissonans blev oplevet som særdeles pinefuld for medlemmerne af kulten, og den medførte, at medlemmerne blev tilskyndet til at revurdere dele af deres verdensforståelse og deres forståelse af dem selv i forhold til det, der (ikke) var sket. således indrømmede perifere medlemmer af dommedagskulten, at de nok havde gjort sig selv lidt til grin, mens mere dedikerede medlemmer af dommedagskulten (som havde solgt deres hjem og opgivet deres arbejde) ikke ændrede de grundlæggende antagelser om jordens undergang. disse dedikerede medlemmer omformulerede i stedet hændelserne således, at jorden netop ikke var gået under, fordi medlemmerne af dommedagskulten havde været så stærke i troen, som de rent faktisk havde været og havde dermed været medvirkende til, at jorden ikke var gået under (festinger, 1957). det uventede sker for medlemmerne af festingers dommedagskult og for at medlemmerne kan fastholde deres sociale relationer og deres selvforståelse, så kræver det et stykke socialt forståelsesarbejde før der bliver skabt mening med den hændelse, som de er blevet konfronteret med. pointen er her, at det er netop disse processer, hvor vi konfronteres med det tilfældige og det efterfølgende forståelsesarbejde, som må være genstanden for en kvalitativ psykologi, som jeg ser det. afsluttende kommentarer mit ærinde med denne artikel har været at skitsere en ramme for en kvalitativ psykologi. jeg har benyttet tilfældigheden som en prisme til at udforme nogle grunddimensioner, som kunne være de bærende elementer i en sådan tilgang til psykologien. i artiklen har k. nielsen: kvalitiativ psykologi som tilfældets psykologi. qualitative studies 7(1), pp. 24-44 ©2022 42 jeg argumenteret for, at tilfældighedens psykologi kunne bruges kritisk i forhold den dominerende mainstreampsykologi som har vanskeligt ved at tematisere og undersøge væsentlige aspekter ved den menneskelige eksistens. endvidere har jeg peget på nogle konstruktive elementer, hvor jeg finder, at tilfældighedens psykologi konkret kunne løfte psykologien videre. i den forbindelse pegede jeg på en udvikling af meningsbegrebet, det relationelle og betoningen af det sociale. afslutningsvist vil jeg kort gøre mig nogle overvejelser over vidensbegrebet og hvordan tilfældighedens psykologi kunne fungere ind i en videnskabelig sammenhæng. som udgangspunkt så må mennesket naturligvis forstås som skabende. konfronteret med tilfældigheden må mennesket grundlæggende set forstås som kunstner i sit eget liv, og psykologien som videnskab må lade sig inspirere af de kunstneriske videnskaber, som studerer betingelserne for den skabende proces, der udfolder sig dialektisk mellem meningsskabelse på den ene side og den meningsfortabelse på den anden. det afgørende er, at psykologien finder sit særlige genstandsfelt og bygger sin egen videnstradition op derfra, og dermed bidrager til et konstruktivt samspil med andre videnskabsretninger. k. nielsen: kvalitativ psykologi som tilfældets psykologi. qualitative studies 7(1), pp. 24-44 ©2022 43 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(1862) beiträge zur theorie der sinneswahrnehmung, berlin. about the author: klaus nielsen is professor in educational psychology, aarhus university. his academic interests are among other things learning in practice, the politics of psychology and qualitative psychology. microsoft word ottesen fokus på det relationelle møde med personer med demens i demensrehabiliteringsindsatsen.docx qualitative studies vol. 7, no. 1, 2022, pp. 153-174 issn 1903-7031 fokus på det relationelle møde med personer med demens i demensrehabiliteringsindsatsen aase marie ottesen1 1 institut for kommunikation og psykologi, aalborg universitet, musikkens plads 1, 9000 aalborg i artiklen gives et bud på, hvordan kvalitativ-psykologisk forskning kan udmønte sig i praksis indenfor demensrehabilitering samt på den betydning, det kan have at fokusere på relationen som indgangsport til at skulle udføre vanskelige plejeog omsorgsopgaver hos personer med demens i sundhedsvæsenet. aktuelt findes der ikke medicin, der kan helbrede demens, hvorfor der er et udtalt behov for, at vi i demensrehabiliteringsindsatsen udvikler psykosociale metoder og interventionsformer, der kan medvirke til, at personer med demens får et tåleligt og værdigt liv til trods for sygdommens uundgåelige udvikling. artiklen sætter fokus på, hvordan værdighed og respektfuldhed kan understøttes i det relationelle møde med personer med demens gennem en personorienteret tilgang og gennem brugen af sang, musik og musiske elementer. med baggrund heri bliver der, igennem en tematisk analyse, illustreret følgende fire betydningsdannende tematikker: 1) udgangspunkt i personens livshistorie og musikbiografi. 2) mødet og musikalsk nærvær. 3) nuets betydning og musikalske nu-øjeblikke i relationen. 4)nuværende øjeblikke og vitalitetsformers betydning for det relationelle mødes kvalitet. keywords: demens, nuet, relationelle møde, personorienteret tilgang, brug af sang, musik og musiske elementer, vitalitetsformer introduktion det har afgørende betydning at fokusere på nutiden og nu’et i samværet med en person med demens. som sygdommen udvikler sig, mister personer med demens, evnen til at se sammenhæng mellem fortid, nutid og fremtid og ofte er de heller ikke i stand til at kunne huske fortiden og hvad der f.eks. skal ske inden for kort tid (ottesen, 2016). i artiklen sættes fokus på nuets betydning i samværet og på en personorienteret tilgang i det relationelle møde med personer med demens. brugen af sang, musik og musiske elementer som kommunikativ interventionsform i demensrehabiliteringsindsatsen er aa. m. ottesen: fokus på det relationelle møde med personer med demens i demensrehabliteringsindsatsen. qualitative studies 7(1), pp. 153-174 ©2022 154 omdrejningspunkt for dette ”møde”. artiklen er funderet i min kvalitative forskning igennem de seneste år, herunder mit ph.d.-projekt, postdoc-projekt og nuværende aktionsforskningsprojekt (ottesen & ridder, 2012; ottesen, 2014; ottesen 2021a; ottesen 2021b; ottesen, 2022). kendetegnende for min forskning er, at den har omdrejningspunkt i praksis og har fokus på det relationelle møde mellem personen med demens og omsorgsgivere og på hvordan dette møde kan forbedres/udvikles igennem en personorienteret tilgang og brugen af psykosociale metoder som f.eks. musikterapi, sang, musik og musiske elementer som kommunikativ interventionsform, marte meo metoden, neuropædagogik samt socialpædagogiske metoder. forskning om brug af sang og musik forskning viser, at livskvalitet og sociale færdigheder hos personer med demens kan øges, når sang og musik anvendes i sammenhæng med plejesituationer eller ved forskellige former for musikaktiviteter og musikterapeutisk. derudover er det vist, at agiteret adfærd kan reduceres (se yderligere i: fancourt & finn, 2019; götell et al., 2009; ottesen, 2014; ridder, 2012). det er ønsket, at artiklen ses som et bud på, hvordan kvalitativ-psykologisk forskning udmønter sig i praksis. praksisfeltet, der danner rammen om denne artikel vedrører rehabiliteringsindsatsen inden for demensområdet. når en person rammes af demens har det vidtrækkende konsekvenser for den enkelte og for vedkommendes pårørende og de nære omgivelser, hvor livskvalitet og trivsel i høj grad påvirkes (nationalt videnscenter for demens, 2021). sygdommen demens ved demens sker der en svækkelse af mentale funktioner som hukommelse, koncentration, rumopfattelse, sprogfærdighed og evnen til at løse problemer. der sker ændringer i personlighed og følelsesliv og indsigten i egen situation og sygdom kan være svækket. derudover kan der opstå en række adfærdsmæssige og psykiske symptomer, som f.eks. vrangforestillinger, agitation, aggressivitet, apati og hæmningsløshed (nationalt videnscenter for demens, 2021; paulsen, 2011). det er anslået, at 80-90% af beboere med en demenssygdom på plejecentre har adfærdsmæssige og psykiske symptomer ved demens (margallo-lana, 2001; tampi,2011). demens forekommer hyppigst hos personer over 65 år, men kan ses helt ned i 40-50-årsalderen. det anslås, at aa. m. ottesen; fokus på det relationelle møde med personer med demens i demensrehabliteringsindsatsen qualitative studies 7(1), pp. 153-174 ©2022 155 ca. 90. 000 i danmark har demens, heraf udgør 65+ årige: 87.000, mens ca. 3000 personer under 64 år har sygdommen. omkring 400.000 personer i danmark er nære pårørende til en person, der lider af en demenssygdom (nationalt videnscenter for demens, 2021). det er en meget kompleks opgave at hjælpe og samarbejde med personer med demens, som stiller store krav til de fagprofessionelle omsorgsgiveres sundhedsfaglige, pædagogiske og relationelle kompetencer. da der aktuelt ikke findes medicin, der kan helbrede demens, ser jeg, som sygeplejerske og forsker, at der er et udtalt behov for, at vi i demensrehabiliteringsindsatsen udvikler psykosociale metoder og interventionsformer, som kan medvirke til, at personer med demens får et tåleligt og værdigt liv til trods for sygdommens uundgåelige udvikling. politisk er der i danmark givet klare budskaber om, at personcentreret omsorg og psykosociale interventioner bør prioriteres højt i demensrehabiliteringsindsatsen. herunder også prioritering af forskning rettet mod udvikling af psykosociale metoder og interventionsformer; jævnfør den nationale demenshandlingsplan 2025 (sundhedsog ældreministeriet, 2017) samt den nationale forskningsstrategi på demensområdet 2015 (sundhedsstyrelsen, 2018). det er mit ønske, at artiklens kvalitativtpsykologiske grundlag kan tilføje eller bidrage med nye perspektiver, såvel ind i praksis som forskningsmæssigt. med reference til ovenstående præsenteres artiklens forskningsspørgsmål og fundering i kvalitativ psykologi i det følgende. forskningsspørgsmål artiklens forskningsspørgsmål: hvordan kan værdighed og respektfuldhed understøttes i det relationelle møde med personer med demens gennem en personorienteret tilgang og gennem brugen af sang, musik og musiske elementer? i artiklen anlægges et positivt psykologisk perspektiv på rehabilitering. med baggrund heri udfoldes og perspektiveres det relationelle møde med personer med demens ud fra en kvalitativ psykologisk referenceramme, der er inspireret af den nu afdøde professor i psykologi ved universitetet i geneve, daniel sterns udviklingspsykologiske forskning (stern, 2000, 2004, 2010a, 2010b). den værdimæssige tilgang i forhold til ”mødet” læner sig op ad den nu afdøde israelske professor i religionsvidenskab og etik martin buber (1997). med hensyn til demens og den personorienterede tilgang, tager artiklen udgangspunkt i den nu afdøde demensforsker og professor tom kitwoods teori og aa. m. ottesen: fokus på det relationelle møde med personer med demens i demensrehabliteringsindsatsen. qualitative studies 7(1), pp. 153-174 ©2022 156 forskning ved bradford universitet i england 1937-1998. i stedet for at fokusere på sygdommen, lidelsen demens, fokuserede kitwood på det individuelle og unikke menneske, som rammes af tabet af færdigheder i hjernens funktion (brooker & kitwood, 2019; kitwood 1997, 2003). artiklens opbygning artiklen indledes med en redegørelse for forskningskontekst, datagrundlag og metodologi. dernæst udfoldes og perspektiveres den kvalitative psykologiske referenceramme med udgangspunkt i en personorienteret tilgang. med baggrund i en tematisk analyse, illustreres fire udvalgte, betydningsdannende tematikker og deres teoretiske fundering samt forankring i praksiseksempler, baseret på videooptagelser af samspilssituationer mellem personer med demens og omsorgsgivere. dernæst efterfølgende analyser. artiklen afsluttes med en refleksion og opsamling. forskningskontekst, datagrundlag og metodologi som nævnt indledningsvis er artiklen funderet i min kvalitative forskning igennem de seneste år. det empiriske materiale i artiklen stammer fra et postdoc.aktionsforskningsprojekt, jeg har gennemført i samarbejde med fire demensplejecentre i danmark, finansieret af velux fonden. som resultat af forskningen blev der udviklet en online manual om brug af sang og musik i demensrehabiliteringsindsatsen (ottesen 2021a; ottesen 2021b). det anvendte datagrundlag her i artiklen udgør data og eksempler fra praksis, baseret på videooptagelser af samspilssituationer mellem personer med demens og omsorgsgivere. med hensyn til det etiske og juridiske grundlag, så har jeg som forsker sikret, at der er indhentet informeret samtykke hos deltagerne i aktionsforskningsprojektet. her i artiklen er personhenførbare data anonymiseret. i min bearbejdning og analyse af data har jeg metodisk anvendt tematisk analyse (clarke og braun 2017; willig et al. 2017). i det følgende udfoldes og perspektiveres den kvalitative psykologiske referenceramme, der ligger til grund for artiklen. der tages afsæt i en personorienteret tilgang. aa. m. ottesen; fokus på det relationelle møde med personer med demens i demensrehabliteringsindsatsen qualitative studies 7(1), pp. 153-174 ©2022 157 personorienteret tilgang som værdimæssig og teoretisk referenceramme manglende konsensus om definition af personorienteret tilgang til trods for, at den personcentrede tilgang, omsorg eller pleje igennem flere år internationalt har indgået i strategier, visioner og målsætninger inden for sundhedsvæsenet, er der ikke en enslydende definition af, hvad der forstås ved dette og der mangler ligeledes konsensus om, hvilke hovedelementer der indgår og hvad ”the best practice” er (american geriatrics society expert panel on person-centered care: brummel-smith, k. et al., 2016; kitson et al., 2013; mccormack et. al.,2015). inden for demensområdet, har tom kitwood og hans tætte samarbejdspartner psykolog dawn brooker igennem årene fra 1990-erne og indtil nu sat sit præg på forskning og teoriudvikling i relation til personcentret demensomsorg og tilgang (brooker & kitwood, 2019; kitwood, 1997). den personorienterede tilgang, der anlægges her i artiklen læner sig værdimæssig og teoretisk op ad kitwoods og brookers forskning og teoriudvikling. fokus på det individuelle og unikke menneske menneskesynet, som er grundlaget for kitwoods teori og forskning er forankret i religiøse, filosofiske og psykologiske opfattelser af, at det enkelte menneske har en absolut værdi, og at vi som mennesker har en forpligtelse til at behandle hinanden med dyb respekt og til at sætte individet i centrum for vor interesse. fremfor at fokusere på sygdommen, lidelsen demens, er kitwoods fokus på det individuelle og unikke menneske, som rammes af tabet af færdigheder i hjernens funktion (kitwood, 1997). sygdommen demens ses ikke som et lineært resultat af en neuropatologisk proces, men kitwood anlægger en kompleks forståelsesramme for demens, der inkluderer en persons personlighed, biografi og det neurologiske forfald som givne faktorer, der påvirkes af det fysiske helbred og det socialpsykologiske miljø. i forhold til kitwoods komplekse forståelsesramme og omsorgsfilosofi er personhood et centralt begreb, som kitwood beskriver således: ”der er en rang eller status der tildeles et menneske af andre i en kontekst af indbyrdes forhold og social væren. det indebærer genkendelse, respekt og tillid” (kitwood 2003, s.18). som jeg tolker kitwood indbefatter det, at vi som mennesker er, hvad andre anser os for og gør os til aa. m. ottesen: fokus på det relationelle møde med personer med demens i demensrehabliteringsindsatsen. qualitative studies 7(1), pp. 153-174 ©2022 158 og igennem de måder, vi omgås hinanden på, i dagligt socialt samvær og samspil. det at mærke og opleve genkendelse, respekt og tillid medvirker til, at vi som personer kan bibeholde og udvikle vores personlige integritet. ondartet socialpsykologi tilkendegivelsen af personstatus, eller manglen på samme, har dermed konsekvenser for personen med demens. kitwood beskriver, at det at se personstatus i relationelle termer er essentielt, hvis vi skal forstå demens. en persons ”personhood” nedbrydes, hvis der ikke tages hensyn til individuelle behov og rettigheder, når negative følelser bliver ignoreret eller gjort ugyldige, eller når stigende isolation forekommer; dvs. når det kitwood beskriver som ondartet socialpsykologi er til stede (brooker & surr 2007; kitwood, 1997; ottesen, 2014). kitwood har igennem sin forskning identificeret følgende 17 områder, der karakteriseres som ondartet socialpsykologi: forræderi, umyndiggørelse, barnliggørelse, intimidering, stempling, stigmatisering, forcering af tempo, underkendelse, forvisning, objektivisering, ignorering, tvang, negligering, anklage, afbrydelse, latterliggørelse og nedvurdering. de 17 områder omfatter episoder, hvor omsorgen ikke tager udgangspunkt i den enkelte persons identitet, ressourcer og mulighed for at handle som et selvstændigt og socialt menneske. ifølge kitwood behøver der ikke at være tale om en massiv negativ påvirkning, men selv små krænkelser af den personlige integritet og gentagne oplevelser af utilstrækkelighed kan starte og vedligeholde en negativ udvikling, hvor en persons selvværd svækkes (kitwood, 1997). den etiske fordring i mødet med personer med demens i kraft af de funktionsevnetab, der følger med sygdommen demens, kan der meget nemt opstå situationer, hvor dialogen og samarbejdet mellem omsorgsgiver og personen med demens bliver vanskeliggjort. måske kan personen med demens ikke udtrykke sine egentlige behov og ønsker eller det kan være vanskeligt for personen med demens at forstå, hvad der bliver sagt eller forstå hvad der skal ske. det kan medføre, at personer med demens ofte befinder sig i situationer, hvor de føler sig fortabte, ladt alene eller er i situationer, som de har svært ved at overskue og genkende. disse følelser kan komme til udtryk hos personen med demens ved, at de udviser en såkaldt opmærksomhedssøgende adfærd; f.eks. ved råben, vandren omkring eller ved forskellige former for protest og aa. m. ottesen; fokus på det relationelle møde med personer med demens i demensrehabliteringsindsatsen qualitative studies 7(1), pp. 153-174 ©2022 159 sammenbrud. det kan også medføre usikkerhed og angst, som kan afføde, at personen slår eller udviser anden aggressiv adfærd (elven et.al, 2015, ottesen, 2014). personer med demens er dermed meget afhængige af den måde, de bliver mødt på af andre og hvordan de inddrages i et samvær. denne betydningsfulde dimension og etiske fordring, der ligger indbygget i samarbejdet eller mødet med en person med demens, kan bedst beskrives ved at citere løgstrup: den enkelte har aldrig med et andet menneske at gøre uden at han holder noget af dets liv i sin hånd. det kan være meget lidt, en forbigående stemning, en oplagthed, man får til at visne, eller som man vækker, en lede man uddyber eller hæver. men det kan også være forfærdende meget, så det simpelthen står til den enkelte, om den andens liv lykkes eller ej (løgstrup, 1991, s. 25) i forlængelse af løgstrup, udtrykker kitwood (2003): ”at være en person er at leve i en verden hvor betydninger deles” (s. 96). i interaktionen må fokus dermed være på det at være en person samt på relation, samspil og kommunikation og det socialpsykologiske miljø, hvori der indgår, at omsorgsgiver har en værdsættende, anerkendende og respektfuld tilgang og formår at fange de betydninger, personen med demens forsøger at udtrykke/kommunikere. helhedsorienteret perspektiv og imødekommelse af psykosociale behov i den personorienterede tilgang og omsorg, (brooker & kitwood, 2019, kitwood, 1997) anlægges der et helhedsorienteret perspektiv på det at være en person med demens, hvor omsorgsopgaven anskues som langt mere end det at opfylde basale fysiske behov. opmærksomheden er rettet mod hele mennesket, om at sætte den enkelte i stand til at få størst muligt udbytte af sine ressourcer, at forblive et selvstændigt menneske og bevare sin identitet. den personorienterede tilgang omfatter at imødekomme personens grundlæggende psykosociale behov, som omfatter behovene: trøst, tilknytning, inklusion, beskæftigelse og identitet (brooker & kitwood, 2019; kitwood, 1997). hos personer med demens bliver disse behov meget åbenlyse, da de er i en sårbar situation. ofte er de kun i mindre grad i stand til selv at tage initiativer, der vil føre til, at deres behov bliver opfyldt. disse behovs intensitet øges ofte samtidig med, at den kognitive svækkelse skrider frem (brooker & kitwood, 2019; kitwood 1997; ottesen, 2014). for aa. m. ottesen: fokus på det relationelle møde med personer med demens i demensrehabliteringsindsatsen. qualitative studies 7(1), pp. 153-174 ©2022 160 at imødekomme disse behov og udmønte den personorientrede omsorg i praksis skitserer kitwood 12 forskellige former for positive interaktioner: ti former, hvor omsorgsgiveren er den aktive: anerkendelse, validering, facilitering, forhandling, samarbejde, timalering, omfavnelse/holding, afslapning, leg og fest samt to former, hvor personen med demens har den aktive rolle: skabelse og given, hvilket dog forudsætter, at omsorgsgiver tilbyder en empatisk respons (brooker & kitwood, 2019; kitwood, 1997). når den personorienterede tilgang skal udmøntes i praksis, betyder det, at personen med demens er i centrum frem for sygdommen, og at omsorg og pleje tilrettelægges ud fra personens perspektiv, biografi/livshistorie, vaner og de ovenfor nævnte socialpsykologiske behov, samt med et fokus på det socialpsykologiske miljø, som omgiver personen. med afsæt i ovenstående referenceramme præsenteres resultaterne af en tematisk analyse i det følgende. betydningsdannende tematikker og perspektiver med baggrund i artiklens forskningsspørgsmål, illustreres en tematisk analyse af fire udvalgte, betydningsdannende tematikker og deres teoretiske fundering samt forankring i praksiseksempler, med efterfølgende analyser. rettet mod at kunne besvare, hvordan værdighed og respektfuldhed kan understøttes i det relationelle møde med personer med demens, illustreres følgende fire tematikker: 1) udgangspunkt i personens livshistorie og musikbiografi. 2) mødet og musikalsk nærvær. 3) nuets betydning og musikalske nuøjeblikke i relationen. 4) nuværende øjeblikke og vitalitetsformers betydning for det relationelle mødes kvalitet. udgangspunkt i personens livshistorie og musikbiografi for at kunne opretholde og understøtte en persons psykosociale behov og identitet, er det f.eks. nødvendigt at have et detaljeret kendskab til vedkommendes biografi/livshistorie¸ dvs. oplysninger om personens værdier, måde at leve på, vaner og rutiner, aktuelle og tidligere interesser, arbejdsliv, skolegang, uddannelse, deltagelse i forskellige aktiviteter og foreninger igennem livet mv. (brooker & surr, 2007; kitwood, 2003; ottesen, 2014). heri indgår også at vide noget om personens musikpræferencer og kvalitative musikbiografi. med inspiration fra en model: ”kvalitativ musikbiograf”, der er udviklet af ottesen (2016) kan der f.eks. indhentes oplysninger om hvorvidt personen igennem sit aa. m. ottesen; fokus på det relationelle møde med personer med demens i demensrehabliteringsindsatsen qualitative studies 7(1), pp. 153-174 ©2022 161 liv har deltaget i sang, har sunget meget, udøvet musik, spillet på musikinstrumenter, om sange og musikstykker, der falder inden for personen smag/ som personen holder meget af eller ikke bryder sig om eller oplysninger om musikalske højdepunktsoplevelser. til de enkelte emner, er det vigtigt, at der knyttes fortællinger til bestemte begivenheder, hændelser eller oplevelser igennem personens liv, og at de vurderes i forhold til, om de har været positive eller mindre positive. derudover, at begivenhederne og oplevelserne relateres til forskellige tidsperioder og sammenhænge i personens liv: barndom, ungdom, tidlig voksenliv, voksenliv og til de seneste livsår (ottesen, 2016). ruud (2003) kalder musik set i livets sammenhæng for ”identitetens lydspor”. pga. sygdommen kan personer med demens ofte ikke selv redegøre for deres biografi/livshistorie eller musikbiografi og præferencer. omsorgsgivere kan derfor med fordel inddrage pårørende eller andre, der står personen nær. med afsæt i ovenstående gives der et eksempel fra praksis, der illustrerer et musikalsk samvær mellem helle og lise. helle er omsorgsgiver og lise har demens og bor på plejehjem. praksiseksempel: udgangspunkt i personens livshistorie og musikbiografi lise sover meget og sidder ofte og er trukket ind i sig selv. i middagsstunden sætter helle sig hos lise og begynder at synge. lise er meget glad for at synge. hun har tidligere været med i sangkor. helle ved hvilke sange der har haft betydning for lise og hvilke hun foretrækker at synge med til. helle synger: ”jeg ved en lærkerede”. lise ser op og kommer hurtigt med ind i sangen. hun synger allerede med på: ”rede”. helle synger: ”jeg siger ikke mer”: lise kommer lidt forskudt med ind, og synger: ”jeg siger ikke mer”, hvilket helle bliver opmærksom på og hun afstemmer derfor hastighed, tempo og måden hun synger på, så lise kan nå at følge med. lise ser meget koncentreret ud. hun prøver at huske teksten. helle lægger tryk på, mens hun synger videre, hvilket lise imiterer. der er ikke øjenkontakt mellem helle og lise, mens de synger. men lige i det øjeblik, at de sammen afslutter sangen, vender lise sig opmærksomt mod helle og søger øjenkontakt. helle sidder roligt og afventer en reaktion fra lise efter sangen er sluttet. efter et stykke tid begynder lise spontant at fortælle om dengang hun var med i sangkor. helle lytter opmærksomt og indgår i dialog med lise om hendes erindringer og følelser. aa. m. ottesen: fokus på det relationelle møde med personer med demens i demensrehabliteringsindsatsen. qualitative studies 7(1), pp. 153-174 ©2022 162 analyse personer med demens kan have lang latenstid. det betyder, at det f.eks. kan tage længere tid for dem at reagere og gøre noget. som det ses ovenfor afstemmer helle sig efter lise, såvel i forhold til hastighed og tempo. jævnfør kitwood (2003), så faciliterer helle igennem en personorienteret tilgang et musikalsk samvær (ottesen, 2021b). et samvær, hvor hun synger en sang, der har haft betydning for lises liv. det skaber genkendelse og vækker følelser og erindringer, som baner vejen for en positiv dialog om erindringerne. erindringer kan dermed ”lokkes” frem via bestemte sange eller musikstykker (ridder, 2005). for en person med demens kan det skabe tryghed og det kan bidrage til at skabe mening og bevare personens identitetsfølelse. det giver samtidig mulighed for at personen føler sig mødt og forstået. med dette gives indgangsporten til det følgende betydningsdannende tema om ”mødet”. mødet og musikalsk nærvær de elementer eller værdier, martin buber (1997) benytter, når han beskriver ”mødet” er kendetegnet ved åbenhed, blidhed, tilstedeværelse og indlevelsesevne. i beskrivelsen af relationen mellem to personer benytter buber sig af to grundbegreber: ”jeg-du” og ”jegdet”. buber centrerer sig om kontrasten mellem to former for væren i verdenen, dvs. to måder at relatere sig til andre på. i ”jeg-det” relationer bliver den anden et objekt på den måde forstået, at jeg forholder mig til det ydre ved personen. ”jeg-det” forhold er en måde at være på, hvor jeg har et ydre forhold, såvel til mig selv som den anden. at indgå relationer efter ”jeg-det” måden antyder dermed kølighed, uengagerethed, instrumentalitet og en måde at opretholde en sikker afstand til den anden. en forholdemåde, som jeg ser kan sidestilles med det kitwood (2003) betegner som ondartet socialpsykologi eller det kari martinsen (2005) beskriver som objektivering, når man ikke engagerer sig og ikke prøver at forstå den anden. når denne forholdemåde er dominerende i forhold til den anden, går man, ifølge martinsen (2005) til angreb på den andens frihed til at have sin egen selvforståelse, den andens ret til at have sine egne meninger og sin egen vurderinger. man skaffer sig dermed herredømme over den anden. i ”jeg-du” relationer hersker der derimod åbenhed og nærvær, hvor jeg åbner mig for den anden for at opleve verden og den anden. ”jeg-du” måden antyder dermed imødekommenhed over for den anden, selvafsløring, spontanitet og en form for rejse ind aa. m. ottesen; fokus på det relationelle møde med personer med demens i demensrehabliteringsindsatsen qualitative studies 7(1), pp. 153-174 ©2022 163 i noget ukendt (buber 1997; schibbye 2010). buber udtrykker: ”alt virkeligt liv er at møde (buber, 1997, s. 29)”, hvilket er gældende fra fødsel til død og er betinget af, at mennesket befinder sig i relationer med andre mennesker og at disse relationer er af en sådan kvalitet, at de udvikler og understøtter den enkeltes eksistens (ottesen, 2014). som voksne er vi selv ansvarlige for at være i gode relationer og kan fjerne os fra dem, hvis de ikke opfylder vores behov. det er betydelig sværere, f.eks. for personer med demens, idet deres evne til at kommunikere bliver vanskeliggjort og bevirker, at de bliver meget afhængige af andre mennesker på det relationelle plan (ottesen, 2014). omsorgsgiveren og personen med demens befinder sig i et ulige forhold i deres relation med hinanden. der vil dermed, som jeg ser det, være noget på spil, idet ”mødet” er for den anden; dvs. for personen med demens. ”mødet” har også en etisk og moralsk dimension. det fordrer noget særligt, noget andet og mere. med reference til løgstrups etiske fordring (1991) har det menneskesyn og værdigrundlag, den enkelte omsorgsgiver ligger til grund for sin handlen, dermed afgørende indflydelse på, om ”mødet” med personen med demens lykkes eller ej; dvs. om der etableres en positiv og ligeværdig relation. med afsæt i ovenstående gives der et eksempel fra praksis, der illustrerer en ”jeg-du” relation, hvor der indgår musikalske dialoger og anvendes positive interaktionsformer (kitwood, 2003). praksiseksempel: mødet og musikalsk nærvær charlotte er omsorgsgiver og anders har demens og bor på plejehjem. charlotte sidder hos anders, som har negative tanker og en dyb sorg over den drejning hans liv har taget med hans kones død og hans egen tilstand, hvor han glemmer meget og ikke længere kan gøre det samme som tidligere. anders siger: ”det er utroligt”. charlotte læner sig frem, så hun sidder og kan have øjenkontakt med anders. charlotte svarer med blid stemme: ”ja”. anders fortsætter: ” for min kone hun døde jo da hun var 70. så der er forskel på en ubehagelig måde – må jeg sige – for hvorfor skulle jeg leve videre – ham vor herre han er en kedelig karl”. charlotte nikker bekræftende. anders siger: ” jamen så – det er en ond mand”. charlotte bekræfter ved at sige: ”ja”. anders: ”han tager ikke hensyn til, hvordan han skal fordele”. charlotte siger med meget blid stemme: ”nej”. anders fortsætter: ” de mennesker, der skal dø – men jeg er glad for, at jeg har noget musik jeg kan lytte til”. anders vender hovedet hen imod musikanlægget, der står ved siden af. charlotte berører anders´ hånd og siger: ”det kan være vi skal lytte til lidt musik?”: anders: ”ja det, det, det kan jeg godt lide – jeg elsker at høre musik”. charlotte tager fat i anders´ aa. m. ottesen: fokus på det relationelle møde med personer med demens i demensrehabliteringsindsatsen. qualitative studies 7(1), pp. 153-174 ©2022 164 hånd og anders responderer ved at tage imod charlottes hånd og de bevæger sammen deres hænder frem og tilbage, mens de har øjenkontakt. charlotte siger: ”når du savner hende, så kan vi lytte til lidt musik”. anders svarer: ” ja tak – det er dejligt”. charlotte ved, at adam holder meget af at lytte til musikstykker af mozart og at det ofte kan hjælpe ham i hans nedtrykte sindsstemning. charlotte tænder for et musikstykke med mozart. med det samme er anders med i musikken, hvor han bevæger armene og dirigerer til musikken. anders synger: ”da da da” og siger: ”det er dejlig musik”. charlotte smiler og imiterer anders´ bevægelser. de har hinanden i hånden og de har øjenkontakt og et positivt samspil, hvor charlotte rummer anders´ følelsesmæssige udtryk. anders dirigerer med den ene hånd og samtidig har de fortsat hinanden i hånden, mens de bevæger deres arme sammen i glidende bevægelser til musikken. anders synger:” ba da ahh”. charlotte og anders indgår i en musikalsk dialog, hvor charlotte afstemmer sig til anders´ følelsesmæssige udtryk. deres bevægelser er synkroniserede, indtil anders i luften begynder at bevæge fingrene som om han spiller på klaver. charlotte reagerer ved at bevæge anders´ hånd let op og ned. charlotte og anders fortsætter med at have hinanden i hånden og have øjenkontakt. anders kikker ned og kort efter siger han: ”jah”, og han ser meget rolig ud, mens han igen søger øjenkontakt med charlotte, der validerer ham følelsesmæssigt. analyse situationen illustrerer, at anders for en stund får lindret sin smerte og sorg igennem det musikalske samvær og de relationelle møder med charlotte – eller jf. buber (1997) den ”jeg-du” relation, der er imellem dem. anders åbner op for sine følelser. han bliver beroliget og opnår følelsen af at blive mødt og forstået, igennem charlottes åbenhed og musikalske nærvær, som er en måde at kommunikere på uden om ordene, hvor nærvær formidles gennem blid sang, nynnen eller det kan være nonverbalt gennem musik (ottesen, 2014). charlotte viser også hendes evne til at facilitere situationen, hvor hun skaber rum for og giver anders mulighed for at udtrykke sine tanker og følelser. charlotte er opmærksom og sidder roligt og rummer adams følelser og sorg – hun benytter sig af den positive interaktionsform: omfavnelse/holding (brooker & kitwood, 2019). samtidig ses også den positive interaktionsform: validering, der betyder at give noget værdi eller at gyldiggøre, hvor charlotte imødekommer og viser, at aa. m. ottesen; fokus på det relationelle møde med personer med demens i demensrehabliteringsindsatsen qualitative studies 7(1), pp. 153-174 ©2022 165 hun anerkender de oplevelser og følelser anders udtrykker eller viser hende. med reference til ovenstående udfoldes i det følgende tematikken, der illustrerer musikalske nu-øjeblikke i det relationelle møde mellem personen med demens og omsorgsgiver. nuets betydning og musikalske nu-øjeblikke i relationen gro trondalen udtrykker, at det er ”… relationen, og det som skjer i denne i et her-og nåøyeblikk, som er bærende… (trondalen, 2007, s. 579)”, hvor hun bl.a. drager paralleller til stern (2004) og hans teori om det nuværende øjeblik. ifølge daniel stern (2004) er det nuværende øjeblik karakteriseret som et subjektivt oplevelsesøjeblik, mens oplevelsen finder sted og endnu ikke er omsat til ord. det er det eneste tidspunkt, hvor vi som mennesker bliver set som et subjekt og ikke objektiviseret gennem refleksion. det nuværende øjeblik indeholder essensen af en relation og det rummer den følte oplevelse af, hvad der sker i et kortvarigt bevidsthedsforløb – det er det, der lægges mærke til nu i det øjeblik, der leves. ifølge stern (2004) er det ofte i disse subjektive oplevelsesøjeblikke, at der kan ske forandring. det nuværende øjeblik er delvis uforudsigeligt, mens det udfolder sig man kan ikke nøjagtigt vide, hvordan det vil blive, fordi man som person bæres af sted af det, og det endnu ikke er forbi. stern beskriver, at hver eneste lille verden i et nuværende øjeblik er unik, og det er forbundet med en eller anden fornemmelse af sig selv. når det nuværende øjeblik opstår, er den enkelte person den eneste, der kan mærke/fornemme sin egen subjektive oplevelse. de nuværende øjeblikke dannes omkring hændelser, der bryder gennem det sædvanlige, og de forudsætter en mental og måske en fysisk handling. med afsæt i ovenstående gives der et eksempel fra praksis, der illustrerer en ”jegdu” relation, hvor der opstår nuer i samværet, der danner basis for øjeblikke med musikalske dialoger og jf. kitwood, hvor der indgår positive interaktionsformer. praksiseksempel: musikalske nu-øjeblikke i relationen allan er tidligere professionel musiker og har en demenssygdom. han bor på plejehjem. situationen viser allan i samspil med anna, der er omsorgsgiver. det er en udfordring for anna at give allan det musiske samvær, som han har været vant til at have i sit liv. her i situationen er anna ved at hjælpe allan ud på badeværelset for at komme i bad. de passerer køkkenet på vej derud. et musikalsk nu-øjeblik aa. m. ottesen: fokus på det relationelle møde med personer med demens i demensrehabliteringsindsatsen. qualitative studies 7(1), pp. 153-174 ©2022 166 opstår da allan tager initiativ til at banke med fingeren på sit køleskab. anna reagerer – hun smiler anerkendende til allan og griber øjeblikket, hvor hun følger og positivt bekræfter initiativet fra allan ved at banke på køleskabet i en anderledes takt og af flere gange. allan banker igen på køleskabet. allans ansigt stråler af energi og vitalitet. analyse allan benytter her den positive interaktionsform: skabelse (kitwood, 2003). anna reagerer med et empatisk respons, hvor hun anerkender og bekræfter allans initiativ. allan og anna indgår i en musikalsk “dialog” med hinanden. der er turtagning, hvor de skiftes til at være givende og modtagende i samspillet (aarts, 2005). eksemplet viser også, at anna er opmærksom på at kommunikere på andre måder end det verbale, hvilket gør at anders i et nu-øjeblik bliver mødt og udfordret musikalsk (ottesen, 2021b). i den følgende betydningsdannende tematik udfoldes og perspektiveres det relationelle møde med fokus på de interpersonelle, psykiske øjeblikke i vores liv, hvor vitalitetsformerne viser sig (stern, 2010a, 2010b). nuværende øjeblikke og vitalitetsformers betydning for det relationelle mødes kvalitet det nuværende øjeblik kan også have en temporal dynamik. der opstår vitalitetsformer, mens øjeblikket udfoldes, hvilket f.eks. kan beskrives med ord som accelererende, eksploderende eller prøvende (stern, 2004, s. 51-59). stern udviklede teorien om vitalitetsformer igennem hans forskning og iagttagelser af samspil mellem mødre og spædbørn, hvor de dynamiske træk ved tidlige menneskelige samspil træder ekstra tydeligt frem. der foregår her ikke ret meget sprogligt, som kan aflede fokus fra det nonverbale. stern var optaget af, hvad mødrene gjorde, når de ville vise deres lille barn, at de forstod eller delte, hvad barnet følte; dvs. at få skabt en overensstemmelse mellem indre følelsestilstande, hvilket stern betegner som ”affektiv afstemning”, hvor der etableres en fornemmelse af gensidig forståelse, der bygger på matchning og deling af dynamiske vitalitetsformer. vitalitetsformerne spiller en afgørende rolle i udvidelsen og tilpasningen af det intersubjektive felt, uanset om man benytter en samtalebaseret eller en nonverbal terapeutisk tilgang. det centrale i den terapeutiske relation formes delvist af samspillet mellem vitalitetsformer og delingen af vitalitetsformer og er sandsynligvis den aa. m. ottesen; fokus på det relationelle møde med personer med demens i demensrehabliteringsindsatsen qualitative studies 7(1), pp. 153-174 ©2022 167 tidligste, letteste og mest umiddelbare vej til et andet menneskes subjektive oplevelse (stern, 2000, 2010a, 2010b). i følge stern (2000, 2004) er vitalitetsformer knyttet til det at være i live, at være i sin krop og fornemme, at følelser vælder op og aftager. det er psykiske og subjektive fænomener, der opstår i mødet med dynamiske hændelser. stern beskriver (2010a, 2010b), at det er i de meget små, sekundlange hændelser, som udgør de interpersonelle, psykiske øjeblikke i vores liv, at vitalitetsformerne viser sig – de kan f.eks. vise sig i kraften, hastigheden og forløbet af en håndbevægelse; timingen og betoningen af en udtalt sætning eller et enkelt ord; den måde, man lyser op i et smil på, eller tidsforløbet når smilet opløses; den måde man skifter siddestilling på; tidsforløbet, når man interesseret hæver øjenbrynene, og varigheden heraf; et flygtigt eller flakkende blik. dette er, ifølge stern, oprindelsen til, at vi oplever hinanden og føler hinandens vitalitet. som jeg tolker det, giver vitalitetsformer dermed os mennesker en fornemmelse af om en følelseskvalitet er behagelig eller ubehagelig. de erfares gennem samspil med andre. i relationen mellem omsorgsgiver og personen med demens vil den måde, omsorgsgiveren udfører en handling på f.eks. mærkes i personen med demens som vitalitetsformer. den måde, som omsorgsgiveren ser på eller taler til personen med demens på, vil skabe en oplevelseskvalitet i personen med demens. en talestrøm, der er melodiøs og harmonisk, kan opleves som blødt prikkende og brusende, modsat en talestrøm, der er skinger, kan opleves som en fysisk smerte (hart, 2009; ottesen & ridder, 2012; stern, 2010b). vitalitetsformer reflekterer dermed den måde en person oplever en handling og følelsen bag handlingen på (hart & schwartz,2008). med afsæt i ovenstående illustreres en situation fra praksis, hvor omsorgsiver og personen med demens indgår i en relation, der afspejler nuværende øjeblikke og vitalitetsformers betydning for det relationelle mødes kvalitet. praksiseksempel: nuværende øjeblikke og vitalitetsformers betydning omsorgsgiver frida sidder hos asta, der har demens. fridas mål er at opnå en positiv kontakt med asta, så hun bliver tryg og føler sig godt tilpas inden hun skal op af sengen. asta kan ikke altid forstå det der bliver sagt og hvad der skal ske. frida er nærværende og hun synger på portugisisk i et roligt tempo, hun har en blid stemme, hendes ansigtsudtryk er positivt og hun har øjenkontakt med asta. frida berører asta på armen. da asta siger: ”du er sød” svarer frida igen ved at øge stemmelejet og aa. m. ottesen: fokus på det relationelle møde med personer med demens i demensrehabliteringsindsatsen. qualitative studies 7(1), pp. 153-174 ©2022 168 der kommer mere vitalitet i hendes stemme, hun ser glad ud. frida fortsætter med at synge med blid stemme, og på et tidspunkt tørrer asta en tåre væk fra kinden, som kan tyde på, at hun bliver berørt af fridas sang. asta forstår ikke det, frida synger, men gennem fridas blide sang, rolige tilstedeværelse og musikalske nærvær formidler frida en tryghed, der ser ud til at forplante sig til asta. efter et stykke tid skifter frida over til at synge på dansk, hvor hun indleder med at nævne astas navn, hvilket styrker hendes identitetsfølelse. i et roligt tempo og med blid stemmeføring synger frida spørgsmål til asta, som asta løbende nikker eller siger ja til. asta forstår, hvad det er der synges til hende og da frida synger: ”er du klar til at komme op og få morgenkaffe”, siger asta: ”ja”. analyse ofte er der en forventning om, at når der bruges sang og musik i demensrehabiliteringen, skal der være en stemning af ”fest” og ”musik med gang i”; dvs. højt tempo og meget latter. det kan være meget positivt, men som modsætning hertil kan det mere stille og afdæmpede samvær med sang og musik virke beroligende og give tryghed, som det ses her i samspillet mellem frida og asta (ottesen, 2014). som jeg tolker det opstår der flere interpersonelle psykiske øjeblikke, det som stern (2004) beskriver som nuværende øjeblikke i deres samspil med hinanden og hvor vitalitetsformerne viser sig hos dem begge (stern, 2010b). øjeblikke af gensidig anerkendelse, hvor de begge på samme tid erkender, at de deler en fælles oplevelse og gensidig forståelse. øjeblikke, der kan ændre relationen og flytte den til et dybere niveau af intersubjektivitet (ottesen & ridder, 2012; stern, 2004). via fridas måde at synge på og hendes ro, får asta ligeledes mulighed for at få en indre fornemmelse eller intuition af fridas indre tilstand, som medfører en følelse af at føle sig forbundet og være i en afstemt kontakt. modsat har det stor betydning, at frida kan leve sig ind i astas fremkaldte oplevelse/ vitalitetsform og begynde eller fortsætte dialogen/”mødet” med hende der, som eksemplet også illustrerer (kitwood, 2003; stern, 2010a). afsluttende er det også vigtigt at bemærke, at personer med demens ofte ikke er optimalt i stand til at se sammenhæng mellem fortid, nutid og fremtid og at de dermed er ”overgivet” til den affektive oplevelse i nuet, hvor mening og sammenhæng må skabes via omsorgsgiverens samvær med personen, hvilket eksemplet med frida og asta er en illustration af (ottesen, 2014). med baggrund i ovenstående reflekteres og samles op i det følgende, som afslutning på artiklen. aa. m. ottesen; fokus på det relationelle møde med personer med demens i demensrehabliteringsindsatsen qualitative studies 7(1), pp. 153-174 ©2022 169 refleksioner og opsamling artiklen har fokuseret på hvordan værdighed og respektfuldhed understøttes i det relationelle møde med personer med demens gennem en personorienteret tilgang og gennem brugen af sang, musik og musiske elementer. med baggrund i resultaterne fra de betydningsdannende tematikker, er det min vurdering, at sang og musik som interventionsform teoretisk og praktisk kan indgå som en kvalitativ-psykologisk tilgang, der på en værdig og respektfuld måde understøtter en personorienteret kommunikation i det relationelle møde med personer med demens. med reference til en personorienterede tilgang anlægges der et helhedsorienteret perspektiv på det at være en person med demens, hvor omsorgsog rehabiliteringsopgaven anskues som langt mere end det at opfylde en persons basale fysiske behov (brooker & kitwood, 2019, kitwood, 1997). her i artiklen har jeg som forsker teoretisk bearbejdet og analyseret data, med praksiseksempler optaget på video. set i et læringsperspektiv vil eksemplerne fra medarbejdernes egen praksis også kunne anvendes målrettet til at udvikle medarbejdernes relationelle og musiske kompetencer (ottesen, 2014; ottesen 2021a; ottesen 2021b). brug af videoeksempler vil f.eks. kunne hjælpe til, at medarbejdernes intuitive forståelse af en situation fra deres praksis bringes til overfladen ved at se situationen på video. der kan være elementer, som medarbejderen i situationen ikke var bevidst om, men som synliggøres på videoen og kan italesættes; f.eks. ved at jeg som facilitator/forsker formår at tydeliggøre handlemønstre med de teorier, der er indlejret i de konkrete handlinger der ses. fordelen ved brug af video er, at videoeksempler giver syn for sagen og der kan spoles tilbage for at genopleve situationen, med mulighed for at få øje på flere nuancer eller blive opmærksom på de små tings betydning i relationen. læringsprocesser med udgangspunkt i videoeksempler, hvor medarbejderne anvender sang, musik og musiske elementer kan dermed fremme refleksion i – og over handlinger fra deres oplevede praksis (ottesen, 2020; schön, 2001). i forhold til etiske og moralske implikationer i forbindelse med at inddrage sårbare grupper som personer med demens i forskning, kan der stilles kritiske spørgsmål. det at anvende data fra praksis med videooptagelser og bearbejdningen af disse har givet mulighed for, at jeg som forsker løbende har kunnet gennemse, analysere og kritisk vurdere procesforløbet. min gennemgang har udelukkende givet indtryk af, at etiske, aa. m. ottesen: fokus på det relationelle møde med personer med demens i demensrehabliteringsindsatsen. qualitative studies 7(1), pp. 153-174 ©2022 170 moralske og juridisk forhold vedrørende deltagerne er blevet efterlevet. men det er en dimension, som er af stor betydning at have opmærksomheden rettet mod som forsker. i artiklen er det forsøgt at give et bud på, hvordan kvalitativ-psykologisk forskning kan udmønte sig i praksis indenfor demensrehabiliteringsområdet. med udgangspunkt i en personorienteret tilgang er det relationelle møde med personer med demens udfoldet og perspektiveret teoretisk og gennem praksiseksempler, hvor sang, musik og musiske elementer er anvendt. for personer med demens har måden en handling udføres på af en omsorgsgiver langt større betydning end selve handlingen. det er vigtigt at have fokus på den stemning, der er omkring en omsorgshandling. som omsorgsgiver kan man ikke forvente, at personen med demens kan se fornuften i f.eks. at skulle i bad, men vedkommende kan have en interesse og et behov for at være sammen med en på en god og anerkendende måde, mens handlingen finder sted. sidstnævnte må derfor vægtes højt og det er her, at kvaliteten af det relationelle møde må sættes i fokus, som det er forsøgt illustreret her i artiklen. personer med demens er meget afhængige af den måde de bliver mødt på af en omsorgsgiver. dette møde kan risikere at være en blandet oplevelse, fordi det afhænger af om omsorgsiver har viden og evner til at håndtere mødet. jævnfør kitwood (2003) handler det om, at omsorgsgiver rykker ud over egen ængstelse og forsvar, så et ægte møde kan finde sted og livgivende relationer kan trives. såvel som forsker og praktiker indenfor demensområdet er der mange etiske perspektiver og overvejelser, det er nødvendigt at gøre sig. jævnfør anbefalingerne, som alzheimer europe´s bestyrelse kom med i deres position-paper fra 2017 i forhold til personer med demens (gove et al., 2018) og de sygeplejeetiske retningslinjer (sygeplejeetisk råd, 2014), må omsorgsgiverne hele tiden gøre sig etiske overvejelser og være bevidste om deres valg og handlinger, når de indgår i det relationelle møde med personer med demens. i forhold til brugen af sang, musik og musiske elementer hos hver enkelt person med demens er det ligeledes vigtigt, at den måde sang og musik bruges på er afstemt, så den imødekommer den enkelte persons psykosociale behov (ottesen, 2016; ridder, 2016). det er mit håb, at artiklen kan være med til at tydeliggøre, hvor stor betydning det har, for at opnå succesfulde forløb og øge livskvaliteten for personer med demens, at der er fokus på det relationelle møde samt brugen af sang, musik og musiske elementer, som aa. m. ottesen; fokus på det relationelle møde med personer med demens i demensrehabliteringsindsatsen qualitative studies 7(1), pp. 153-174 ©2022 171 indgangsport til at omsorgsgivere kan forebygge og minimere udadreagerende adfærd, når de udfører vanskelige plejeog omsorgsopgaver hos denne persongruppe i sundhedsvæsenet. referencer american geriatrics society expert panel on person-centered care: brummel-smith, k., butler, d., frieder, m., gibbs, n et al. 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(2016). at mødes gennem musikken: nærvær og kommunikation med personer med demens. i: at skabe gode dage. københavn: dansk gerontologisk selskab, s. 93-101. ottesen, aa. m. (2020). eksperimenterende processer, der fremmer medarbejdernes refleksion og læring i demensrehabilitering. i: winther, s. & høgsgaard, d. (red). aa. m. ottesen; fokus på det relationelle møde med personer med demens i demensrehabliteringsindsatsen qualitative studies 7(1), pp. 153-174 ©2022 173 aktionsforskning i sundhedsvæsenet. ideer til kommunikative og innovative forandringer i en sundhedsfaglig praksis. aalborg: aalborg universitetsforlag. ottesen, aa. m. (2021a). forskningsprojekt: sang og musik som kommunikativ interventionsform i rehabiliteringsindsatsen overfor personer med en demenssygdom. downloaded 07.12.21 fra: musikogdemensrehabilitering.aau.dk ottesen, aa. m. (2021b). manual om brug af sang og musik i demensrehabilitering. downloaded 07.12.21 fra: www.dermus.aau.dk ottesen, aa. m. (2022). dialogisk aktionsforskning med samskabende processer om, hvordan sang og musik kan integreres i kulturen og hverdagslivet på plejehjem. academic quarter| akademisk kvarter, (24), 227-242. ottesen, aa. m. & ridder, h.m. (2012). vitalitetsformer og spejlneuroner – anvendt i læringsmodel for professionelle omsorgsgivere. tidsskriftet dansk musikterapi 9 (2), s. 3 – 13. paulsen, s. (2011) (red). forstå demens. københavn: hans reitzels forlag/alzheimerforeningen. ridder, h. m. o. (2016). musik i et personcentreret perspektiv. i: stige, b. & ridder, h. m.o. (red), musikkterapi og eldrehelse (s. 38-44). kapitel 3. oslo: universitetsforlaget. ridder, h.m.o (2005). musikbiografi og musikreminiscens som led i musikterapeutisk behandling af personer med frontotemporal demens. musikterapi i psykiatrien, årsskrift 4. ruud, e., 2003. musikalsk identitet. grus, nr. 69, 24.årgang 2003. århus: systime. schibbye, a. l. l. (2010). relationer: et dialektisk perspektiv på eksistensiel og psykodynamisk psykoterapi. københavn: akademisk forlag. schön, d. a. (2001). den reflekterende praktiker: hvordan professionelle tænker, når de arbejder. århus: klim. stern, d. (2000). spædbarnets interpersonelle verden. københavn: hans reitzels forlag. stern, d. (2004): det nuværende øjeblik i psykoterapi og hverdagsliv. københavn: hans reitzels forlag. stern, d. (2010a). vitalitetsformer: dynamiske oplevelser i psykologi, kunst, psykoterapi og udvikling. københavn: hans reitzels forlag. stern, d. (2010b). the issue of vitality. nordic journal of music therapy, 19(2), 88-102. aa. m. ottesen: fokus på det relationelle møde med personer med demens i demensrehabliteringsindsatsen. qualitative studies 7(1), pp. 153-174 ©2022 174 sundhedsog ældreministeriet (2017). et trygt og værdigt liv med demens. den nationale demenshandlingsplan 2025. københavn: sundhedsog ældreministeriet. sundhedsstyrelsen (2018). forskning til gavn for mennesker med demens og deres pårørende. national forskningsstrategi for demens 2015. københavn: sundhedsstyrelsen. sygeplejeetisk råd (2014). de sygeplejeetiske retningslinjer. københavn: dansk sygeplejeråd tampi, r. r., williamson, d., muralee, s., mittal, v., mcenerney, n., thomas, j., & cash, m. (2011). behavioral and psychological symptoms of dementia: part i— epidemiology, neurobiology, heritability, and evaluation. clinical geriatrics, 19(5), 41-6. trondalen, g. (2007). a moment is a moment is a moment. om gylne øyeblikk i musikterapeutisk teori og praksis. in: l.o. bonde (red.), musik og psykologi. psyke og logos. københavn: dansk psykologisk forlag. willig, c., rogers, w.s., terry, g., hayfield, n., clarke, v., & braun, v. (2017). thematic analysis. in: c. willig & w. s. rogers (eds.). the sage handbook of qualitative research in psychology (s. 17-36). california: sage publications ltd. about the author aase marie ottesen, ph.d., mhh, sygeplejerske og marte meo terapeut. aktuelt gæsteforsker ved institut for kommunikation og psykologi, aalborg universitet. under sin ansættelse på aalborg universitet har aase marie senest i perioden foråret 2020 til foråret 2022 gennemført et kompetenceudviklingsprojekt og et aktionsforskningsprojekt på et dansk plejehjem, med det formål at undersøge hvordan udadreagerende adfærd kan forebygges eller minimeres hos personer med demens samt hvordan sang og musik kan blive en integreret del af kulturen og hverdagslivet på et plejehjem. projekterne blev finansieret af sundhedsstyrelsen og alzheimer forskningsfonden. aase maries forskning er rettet mod praksis og mod hvordan der kan udvikles psykosociale metoder og kommunikative interventionsformer, der kan medvirke til, at personer med demens får et tåleligt og værdigt liv. aase marie er optaget af at arbejde med relationer, kommunikative samarbejdsudfordringer, refleksionsprocesser og læring. microsoft word kristiansen fænomenologi som dvælen ved erfaringens merhed.docx qualitative studies vol. 7, no. 1, 2022, pp. 64-85 issn 1903-7031 fænomenologi som dvælen ved erfaringens merhed martin vestergaard kristiansen1 1 psykologisk institut, bartholins allé 11, 8000, aarhus c mennesker med psykiske lidelser tenderer til at sprogliggøre deres smertefulde oplevelse som terapeutiske problemer, hvilket overskygger et andet perspektiv på erfaringen som passivt gennemlevet. lidelsen bliver tematiseret som lidelse og derved tabes den lidelsesfulde verden af syne. med udgangspunkt i et igangværende forskningsprojekt i socialangstens fænomenologi viser jeg i denne artikel hvordan dette udgør et problem for fænomenologisk interviewforskning samt foreslår måder at overkomme problemet på. først illustrerer jeg med interviewuddrag hvordan håndteringen af angsten samt dens oplevede fremmedhed indtager en fremtrædende plads i informanternes beskrivelser af angsterfaringen. dernæst argumenterer jeg for nødvendigheden af en aktivt styrende interviewerindstilling hvor intervieweren kontinuerligt dvæler ved sprogliggørelsen af erfaringen med informanten. jeg viser med uddrag fra to interviews hvordan informantens beskrivelse lader sig åbne af en fastholdelse og derpå fælles dvælen ved 1) konkrete detaljer i indholdet af beskrivelsen og 2) ved den personlige betydning af erfaringen. idet jeg med disse greb bringer to forskellige metodologiske traditioner, i spil, henholdsvist mikrofænomenologien og eksistentialfænomenologien, inviterer jeg med dette bidrag til pragmatisk debat mellem metodologiske skoler der har til fælles at de søger at afdække livsverdener. keywords:: kvalitativ psykologi; fænomenologisk metode; social angst; fænomenologisk psykopatologi; livsverdensinterview introduktion ’beskriv en situation fra din hverdag, hvor du har oplevet social angst.’ nogenlunde sådan var ordlyden af den fænomenologiske ledetråd, hvormed jeg begyndte hvert af mine indledende interviews med mine informanter. dette startskud til en oplevelsesmæssig udforskning af socialfobiens fænomenologi fulgte ovenpå en skitsering fra min side af, hvad det betød at jeg var interesseret i deres beskrivelser, og ikke abstraktioner, forklaringer eller evalueringer, af hvordan det var for dem at være angst i sociale situationer. her fortalte jeg dem, at jeg ønskede at forstå, hvordan de fra deres perspektiv m. kristiansen: fænomenologi som dvælen ved erfaringens merhed. qualitative studies 7(1), pp. 64-85 ©2022 65 oplevede disse situationen idet jeg bad dem beskrive den ængstende verden, de levede i; et almindeligt fokus i fænomenologisk-psykopatologiske undersøgelser. depression er for eksempel blevet anskueliggjort ved, at det der før var betydningsfyldt ikke længere trækker i én, at andre mennesker er blevet til vidner om, at livet fortsætter for alle andre end én selv (fuchs, 2013) og at farverne er grånede og maden har mistet sin smag (van den berg, 1972). mit projekt var parallelt hertil at forstå socialfobiens fænomenologi med udgangspunkt i mine interviewdeltageres beskrivelser af deres liv med social angst. specifikt ønskede jeg at de beskrev deres livsverden som den trådte frem for dem, fremfor forklarede mig, hvorfor verden var angstprovokerende, eller fortalte mig hvordan den kunne eller burde være. det ledte frem til spørgsmålet ovenfor, med hvilket jeg inviterede til beskrivelser af helt konkrete og specifikke situationer mærket af social angst. dette fulgte gængse anbefalinger i fænomenologisk metodelitteratur (fx kvale & brinkmann, 2009; van manen, 2016). til trods for denne ramme vedblev min informanter at tale om selve angsten og hvordan de håndterede den i forskellige situationer, fremfor at sætte ord på den angstbetonede verden, der var udgangspunkt for den kamp, de både fortalte om og til tider også aktivt udkæmpede i interviewene. både når jeg spurgte åbent i stil med det indledende spørgsmål ovenfor, og når jeg kredsede om mere specifikke temaer med dem, trådte angsten frem som et terapeutisk problem, de aktivt gjorde noget med, foran den levede angst, der farvede de situationer, de beskrev. de lod simpelthen til at have flere ord for angsten end for den ængstende verden som den så ud ’fra’ angsten; i det mindste på rede hånd. der er grund til at tro, at mine informanter, der alle har været i terapi for at lære at tackle deres problemer, udgør et eksempel på en generel udfordring for fænomenologiske udforskninger af lidelsesfænomener. som påtalt af blandt andre brinkmann (2014a) og horwitz og wakefield (2005) har det i samtiden dominerende klinisk-psykologiske sprog marginaliseret andre måder at forstå og italesætte menneskelig lidelse. denne patologiske lidelsesforståelse er blevet allestedsnærværende; i medierne, i spørgeskemaundersøgelser og i hverdagsligt sprogbrug tales der om stress, angst og depression (madsen, 2018; petersen, 2017). det er således blevet umærkeligt oplagt at tolke og håndtere sin lidelse som psykopatologi (brinkmann, 2010). dette sprog tilbyder særligt et vokabular for en anpart af lidelsesoplevelsen der kan karakteriseres ved en distanceret fremmedhed for m. kristiansen: fænomenologi som dvælen ved erfaringens merhed. qualitative studies 7(1), pp. 64-85 ©2022 66 lidelsen. når lidelse tales om som sygdom, tales den uundgåeligt også om som ’ikkemig’. brinkmann (2014b) peger selv på, hvordan patologien i adhd-støttegrupper tales om som en ting ekstern fra personen, der handler igennem vedkommende. nielsen (2017b) viser hvordan dette sprog tages med ind i en interviewkontekst, hvor man taler om ’sin adhd og sig selv’. det samme viser rønberg (2019) gør sig gældende for depressive, som i interviews taler om depressionen som blandt andet en ’sort hund’ der trækker kræfterne ud af dem1. i en psykiatrisk kontekst har rønberg (2015) desuden beskrevet, hvordan sorg kommer til i stedet at handle om ’depressionen’ og den hertil koblede energiforladthed og mistede lystfølelse mere end tabet af den nære anden. blandt andre køsters arbejder (2020a, 2020c) med sorgens fænomenologi peger på hvad i erfaringen det kliniske lidelsessprog er blindt for (se også nielsen, 2017a): nemlig den mistede anden og vedkommendes allestedsnærvær. merheden i erfaringen af sorg finder køster (2020b) med andre ord ude i den sørgende verden, i hvilken den udspiller sig. her oplever den sørgende sorgen i form af den mistede andens aftryk i alt det, der før var velkendt men som nu har mistet denne familiariet. hvor en terapeutisk italesættelse af sorgen indfanger den som et ’noget’ i livsverdenen ‒ en ’depression’ ‒ finder et fænomenologisk perspektiv altså ord for hvordan livsverden ser ud fra sorgen. her er det ikke lidelsen selv, der fremtræder tematisk i oplevelsen, men det den handler om eller den lidelsesfulde verden, den åbner op for den lidende: i den mistede andens allestedsnærvær. mit ærinde er her at anskueliggøre, hvilke udfordringer for fænomenologisk forskning, den terapeutiske diskurs bringer med sig ind ad døren til interviewrummet, samt hvordan de kan overkommes. efter en indledningsvis bestemmelse af mit ståsted i fænomenologien skitserer jeg hvordan angsterfaringens fremmedhedsaspekt tales frem i et terapeutisk sprog på en måde der overskygger og tilslører hvordan angsten viser sig ude i deres livsverden. derpå illustrerer jeg to måder at tilnærme sig beskrivelser af netop denne ængstende livsverden, henholdsvis ved at dvæle ved beskrivelsens konkrethed og betydning. i begge dele tager jeg udgangspunkt i nærblik på egne interviews. 1 rønberg (2019) illustrerer, hvordan depressive oplever at metaforen om den sorte hund ræsonnerer med en basal fornemmelse af fremmedgjorthed overfor sin krop og sin verden. med sproget om ’besættende’ entiteter kommer en del af erfaringen af en depression, adhd eller angst således indenfor rækkevidde af en sprogliggørelse. ikke alt er imidlertid sagt om oplevelsen af selvfremmedgørelse med metaforer af denne type, og en række af lidelsens øvrige aspekter forbliver fortsat i det skjulte med et snævert fokus på denne selvforholdsdimension. m. kristiansen: fænomenologi som dvælen ved erfaringens merhed. qualitative studies 7(1), pp. 64-85 ©2022 67 fænomenologiens sigte og fremgangsmåder fænomenologien som metode har forgrenet sig i mange retninger med så væsensforskellige mål og midler, at en indledende positionering er nødvendig her. i forhold til fænomenologiens mål placerer jeg mig med fænomenologiens filosoffer i en insisteren på, at endemålet er at kaste lys over de grundstrukturer i subjektiviteten, der gør det muligt for verden at fremtræde på særlige måder (zahavi, 2019). frugterne af en fænomenologisk undersøgelse er med andre ord ikke høstet med en afdækning af et oplevelsesmæssigt indhold, men med en opklaring af oplevelsesmæssige grundstrukturer eller modi heraf (fernandez & køster, 2019). en oplevelsesmæssig grundstruktur betegner en konstitutiv dimension af erfaringen, der altid er mere eller mindre påfaldende til stede i konkrete oplevelser. følgende heidegger (1927/2007) betegnes disse ofte ’eksistentialer’ og udgøres blandt andet af tidsligheden, rumligheden, kropsligheden og relationaliteten til andre (aho, 2019). en oplevelsesmæssig modus betegner måden, givne erfaringsstrukturer manifesterer sig på, deres værensform. relationen mellem struktur og modus, hvor det typisk er en karakteristik af sidstnævnte, der sigtes mod i fænomenologisk psykopatologi, kan tydeliggøres med ipseiteten som eksempel. ipseiteten, eller den basale fornemmelse af ejerskab over eller ’min-hed’ af sansninger, handlinger og tanker, er en grundstruktur i subjektiviteten zahavi (1999). ipseiteten kan eksempelvis danne en fuldstændig ubemærket baggrund for den konkrete oplevelse, som for musikeren i den selvforglemmende samspilserfaring der går i ét med instrumentet, musikken og de andre uden nogensinde at miste en implicit identifikationen med sin egen oplevelse (høffding, 2019). men den kan også opleves mere ambivalent, som i den fysiske smerte, der ganske vist mærkes som noget der kommer fra én selv, men ikke uden et element af fremmedhed (leder, 1990); smerten føles med andre ord ikke kun som min, men også som noget påtrængende andet. et tredje eksempel på en ipseitetsmodus findes i psykotiske oplevelse såsom at føle sig besat af en djævel eller at andre kan indsætte tanker i ens hoved (parnas & sass, 2001). her argumenterer sass og parnas (2003) for, at selvfornemmelsen er så ekstremt svækket, at den skizofrene ikke længere er sikker på at ’eje’ sine oplevelser, hvilket får deres erfaringer til at fremstå fremmede for dem selv; for eksempel som var oplevelserne bag deres ryg blevet dem givet af en anden. med dette illustreres også den analytiske bevægelse fra erfaringsindholdet – besættelse, tankemæssig invasion – til en m. kristiansen: fænomenologi som dvælen ved erfaringens merhed. qualitative studies 7(1), pp. 64-85 ©2022 68 afdækning af en af de subjektivitetsstrukturer – den svækkede jegfornemmelse – der danner baggrund for og muliggør disse oplevelser. i forhold til spørgsmålet om fænomenologiens metoder til at nå frem til den slags righoldige beskrivelser af levede erfaringer, med udgangspunkt i hvilke oplevelsesmæssige grundstrukturer eller modi afdækkes, forholder jeg mig pragmatisk. det betyder, at jeg ser bort fra indbyrdes diskussioner om for eksempel fænomenologiens større formål (van manen, 2017, 2019; zahavi, 2019, 2020) og prærefleksivitetens definition (petitmengin & bitbol, 2009; zahavi, 2011) for i stedet at vurdere de interviewtekniske greb på deres værd henimod at øge indblikket i informantens livsverden. der findes i min optik værdifulde anbefalinger hertil både indenfor den kvalitative psykologi (fx finlay, 2011; van manen, 2016), filosofisk-empirisk fænomenologi (fx høffding & martiny, 2016; køster & fernandez, 2021) og mikrofænomenologien (fx bitbol & petitmengin, 2017; petitmengin, 2006). man genkender holdninger, forklaringer og efterrationaliseringer for hvad de er, nemlig beskrivelser afledt af oplevelser (van manen, 2016) og bruger dem som indgang til at spørge ind til dén konkrete erfaring, de handler om (høffding & martiny, 2016). man insisterer overfor informanten på igen og igen at gå tilbage i beskrivelsen af en oplevelse for at få det usagte med, vedkommende tog for givet første gang (petitmengin, 2006). man bruger aktivt sin viden om erfaringers generelle struktur til at afsøge dimensioner af informantens oplevelse, som enten glimtvis dukker op undervejs i interviewet eller ’glimrer ved sit fravær’ givet ens forhåndskendskab til fænomenet (køster & fernandez, 2021). hele tiden søger man på disse måder af få indblik ud i mere af den verden, i hvilken erfaringen ‒ angsten, sorgen, psykosen ‒ fremstår meningsfuld i et førstepersonsperspektiv (halling & nill, 1989). sagt anderledes afdækker man eksempelvis den paranoides livsverden ved at spørge til blandt andet de mistillidsvækkende og fjendtlige andre. hvad er det ved indtrykket de giver, eller ved det de siger og gør, der giver anledning til mistro og frygt? opklaringen af denne type af spørgsmål udgør de første skridt ind i den andens livsverden. metodologiske tilsløretheder og uafdækketheder en forbindelseslinje, der løber igennem disse konkrete bud på hvordan levede erfaringer gives sprog, er en insisteren på en oplevelsesmæssig merhed, eller med andre ord at der m. kristiansen: fænomenologi som dvælen ved erfaringens merhed. qualitative studies 7(1), pp. 64-85 ©2022 69 er langt mere at komme efter i beskrivelsen af en erfaring end hvad informanten af sig selv er i stand til at blotlægge. heri ligger en understregning af nødvendigheden af interviewerens aktive rolle i samskabelsen af livsverdensbeskrivelsen. informanten skal ikke blot gives tiden og pladsen for af sig selv at sprogliggøre erfaringen men kontinuerligt inviteres til at forholde sig til sine oplevelser på måder, der åbner op for beskrivelser af de aspekter af livsverdenen, der ønskes afdækket (fx køster & fernandez, 2021). hvordan dette i konkret interviewpraksis ser ud, illustreres imidlertid sjældent fyldestgørende2, hvilket har ledt til indbyrdes misforståelser imellem fænomenologiske skoler der har gjort, at frugtbar kritisk dialog på tværs er blevet forhindret. en udveksling mellem zahavi og martiny (2019), fortalere for filosofisk-empiriske fænomenologi, og englander (2020) der forsvarer duquesne-skolens psykologisk-fænomenologiske metode (se giorgi, 1970) udgør et nyligt eksempel på dette. zahavi og martiny (2019) betegner i deres kritik interviewstilen der anbefales indenfor duquesne-skolen ’passivt mikrofonholderi’ hvor intervieweren må regne med at informanten af sig selv italesætter erfaringens vigtigste aspekter. denne kritik bygges på fyldige citeringer af grundlæggerne af duquesne-skolen amadeo og barbro giorgi (2009; 2006). på sin side argumenterer englander (2020) for, at zahavi og martinys (2019) angreb på den psykologiskefænomenologiske interviewpraksis rammer forbi hvordan det rent faktisk bedrives af den erfarne kvalitative interviewer. det gør han ved at påpege hvor aktiv intervieweren er i at sætte en ramme for interviewet, der sætter informanten i kontakt med sine erfaringer på en måde, der faciliteter spontane, righoldige beskrivelser. misforståelserne i denne debat peger på at fundamentet for reelt metodeudviklende dialog på tværs af metodologiske skoler ikke er på plads endnu. ærindet med artiklens sidste del er derfor at bidrage til at skabe denne platform. dette ved at tydeliggøre med udgangspunkt i konkrete interviewuddrag hvordan gode beskrivelser kan tilvejebringes via hvad jeg med en samlebetegnelse kalder en ’dvælende’ fænomenologisk interviewpraksis. trods det store metodologiske engagement på feltet forholder man sig ingen steder fokalt til den praktiske udfordring, det er når informanter, allerede givet et særligt sprog om deres erfaringer, reproducerer særlige måder at tematisere deres oplevelser på. 2 en nævneværdig undtagelse er petitmengin og kollegaers arbejder (se petitmengin, 2006; petitmengin, navarro & le van queyen, 2007). fænomenerne under undersøgelse er imidlertid her altid ekstremt tidsligt afgrænsede. i den fænomenologiske psykopatologi er undersøgelsesfænomenerne i kontrast hertil typisk mere tidsligt udstrakte og mere allestedsnærværende (se ratcliffe, 2009 for eksempler), og det er langtfra gennemsigtigt, hvordan petitmengins interviewtekniske indsigter overføres hertil. m. kristiansen: fænomenologi som dvælen ved erfaringens merhed. qualitative studies 7(1), pp. 64-85 ©2022 70 et par af ovennævnte metodologer kommer tæt på at pege på det problematiske i at informanter italesætter deres lidelse som terapeutiske problemer, for dermed uforvarende at overskygge hvordan verden opleves som blot og bart ængstende. emnet tages imidlertid aldrig under nærmere behandling. petitmengin et al. (2007) berører det nærliggende problem, at informantens givne sprog om sin lidelse er mangelfuldt. konkret peges der på, hvordan informanterne simpelthen ikke havde nogen sprogliggjort opmærksomhed på de forvarsler på deres epileptiske anfald, der blev udforsket, grundet en dominerende medicinsk diskurs om anfaldene som ’lyn fra en klar himmel’. tilsyneladende mødte petitmengin et al. (2007) altså ’tavse’ informanter fordi deres sprog ikke tilbød dem ord om deres erfaring. jeg vil præsentere informanter, hvis sprog gjorde dem meget ordrige om særlige dele af deres angsterfaringer, hvilket gjorde at andre væsentlige dimensioner af erfaringerne ikke af sig selv fik taletid. høffding og martiny (2016) nævner det samme metodologisk problem som jeg belyser her, idet andenforfatterens informanter med cerebral parese mest umiddelbart talte om deres måde at tackle deres handicap på når adspurgt til hvordan deres muskelkramper udtrykte sig i deres liv. der gives imidlertid blot et enkelt eksempel derpå, i hvilket en informant refererer direkte til sin læges ord om sin oplevelser. jeg vil vise hvordan et terapeutiske sprog langt mere subtilt kan snige sig ind som dét perspektiv, informanten anlægger på sin erfaring når adspurgt åbent til den. angstens fremmedhed i det følgende illustrerer jeg med udgangspunkt i interviews med to af mine informanters, birte og sarah, hvordan et terapeutisk perspektiv vedholdende viser sig i beskrivelsen af deres angsterfaringer. i begge tilfælde kommer en beskrivelse af angsten som et fremmede, de må forholde sig håndterende til, til at tage megen plads; med birte i beskrivelsen af en konkret situation, med sarah i form af en gennemgribende brug af mestringsstrategier i selve interviewene. pointen med at vise dette er ikke at drage tvivl om hvorvidt det er en reel del af informanternes erfaringer med angst at søge af mindske den eller at mærke den som noget udefrakommende. det er snarere at vise, hvordan netop disse aspekter af angsterfaringen lader til at være særligt tilgodeset i det terapeutiske sprog på bekostning af den i oplevelsen rent faktisk ængstende verden, der giver anledning til at der overhovedet er en angst at begribe refleksivt og håndtere terapeutisk. m. kristiansen: fænomenologi som dvælen ved erfaringens merhed. qualitative studies 7(1), pp. 64-85 ©2022 71 for birte er det lige for at tale om socialfobien som en praktisk udfordring. hun fortæller om, hvordan den besværliggør hendes liv ved at give hende en følelse af at skulle opføre sig på særligt dydige måder for ikke at gøre sig negativt bemærket og hvordan den gør det svært for hende at varetage almindelige gøremål som at gå tur med hunden. hun har blandt andet lært, at hun må tildække sig med solbriller, kasket og halstørklæde for at gøre det nemmere at komme ud. med alt dette taler hun om hvad hun gør for at mindske sin angst. klarest bliver det hvordan hendes håndtering af angsten træder ind foran hendes beskrivelse af den da jeg spørger, hvad hun mener med, at angst for hende opleves som om noget i hendes krop er ved at koge over. hun svarer først meget kort at ”det er en venten i kroppen” og en ”følelse af rastløshed” før hun straks bevæger sig over i at tale om de terapeutiske redskaber, hun bruger til at håndterer sin ængstelige krop: ”[d]et kræver min opmærksomhed og det kræver min energi og jeg prøver virkelig at bruge de der redskaber jeg har lært for at det netop ikke skal komme helt op at koge, det der med at trække vejret, og tælle forskellige ting, kigge på farverne, synge en sang... trække vejret endnu mere og sådan, gøre de der ting, forberede mig selv. nogle gange så virker det og nogle gange så er det fuldstændig ligegyldigt, altså […] det kan også være at min angst ikke er for høj, og jeg får styr på angsten, og så når jeg slipper opmærksomheden på de redskaber, så kører det op alligevel.” når hun italesætter angsten som noget, der kan nå et for højt niveau, fortæller hun, at det hænger sammen med, at man ”plejer at køre med den der 10-skala […] de siger jo nede i psykiatrien at omkring de der 7-8 stykker, så er det for sent” hvorefter hun beskriver sit angstniveau i forskellige scenarier med udgangspunkt i denne skala. angsten antager med disse terapeutisk overleverede strategier og skalaer form af en samling kropslige varsler, birte er på vagt overfor og anvender konkrete metoder til at beherske. da jeg efterfølgende forsøger at skille angsten selv fra mestringen af den ved at spørge ”hvad er det for en angst, du får styr på?” svarer hun, fortsat indenfor et terapeutisk vokabular, at ”det er panikangsten” som ”udløses af socialfobien, har jeg jo så lært efterhånden”. det terapeutiske sprog om angsten som begyndende panikanfald vender her birte imod en refleksivt begrebet og håndterende del af sin erfaring der bremser den videre fænomenologiske udforskning af andre dele af erfaringen end dens fremmedhedselement. m. kristiansen: fænomenologi som dvælen ved erfaringens merhed. qualitative studies 7(1), pp. 64-85 ©2022 72 dette til trods for, at birte tager en vis afstand til dette sprog, igennem hvilket hun ’jo har lært’ noget om sin lidelse. hvordan angsten udtrykker sig kropsligt, springer hun over i beskrivelsen af hvordan hun håndterer et i kroppen følt ubehag. det forringer muligheden for den fænomenologiske indsigt heri, som kun kan gisnes om på baggrund af beskrivelsen af håndteringen af angsten, der på én gang løfter sløret for at der er en erfaring at handle på og tilslører hvad den består i. sarah taler om angsten som mere end et ’noget’ hun må beherske; hun beskriver den igen og igen som en fremmed magt adskilt fra hende selv, ikke helt ulig hvad nielsen (2017b) finder hos sine informanter med adhd. undervejs i vores i alt fire interviews kæmper hun for at opretholde denne adskillelse, en eksternaliserende mestringsstrategi der har bredt sig fra den narrative terapi (white, 2007). mest åbenlyst når hun korrigerer sig selv midt i en sætning for at placere angsten udenfor sig selv: ”nej, men det er bare mine… angstens grænser for hvad der er privat”. men også når hun taler om angstens regler, logikker og rationaler, hun har været styret af; om hvad angsten har bildt hende ind, fortalt hende og overbevist hende om; og hvordan angsten nogle gange ”pustede sig op, blev vred og sådan”. det bliver allermest tydeligt, at hun beskriver angsten på denne måde med udgangspunkt i et terapeutisk rationale, da jeg på et tidspunkt får indblik i hendes dagbog: ”jeg ved jo, hvad der er mig, og hvad der er angsten – i hvert fald hvis jeg er opmærksom. jeg er ved at opbygge et filter af den gode slags, hvor jeg lige vender tingene en ekstra gang. et hov-filter. for angsten er i mig og taler gennem mig, så jeg er nødt til at være på vagt og lægge mærke til og sætte spørgsmålstegn ved mine tanker. er det her sandheden? […] er det mig eller angsten, der snakker nu?” det er imidlertid først i vores tredje interview, hun selv tilbagefører sin beskrivelse af angsten som en ondsindig anden til en terapeutisk praksis: ”terapeuten var begyndt at sige at angsten, den ville jo – altså hvis det var et ægteskab – så ville den jo... fange mig og isolere mig, indtil jeg døde.” en særligt interessant beskrivelse i nærværende sammenhæng er her, at hun fortæller, at ”normalt så bruger jeg – ja det er jo så som metafor det der at være delt fra angsten og sådan noget – men der føltes det helt fysisk som om den slog mig i gulvet”. hendes formulering her peger på at hun selv differentierer mellem en mestringsrelateret, billedsproglige brug af distinktionen mellem hende selv og m. kristiansen: fænomenologi som dvælen ved erfaringens merhed. qualitative studies 7(1), pp. 64-85 ©2022 73 angsten på den ene side og hvordan hendes oplevelser på den anden side ’rent faktisk’ tager sig ud. det nødvendiggør kontinuerligt et væsentligt tolkningsmæssigt oprydningsarbejde undervejs i interviewet (buetow, 2013) for at forstå, hvad er oplevelse og hvad er mestringsstrategi til en grad, så jeg ender med at dedikere et fjerde interview til eksklusivt at forstå hendes erfaringer af angsten som en fremmed magt. hertil træder mestringsstrategien selvsagt hele tiden ind foran beskrivelsen af den angst hun oplever verden gennem, som da jeg inviterer hende til at uddybe en kropslig fornemmelse af at være mislykket fordi hun er blevet set i et supermarked af en bekendt. hun svarer først tøvende at hun ikke ved ”om angstens halløj ligesom bliver værre, eller om den sådan har fortalt mig det, altså om det er noget jeg har tænkt” og henviser bagefter til angstens regelsæt for hende: ”de regler der så var, de har jo stadig gjaldt, at jeg ikke skulle have mere opmærksomhed i hvert fald”. ved interviewets afslutning stod det fortsat ikke klart, hvad skulle forstås ved fornemmelsen af mislykkethed. med en metafor forbliver angsten det portrætterede fremfor den ikketematiserede ’linse’ på den ængstende verden, der fremtræder for den angste. tilnærmelser til den ængstende verden det kunne indvendes at der ikke er mere at komme efter. man kan jo, i og med at have gennemgået terapi, simpelthen opleve angsten anerledes; lidelsen kan reelt være forandret med en oparbejdet refleksiv distance (gerhardt & stinson, 1994; nye, 1994). informanterne nævner ofte en forskel på ’dengang og nu’ for at sige, at de har det bedre, kan klare mere i deres liv eller er tættere på at være angstfri end de før var. men de antyder også talrige gange, at de meget af tiden fortsat oplever angsten som en selvfølgelig del af deres tilværelse i forstanden, at de i mange situationer agerer ængsteligt og først senere opdager, at det var angsten, der løb af med dem. eksempelvis taler sarah til tider om angsten som noget, hun reagerer på som ”ren refleks” og oplever som det eneste rationelle udgangspunkt for handling: ”når du er i angsten, så virker det helt rationelt, som den eneste mulige løsning, fordi det er så selvfølgeligt”. med dette peger sarah på en oplevelse af en spontan meningsfuldhed i angsten i forstanden, at verden ’bare’ er givet som et ængstende udgangspunkt for handling. andre interviewpersoner bruger ord som ”umiddelbart,” og ”impulsivt” og at blive ”suget ind” i sin angst til at beskrive det samme m. kristiansen: fænomenologi som dvælen ved erfaringens merhed. qualitative studies 7(1), pp. 64-85 ©2022 74 fravær af refleksiv distance, der markerer erfaringer af at gennemleve eller være i angst som en kontrast til håndtere eller at have angst. men som jeg har vist i forrige afsnit er ordene for den angst, der ikke træder frem, men danner baggrund, let overskyggelig af beskrivelser af den side af angsten, der opleves fremmed og invaderende. det viste sig tidligt i min dataindsamling utilstrækkeligt blot at eksplicitere før og kontinuerligt i interviewene at insistere på at ’tale fra oplevelsen’ eller ’komme bag om’ efterrationaliseringer om hvordan det er at være angst. det havde en rammesættende funktion og det stoppede interviewene fra at komme til at handle udelukkende om erfaringer med angsthåndtering, men det krævede mere interviewstyring at åbne beskrivelserne af den levede angst, informanterne oftest ikke selv satte mange ord på. særligt viste det sig frugtbart at anlægge en indstilling som interviewer, jeg her vil betegne en dvælen ved sprogliggørelsen af oplevelsen. ved at gennemsigtiggøre metoden med konkrete og fyldige interviewuddrag er mit håb at rette den pågående debat mellem metodologiske skoledannelser et for praktikeren mere nyttigt sted hen: mod hvad man gør i interviewet for at tilvejebringe de mest righoldige beskrivelser af informantens erfaring. med dette pragmatiske sigte præsenterer jeg to måder at guide informantens beskrivelse og hvordan de virker beskrivelsesåbnende på to væsentlige måder; henholdsvis ved at kortlægge mere af et oplevelsesmæssigt hændelsesforløb og at udforske betydningen af blotlagte aspekter af oplevelsen. de to ’interviewgreb’ jeg tematiserer, er inspireret af henholdsvis mikrofænomenologien og den mere hermeneutiske, anvendte fænomenologi. ved at pege på dem begge som erfaringsåbnende søger jeg også at vise fordelagtigheden af en pragmatisk fremfor dogmatisk indstilling til det fænomenologiske interview. dvælen ved det konkrete i mikrofænomenologien har man udviklet et skarpt blik for, hvordan meget i oplevelsen springes over i informantens beskrivelse, samt spørgetekniske redskaber til at overkomme dette problem (petitmengin, 2006). strategien er overordnet, at man som interviewer opholder sig eksplicit ved hvert enkelt moment af den oplevelse, der er under luppen (bitbol & petitmengin, 2017). når informanten eksempelvis siger, at hun stiger af cyklen fordi hun er ved at få et epileptisk anfald, spørges der således til hvad fører til, at hun står af cyklen og hvordan hun ved, at hun er ved at få et anfald (petitmengin et al., 2007). m. kristiansen: fænomenologi som dvælen ved erfaringens merhed. qualitative studies 7(1), pp. 64-85 ©2022 75 fordi det tager så lang tid, op til halvanden times interviewtid at afdække få sekunders realtid (petitmengin et al., 2007), er det essentielt at udvælge de for den udforskede oplevelse centrale øjeblikke. hvad i et af mine interviews med birte starter som fyrre ord om angsten ved at åbne døren og gå ned gennem opgangen ender med fyrre minutter om at føle sig iagttaget fra vinduer og kighuller, tildække og gemme sig på midtetrinnene, og konstant berede sig på at møde andre. her var valget af situation oplagt; informanten beskrev, at angsten manifesterede sig i samme øjeblik hun trådte udenfor sit hjem, hvorfor udforskningen også naturligt måtte starte netop da. jeg demonstrerer her i uddrag fra et interview med en anden informant, caroline, hvordan mere og mere af en oplevet erfarings kompleksitet kan kortlægges ved hele tiden at bemærke noget, der er impliceret, men ikke tematiseret i hendes beskrivelse. caroline har indledningsvist fortalt hvordan hendes frygt for at komme ud af hjemmet handler om alle de konfrontationer med andre mennesker, hun knap kan overskue at skulle gennemgå i løbet af dagen. for at belyse frygten i sin konkrethed, beder jeg hende beskrive forløbet af en dag på studiet fra hun tager elevatoren ned gennem opgangen og frem. i uddraget udforsker vi ventetiden på togperronen: i: så du står og venter på perronen fordi toget ikke er kommet endnu og begynder allerede nu at gøre dig nogle tanker omkring hvor kan jeg være henne i toget uden at være til gene, i virkeligheden, ikke. er der mange mennesker på perronen sådan en morgen, eller hvordan opleves det? c: ja, der er ret mange og der er det også sådan, når jeg kommer op ad trappen, sådan: ’okay, hvor står der færrest?’ og så kan jeg stille mig derhen, og så kan jeg stå sådan lidt for mig selv i: du er opmærksom på nogle særlige ting på perronen, i forhold til hvor du ligesom bedst kan være? c: ja, hvor der sådan ligesom er huller og der er jeg sådan lidt, altså når jeg står der, så har jeg det fint med at tage min telefon frem og gør også det, for ligesom sådan, at så har jeg fokus på den i stedet for alle andre og der står jeg stille, så der får jeg ikke den der følelse med at sådan: ’folk tænker jeg er uopmærksom,’ og sådan noget, så der står jeg egentligt med telefonen to gange griber jeg her tilbage i carolines fortælling for at afdække merheden i hendes oplevelse på perronen. jeg retter først hendes opmærksomhed mod situationens sociale m. kristiansen: fænomenologi som dvælen ved erfaringens merhed. qualitative studies 7(1), pp. 64-85 ©2022 76 aspekt, jeg antager yderligere kan afdække oplevelsen af konfrontation, vi udforsker. med dette åbnes allerede mere af erfaringens kompleksitet op. i næste tur inviterer jeg hende til at dvæle yderligere ved hvad sker på perronen, hvor telefonen inddrages som noget, der skaber afstand til de andre. betydningen af dette bliver klarere da jeg lidt efter hører caroline til hvad der sker når andre stiller sig tæt på hende: c: der får jeg det virkelig bare sådan: ’gå væk igen!’ altså fordi så føler jeg at jeg bliver revet ud af den der boble som jeg ligesom har fået skabt, fordi nu står der et andet menneske rimelig tæt på, som jeg bliver nødt til ligesom at forholde mig til. og så er det sådan lidt, altså nogle dage kunne jeg godt bare sådan: ’okay, nu kigger jeg bare i min telefon igen,’ hvor andre dage der er det lidt mere sådan ’okay, er der så et andet spot jeg kan gå hen til?’ i: okay, hvordan er det når de står for tæt på? hvordan trænger de sig på? hvordan bliver du opmærksom på at de trænger sig på? c: øh… ja det er et godt spørgsmål. det er egentligt sådan bare ubehageligt… jeg føler igen, at det er måske lidt den der med, at hvis du står meget tæt på, så bliver jeg også tvunget til at forholde mig til dig og så skal jeg forholde mig til hvad du mon står og tænker lige nu. det er nok lidt den samme som inde i elevatoren, altså jeg er ikke tvunget til at snakke med dig, men jeg er tvunget til at forholde mig til dig fordi vi står så tæt på hinanden som vi gør. igen opholder jeg mig i min tur ved detaljer i carolines beskrivelse, som hun selv i første omgang bevæger sig henover. ved at fokusere på oplevelsen af påtrængende nærhed finder hun ord for, hvad hun med telefonen værner sig imod; navnlig at være "tvunget” til at forholde sig til hvad de andre ”mon står og tænker lige nu”. mere overordnet anskueliggør denne udfoldelse af hvad udspiller sig på perronen hvor altgennemsyrende de andres betydning i hendes oplevelse faktisk er. de andre er der altid som ængstende i hendes verden; det er dem, fra hvem angsten kommer, når ikke hun oplever den som et terapeutisk problem. dette i forstanden at de andre tvinger hende til at forholde sig til dem og deres tanker i kraft af deres blotte tilstedeværelse i samme øjeblik hun ikke med fysisk afstand og sin telefon barrikaderer sig. som interviewet skrider frem og flere situationer på vej til og på studiet udforskes med samme grundighed både understreges og nuanceres dette, som caroline indledningsvist talte om som ’frygten for konfrontationen med andre’. den rumlige dimension af hendes erfaring viser sig i m. kristiansen: fænomenologi som dvælen ved erfaringens merhed. qualitative studies 7(1), pp. 64-85 ©2022 77 stigende grad impliceret i hendes lidelse jo mere beskrivelsen af hendes ’konfrontationsfrygt’ tyknes. ingen steder er der plads, og den smule, der er, er aldrig blot hendes, for de andre trænger sig altid ind på hende og tager den fra hende. en nærmere bestemmelse af den socialt angste modus af rumlighedsstrukturen, der på baggrund af denne indledende analyse af informantens oplevelse, har jeg udfoldet andetsteds (kristiansen, under publikation). dvælen ved betydningerne ligesom det kan lede til mere righoldige beskrivelser at bemærke det, informanten ikke i første omgang selv tematiserer fokalt kan det åbne op for mere nuancerede beskrivelser at dvæle ved hvad der ligger i det sagte. ofte er der mere at hente i eksempelvis billedsproglige formuleringer end informanten selv ekspliciterer i deres indledende forsøg på at indfange meningen med oplevelsen. denne indsigt anvender man i den filosofisk-empiriske fænomenologi ved at stille sig nysgerrigt undrende overfor måderne, informanten italesætter sine erfaringer på (køster & fernandez, 2021). den betydningsmæssige merhed i beskrivelsen kan på denne måde afdækkes, hvad jeg her illustrerer med et uddrag fra mit andet interview med olivia. før uddraget har oliva netop fortalt mig, at kritik og ros er lige slemt for hende; at det er selve opmærksomheden fra andre, der gør hende ængstelig. jeg beder hende beskrive en konkret situation, hvor dette udspiller sig, og hun lander på et besøg hos nogle nært bekendte. alle er ankommet, fortæller hun, og de andre har spurgt hinanden, hvordan det går med det ene og det andet. nu vender de sig mod hende: o: […] og så spørger de mig: ’hvordan går det?’ og hele den der… følelse af tre hoveder, der kigger på mig, og det er tre meget trygge og velkendte hoveder… men den… den er bare så fysisk voldsom… at jeg kan helt mærke den nu som om den presser ind i brystet på mig… oliva går efter denne tøvende begyndelse lidt i stå. det er tydeligt, at der er mere at sige, men hun virker tvivlende, måske afventende. der er imidlertid allerede meget at gå videre med for mig som interviewer i hendes tematisering af en følelse af andres ’kiggende hoveder’ der ’presser sig ind i brystet’ på hende. m. kristiansen: fænomenologi som dvælen ved erfaringens merhed. qualitative studies 7(1), pp. 64-85 ©2022 78 i: tre hoveder, siger du, der ligesom kigger ind på dig? du laver den her [imiterer håndgestik] o: alle hoveder i rummet vender mod mig, og alle øjne i rummet sidder fast på mig. i: ’sidder fast på mig’, siger du? o: heh, ja [ryster let på hovedet] i: jamen der kan godt være noget i de der ord, der manifesterer sig, der kommer op… så ligger der noget i den der ’sidden fast på’ og at ’det er hovederne, der vender sig’? jeg ved ikke, om der er ‒ jeg prøver at gætte på nogle ting [o: jeg ved det heller ikke], der virker interessante. men er der noget som helst, der… der ligesom kommer frem? sidder de fast, kan man sige, eller kunne de lige så godt bare ’kigge på’ dig, eller...? o: nej… jeg føler mig angrebet af dem, eller slået af dem, eller fanget af dem. måske mest fanget. oliva er her i færd med at prøve ordene af på sin oplevelse foranlediget af min henstilling af hendes opmærksomhed på hvordan hun beskriver den. jeg holder hende fast i denne opgave ved at spejle hendes formuleringer og bidrager til at bringe den fremad ved en tolkningsmæssig provokation idet jeg med et nik tilbage til hendes første formulering spørger ”kunne de lige så godt bare ’kigge på’ dig, eller…?” man kan konfrontere informanten med sådanne modsætninger i deres beskrivelser for at opnå afklaring, der umuliggør at man senere i sin analyse blot indløser et ’etisk fribrev’ i sine tolkninger (pedersen, 2003). men hovedformålet er et anden her, navnlig at invitere olivia til at formulere sig så nøjagtigt og righoldigt som muligt angående sin erfaring. jeg spørger opfølgende: i: ’fanget’? okay, ja. fanget på hvilken måde? o: jamen, fastholdt. fordi det der du siger med: ’kigger de ikke bare?’ altså, hvis jeg kigger, så kører mit blik rundt. lige får øje på, så kigger jeg på dig, så kigger jeg på min kaffe, så kigger jeg ned i tastaturet. men i denne her situation så har blikket fanget mig. altså jeg kan ikke komme væk fra blikket. blikket er ikke også på en af de andre. blikket kigger ikke også ud af vinduet. blikket kigger ikke også på det rødvin, de drikker. der bliver ligesom pause, og så bliver der bare suget ind, og jeg bliver ikke sluppet fra det blik, før jeg er kommet med noget. m. kristiansen: fænomenologi som dvælen ved erfaringens merhed. qualitative studies 7(1), pp. 64-85 ©2022 79 noget væsentligt belyses her om hvordan olivia oplever andres opmærksomhed på sig af denne beskrivelse af blikket, der var tilsløret i hendes første sproglige indhug i oplevelsen. blikket ”suger ind på” hende, ”fanger” hende så hun ”ikke [kan] komme væk fra” det, før hun ”er kommet med noget”. indtil da er der ”ligesom pause” eller som hun kort efter uddyber ”tid og rum står stille” indtil hun ”har leveret” overfor de andre. disse ord giver anledning til at forstå olivia som underkastet den andens blik, tilfangetagen og passiviseret men samtidig afkrævet handling for at blive sat fri. som hos caroline er angsten som egensindig genstand fraværende i denne oplevelse, hvor andre mennesker ude i olivias livsverden i stedet viser sig som ængstende. den klaustrofobiske måde at være i samvær på, oliva oplever, lykkes det først at drage frem i lyset med en vedblivende dvælen ved hvordan erfaringens betydning bedst kan indfanges i sproget. i en fænomenologisk-analytisk linse bidrager erfaringen således blandt andet til den bestemmelse af rumligheden som indskrænket og defineret af andre mennesker, carolines beskrivelse hjalp til en begyndende karakteristik af. om at finde ord for en verden hvad mine interviews peger på, både når de lykkes som i de sidstnævnte uddrag og når de udfordres som i de førstnævnte uddrag, er nødvendigheden af ikke at lade det være op til informanten alene at bestemme, hvad er værd at italesætte når først man har spurgt til denne eller hin erfaring. de udfordringer for den fænomenologiske udforskning, jeg her har vist, peger på at den fænomenologiske interviewer har to centrale opgaver at forvalte i sin interviewpraksis. den første opgave består i at være på vagt overfor tematiseringer af undersøgelsesfænomenet som en håndterbar ting ‒ i forbindelse med psykopatologiske undersøgelse italesættelser af lidelsen som et terapeutisk problem. et genstandsgørende, oplevelseshåndterende sprog tildækker nemlig den erfaring, der meget af tiden ikke er begrebet refleksivt og ikke håndteret terapeutisk, men netop viser sig i en livsverden, der har antaget en eksempelvis truende karakter. nødvendigheden heraf har jeg illustreret med sarahs og birtes talen om angsten der tilslører den slags indsigter ind i en ængstende verden oplevet fra angsten, jeg lykkes med caroline og olivia at afdække. den anden opgave består i en insisteren på at vende blikket mod informantens livsverden sammen med informanten, samt at bide sig fast når den ængstende verden begynder at vise sig i vedkommendes beskrivelse. hvad lægger i denne guidende interviewerindstilling har jeg m. kristiansen: fænomenologi som dvælen ved erfaringens merhed. qualitative studies 7(1), pp. 64-85 ©2022 80 anskueliggjort ved at illustrere hvordan en dvælen ved henholdsvis konkretheden og betydningen af informantens erfaring tilvejebringer flere ord for den verden, de befinder sig i. det har jeg gjort for at bidrage til at gennemsigtiggøre samtidens fænomenologiske metoder i en grad så deres brug i praksis fremfor deres idealiserede principper kan gøres til genstand for kritisk debat i højere grad end hvad aktuelt er tilfældet. ved at drage på interviewpraksisser fra forskellige metodologiske skoler har jeg hertil forsøgt at anvise deres relevans for den almindelige fænomenolog med interesse for et så detaljeret og righoldigt indblik i den andens livsverden som muligt. to afslutningsreplikker er mig på hjerte. for det første har formålet med nærværende arbejde ikke været at indskærpe hvad gælder som en passende fænomenologisk undersøgelsesgenstand som sådan. der ligger et højst relevant arbejde i at udforske erfaringer af lidelseshåndtering for blandt andet at stille spørgsmålet, hvor uløseligt den passivt følte og aktivt tacklede angst eller depression hænger sammen. men hvis man ønsker at forstå denne eller hin lidelses subjektive konstituenter, som det er formålet i den fænomenologiske psykopatologi, hvis resultater aktuelt både finder anvendelse udi alt fra udvikling af udredningsværktøjer (parnas et al., 2005) over behandlingskritik (jacobson, 2004) til begrebsudvikling (køster, 2020a), må man udforske, hvordan det er for mennesker at være i lidelse. som jeg med sarah og birte har vist, springes netop dette imidlertid let over i en interviewsammenhæng, hvor et terapeutisk sprog i egenskab af sin brugbarhed og lettilgængelig let glider ind foran den erfaring, der egentlig søges beskrevet. håndteringen af angsten som en slags psykisk genstand i verden overskygger angsten som den baggrund, hvorpå verden toner frem. for det andet er det ikke som sådan en kritik af den terapeutiske diskurs eller dens hjælpsomhed for dem, der lider, når jeg med dette arbejde forsøger at ruste interviewere til at overskride dette den lidendes ’naturlige’ sprog. det er en påpegning af dens besværliggørelse af det fænomenologiske interview, der nødvendiggør at intervieweren tager en aktivt guidende rolle i udfoldelsen af livsverdensbeskrivelsen. jeg har i den forbindelse illustreret to måder at åbne op for italesættelse af oversprungne og ubemærkede dele af livsverdenen i informantens beskrivelse. der er tale om eksempler på hvordan man gebærder sig indenfor en mere overordnet fænomenologisk interviewerindstilling, hvor jeg har fremhævet et dvælende træk herved. frugterne deraf, m. kristiansen: fænomenologi som dvælen ved erfaringens merhed. qualitative studies 7(1), pp. 64-85 ©2022 81 hævder jeg, udgør den slags oplevelsesnære indblik ind i hvordan det er for den anden at opleve dette eller hint, der er nødvendigt for at bedrive fænomenologi. tak forfatteren takker jacob klitmøller og sine øvrige kollegaer ved center for kvalitativ metodeudvikling samt en anonym reviewer for hjælpsomme kommentarer til tidligere udkast af dette manuskript. m. kristiansen: fænomenologi som dvælen ved erfaringens merhed. qualitative studies 7(1), pp. 64-85 ©2022 82 referencer aho, k. 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(2019). phenomenology in nursing studies: new perspectives. international journal of nursing studies, 93, 155-162. about the author martin vestergaard kristiansen, cand.psych, er ansat i et ph.d.-stipendiat ved psykologisk institut på aarhus universitet. hans forskningsområder er kvalitativ metode, fænomenologi og psykopatologi med særligt fokus på angstlidelser. microsoft word laursen & sandberg impostor-fænomen blandt fremspirende voksne.docx qualitative studies vol. 7, no. 1, 2022, pp. 175-200 issn 1903-7031 impostor-fænomen blandt fremspirende voksne: en kvalitativ interviewundersøgelse af oplevelsen og håndteringen af impostor-fænomen1 marie g. laursen & katja sandberg1 1 aarhus universitet, psykologisk institut, bartholins allé 11, 8000 aarhus c, danmark til trods for stigende opmærksomhed på impostor-fænomenet (herefter if) de seneste år, er mængden af kvalitativ forskning inden for området særdeles sparsom. formålet med denne artikel er derfor at udføre en kvalitativ undersøgelse for at få indsigt i følelser, tanker og adfærd associeret med oplevelsen af if blandt unge voksne. livsperioden, som unge voksne befinder sig i, anskues inden for en teoretisk rammeforståelse om fremspirende voksenliv (eng. emerging adulthood). analysen udføres på baggrund af interviewdata fra ni unge voksne. fundene indikerer, at unge voksne oplever og håndterer if på særdeles komplekse måder, som ofte kompliceres af udviklingsmæssige udfordringer i deres uddannelsesog arbejdsmæssige kontekster. baseret på analysens resultater og den efterfølgende diskussion, konkluderes det, at selvom eksisterende teori og fund om if omfatter fællestræk ved oplevelsen af if, kan dette ikke fyldestgørende indfange de unge voksnes nuancerede, personlige oplevelser. dette studie illustrer således, hvordan den kvalitative tilgang kan berige forståelsen af if. nøgleord: impostor-fænomen, fremspirende voksenliv, kvalitativ psykologi, meningsanalyse introduktion ”the exaggerated esteem in which my lifework is held makes me very ill at ease. i feel compelled to think of myself as an involuntary swindler“ 1 undersøgelsen er oprindeligt udgivet som kandidatafhandling ved aarhus universitet, 2021 m. laursen & k. sandberg: impostor-fænomen blandt fremspirende voksne qualitative studies 7(1), pp. 175-200 ©2022 176 ovenstående citat stammer fra albert einstein, som han efter sigende skulle have beskrevet sin succes til en ven (goldsmith & bartusiak, 2006 s. 258). i citatet bliver det udtrykt, hvordan han ikke var tilpas med den store anerkendelse, som hans arbejde høstede, hvorfor han beskrev sig selv som en “ufrivillig bedrager”. præstationer på niveau med einsteins er sjældne, men følelserne af usikkerhed og bedrag er mere almindelige. næsten 100 år efter einsteins fødsel undersøgte psykologerne clance og imes (1978) som de første disse følelser, som mange mennesker oplever til trods for fagligt høje præstationer og anerkendelse. de benævnte det impostor-fænomenet (herefter if). denne artikel har i relation til tidsskriftet qualitativ studies’ temanummer om kvalitativ psykologi til formål at illustrere, hvordan en kvalitativ tilgang til en undersøgelse af if kan bidrage med vigtige indsigter. det illustreres gennem afrapportering af den pågældende undersøgelses gennemførsel og fund. impostor-fænomenet if defineres af clance og imes (1978) som en indre oplevelse af bedrag, hvor man føler sig uformående til trods for, at man objektivt set er kompetent i sit professionelle felt – udtrykt ved eksempelvis en høj stilling eller anerkendte præstationer. en nyere definition af if beskriver if som en følelse af inkompetence til trods for bevis for kompetence (wang et al., 2019, s. 1). oplevelsen af if er knyttet til en høj grad af faglig usikkerhed, som medfører en frygt for at få disse oplevede mangler afsløret og derved fremstå som en bedrager (clance og imes, 1978). denne følelse betyder, at individer ramt af if ofte føler, de ikke fortjener den ros eller anerkendelse, de modtager (clance & imes, 1978). siden clance og imes’ (1978) udgivelse har if været genstand for flere videnskabelige psykologiske undersøgelser, ligesom fænomenet indenfor de senere år har fundet vejen til popkulturelle artikler og sociale medier, hvor mange føler sig genkendt (fx abrams, 2018; cannon-brookes, 2017). til trods for, at der er tale om et forholdsvis smalt forskningsmæssigt felt, ses der alligevel en stigning i antallet af publicerede udgivelser frem til i dag2. 2 siden clance og imes’ udgivelse i 1978 og frem til juni 2021 ses der ved anvendelsen af søgeord i relation til if (“impostor phenomenon” or “impostor syndrome” or “perceived fraudulence” or impostorism or impostorship or “impostor fears”) en samlet mængde af 212 udgivne artikler på databasen psycinfo. 32 af disse artikler er udgivet siden år 2020. m. laursen & k. sandberg: impostor-fænomen blandt fremspirende voksne qualitative studies 7(1), pp. 175-200 ©2022 177 hovedområder i tidligere forskning forskningen indenfor if har primært fokuseret på fire hovedområder (bernard et al., 2002). for det første har der været et fokus på udviklingen af skalaer til måling af if (christman et al., 1995; clance, 1985b; harvey, 1981; kolligian & sternberg, 1991). en særligt fremtrædende skala er clance impostor phenonemon scale (cips) (clance, 1985b), som er den mest anvendte skala til måling af if hos enkeltindivider (mak et al., 2019). for det andet er undersøgt korrelationelle sammenhænge mellem if og andre mentale karakteristika og konstrukter, som eksempelvis angst (ross et al., 2001), perfektionisme (thompson et al., 2000) og personlighedsfacetter (bernard et al., 2002). her fandt thompson og kolleger (2000) eksempelvis positive korrelationer mellem elementer af perfektionisme og if. et tredje forskningsmæssigt område har haft fokus på, hvordan folk, der oplever if, håndterer akademiske præstationer sammenlignet med folk, der ikke oplever if (thompson et al., 1998). her fandt thompson og kolleger (1998), at individer ramt af if sjældent oplever tilfredsstillelse ved en udfordrende faglig opgave, men i stedet ser denne som en trussel. med andre ord har de vanskeligt ved at udnytte den stress, der kan være relateret til at skulle præstere i en fagligt udfordrende opgave, som motivation – modsat folk, som ikke oplever if (thompson et al., 1998). slutteligt er tilstedeværelsen af if undersøgt i forskellige populationer på tværs af kultur (clance et al., 1995) og beskæftigelse, herunder blandt andet universitetsansatte (fx topping & kimmel, 1985), ledere (fx fried-buchalter, 1992) og studerende (fx wang et al., 2019). impostor-cyklussen som en grundsten for at kunne forstå if, har clance (1985a) teoretisk beskrevet, hvordan if bliver vedligeholdt og forstærket – den såkaldte impostor-cyklus. impostor-cyklussen begynder ved en præstationsrelateret opgave med dertilhørende krav (fx en eksamen). her vil et individ, som oplever if, ifølge clance (1985a), opleve en høj grad af bekymringer og tvivl på egne kompetencer. det får individet til at reagere med overforberedelse eller indledningsvis udskydelse af opgaven efterfulgt af en hektisk forberedelse. efter fuldførelse af opgaven, vil individet have en følelse af lettelse, og det vil ofte modtage positiv feedback på dets præstation. selvom opgaven dog typisk resulterer i succes, vil individet have en tendens til at se bort fra denne positive feedback og i stedet attribuere succesen til andre faktorer såsom held eller øvelse (clance & imes, m. laursen & k. sandberg: impostor-fænomen blandt fremspirende voksne qualitative studies 7(1), pp. 175-200 ©2022 178 1978). denne attribuering vil forstærke impostor-cyklussen, således at individet, når det står over for en ny præstationsrelateret opgave, vil opleve bekymring og tvivl på egne evner (clance, 1985a). et kvalitativt perspektiv på impostor-fænomen den tidligere forskning indenfor if har hovedsageligt været kvantitativt funderet og overvejende optaget af if som konstrukt og dertilhørende “kriterier” for, hvorvidt, og i hvilken grad, man “lider” af if. selvom sådanne kvantitativt funderede tilgange har bidraget med betydningsfulde indsigter i if, synes der at fremkomme en manglende forståelse for den subjektive og individuelle oplevelse af at være ramt af if. dette vil vi imødekomme med denne undersøgelse. gennem den kvalitative metode får vi mulighed for at opnå og producere en mere detaljerig analyse, som har fokus på informanternes oplevelse (kvale & brinkmann, 2015). i undersøgelsen kommer dette til udtryk gennem interviews, som åbner for fyldigere svar og en dybere forståelse for de undersøgte individer. formålet med undersøgelsen er dermed at berige forståelsen af tanker, følelser og adfærd, der er på spil, når et individ er ramt af if og oplever at være fanget i mønsteret teoretisk beskrevet i impostor-cyklussen. impostor-fænomenet i individets kontekst idet størstedelen af studierne om if er fortaget blandt universitetsstuderende (fx badawy et al., 2018; cisco, 2020; cusack et al., 2013, kolligian & sternberg, 1991; ross et al., 2001; schubert & bowker, 2019; sonnak & towell, 2001; thompson et al., 2000; wang et al., 2019), vil vi i dette studie ligeledes undersøge denne målgruppe af unge voksne. i kraft af det kvalitative perspektiv på if, tillader de fyldigere beskrivelser fra de unge voksnes oplevelser os samtidig at kaste et blik på den kontekst, som de befinder sig i. dette er et forhold, der synes at være overset i den tidligere forskning, som ikke indebærer overvejelser omkring den kontekst, som de undersøgte målgrupper befinder sig i, og hvorvidt denne kunne have en betydning i forhold til oplevelsen af if. for at kunne forstå konteksten, inddrager vi i undersøgelsen teori om livsperioden fremspirende voksenliv (egen oversættelse af emerging adulthood), som bliver beskrevet af arnett (2000). denne teori anvendes således som rammeforståelse for de unge voksnes kontekst med det formål at danne sprog for de særlige livsbetingelser, hvorigennem de oplever if. m. laursen & k. sandberg: impostor-fænomen blandt fremspirende voksne qualitative studies 7(1), pp. 175-200 ©2022 179 fremspirende voksenliv fremspirende voksenliv bliver præsenteret som en selvstændig livsfase af arnett (2000) som betegnelse for perioden mellem 18-25 år, dog senere udvidet til 18-29 år (arnett, 2015). i denne periode er individet typisk under uddannelse eller i begyndelsen af sit arbejdsliv, og arnett (2015) pointerer også, at netop uddannelse og arbejde er blevet identitetsbaseret i det fremspirende voksenliv. med andre ord spiller de unge voksnes valg af uddannelse og arbejde en vigtig rolle i deres identitetsudforskning (arnett, 2015). livsperioden er kendetegnet ved nogle bestemte psykologiske og adfærdsmæssige karakteristika, som hænger sammen med udskydelsen af milepæle, der tidligere har været knyttet til voksenlivet, såsom at blive færdiguddannet, blive finansielt uafhængig samt indgå̊ i ægteskab og få børn (arnett, 2000; 2015). karakteristikaene ved det fremspirende voksenliv er ifølge arnett (2000; 2015): identitetsudforskning, ustabilitet, selv-fokus, optimisme i forhold til fremtiden samt en følelse af at være “in-between”, hvor den unge er mellem livsfaserne ungdomsog voksenliv og oplever sig selv som voksen på nogle punkter, men ikke på andre. sidstnævnte ses tydeligt illustreret i et studie af arnett og padilla-walker (2015), som undersøgte 400 danske unge mellem 17 og 29 år. her blev de fremspirende voksne spurgt om, hvorvidt de havde nået voksenlivet, hvortil størstedelen (62 %) hverken svarede “yes” eller “no”, men tvetydigt “in some respects yes, in some respects no” (arnett & padilla-walker, 2015). i relation til karakteristikummet “in-between” fremhæver vi desuden begrebet “subjektiv voksenstatus”, som blev introduceret i studiet af arnett og padilla-walker (2015). her viser resultaterne, at de fremspirende voksne følte sig mest voksne, når de var sammen med arbejdskollegaer og romantiske partnere, mens de følte sig mindst voksne sammen med forældre og venner (arnett & padilla-walker, 2015). sidstnævnte resultater illustrerer dermed, at de fremspirende voksne differentierede i forhold til deres oplevelse af at føle sig voksen på tværs af sociale kontekster, og der dermed er tale om subjektive voksenstatusser (arnett & padilla-walker, 2015). metode der bliver i denne undersøgelse foretaget indsamling og analyse af kvalitative interviewdata fra en gruppe unge voksne, som oplever if. begge dele bliver udført af undertegnede, katja sandberg og marie gamborg laursen, i fællesskab. m. laursen & k. sandberg: impostor-fænomen blandt fremspirende voksne qualitative studies 7(1), pp. 175-200 ©2022 180 design undersøgelsen anvender et eksplorativt design, hvor den kvalitative metode udgør grundlaget for anvendelsen af semistrukturerede livsverdensinterview, som det beskrives af kvale og brinkmann (2015). i undersøgelsen følger vi kvale og brinkmanns (2015) syv faser for gennemførsel af en interviewundersøgelse: tematisering, design, interview, transskribering, analyse, verifikation og rapportering. faserne tilgås iterativt, hvilket indebærer, at arbejdsprocessen tilgås fleksibelt (marshall & rossman, 1995). det betyder, at vi i undersøgelsen veksler mellem og revurderer faserne løbende gennem processen i henhold til nyopståede fund og ny tilegnet viden. sample og adgang vi indhenter i undersøgelsen empiri fra ni unge voksne i alderen 20-26 år, der oplever if. der anvendes i rekrutteringen af de unge voksne informanter en teoretisk selektion (olsen, 2002), idet vi opsætter et alderskriterium svarende til den teoretiske konceptualisering af livsperioden som fremspirende voksen fra 18-29 år (arnett, 2015). da tidligere forskning ikke viser tegn på forskelle i oplevelsen af if på tværs af køn (fx bernard et al., 2002; caselman et al., 2006; rohrmann et al., 2016; sonnak & towell, 2001) eller beskæftigelse og fagligt område (fx fried-buchalter, 1992; topping & kimmel, 1985; wang et al., 2019), selekteres der ikke i forhold til dette. i rekrutteringen kombinerer vi en formålsrettet sampling med en bekvemmelighedsrettet sampling. den formålsrettede sampling er muliggjort af en kontakt til studenterrådgivningen. studenterrådgivningen er en landsdækkende institution under uddannelsesog forskningsministeriet, som tilbyder gratis socialog psykologhjælp til studerende på videregående uddannelser (studenterrådgivningen, 2021). idet vi antager, at studerende på videregående uddannelser typisk befinder sig indenfor det fremspirende voksenliv, ligesom rådgivere ved studenterrådgivningen har ekspertise med problematikker knyttet til faglige udfordringer, er kontakten til studenterrådgivningen i stand til at identificere og henvise mulige relevante informanter til undersøgelsen. relevante studerende får derefter det frivillige tilbud om at deltage i undersøgelsen på baggrund af et rekrutteringsopslag. denne proces viser sig i praksis at være langsommelig, hvorfor den kombineres med en mere bekvemmelighedsrettet sampling, som vi realiserer gennem et offentligt opslag på sociale medier, hvor m. laursen & k. sandberg: impostor-fænomen blandt fremspirende voksne qualitative studies 7(1), pp. 175-200 ©2022 181 informanter frivilligt kan henvende sig til undersøgelsen. dette er enslydende med opslaget anvendt til den formålsrettede sampling. i brugen af denne bekvemmelighedsrettede selektion viser der sig i praksis en overvældende interesse, og det vurderede antal nødvendige informanter bliver rekrutteret inden for et døgn. i tabel 1 ses en oversigt over informanterne. tabel 1: fakta om informanterne pseudonym køn alder beskæftigelse sampling anders mand 24 år kandidatstuderende bekvemmelighed brit kvinde 25 år mellem bachelorog kandidatuddannelse bekvemmelighed camilla kvinde 26 år fuldtidsarbejde bekvemmelighed daniel mand 23 år bachelorstuderende bekvemmelighed emma kvinde 20 år student, pt. sabbatår bekvemmelighed fie kvinde 26 år kandidatstuderende formålsrettet gina kvinde 26 år kandidatstuderende bekvemmelighed helle kvinde 26 år kandidatstuderende bekvemmelighed ian mand 25 år kandidatstuderende formålsrettet rekrutteringsopslaget indeholder tre udsagn fra skalaen cips til måling af if (clance, 1985b) (hvoraf ét er en kombination af to items), som vi vurderer til at være kvalitativt dækkende i en beskrivelse af if. de unge voksne skal nikke genkendende til indholdet i de tre udsagn for at blive inkluderet i samplen. udsagnene er oversat til dansk og bearbejdet til formålet (se tabel 2). m. laursen & k. sandberg: impostor-fænomen blandt fremspirende voksne qualitative studies 7(1), pp. 175-200 ©2022 182 tabel 2 item 2, cips item 9+11, cips item 13, cips engelsk ordlyd (clance, 1985b, s. 2022) "i can give the impression that i’m more competent than i really am." “sometimes i feel or believe that my success in my life or in my job has been the result of some kind of error.” “at times, i feel my success has been due to some kind of luck” “sometimes i’m afraid others will discover how much knowledge or ability i really lack.” dansk bearbejdet ordlyd anvendt i rekrutteringsopslag “jeg kan give et indtryk af, at jeg er mere kompetent, end jeg i virkeligheden er.“ “jeg føler nogle gange, at mine succeser på studiet/arbejdet er et resultat af held eller fejl” “jeg er ofte nervøs for at andre vil opdage, at jeg mangler viden eller evner indenfor mit felt.” underskrevet informeret samtykke bliver indsamlet fra alle informanter. databehandlingen bliver udført i henhold til datatilsynets lovgivning vedrørende behandling af personoplysninger (datatilsynet, 2021). for at sikre informanternes anonymitet, anvendes alene anonymiserede eksempler fra transskriberingerne i form af citater. interviewguide, gennemførsel og transskribering interviewguiden indeholder i hovedtræk emnerne: information om informanten, oplevelsen af tanker, følelser og adfærd relateret til if, årsag til og betydningen af if, samt perspektiv på andres syn på dem selv. med det formål at afprøve, samt kvalitetssikre interviewguiden udfører vi et pilotinterview med en informant, som lever op til samme krav som de øvrige unge voksne informanter. i forbindelse med gennemførelsen af de efterfølgende interviews bliver interviewguiden revideret efter hvert interview, når nye indsigter, som vi vurderer relevante at undersøge yderligere, bliver bragt frem i lyset. i tabel 3 ses et uddrag af en generisk version af interviewguiden. m. laursen & k. sandberg: impostor-fænomen blandt fremspirende voksne qualitative studies 7(1), pp. 175-200 ©2022 183 tabel 3 forskningsspørgsmål mulige interviewspørgsmål informanternes overordnede oplevelse af if • umiddelbar genkendelse af if • hvordan kommer if til udtryk? • hvilken adfærd, tanker og følelser knytter sig til oplevelsen af if? hvad var det i spørgsmålene i rekrutteringsopslaget, som vakte særligt genklang hos dig? hvordan oplever du det? hvornår kommer det særligt til udtryk? kan du komme med et eksempel? hvornår havde du det sidst sådan? hvilke tanker og følelser er knyttet til oplevelsen? hvordan påvirker det din adfærd? samtlige interviews er udført i januar 2021 over videoforbindelse. valget af format med videointerview er truffet ud fra covid-19-restriktioner ved interviewgennemførelsen. interviewene varierer mellem 45 minutter og en time. alle interviews er transskriberet fra taletil skriftsprog. transskriberingen er udført ordret og i fuld længde. der er tilføjet relevante emotionelle nuancer som eksempelvis grin i transskriberingen. informanterne er anonymiseret og optræder i transskriberingen under pseudonymer. analytisk fremgangsmåde den indsamlede empiri analyseres gennem en meningsanalyse, som er i stand til at genere mening, temaer og mønstre ud over det direkte sagte gennem fortolkning (kvale & brinkmann, 2015). meningsanalysen tager afsæt i braun og clarkes (2006) tematiske fremgangsmåde, som involverer en søgen efter mønstre og temaer på tværs af de ni interviews. i figur 1 ses en komprimeret visualisering af analysens fund, herunder udviklingen af kodninger ud fra data og generering af temaer på baggrund af kodninger. der anvendes forskellige typer kodninger, herunder deskriptive, in vivo (mærkater fra informanternes eget sprog) og emotionskodninger (miles & huberman, 2014). m. laursen & k. sandberg: impostor-fænomen blandt fremspirende voksne qualitative studies 7(1), pp. 175-200 ©2022 184 figur 1 undersøgelsens fund tre temaer, der er relevante i forhold til oplevelsen og håndteringen af if, fremtræder i analysen af den indsamlede empiri. det er tydeligt, at der i de unge voksnes oplevelser og håndteringer fremtræder et mønster, som vedligeholder deres oplevelse af if. mønsteret tager sit udgangspunkt i, at de unge voksne ser ud til at opleve en diskrepans mellem deres egne vurderinger af deres faglige kompetencer og deres oplevelse af andres vurdering af det samme. det afspejles i det første tema: modstridende vurderinger. i empirien bliver der peget på flere forskellige måder at håndtere disse modstridende vurderinger på blandt de unge voksne. det afspejles i det andet tema: håndtering af faglig usikkerhed. ud fra disse forskelligartede håndteringer udtrykker de unge voksne alle i forskellig grad en fraskrivelse af deres opnåede succes, som de ikke oplever at have fortjent, hvilket medfører en følelse af bedrag. det afspejles i det tredje tema: følelsen af bedrag. følelserne af oplevet bedrag synes at være i stand til at forstærke de unge voksnes oplevelse af faglig usikkerhed og de modstridende vurderinger, hvorefter mønsteret forstærkes og vedligeholdes. m. laursen & k. sandberg: impostor-fænomen blandt fremspirende voksne qualitative studies 7(1), pp. 175-200 ©2022 185 modstridende vurderinger de unge voksne informanter oplever en diskrepans mellem deres eget syn på sig selv og deres oplevelse af andres syn på dem: gina: jeg har haft en klar opfattelse af, at folk har en opfattelse af, at jeg har styr på mit shit. men det er ikke sådan, jeg selv har det [...] hvor jeg lægger mærke til, at de ser virkelig mig som voksen og som en, der ved ting, og har styr på det, og det er ikke sådan, jeg har det indeni. så de har et helt andet billede af mig, end hvad jeg har af mig selv. denne diskrepans er særligt til stede i forhold til de unge voksnes faglige arbejde og kom til udtryk i samtlige af interviewene, da de i interviewenes begyndelse bliver adspurgt åbent til deres følelser i relation til rekrutteringsopslaget. den omtalte diskrepans i forhold til individets faglige felt ses dertil udtrykt i følgende citat af ian, der er ved at skrive sin kandidatafhandling, og som, adspurgt til sin specialevejleders oplevelse af sine præstationer, fortæller: ian: når jeg sådan fremviser nogle gange, hvad jeg har lavet, virker han [specialevejlederen] som om, han synes, det er godt. han kan for eksempel sige, at jeg har nået meget. og når han siger det, så kan jeg tænke, at jeg synes ikke, jeg har nået meget i forhold til mine medstuderende. udsagnet synes at vidne om, at ian oplever en diskrepans mellem sin egen vurdering af sit faglige arbejde og hans specialevejleders vurdering af dette. denne diskrepans, som ian oplever, synes ligeledes at være til stede hos fie, som også er kandidatstuderende: fie: jeg er hele tiden bekymret for, om jeg kan det. der er jo egentlig ikke nogen objektive beviser på, at jeg ikke kan; jeg har egentlig klaret mig rigtig godt karaktermæssigt på kandidaten. citatet fra fie illustrerer, ud over denne diskrepans, også, hvordan denne er knyttet til meget bekymring omkring sit faglige niveau. det synes således vanskeligt for de unge voksne at anerkende og stole på deres egen faglige succes og præstationer. med andre ord ser det ud til, at de unge voksne har en manglende tillid til andres vurderinger af deres m. laursen & k. sandberg: impostor-fænomen blandt fremspirende voksne qualitative studies 7(1), pp. 175-200 ©2022 186 faglighed, hvor eksempelvis ian – til trods for vejlederens positive feedback – stadig oplever en følelse af fagligt mindreværd. det er interessant i interviewene med de unge voksne, at de selv synes at være klar over denne diskrepans. det illustreres blandt andet af gina, som udtrykker: gina: jeg føler, at de ting, jeg er dygtig til, det har jeg ikke gjort mig fortjent til, selvom jeg godt ved, at det har jeg, det er jo ikke, fordi det er kommet af sig selv. jeg er jo ikke bare stået op en morgen og er blevet dygtig. her afspejles det, hvordan gina oplever, at denne diskrepans opstår, idet hun ikke har en følelse af at have gjort sig fortjent til de kompetencer, hun har tillært sig gennem studiet, samtidig med at hun erkender, at hun har arbejdet for dem. i undersøgelsen af, hvad der ligger til grund for disse oplevelser af diskrepans mellem de unge voksnes vurderinger af deres egen faglige evner og deres oplevelse af andres vurdering af samme, påpeger hovedparten høje krav. her beskriver flere af de unge voksne, hvordan høje krav skaber forventninger til deres præstationer, som de føler, de skal leve op til. det, der er særligt interessant ved disse forventninger er dog, at de synes at være subjektive fortolkninger: ian: jeg har jo nok nogle høje forventninger. måske ikke forventninger, men måske mere, hvad jeg tror, der er krævet i en specialestuderende. som det ses i citatet har ian nogle forventninger til, hvad han forestiller sig, der bliver forventet af en specialestuderende som ham selv. der er med andre ord tale om ians egen subjektive fortolkning af, hvad han mener, der bliver forventet af ham hvilket han ikke oplever at kunne leve op til. at der er tale om (for høje) subjektive fortolkninger af de mødte krav ses udtrykt som et generelt mønster i analysen af de unge voksnes interviews. håndtering af faglig usikkerhed hos informanterne træder særligt to måder at håndtere de beskrevne følelser i forrige tema omkring modstridende vurderinger frem: overforberedelse og distancering. blandt de unge voksne ses håndteringen overforberedelse hos en overvægt eksempelvis hos fie, som beskriver sin tilgang til sit studie: m. laursen & k. sandberg: impostor-fænomen blandt fremspirende voksne qualitative studies 7(1), pp. 175-200 ©2022 187 fie: jeg tackler det bedst ved bare sådan at arbejde ekstra meget [...] forberede mig mere end jeg burde i virkeligheden, tror jeg. mere end det måske kræver, fordi jeg bare gerne vil gøre det ordentlig og netop er nervøs for om det er rigtigt. og jeg føler også; jeg bruger jo mere tid, end andre ville. citatet demonstrerer, hvordan fie oplever, at hun forbereder sig mere, end hun er klar over, hun “burde”. yderligere viser citatet, at fie sammenligner sig med andre, hvorudfra hun vurderer, at hun bruger mere tid på at forberede sig. en mindre fremtrædende, men lige så vigtig type af håndtering, som træder frem, er distancering. et eksempel på distancering ses hos daniel, der, adspurgt til, hvilken betydning oplevelsen af disse følelser har haft for ham i hans tilgang til sit studie, fortæller: daniel: jeg tror, det har resulteret i, at jeg bare sådan tager lidt let på alting, så jeg går ikke rigtig op i noget, hvis man skal se det helt ekstremt. han uddyber: daniel: jeg tror helt sikkert, det er den der ansvarsfralæggelse, så skal jeg ikke stå for skud for noget, fordi jeg ikke går op i det. citaterne afspejler, hvordan daniel oplever at distancere sig i forhold til sit faglige arbejde. denne distancering synes at fungere som en måde at “beskytte sig selv” på, hvilket ses udtrykt i hans udsagn omhandlende “ikke at stå for skud for noget”. i de unge voksnes fortællinger om at opleve if synes det at træde frem, at de nævnte håndteringer, overforberedelse og distancering, har en påvirkning på den måde, hvorpå de reagerer på modtagelsen af positiv feedback på deres faglige arbejde i form af eksempelvis høje karakterer eller ros. nærmere bestemt oplever de ikke lettelse efter modtagelsen af positiv feedback. i stedet forkaster eller fraskriver informanterne sig deres opnåede succes. et eksempel på en sådan fraskrivning ses hos brit, der anvender strategien overforberedelse i håndteringen af følelser af faglig usikkerhed: m. laursen & k. sandberg: impostor-fænomen blandt fremspirende voksne qualitative studies 7(1), pp. 175-200 ©2022 188 brit: sådan for eksempel når jeg har været til en eksamen, og den eksamen så er endt ud i en rigtig god karakter eller feedback, så går jeg derfra og tænker; hold kæft, det er også, fordi jeg virkelig har øvet mig. jeg har siddet derhjemme og skrevet det hele ned, og jeg har tænkt så mange tanker, så det, jeg har gået ind og fået fremstillet, er jo noget, jeg har forberedt rigtig grundigt, så de kan nok ikke egentlig se, hvor jeg fagligt ligger. i citatet fremhæver brit “øvelse” som årsagsforklaring på sin succes frem for egentlige faglige kompetencer. dermed synes denne fraskrivelse af hendes succes at blive knyttet til hendes måde at håndtere sin tvivl på egne evner gennem overforberedelse. udover øvelse attribuerer nogle af de unge voksne informanter også deres succes til held. et eksempel herpå er helle, som i forbindelse med en eksamen fortæller: “jamen, jeg tror, det var meget det der med, at det er mere held, end det er indsatsen.”. af andre attribueringer, som de unge voksne informanters selv fremhæver som forklaringer på deres oplevede faglige succes eller positive feedback kan ud fra datamaterialet nævnes: at være “god til lige at snakke mig til en bedre karakter” (anders), at være “født med en hjerne, der er nice” (gina), at være god til at “gennemskue, hvor konflikten er, og hvor er det naturligt at lave en diskussion” (helle), at være “god til at lave powerpoint” (gina) samt, at “det nok er min vejleder, der havde været god til at tale den studerendes sag” (ian), eller “jeg havde ikke gjort det, hvis jeg ikke havde været en del af gode grupper” (fie). slutteligt fremhæver flere af de unge voksne, at deres succes, ifølge dem, skyldes tilfældighed, hvor eksempelvis daniel udtrykker: “[...] jeg føler egentlig lidt, at det var random, jeg fik det der job der”, mens helle udtrykker, at hendes gode karakterer var et resultat af et “raffelbægersystem”. de mange gengivne citater synes desuden at vidne om, at de unge voksne fremstår uklare i forhold til deres forståelse af, hvad faglige kompetencer egentlig er – og på denne baggrund synes de at være ude af stand til at opnå dette: mens gina ytrer, at “naturlig begavelse” i form af at være “født med en hjerne, der er nice” ikke er udtryk for faglige kompetencer, synes brit modsat at ytre, at øvelse ikke er udtryk for egentlige faglige kompetencer. således synes begge informanter at efterspørge hinandens forståelse af faglige kompetencer – men ingen af dem oplever at have disse. m. laursen & k. sandberg: impostor-fænomen blandt fremspirende voksne qualitative studies 7(1), pp. 175-200 ©2022 189 følelsen af bedrag på baggrund af de unge voksnes forklaring af deres faglige præstationer tegner der sig et billede af, at de ikke oplever at være “ægte gode” i deres faglige arbejde, hvilket medfører en følelse af bedrag og frygt for afsløring. omtalen af at være “ægte god” ses udtrykt af brit, som beskriver sin første dag på sit studierelevante arbejde: brit: jeg kan huske det fra mit arbejde, da jeg startede der, det var også sådan, da jeg endelig kom i gang og kiggede på de andre ansatte, tænkte jeg også sådan; ej, de er sikkert sådan ægte gode. at brit har en oplevelse af, at hendes kolleger er det, hun kalder “ægte gode”, må således betyde, at hun ikke selv oplever at være dette. det peger i retning af, at brit oplever en følelse af manglende autenticitet i forhold til sine faglige kompetencer. denne følelse bliver udtrykt i samtlige af interviewene. i relation hertil synes særligt overgangen til arbejdslivet at være knyttet til følelsen af manglende autenticitet hos informanterne, som er under uddannelse: anders: det føles også bare lidt underligt, at så sidder jeg her og er jo teknisk set færdig med min bachelor, [...] og jeg føler ikke rigtig, jeg ved noget. det er lidt mærkeligt. her antager vi som undersøgere, at anders formentlig ikke har ret i sine tanker, og at han når han trods alt snart har gennemført sin bachelor – rent faktisk må vide noget. det synes yderligere, at denne følelse kommer til udtryk, idet flere af de unge voksne omtaler, at de havde en oplevelse af at “snyde” andre i fremstillingen af sig selv. det ses eksempelvis i følgende citat af fie, som fortæller om sine følelser relateret til sit studierelevante arbejde: fie: og så netop den her følelse af, at jeg faker det, ikke. at jeg hele tiden giver mig selv ud for at kunne mere, end jeg kan. m. laursen & k. sandberg: impostor-fænomen blandt fremspirende voksne qualitative studies 7(1), pp. 175-200 ©2022 190 fie tydeliggør her sin oplevelse af at være “falsk”, idet hun beskriver, hvordan hun oplever at fremstille sig selv på en måde, som hun ikke føler er reel. denne følelse udtrykkes ligeledes af gina: “jeg bullshitter jo bare hele tiden, jeg kan jo i virkeligheden ikke noget som helst” i forbindelse med sin jobsøgning under kandidatuddannelsen. til trods for, at de unge ikke ser ud til at have en bevidst intention om at bedrage andre, forbliver det vanskeligt for dem at bryde ud af denne oplevelse af bedrag. det ses eksempelvis hos ian, som beskriver sin adfærd i undervisningssammenhæng: ian: og hvis der så var noget, jeg ikke forstår, så har jeg måske prøvet på ikke at stille spørgsmål til det. så har jeg bare ladet som om, jeg har forstået det. citatet demonstrerer, hvorledes ian oplever, at han havde en tendens til at “lade som om”, han har forstået noget fagligt, hvorfor han holder sig tilbage i faglige fora. adfærden synes yderligere at kunne fortolkes som frygt for afsløring i relation til følelserne af if. en sådan frygt ses endnu tydeligere i følgende citat, hvor anders fortæller om sit arbejde ved siden af studiet, som han har besiddet i en årrække: anders: jeg er hunderæd for, at de finder ud af, hvor lidt jeg kan finde ud af. at jeg for eksempel ikke kan arbejdet og sådan noget der. det er jeg hunderæd for, at mit arbejde finder ud af, og det er også, selvom det, jeg laver, er fint. i afdækningen af de unge voksnes følelse af bedrag synes disse følelser blandt flere at afføde en mere fundamental tvivl, som rækker ud over bekymringer og tvivl på egne faglige kompetencer. denne fundamentale tvivl ser overordnet ud til at handle om meningsfuldt studievalg og fremtidig karriere. adspurgt til, hvad den beskrevne frygt for afsløring indebærer, fortæller brit eksempelvis: brit: følelse af tvivl. tvivl på om man er der, hvor man skal være og har valgt det rette. og om man fremadrettet er det gode sted, man har valgt at være, om det giver mening [...] ja, fordi man altid tænker, at hvis det allerede er nu den her følelse af utilstrækkelighed og inkompetence er, hvorfor, ja så m. laursen & k. sandberg: impostor-fænomen blandt fremspirende voksne qualitative studies 7(1), pp. 175-200 ©2022 191 sidder man da på den forkerte studiepæl, så burde man have valgt noget andet. dermed synes følelser relateret til if, som det udtrykkes i ovenstående citat af brit, at være i stand til at så tvivl om selve hendes berettigelse på sit studie. her synes det væsentligt at pointere, at brit holder pause mellem sin bachelorog kandidatuddannelse grundet netop følelser relateret til if, hvilket tegner et billede af belastningsgraden, som brit oplever ved følelserne. diskussion teoriens forklaringskraft undersøgelsens fund afspejler grundlæggende teori om if og nedslag i impostorcyklussen, som tidligere er teoretisk præsenteret. først og fremmest afspejler undersøgelsens fund de unge voksnes oplevelser af en diskrepans mellem deres egen vurdering af deres faglige evner og deres oplevelse af andres vurdering. dette beskriver clance og imes (1978) i deres karakteristik af i if, som indebærer en følelse af at være uformående og fagligt usikker til trods for, at man har en oplevelse af, at omverdenen anser en som kompetent. impostor-cyklussen ses derudover afspejlet i de unge voksnes måder at håndtere deres oplevelse af diskrepans og faglig usikkerhed på. tydeligst fremkommer der i de unge voksnes fortællinger beskrivelser af håndteringen overforberedelse, som også er en strategi, der fremhæves i impostor-cyklussen, hvor den ifølge clance (1985a) ses som en reaktion på individets bekymringer over dets faglige præstation. ifølge clance og imes (1978) efterfølges denne håndtering af en tendens hos individet til at attribuere den succes, der typisk opleves, til andre faktorer såsom held eller øvelse. denne attribuering ses ligeledes tydeligt afspejlet på tværs af de unge voksnes beretninger, idet de udtrykker en form for fraskrivelse af deres opnåede succes, som de ikke oplever at have fortjent. det medfører en følelse af bedrag og frygt for afsløring, hvilket ligeledes beskrives af clance og imes (1978) som et kendetegn ved if. ifølge teorien om impostor-cyklussen vil følelsen af bedrag igen forstærke individets tvivl på egne evner og dermed vedligeholde følelserne af if. at de unge voksnes oplevelser og følelser bliver vedligeholdt og forstærket af de beskrevne håndteringer stemmer overens med analysens fund. m. laursen & k. sandberg: impostor-fænomen blandt fremspirende voksne qualitative studies 7(1), pp. 175-200 ©2022 192 nuanceringer og udvidelser til teorien om impostor-fænomen selvom undersøgelsens fund afspejler teori om if og nedslag i impostor-cyklussen, ser informanternes fyldigere beskrivelser ud til både at nuancere, udfordre og udvide denne teoretiske forståelse. for det første kan undersøgelsen nuancere forståelsen af if hos de unge voksne i forhold til omtalen af de krav, som skaber følelserne af faglig usikkerhed. her ser fundene ud til at være mere komplekse, end teorien tillader, idet teorien ikke omtaler, hvem der sætter disse krav, og hvordan individet vurderer dem. clance (1985a) omtaler blot, at kravene opstår i forbindelse med præstationsrelaterede opgaver på enten studie eller arbejde, hvilket synes at have en ørenlyd af, at kravene er udefrakommende og tydelige for individet. undersøgelsens fund peger derimod på, at det er de unge voksne selv, der vurderer indholdet af andres forventninger til dem. der er med andre ord tale om en indlejret subjektivitet i de unge voksnes fortolkninger af de krav, de møder, frem for udelukkende udefrakommende, synlige krav. for det andet ser undersøgelsens fund ud til at udfordre teorien om impostorcyklussen, idet teorien beskriver en håndtering af faglig usikkerhed i form af udskydelse – i tillæg til håndteringen i form af overforberedelse (clance, 1985a). denne håndtering om udskydelse kom ikke til udtryk i undersøgelsen. til gengæld peger analysen på en håndtering i form af distancering, som indebærer en tendens til at engagere sig mindre og fralægge sig ansvar. med udgangspunkt i dette fund argumenterer vi for, at undersøgelsens bidrager med en tilføjelse til impostor-cyklussen i tillæg til håndteringerne overforberedelse og udskydelse. en tredje vigtig nuancering af impostor-cyklyssen omhandler, hvordan individet modtager positiv feedback. her har den kvalitative undersøgelse understøttet clances (1985a) postulat om, at “øvelse” og “held” ofte bliver anvendt som fraskrivelse af succes. dog illustrerer undersøgelsen også, at der herudover er flere og mangeartede forklaringer på succes i de unge voksnes udsagn, som således rækker ud over impostor-cyklussens i nogen grad simplificerede beskrivelse af disse attribueringer. disse er eksempelvis naturlig begavelse (“en hjerne, der er nice”, gina) og at blive båret frem af andres fortjenester (“jeg havde ikke gjort det, hvis jeg ikke havde været en del af gode grupper”, fie). m. laursen & k. sandberg: impostor-fænomen blandt fremspirende voksne qualitative studies 7(1), pp. 175-200 ©2022 193 et fjerde punkt, hvorpå undersøgelsens fund udvider forståelsen af if og impostor-cyklussen, ses i forhold til den tvivl på egne evner, som opstår hos individer ramt af if på baggrund af deres præstationer. denne tvivl synes, udover specifikt at være en tvivl på egne evner, som medfører nervøsitet i forhold til den næste præstationsrelaterede opgave, også i undersøgelsens empiri at omhandle en dybere tvivl om studie og fremtiden, hvilket medfører nervøsitet i forhold til mere fundamentale aspekter hos de unge voksne. dette kommer for eksempel til udtryk gennem informanternes tvivl om, hvorvidt de er berettiget en plads på deres studie, samt hvordan fremtiden skal forløbe for dem. impostor-fænomen i det fremspirende voksenliv i de unge voksnes oplevelser af if ser vi i analysen, hvordan disse ikke kun knytter sig til deres faglige virke, som teorien om if peger på, men at de også knytter sig til deres kontekst og livsperiode. et punkt, hvor de unges kontekst ser ud til at have en betydning for deres oplevelse af if, omhandler analysens fund, der peger på modstridende vurderinger. dette kommer eksempelvis til udtryk i analysens indledende citat af gina, hvor hun lægger mærke til, at andre anser hende som voksen, mens det ikke stemmer overens med hendes eget billede af sig selv. anses fundet om de unge voksnes modstridende vurderinger i forhold til teorien om det fremspirende voksenliv, er særligt arnetts (2015) karakteristikum om en følelse af at være “in-between” ungdomsliv og voksenliv meningsfuldt i forståelsen af oplevelser som ginas. når vi antager, at de unge voksne i undersøgelsen befinder sig i det fremspirende voksenliv og dermed mellem ungdomsog voksenliv, kan vi argumentere for, at bestemte forventninger til henholdsvis ungdomsog voksenliv kan skabe grobund for forskellige (og muligvis modstridende) forventninger og vurderinger. med andre ord kan vi med inddragelse af de unge voksnes kontekst argumentere for, at de har en overbevisning om, at omverdenen (og muligvis dem selv) forventer, at de agerer som voksne, mens de samtidig ikke oplever at kunne leve op til dette. vi synes yderligere at kunne opnå en dybere forståelse for undersøgelsens fund om en mere fundamental tvivl med udgangspunkt i teorien omkring fremspirende voksenliv, hvor arnetts (2015) karakteristikum omhandlende identitetsudforskning kan være i stand til at skabe sprog for disse analyseresultater. nærmere bestemt kan det m. laursen & k. sandberg: impostor-fænomen blandt fremspirende voksne qualitative studies 7(1), pp. 175-200 ©2022 194 tænkes at være særligt belastende for de unge voksne at opleve tvivl omkring deres faglige kompetencer, idet valget af studie og arbejde i denne livsperiode er en grundsten i identitetsudforskningen, ligesom uddannelse og arbejde i højere grad ifølge arnett (2015) er identitetsbaseret i livsperioden. om undersøgelsens fund i relation til tidligere forskning kan vi således opsummere, at selvom de fundne temaer i undersøgelsen overordnet set afspejler teori om if og impostor-cyklussen, peger analysen på, at de enkelte aspekter i dette mønster er mere nuancerede, idet den kvalitative tilgang har tilladt os at stille andre spørgsmål end den tidligere forskning og dertil tage højde for dybden i individets oplevelser samt dets kontekst og livsperiode. dermed bidrager undersøgelsen med dets fokus på inddragelsen af de unges kontekst også til at understrege, hvordan de unges oplevelse af if ikke kan ses som et isoleret fænomen, men uundgåeligt må anskues i forhold til de livsbetingelser, følelserne udspiller sig i. i forlængelse af dette, er det derfor meningsfuldt at diskutere samspillet mellem if og de unge voksnes kontekst og livsbetingelser, og hvordan disse indvirker på hinanden. på den ene side kan man forestille sig, at hvis en ung voksen i forvejen oplever if-relaterede følelser, kan det vanskeliggøre håndteringen af de begivenheder og forventninger, der kan være til stede i livsperioden. her synes netop pointen om den fundamentale tvivl fra analysearbejdet at understøtte dette, idet de unge voksne beskriver, hvordan de if-relaterede følelser skaber en yderligere belastning, som også ser ud til at brede sig ud over rammen for if. på den anden side kan man forestille sig, at netop de modstridende forventninger, der er til stede i livsperioden mellem ungdomsog voksenliv, kan danne grobund for udviklingen af if-følelser. et teoretisk indspark, som er værd at fremhæve i forsøget på at forstå samspillet mellem if og livsperioden fremspirende voksenliv, er såkaldte “subjektive voksenstatusser”, som de tidligere beskrevne studie af arnett og padilla-walker (2015) peger på. i studiet påpeges det, hvordan de fremspirende voksnes følelse at være “voksne” var forskellige i forhold til deres sociale kontekster. eksempelvis følte deltagerne sig mere voksne, når de var sammen med arbejdskollegaer, end de gjorde, når de var sammen med forældre og venner. her kan vi forestille os, at det skyldes, at kontekster med arbejdskolleger også kræver, at de unge voksne agerer mere “voksent” end kontekster med forældre og venner – ligesom de unge voksne kan tænkes at have nogle forventninger m. laursen & k. sandberg: impostor-fænomen blandt fremspirende voksne qualitative studies 7(1), pp. 175-200 ©2022 195 til at skulle agere mere “voksent”. med andre ord kan inddragelsen af subjektive voksenstatusser muligvis forklare, hvorfor nogle unge voksne oplever if knyttet til deres uddannelsesog arbejdsliv, men ikke oplever det i andre kontekster. med andre ord: if kan muligvis opstå og næres, når der er mismatch i de unge voksnes voksenstatusser, hvilket nogle – men ikke alle – unge voksne oplever. praktiske implikationer indsigterne fra de kvalitative beskrivelser bidrager til betydningsfulde indsigter, som kan pege på opmærksomhedspunkter i forhold til praksis. eksempelvis viste analyseresultaterne en ikke-tidligere beskrevet type af håndtering af if i form af distancering. en viden om denne type adfærd betyder i praksis, at man muligvis kan få blik for personer, der oplever if, som med udgangspunkt i den teoretiske forståelse kunne “gå under raderen” og i stedet blive anset som “dovne” eller “demotiverede”, men som i lige så høj grad oplever lidelse relateret til if. en anden praktisk implikation omhandler, hvordan der med oplevelsen af if synes at opstå en mere fundamental tvivl omkring eksempelvis studievalg og fremtid hos de unge voksne. dette fund understreger vigtigheden af også at inddrage de unge voksnes kontekst og livsbetingelser i det terapeutiske arbejde med if, herunder et fokus på og normalisering af de livsbegivenheder og -ændringer, som individet står overfor, og som det skal forholde sig til, idet disse ser ud til at påvirke individets oplevelse af if. begrænsninger og fremtidig forskning der er naturligvis begrænsninger ved undersøgelsen, hvoraf nogle af de vigtigste har at gøre med sampling af undersøgelsens deltagere. her blev den formålsrettede sampling kombineret med en bekvemmelighedsrettet sampling af praktiske årsager, idet undersøgelsen skulle udføres indenfor en begrænset tidsperiode. dette er ikke optimalt, og en ren formålsrettet sampling kan i teorien være afgørende for, at de enkelte deltagere passer nøjagtig til profilen, som ønskes undersøgt. dog vi vil fremhæve den overvældende interesse for deltagelse gennem den bekvemmelighedsrettede sampling, som må tolkes som udtryk for genkendeligheden af sådanne følelser hos mange unge voksne. informanternes ivrighed for at deltage uden kompensation anser vi som udtryk for et presserende ønske om at dele følelser af if, hvilket vi argumenterer for at være m. laursen & k. sandberg: impostor-fænomen blandt fremspirende voksne qualitative studies 7(1), pp. 175-200 ©2022 196 særdeles værdifuldt i styrkelsen af undersøgelsens sample. samtidig understreger den store interesse et behov for en mere åben samtale om følelser relateret til if. et andet punkt omhandlende undersøgelsens begrænsninger relaterer til antallet af informanter, som i undersøgelsen bestod af ni unge voksne. dette kan indvendes at være en forholdsvis smal sample, som muligvis ikke er tilstrækkelig i forhold til at opnå “mætning” omkring det undersøgte forhold – omend forståelsen af mætning er forholdvis uklar i den kvalitativ interviewlitteratur (olsen, 2002). på baggrund af undersøgelsens indsamlede data, vurderer vi dog alligevel, at have opnået tilstrækkelig mætning omkring if, idet det i analysearbejdet var tydeligt de samme tematikker, der trådte frem. udførelsen af yderligere interviews vurderes derfor ikke at kunne have ændret analysens resultater ved en tilføjelse af helt ny viden, omend de naturligvis ville have tilføjet nuanceringer og mere detaljerigdom. perspektiver på fremtidig forskning i if kan med fordel tage udgangspunkt i andre livsperioder end det unge voksenliv, idet man kan stille spørgsmålet: kan if opstå og næres i senere livsperioder, som også er karakteriseret af identitetsspørgsmål og ændringer i individets kontekst? dette kunne eksempelvis være i forbindelse med jobskifte eller forfremmelse, som ligeledes kunne tænkes at skabe grobund for individets oplevelse af modstridende vurderinger af faglige kompetencer. konklusion dette studie har haft til formål at undersøge, hvordan if opleves og håndteres blandt fremspirende voksne. på baggrund af den kvalitative undersøgelse kan vi konkludere, at unge voksne oplever og håndterer if på særdeles komplekse måder, som ikke lader sig fuldt ud begribe af den eksisterende litteratur. det betyder, at if i denne undersøgelse ikke kan ses som et isoleret fænomen, men at if-følelserne må anskues i forhold til den kontekst, som de udspiller sig i. dermed illustrerer undersøgelsen, hvordan en kvalitativ tilgang til et ellers ofte kvantitativt undersøgt fænomen kan bidrage med en mere helstøbt forståelse af, hvordan det opleves at være ramt af if som ung voksen. m. laursen & k. 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(1998). attributional and affective responses of impostors to academic success and failure outcomes. personality and individual differences, 25, 381–396. https://doi.org/10.1016/s0191-8869(98)00065-8 thompson, t., foreman, p., & martin, f. (2000). impostor fears and perfectionistic concern over mistakes. personality and individual differences, 29(4), 629–647. https://doi.org/10.1016/s0191-8869(99)00218-4 topping, m. e., & kimmel, e. b. (1985). the impostor phenomenon: feeling phony. academic psychology bulletin, 7, 213–226. wang, k., sheveleva, m., & permyakova, t. (2019). imposter syndrome among russian students: the link between perfectionism and psychological distress. personality and individual differences, 143, 1–6. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2019.02.005 m. laursen & k. sandberg: impostor-fænomen blandt fremspirende voksne qualitative studies 7(1), pp. 175-200 ©2022 200 about the authors marie gamborg laursen er cand.psych. fra aarhus universitet. hun arbejder ved studenterrådgivningen, københavn. e-mail: mariegamborg@hotmail.com katja sandberg er cand.psych. fra aarhus universitet. hun arbejder ved børneog ungdomspsykiatrisk center, hovedstaden. e-mail: katja_sandberg@live.dk. microsoft word kudahl & roald rhythms of intuition.docx qualitative studies vol. 6, no. 2, 2021, pp. 110-131 issn 1903-7031 rhythms of intuition. methodological reflections in phenomenological psychology benedikte kudahl & tone roald department of psychology, university of copenhagen, øster farimagsgade 2a 1353 københavn k this paper discusses how different concepts of rhythm apply to phenomenological psychological research. we suggest that viewing phenomenological research in psychology as rhythmic not just enables us to notice how the research procedure implies certain shifts within in a series of temporally structured movements of repetition and change; it also enables us to deepen our understanding of the manner in which the researcher engages with the studied phenomenon through intuition. in other words, we argue that rhythm is fundamental to the method of how we understand “the things themselves.” keywords: giorgi, intuition, merleau-ponty, phenomenology, rhythm, rhythmanalysis introduction on a wednesday in october 2020, ii visited the danish art museum glyptoteket to conduct interviews for a psychological study on the experience of beauty. in my research, beauty experiences are investigated empirically through descriptions of museum visitors’ experiences with visual art. on this particular afternoon, i wander through the half-empty museum halls, searching for possible interviewees. i stop as a painting catches my eye. it is as though this particular painting shines, exceeding the limits of its frame. with suddenness, my mind leaves walls, sculptures, and other paintings 111 b. kudahl & t. roald: rhythms of intuition. methodological reflections in phenomenological psychology. qualitative studies: 6(2), pp. 110-131 ©2021 111 behind. in this moment, it is as though the painting is in charge while i obediently listen. no specific thought on the configuration of the painting announces itself, but waves of emotion move through me. it is like a force flowing from my toes and to my chest, a force appearing with such a conviction, such an energetic sense of contentment and pleasure that i immediately feel certain: this can only be an experience of beauty. astonished by this sudden occurrence of beauty, my heart still racing from the experience, i return to my search for interviewees. in a secluded exhibit room, a museum visitor agrees to participate in an interview. as the conversation gradually discloses his experience with an artwork, i no longer think of the painting. yet, having just encountered beauty, i listen to the interviewee’s words with a compelling bodily sense of knowing how to listen for its reverberations. the process repeats for the rest of the afternoon. each time an interviewee describes an experience, my experience of the painting reoccurs, not in its original form but with variations. nevertheless, something similar shines forth, and the bodily sensations return, thus pulling together parts of the experiences described by interviewees and the experience i had earlier that afternoon. in between interviews, i return to the painting, and each time, a sense of reappearance of the phenomenon of beauty occurs as if my body were reminded of its radiant manner of announcing itself.ii these reflections from the field serve to hint at two distinctive ways in which phenomenological psychological research may be interpreted as rhythmic. firstly, the research process described illustrates how phenomenological psychological researchers, such as those who employ amedeo giorgi’s method (2009) might work within repetitive patterns of data collection. secondly, as illustrated here, rhythmicity of phenomenological psychological research consists of an intuitive manner of being involved with a phenomenon by attuning to the subject matter without aiming at controlling it. this intuitive continuous return to the phenomenon constitutes the rhythmicity of phenomenological methods in psychology by flowing through and thus uniting different parts of the investigative process. b. kudahl & t. roald: rhythms of intuition. methodological reflections in phenomenological psychology. 112 qualitative studies: 6(2), pp. 110-131 © 2021 112 part one: phenomenology and rhythm the phenomenologist maurice merleau-ponty proposes that rhythm is fundamental to being. in this paper, we suggest that rhythm is just as fundamental to the investigations of being that are carried out by phenomenological psychologists. through reflections on rhythm, the paper thus aims at extrapolating a conception of phenomenological methods in psychology that is aligned with human experience. this perspective is not in opposition to established ideas within phenomenological methods in psychology; rather, it aims to highlight established ideas by identifying an inherent rhythm within these. in the early 20th century, the philosopher edmund husserl created the theoretical basis for phenomenology, which, decades later, inspired psychologists such as amedeo giorgi to design methods that strive to listen attentively to how the world shows itself in experience. we suggest considering this very act of listening as a matter of attending rhythmically to the appearance of phenomena. thus, this paper aims to show how basic phenomenological principles employed in psychological research may be understood as inherently rhythmic. the starting point for this paper is to apply a concept of rhythm to principles of phenomenological methods in psychology in order to shed light on oscillatory shifts inherent to the method. in this regard, we discuss how rhythm may be inherent to husserlian principles and to the research procedures of giorgi’s descriptive phenomenological method in psychology (2009). there are other methods within the field, but we consider, with phenomenological psychologist frederick wertz, this to be the foundational one for psychology, since other methods appear as later variations of this (wertz, in press). this paper’s initial reflections from the field display how a rhythmical form involves a series of components that are repeated and thus structured in time. however, as the sections below will show, without a gathering force running through such series of components, actual rhythm will be missing from the structure. in this paper’s reflections on method in phenomenological psychology, we identify intuition as this gathering force. the bodily engagement of intuition is itself an act of attunement to the rhythms of the phenomenon. through the employment of intuition, the phenomenological psychological researcher grasps the rhythmical existence of the studied phenomenon by listening to it with sensitivity, by being grasped by it, by letting it be. 113 b. kudahl & t. roald: rhythms of intuition. methodological reflections in phenomenological psychology. qualitative studies: 6(2), pp. 110-131 ©2021 113 rhythms of the world if we view phenomenology as “an account of ‘lived’ time, of ‘lived’ space, of the ‘lived’ world” (merleau-ponty, 1945/2012, p. xxi), perhaps rhythm—understood as movements in time—in a sense resides at the very heart of phenomenology. at one point in phenomenology of perception, merleau-ponty proposes: my life is made up of rhythms that do not have their reason in what i have chosen to be, but have their condition in the banal milieu that surrounds me. a margin of almost impersonal existence thus appears around our personal existence. (merleauponty, 1945/2012, p. 86) this margin of impersonal existence, merleau-ponty explains, is defined by our anonymous bodies, which refer to a general and pre-personal level of existence. rhythms, according to merleau-ponty, spring from the way the anonymous body thrusts forward in life while adhering to the general form of the worldly milieu. in merleau-ponty scholar galen a. johnson’s words, these worldly rhythms are to be found within this forward-thrusting movement; this preconceptual, pre-reflective momentum of existence is “the forward thrust of life that is rhythmically paced” (johnson, 2010, p. 199).iii similar to merleau-ponty, the sociologist henri lefebvre operates with an idea of rhythm as fundamental to being. stressing what he takes to be a wide-ranging relevance of rhythm, he states, “everywhere where there is interaction between a place, a time and an expenditure of energy, there is rhythm” (lefebvre, 1992/2004, p. 15). in his writings on what he titles “rhythmanalysis”, he develops a transdisciplinary approach to grasping relationships between the multiple internal and external rhythms that he argues are constitutive of any worldly living or non-living being. in line with what merleau-ponty proposes in the quote above, lefebvre (1992/2004) suggests that we think of rhythm as a defining feature of existence that functions prior to knowledge hereof. lefebvre’s method of rhythmanalysis is not committed to phenomenology. in rhythmanalysis—space, time and everyday life, lefebvre distances his work from parts of the phenomenological tradition and criticizes phenomenology for neglecting how rhythms characterize existence. nevertheless, contemporary scholars have associated lefebvre’s work with phenomenology (crespi & manghani, 2020; kinkaid, 2020; schmid, 2008). he shares with merleau-ponty the ambition to create an account of space, time and “the lived” that challenges the cartesian world view (lefebvre, 1974/1991). b. kudahl & t. roald: rhythms of intuition. methodological reflections in phenomenological psychology. 114 qualitative studies: 6(2), pp. 110-131 © 2021 114 if the world is made up of rhythms, the question that follows is: how are we to acquire an understanding of the features of this rhythmicity? rhythm, lefebvre states, is something that “enters into the lived; though that does not mean it enters into the known” (1992/2004, p. 77). rhythms become epistemologically accessible only through rhythmanalysis; processes of analysis of space and time, and of “the lived” which lefebvre regards as a philosophical term for everydayness (lefebvre, 1965/2016). the everyday or “le quotidian” which means “the mundane life” of ordinary people signifies the simple temporal pattern of repetition characteristic of what happens every day. thus, according to lefebvre, rhythms are, by nature, constituted by repetition. but an “absolute repetition” in which “a=a” is only “a fiction of logical and mathematical thought” since “the second a differs from the first by the fact that it is second” (lefebvre, 1992/2004, p. 7). as the quote argues, rhythmic repetition is not mechanical or rigid, and it does not exclude the organic occurrence of differences. repetition, according to lefebvre, produces differences. studying the center of paris from his open window, lefebvre (1992/2004) takes notice of the city’s recurring peak hours, the daily stream of people from the outskirts entering the city to do their shopping, the tourists visiting the same places; all interrupted by the night, which then again is interrupted by the morning’s noisy traffic and piercing sounds of children on their way to school. watching and listening to all of this, he notices the repetitions and the diversity characterizing the polyrhythmic field in which everyday life plays out. we recognize the rhythmic for its repetitive structure, but, importantly, lefebvre’s (1992/2004) rhythmanalysis is a process that takes more than applying a pre-defined rhythmic structure to a phenomenon. rhythmanalysis, rather, is a matter of listening that requires an attentive ear and a willingness to let go of the desire to possess that which is listened to. lefebvre states: “in order to grasp and analyse rhythms, it is necessary to get outside them, but not completely … to grasp a rhythm is necessarily to have been grasped by it: one must let oneself go, give oneself over, abandon oneself to its duration” (1992/2004, p. 27). thus, knowing or capturing rhythm is to be captured by its organically developing movements. rhythms of the body to lefebvre, the body serves the rhythmanalyst as a metronome: “he draws on his breathing, the circulation of his blood, the beatings of his heart and the delivery of his speech as landmarks … he thinks with his body, not in the abstract, but in the lived temporality” (lefebvre, 1992/2004, p. 21). the analytic capturing of rhythms of the world happens, not just from the 115 b. kudahl & t. roald: rhythms of intuition. methodological reflections in phenomenological psychology. qualitative studies: 6(2), pp. 110-131 ©2021 115 place of, but by means of the rhythmical body. embedded in a world of rhythms, humans are, as rhythmical bodily beings, continuously affecting and affected by rhythms of the world. attending to the external rhythms of the world means finding ways of adjusting the relationship between internal rhythms and external rhythms. when synchronicity of polyrhythmic relations occurs, what begins as a manifold of rhythms becomes an integrated and comprehensible totality resulting in what lefebvre calls isorhythmia. isorhythmic relationships are rare, he states, but can be identified in certain co-creative dynamics, for instance, in the relationship between a conductor and an orchestra. isorhythmia implies that separate rhythms interact in ways enabling them to reach equivalence regarding rhythm’s features such as measure, repetition, and change, which is what the rhythmanalyst, from the position of her rhythmical body, sets out to achieve. in line with merleau-ponty (1945/2012), lefebvre’s (1992/2004) rhythmanalysis is attentive to the practical and theoretical relevance of the body. however, it appears that lefebvre’s understanding of the body mainly attends to rhythms of internal bodily functions. except for briefly declaring that acts of movement (“gestes”) is a rhythmical matter, he does not consider what the features of bodily movements can reveal about rhythm itself. while merleau-ponty (1945/2012) has placed great emphasis on movement as an aspect of being, the connection between rhythm and bodily movement is subtle and somewhat concealed within the prose of his language. within the field of phenomenological philosophy, such connection has been made more explicitly by maxine sheets-johnstone (2015), who examines the concept of rhythm in an investigation of the phenomenology of dance. as a prototype of rhythmical movement, dance serves as a key illustration of how the phenomenon of rhythm is constituted. in line with finlay (2008), who has described the phenomenological psychological attitude as “a dance between the reduction and reflexivity” containing “sharp shifts of focus and rhythm” (p.3), rhythm in dance is a concept that captures important aspects of the method of interest. to understand the rhythm of dance, sheets-johnstone (2015) distinguishes between a) rhythmic structure and b) dynamic line (p. 90). a rhythmic structure is a reduction of movements in time to a series of individual components (e.g., the sequence of steps in a choreography). there is a “static temporality” to such an understanding of rhythm in which “each instant is apprehended as a separate unit” (sheets-johnstone, 2015, p. 13). in contrast, the dynamic line, which is a phenomenological concept of rhythm, implies that the moments of a rhythmical structure have an internal relationship. sheets-johnstone (2015) provides b. kudahl & t. roald: rhythms of intuition. methodological reflections in phenomenological psychology. 116 qualitative studies: 6(2), pp. 110-131 © 2021 116 several examples. here is one: if an arm is abducted and then adducted immediately after, the completion of the initial abductive movement is simultaneously a preparation for the adductive movement that follows. the dynamic line, and thus rhythm, implies that the line of movements is not illogical or arbitrary; it follows “the guiding thread in the development of a form” (sheets-johnstone, 2015, p. 83). there is, sheets-johnstone proposes, a projectional force relating the first movement to the second. the projectional and tensional qualities of each movement affect the temporal flow, which is what makes the line lively, vibrant, dynamic. in dance, there is no actual line understood as a static or rigid architecture of action but rather a perpetual projection of force (sheets-johnstone, 2015). sheets-johnstone stresses that while awareness of a given rhythmic structure can work as a tool with a possible practical application (e.g., knowing the order of the steps of a dance), actual dance, and thus actual rhythm, is only brought to existence if the "mere series of movements becomes a dynamic flow of force" (sheets-johnstone, 2015, p. 89). dance and thus rhythm, she explains, does imply a rhythmic structure that reveals particular tempi and particular accents. in other words, knowing a rhythmic structure means to be aware of the specific series of moments implied in a specific rhythm. however, on an experiential level, rhythm does not exist as a series of moments but as a continuous flow. rhythm, as lived, is “a perpetually moving form, a unity of succession, whose moments cannot be measured,” … “whose ‘moments’ are all of a piece” (sheets-johnstone, 2015, p. 16). importantly, sheetsjohnstone does not make this distinction between rhythmic structure and dynamic line in order to simply replace the first with the latter or to remove a concept of rhythmic structure from our understanding of bodily movements in dance. rather, what she suggests is a reconsideration of the very idea of rhythm as the mere structure of individual movements or mere moments in space and time and a consideration of the dynamic line that gives union and flow to rhythmic phenomena. waves and rivers according to the french structuralist émile benveniste (1971), the greek term “rhuthmos”, “ῥυθµός”, derives from “ῥεῖ”, which means “to flow.” within the field of comparative grammar, it has continuously been suggested that we understand the connection between rhythm and flow by the intermediary metaphor of the movements of the waves of the sea (benveniste, 1971). however, one may ask, as benveniste (1971) did in an etymological analysis of the notion of rhythm: isn’t this association inaccurate, impossible even, since what 117 b. kudahl & t. roald: rhythms of intuition. methodological reflections in phenomenological psychology. qualitative studies: 6(2), pp. 110-131 ©2021 117 flows is not the waves but rather the stream of the river? the flowing stream of the river, benveniste declares, simply does not have rhythm in the sense that the regular pulsating movements of waves do. lefebvre (1992/2004) recognizes this apparent contradiction while asking his reader to observe the waves of the mediterranean sea closely. waves move rhythmically toward the shore in the sense that the same monotonous episodes repeat themselves. waves move with a measurable regularity, and as something that is defined by measure, they seem to be governed by something like a law. they move in a manner that is calculated and expected as if they were obeying an obligation or carrying out a project (lefebvre, 1992/2004, p. 8). understanding rhythm’s measure through a metaphor of waves, he emphasizes rhythm’s repetitive and therefore somewhat predictable nature. however, lefebvre (1992/2004) also draws in expressions such as stream, current, perpetual flows, and finally, the phenomenon of time when discussing features of rhythmicity. like merleau-ponty, lefebvre was highly inspired by marcel proust’s novel in search of lost time (elden, 2004). reflecting on the phenomenon of time, which, at first glance, “seems to escape measure on account of its fluidity” (lefebvre, 1992/2004, p. 10), he unifies these only apparently oppositional conceptions of rhythm. while the waves seem measured, looking carefully at each wave approaching the shore will reveal their spontaneous, ceaselessly changing, and interrelated nature. correspondingly, while time appears fluid, time flow is as quantifiable and therefore as measurable as anything else. that which flows and that which comes and goes in motions of waves can be viewed as cyclical, predictable, and measurable, yet both may also be understood as linear and spontaneously unfurling. rhythm is the structured repetitive movement and the flowing force carrying forward its elements. in accordance with sheets-johnstone (2015), the concept of rhythm that lefebvre (1992/2004) proposes is twofold: first, a rhythm is a series of moments, or in lefebvre’s account, elements. second, similar to what sheets-johnstone (2015) calls a “force of the dynamic line”, lefebvre (1992/2004) identifies in each rhythm an extensive energy capable of “taking with it” each rhythmic element. while the rhythmic structure consists of repetitive, somehow predictable movements like those of the waves, the dynamic line is rhythmic in the sense of a flowing force, perhaps analogous to the metaphor of the stream of a river or the progression of a poem.iv thus, both stress that although a rhythm necessitates a series of moments or elements, it fundamentally relies on a structuring, interrelating flow of force. b. kudahl & t. roald: rhythms of intuition. methodological reflections in phenomenological psychology. 118 qualitative studies: 6(2), pp. 110-131 © 2021 118 a related understanding of rhythm can be identified in the phenomenologist jessica wiskus’ (2013) interpretation of merleau-ponty in regards to rhythm. she quotes merleauponty: we are experiences, that is, thoughts that feel behind themselves the weight of the space, the time, the very being they think, and which therefore do not hold under their gaze a serial space and time, nor the idea of series, but have above themselves a space and a time that exist by piling up. (merleau-ponty, 1964/1968, p. 115) being is defined not just by “a serial space and time, nor the idea of series” but by “space and time that exists by piling up.” this perpetual piling up means that elements in time are not individual but rather, as merleau-ponty continues, “nodes and antinodes of the same ontological vibration” (merleau-ponty, 1964/1968, p. 115). interpreting merleau-ponty, wiskus asks, “this ontological vibration, this movement of depth: what is it but rhythm? (wiskus, 2013, p. 37). the “piling up” of space and time interconnects each of its moments, not by comprising a series, but through rhythmical, perpetual vibration. it seems that grasping rhythm consists not merely of uncovering a series of movements but recognizing the way we are already moving along with phenomena within the rhythmical worldly milieu. the question then is: what happens if this twofold understanding of rhythm is applied to the context of phenomenological research in psychology? returning to the field note that introduced this paper, the process may be understood in terms of its rhythmical structure, which would reduce the process to a series of steps following upon each other. the structure of the process is repetitive; the phenomenon of beauty appears and reappears throughout the process. interviews and encounters with the painting interchangeably occur in an apparently ordered series of events by means of which the process obtains a pattern. lefebvre (1992/2004) would characterize this pattern as the measure of the process. but these somewhat measured movements also imply a constant variability within the perpetual flow of the research process, a flow in which multifaceted and unsettling cognitive, emotional, and bodily processes in a polyrhythmic field become what they are in relation to each other. analogous to sheetjohnstone’s (2015) point that a rhythmic structure in itself does not provide us with an understanding of the nature of dance, awareness of the rhythmic structure of a research process, stepwise and repetitive, fails to reveal anything about the interaction between the steps or the source of energy that flows through them and interconnects them. further, if we employ lefebvre’s (1992/2004) notion of isorhythmia, the rhythmicity of the research process can be 119 b. kudahl & t. roald: rhythms of intuition. methodological reflections in phenomenological psychology. qualitative studies: 6(2), pp. 110-131 ©2021 119 understood as bodily and emotional attunement to the rhythms of the phenomenon. listening to the silent presence of the phenomenon as it shows itself in the encounter with the painting and in the interviewee’s descriptions can be understood as a yielding towards an isorhythmic relation between the researcher and the phenomenon. applying lefebvre’s rhythmanalysis (1992/2004) to phenomenological psychological methods thus encourages us to notice how the very appearance of phenomena may be understood in terms of rhythms. part two: rhythms of method in phenomenological psychology various approaches exist within the field of phenomenological psychology.v this analysis begins by consulting two central principles as they were originally formulated by husserl: the concepts of phenomenological reflection and intuition. however, rather than examining husserl’s complex system of concepts in depth, to highlight the psychological perspective of this paper, this section will examine the descriptive phenomenological method by giorgi (2009), a method directed explicitly at research in psychology. by means of these two perspectives, this section reflects on how the understandings of rhythm described above may be analogous to certain basic principles within this phenomenological psychological method. the first part of this section aims to show that an aspect of what appears as rhythmic within husserl’s principles is the researcher’s ever-changing manner of evaluating the available data or possible knowledge of the phenomenon under investigation. the researcher interchangeably enters a position of reflective uncertainty and a position of knowingvi through intuition. we return to the question of how the different concepts of rhythm sketched out in the above apply to this oscillatory movement between positions. first, let us consider what can be referred to as uncertainty of scientific research practice. uncertainty can be understood as that which makes us question possibly misleading theoretical, methodological, and personal beliefs. thus, in any qualitative investigation, we somehow rely on our ability to feel uncertain. as producers of knowledge, researchers ought to welcome a sense of uncertainty and hesitate with regard to the assumption that their conclusions truly reflect the world. uncertainty is essential to the discipline of scientific conduct because it reflects a sensitivity to the complexity and possible ambiguities of the studied phenomenon. but what does such uncertainty amount to within phenomenological methodology? in an often-quoted paragraph, husserl states that the philosopher must begin in “absolute poverty, with an absolute lack of knowledge” (husserl, 1960, § 1).vii within phenomenological methodology, starting with a lack of knowledge means attempting to set aside assumptions regarding the phenomenon, that is, beginning an investigation with an attitude of uncertainty regarding the psychological meaning of the b. kudahl & t. roald: rhythms of intuition. methodological reflections in phenomenological psychology. 120 qualitative studies: 6(2), pp. 110-131 © 2021 120 phenomenon. more specifically, the idea of uncertainty as a necessary scientific principle is embedded within the fundamental phenomenological act of “bracketing” (husserl, 1913/2012). in this act, one “disconnects” from that which, based on theoretical abstractions or past experience, is assumed to be true of the phenomenon of interest. this act is applied to our hypotheses or theories about the phenomenon of interest and the fundamental assumptions one might have about the constitution of worldly phenomena. in the context of this paper, the point is that by means of this act, one attempts to disconnect from a sense of knowing and enter into a sphere of uncertainty. husserl expresses the radicalism of the act: the whole world as placed within the nature-setting and presented in experience as real, taken completely “free from all theory”, just as it is in reality experienced, and made clearly manifest in and through the linkings of our experiences, has now no validity for us, it must be set in brackets, untested indeed but also uncontested. (husserl, 1913/2012, § 32). this lack of validation of fundamental assumptions ultimately implies an inactivation of all judgments that have, up until this very moment, been regarded as knowledge. in the disconnection-aiming act of bracketing, a fundamental shift happens. our thesis of the phenomenon undergoes a sort of transformation that husserl calls a “transvaluing” (husserl, 1913/2012, p. 58). the shift occurring in this act of “transvaluing” is not a transformation in the sense that we reject what is assumed, nor in the sense that former theories about phenomena are replaced with novel ones, but in the sense that what was known is now held in suspension.viii such an act of reflection, of “transvaluing”, of questioning, needs to be understood in relation to the type of act that enables the researcher to obtain a sense of knowing. with regards to this type of act, husserl’s “principle of all principles” guides us in the direction of what presents itself to intuition. what presents itself to intuition, husserl states, is “simply to be accepted as it gives itself to be” (husserl, 1913/2012, § 24).within the context of this paper, husserl’s original account thus calls our attention to two important acts: 1) the reflective questioning of assumptions and 2) the employment of intuition. following husserl, phenomenological researchers are confronted with the need to find ways to balance these acts. how can we question what we assume to be true and yet trust our intuition with regard to what is given? and, if both these acts serve important functions in phenomenological inquiries, how should researchers deal with the dynamics of their seemingly oppositional nature? 121 b. kudahl & t. roald: rhythms of intuition. methodological reflections in phenomenological psychology. qualitative studies: 6(2), pp. 110-131 ©2021 121 in this paper’s search for an answer to these questions, yet another question arises: is it possible that what appears to be acts-in-conflict is more accurately understood if viewed as acts complementing each other in a rhythmically organized structure? applying what sheetsjohnstone (2015) and lefebvre (1992/2004) have both pointed out as inherent to rhythm, phenomenological acts of reflection and intuition can be understood as a structured series of varying and repetitive elements. phenomenological inquiries, then, are like the pulsating movements of waves, varying yet somehow regulated and somewhat repeating themselves. yet, what is lacking in this understanding of phenomenological research as rhythmic is what sheets-johnstone (2015) calls the “dynamic line” of rhythm; the perpetual projection of force which in lefebvre’s (1992/2004) vocabulary “takes with it” all the elements. what is missing in this understanding is, in other words, a common source of energy that interconnects each element of the series, the overall force flowing through and uniting the movements. at first glance, it seems as if there is no common force governing the position of uncertainty through reflection and of knowing through intuition. it seems as if they are two conflicting forces pulling the researcher in opposite directions. let us briefly return to husserl’s “principle of all principles” for guidance with regard to identifying this missing rhythmical force within phenomenological methodology. if we envision a practical application of this principle, phenomenological intuition seems to be about creating an authentic relationship with the phenomenon of interest in which the researcher attunes to the phenomenon. what if the “acceptance” of phenomena as they “present themselves to intuition” and “give themselves to be” (husserl, 1913/2012, § 24) is understood not just as an element in a series of positional shifts and repetitions but as the energetic force uniting and thus carrying forward the movements of research? this interpretation of rhythm within husserlian principles will guide the following reading of giorgi’s (2009, 2017) modified husserlian approach. based on an extensive reading of husserl’s phenomenology, giorgi developed a method that aims at applying phenomenological principles to qualitative psychological research. giorgi’s descriptive phenomenological method in psychology (2009, 2017) is not a data-gathering method. rather, it is an analysis method designed to identify psychological meanings within descriptions of experience. to psychological researchers studying consciousness, meeting scientific criteria such as the requirement that “measurement processes have to be applied to the data” (giorgi, 2009, p. 3) is a challenging task that prompts giorgi to raise questions such as: “how does one analyze a description of a concrete experience in a b. kudahl & t. roald: rhythms of intuition. methodological reflections in phenomenological psychology. 122 qualitative studies: 6(2), pp. 110-131 © 2021 122 psychologically meaningful way and achieve at least the same degree of objectivity that quantitative analyses reaches?” (giorgi, 2009, p. 121). consequently, giorgi describes a phenomenological research method that comprises a series of steps providing this type of research with a systematism and a transparency that does not compromise the aim for a rigorous understanding of the data. in the first of three stepsix, the researcher reads the experience description to obtain “a general sense of what the description is about” (giorgi, 2009, p. 128) from within the attitude of the scientific phenomenological reductionx. secondly, the researcher rereads the interview and breaks the description into what giorgi calls “meaning units” (giorgi, 2009, p. 129). dividing the descriptions into a series of smaller parts helps the researcher by “making the descriptions manageable” (giorgi, 2009, p. 130). in the third step, each meaning unit is “transformed by the researcher” into “psychologically pertinent expressions” (giorgi, 2009, p. 137). within this step, giorgi requests that the researcher “once again goes back to the beginning of the description” to interrogate each meaning unit, and finally repeat this process “until all of the meaning units have been transformed” (giorgi, 2009, p. 133). this structured analysis process provides the data with manageability by means of repetition. within the descriptions of each of the steps, giorgi (2009) suggests overcoming various challenges through processes of repetition and returns: “one goes back to the beginning of the description and begins to reread it” (p. 129), “once again goes back to the beginning of the description” (p. 131), “goes back to the data” (p. 133), “reread the description” (p. 130). not just within each analysis but on a more general level, the process is structured by repetition: he recommends that “invariant meanings should be repeated in subsequent research” (p. 131) and that the entire process is repeated to achieve general structures through “data from several individuals” (p. 131). by repeating specific acts and by continuously returning to the data, this series of steps, of movements, achieves a circularity providing it with what we may view as analogous to what sheets-johnstone (2015) calls rhythmical structure. these repetitive steps resemble steps of a “dance of research.” one moves around the phenomenon in a pre-structured manner that repeats itself like the movements of the waves cyclically progressing toward and pulling back from the shore. in part one of this paper, reflections on possible defining features of rhythm also displayed how lefebvre (1992/2004), in line with sheets-johnstone (2015), operates with a twofold understanding of rhythm, in which one level is concerned with rhythm’s structure. 123 b. kudahl & t. roald: rhythms of intuition. methodological reflections in phenomenological psychology. qualitative studies: 6(2), pp. 110-131 ©2021 123 within such structures, repetition is a key feature in the sense that repetition provides the series of elements with a measure that divides the whole into smaller parts (lefebvre, 1992/2004). the application of measure by means of repetition seems to arrange giorgi’s (2009) method in a rhythmical form. however, reading lefebvre (1992/2004) and sheets-johnstone (2015) along with merleau-ponty (1964/1968, 1945/2012) made it clear that, for rhythm to arise, a series of elements must be somehow connected and thus flowingly carried forward by a uniting perpetual force. the description of the steps of giorgi’s (2009) method does not directly state what binds the steps together, what provides the guiding thread, what allows for unity within the procedure. but reviewing the descriptions of the steps more closely reveals that each action of the steps relies highly on intuition. the meaning unit division, for instance, is not only concerned with shifts in meaning, and although the process of reading the interview works in a pre-structured, repetitive way, the process is far from mechanical. as giorgi puts it, the process is a “spontaneous activity” that “has a certain arbitrariness to it” (2009, p. 130). likewise, when transforming the units of meaning, it may occur that “an important implicit psychological meaning is not stated anywhere, but it has a strong background presence” (giorgi, 2009, p. 134), in which case the researcher’s descriptions rely not solely on carrying out a pre-given action but also on her intuitive sense of a presence of psychological meaning. this intuitive sense runs through the research process as a guiding thread. thus, within giorgi’s method, phenomenological analysis has to rely on not just a prestructured series of shifting and repetitive actions but as well on a willingness to “dwell with the data” (p. 131), and on the “psychological sensitivity the researcher brings to the task” (p. 130). carrying out the steps may be understood as the rhythmic structure of the method, but intuition seems to be what sheets-johnstone (2015) would label the “perpetual projection of force” that makes a rhythmic structure truly rhythmic. finally, giorgi (2009) emphasizes that carrying out this analysis procedure requires the adoption of an “intersubjective attitude” (p. 133) and “a sensitivity toward the phenomenon being researched” (p. 137). without explicating its meaning, the notion of sensitivity is used numerous times in the account and seems to be a guiding thread in the progression of the method. considering this along with lefebvre (1992/2004) suggests an understanding of this method as essentially constituted as rhythmic not just by being a series of pre-given steps but by means of an attunement to phenomena. the process of the steps moves forward, not according to a manual, but according to how the phenomenon manifests itself as intuitions. b. kudahl & t. roald: rhythms of intuition. methodological reflections in phenomenological psychology. 124 qualitative studies: 6(2), pp. 110-131 © 2021 124 thus, intuition seems to be the perpetually flowing force providing the repetitive structure of phenomenological psychological inquiries with a sense of rhythmicity. part three: rhythm of phenomenological intuition in the visible and the invisible, maurice merleau-ponty (1964/1968) devotes an essay to discussing different understandings of intuition. with a critical eye, he examines the notion of intuition posited by husserl and henri bergson, respectively. what husserl claims to be intuition is, to merleau-ponty (1964/1968), trapped in an epistemology that assumes a hypothetical and disengaged “pure spectator” capturing the “essences of the world” from a distant place, while to merleau-ponty, essences show up primordially, that is, in bodily engagement with the worldly “flesh.” the flesh is the fabric of being through which all sensible beings are interconnected. because of this kinship, embodied human beings and worldly objects “encroach” upon each other or even “overlap” (merleau-ponty, 1964/1968, p. 248). aiming at an account of intuition that situates humans in this worldly fabric, he states: under the solidity of the essence, and of the idea, there is the fabric of experience, the flesh of time … the visible can thus fill me and occupy me only because i who see it do not see it from the depths of nothingness, but from the midst of itself. (merleauponty, 1964/1968, p. 113) this “midst,” our field of experience, is an environment we cannot exit; there is no other environment for us to enter, no “ontological void” or environment of nothingness from where we can grasp the world in a pure manner. by opposing a view of intuition posited by bergson, details of which we will not outline here, merleau-ponty (1964/1968) enriches his account on intuition by stating that intuitive givenness of things is not accessed by “coinciding with” or “fusing with” things. if we were to grasp a thing through fusing with it, becoming unity, the thing itself would vanish. philosophy is, merleau-ponty says, “a manner of letting the things themselves speak” (1964/1968, p. 125), while the view of intuition that merleau-ponty here opposes results in the “silence of things” (1964/1968, p. 127). as it appears in the visible and the invisible, intuition is a distant yet attentive way of being present, not just with things but specifically with the universe of appearances that things seem to produce. through this critique of two distinct views of intuition resulting in viewing things either by a “soaring over or as fusion,” from an “infinite distance” or by “absolute proximity” 125 b. kudahl & t. roald: rhythms of intuition. methodological reflections in phenomenological psychology. qualitative studies: 6(2), pp. 110-131 ©2021 125 (1964/1968, p. 127), merleau-ponty arrives at a somewhat ambiguous place in between. although the distant “pure spectator” remains a hypothesis that cannot be attained, it is true, he states, that “every being presents itself at a distance, but this does not prevent us from knowing it” (1964/1968, p. 127). on the contrary, distance is what keeps us from merging with other beings in ways that annul their being, their thingness as thing. there is, he writes, a “thickness of flesh between us and the ‘hard core’ of being” (1964/1968, p. 127). merleau-ponty rejects the possibility that intuition means to detect the essence of things from an infinite distance, but the alternative that he provides also operates with a notion of distance. as he suggests, “we should have to return to this idea of proximity through distance, of intuition as auscultation or palpation in depth” (merleau-ponty, 1964/1968, p. 128). let us consider the medical metaphors employed here. in medical procedures of palpation, the examined body’s inner condition is known through a touch of the body’s outside, the skin. similarly, in procedures of auscultation, the inner condition of the body is known through the sound released from the inside to the outside, where the examiner is listening with a stethoscope. through touch or listening, the examiner obtains knowledge of characteristics of the inside of the examined. for example, low density inside the examined body part may produce a hollow sound. if intuition, as merleau-ponty (1964/1968) here suggests, is an indirect yet insightful examination in depth, it means that we as examiners of the world rely heavily on the sensibility of our perceptory apparatus and a sensitivity that allows us to “listen” at a distance. lefebvre’s rhythmanalysis does not explicitly employ a notion of intuition, nor does it operate with an ontology of “flesh”, and yet it seems to arrive at an understanding of intuition somewhat similar to merleau-ponty’s account in the visible and the invisible. merleau-ponty (1964/1968) and lefebvre (1992/2004) share an idea of proximity as a necessary component of intuition: what lefebvre calls isorhythmia is found within a proximal relationship between what makes the noise and he who listens, rhythmic phenomena and the rhythmanalyst, orchestra and the conductor, painting and the spectator. as highlighted earlier, the rhythmanalyst strives to listen attentively to the world. listening is inherent to lefebvre’s mode of inquiry: “he will come to listen to a house, a street, a town, as an audience listens to a symphony” (lefebvre, 1992/2004, p. 22). but in line with merleau-ponty, the rhythmanalyst listens at a distance: “in order to grasp and analyse rhythms, it is necessary to get outside them, but not completely” (lefebvre, 1992/2004, p. 27). like merleau-ponty (1964/1968), lefebvre b. kudahl & t. roald: rhythms of intuition. methodological reflections in phenomenological psychology. 126 qualitative studies: 6(2), pp. 110-131 © 2021 126 uses the metaphor of auscultation to illustrate this. by listening attentively but maintaining a distance, rhythms of the world become detectable. considering lefebvre (1992/2004) and sheets-johnstone (2015) led to a common understanding of rhythm as dependent on a flowing force of energy connecting a series of moments or elements. applying this understanding of rhythm to phenomenological methods in psychology suggested that intuition is the uniting force of such inquiries. merleau-ponty’s (1964/1968) understanding of intuition read along with lefebvre (1992/2004) suggests how such intuition, as the uniting principle of phenomenological methods in psychology, consists in an attentive yet distant modus of listening common to the rhythmanalyst and the phenomenological psychologist. if intuition in phenomenological inquiries is understood as “a manner of letting the things themselves speak” (merleau-ponty, 1964/1968, p. 125), and if grasping a rhythm is “to have been grasped by it”, to “let oneself go, give oneself over, abandon oneself to its duration” (lefebvre, 1992/2004, p. 27), then listening is a matter of balancing the interest in the phenomenon with the being of the phenomenon itself. the worldly beings which the philosopher desires to know, merleau-ponty writes: offer themselves therefore only to someone who wishes not to have them … but to let them be and to witness their continued being—to someone who therefore limits himself to giving them the hollow, the free space they ask in return, the resonance they require, who follow their own movement. (merleau-ponty, 1964/1968, p. 101) the phenomenological psychologist following merleau-ponty, it seems, shares with the rhythmanalyst the intention of giving the phenomena “the resonance they require” and of “following their movement.” but most importantly, they both strive to listen intuitively and sensitively to the phenomena by letting them be. the philosopher kym maclaren (2002) and the cognitive phenomenological researcher hanne de jaegher (2019) both emphasize in this quote by merleau-ponty the specific expression of “letting be.” as de jaegher (2019) points out, acts of letting be hold a tension between moving close to and staying distant from the phenomenon of interest. with this balancing act, we aim at, on the one hand, not to break the phenomenon down by projecting our intentions onto it and on the other hand, not engaging so much that we end up being determined by it. the epistemology that the notion of “letting be” implies has a softness to it in the sense that the type of knowledge it involves is sensitive to and 127 b. kudahl & t. roald: rhythms of intuition. methodological reflections in phenomenological psychology. qualitative studies: 6(2), pp. 110-131 ©2021 127 continuously moldable by encounters with the phenomenon itself. the expression of “letting be” emphasizes this sensitivity, humility, and absence of control with which the phenomena of interest are listened to. these acts of letting be are at the heart of phenomenological methods in psychology. in descriptive phenomenological methods in psychology, giorgi defines what he calls “the attitude of description” as “one that only responds to what can be accounted for in the description itself” (giorgi, 2009, p. 127). distinct from methods that embrace interpretation, construction, or explanation, the method of description in phenomenological method in psychology requires great caution with regard to any “nongiven factors” such as assumptions, hypotheses, and theories (giorgi, 2009). phenomenological psychological descriptions are merely “satisfied with the given, it dares not go beyond what is present” (giorgi, 2009, p. 127). when one uses description as a means of analyzing phenomena as they are given in experience, phenomena remain fairly intact, because the descriptive method intuitively and sensitively listens to phenomena in the sense that it lets the phenomena be. the importance of intuition in psychological science what does the concept of rhythm bring in relation to phenomenological methods in psychology? as we have shown, reflecting on the method as rhythmic points toward intuition as a pivotal element of phenomenological psychology. in psychology as a human science, giorgi’s (1970) historical analysis shows how psychology tends to adopt the objectivist attitude of the natural sciences. this attitude implies the assumption that the world can be grasped independently of human mind. viewed from this “naïve realist” position, the term “subjective” used in relation to science can only be pejorative since it indicates that the particular method is unsuccessful in making a sharp distinction between objects of the world on the one hand and affects, thoughts, judgements etc. of human mind on the other (giorgi, 1970, p. 113). however, as giorgi points out, even the notion “objective” indicates that the researcher is oriented toward an object, that is, toward something other than herself, which makes “objectivist” research an activity of intentionality (1970, p. 116). the field of what giorgi refers to as “human science” generally acknowledges the inevitable presence of the researcher-subject in the process of research but as giorgi stresses, it is crucial that such embeddedness of subjectivity in the research situation is not just recognized theoretically, but explicitly and concretely dealt with within methodological practice. in the context of this paper, this may be interpreted as an encouragement for b. kudahl & t. roald: rhythms of intuition. methodological reflections in phenomenological psychology. 128 qualitative studies: 6(2), pp. 110-131 © 2021 128 scholars within the field of phenomenological psychology to provide detailed descriptions of how their research makes use of intuition. this paper’s reflections on rhythm of psychological phenomenological method underline an active and explicit use of intuition as a way of specifying how psychology as a human science transparently employs rather than avoids subjectivity. conclusion if rhythms are movements in time, space, and everyday life, then rhythmicity is not a structure that the researcher strives for but something that always already is present. through rhythm, we have attempted to show that intuition is a principle, a modus, a sensitivity with which we return to the “things themselves”—return to the phenomena in the research process. the entire descriptive research process is about arriving at the phenomenon through intuition. we listen and attune sensitively and repeatedly to the phenomenon, describe and understand it through proximity and distance. although the method is separated out into a variety of steps, intuitions about the phenomenon flow through the process of analysis and unites these steps beyond measure. rhythms are central to the research process as we listen to phenomena that are essential rhythms of the world. references benveniste, e. 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(2013). the rhythm of thought: art, literature, and music after merleau-ponty. chicago: the university of chicago press. notes i the “i” of the field note is the primary author of this paper. ii the inclusion of this first person experience is not an expression of a favoring of the method of introspection or of the viewpoint that psychological phenomenological research requires the researcher to have had experiences with the investigated phenomenon. for example, a researcher might study the experience of psychosis without ever having had a psychotic episode. iii similarly, as levin, roald, and funch (2019) demonstrate, phenomenological thought fosters an understanding of rhythm as a “pre-individual force” that “explains the becoming or the perceptual unfolding of subjectivity” (p. 291). in their analysis of how visual art experience may be conceptualized as rhythmic, they suggest that the concept of rhythm characterizes the process of emergence of the artwork to the subject. what makes this process rhythmic, they propose, is not “the extended rhythm of a subject in front of an object” but rather “a rhythmic co-presence of the work of art and subjective sensibility” (p. 292). iv as suggested here, perhaps rhythm as flow is more accurately understood if one considers the vital energy that carries forward the stream of words in a poem. as johnson (2010) points out, rhythm’s latin equivalent and graphic variant rhyme reminds us that rhythm resides within the sphere of poetry. the poetic connotation may hint at an understanding of rhythm beyond the regular repetitive pattern of movements that we recognize in the waves. v among other approaches not included in this paper are the interpretive phenomenological analysis (ipa) approach and the microphenomenological approach. we choose not to review ipa because it is considered hermeneutic rather than descriptive/husserlian while the microphenomenological approach is mostly concerned with cognition rather than psychological research in a broader sense. vi as halling (2010) advocates, phenomenological researchers in psychology are obliged to aim for knowledge, or truths: “however problematic it may be, the notion of truth is indispensable to our work” (p. 131). in line with what this paper suggests, halling develops an understanding of truths as embodied and rhythmical. vii although the “neo-cartesian” writings of husserl have received heavy criticism, the radical uncertainty that this quote illustrates is, nevertheless, one of the foundational descriptions that have inspired the definitions of key principles within contemporary methodological approaches such as giorgi’s (2009). 131 b. kudahl & t. roald: rhythms of intuition. methodological reflections in phenomenological psychology. qualitative studies: 6(2), pp. 110-131 ©2021 131 viii within the field of phenomenological psychological methods, consensus has not been reached with regard to what exact part the act of “bracketing” should play within research procedures. however, according to giorgi (2009), bracketing refers to our handling of “past knowledge,” that is, knowledge of the phenomenon that we have acquired in the past rather than in the present encounter. giorgi writes, “it is not a matter of forgetting the past; bracketing means that we should not let our past knowledge be engaged while we are determining the mode and content of the present experience” (2009, p. 92). in the act of bracketing, the phenomenological psychological researcher following giorgi positions herself as uncertain with regard to the possible knowledge at hand deriving from past experience. ix in a newer but briefer description of the descriptive phenomenological method, giorgi et al., 2017 have described the same method but divided it into five steps. the general content of the method has not changed. x giorgi et al. (2017) specify the attitude as follows: “this special attitude shift involves the epoché, which means to set aside all knowledge not being directly presented to consciousness, and then to consider what is given not as actually existing but merely as something present to consciousness” (p. 180) about the authors benedikte kudahl is a phd student at the center for phenomenological psychology and aesthetics, department of psychology, university of copenhagen. her phd is a qualitative and theoretical investigation of the psychology of beauty experience. besides the experience of beauty, she is interested in phenomenological methodology and aesthetics in relation to child development. tone roald is an associate professor at the department of psychology at the university of copenhagen and the director of the center for phenomenological psychology and aesthetics. her research interests center around aesthetics and phenomenological psychology, with the goal of clarifying how art creates meaning for us. acknowledgments this work was generously supported by the carlsberg foundation. thank you to charlotte wegener for supporting the writing process and to the anonymous reviewer for providing vital feedback. qualitative studies vol. 6, no. 2, 2021, pp. 85-107 issn 1903-7031 85 experiencing change: rhythms of everyday life between continuities and disruptions sarah h. awad department of communication & psychology, aalborg university, teglgårds plads 1, 9000 aalborg, denmark change is a constant condition of everyday life that we experience and transition through while often maintaining a sense of stability and continuity. but inevitably we come across disruptive changes that call into question the meanings we take for granted and thereby rupture life as we know it. how do those changes affect our rhythms of living? how do we make meaning of the changes and subsequently act upon them? how do individual, social, and environmental changes reciprocally influence one another? these are the guiding questions of this paper. the questions are explored by means of a sociocultural psychological approach to ruptures in the life-course coupled with lefebvre’s rhythmanalysis. it is argued that those questions can be investigated within five interrelated analytical domains; time, space, the body, social others, and symbolic resources. rather than primarily emphasizing adaptation to change, the analytical framework’s key focus is meaning-making, looking at how we integrate or resist new rhythms in our lives. keywords: change, rhythmanalysis, ruptures, social change, meaning-making, life-course. introduction consider each individual’s life-course as a piece of music, playing a unique melody in a specific space and time against a backdrop of recurrent shared beats. the repeated patterns of everyday living form the rhythms of the melody, with repeated sequences of certain notes and their relative lengths. the harmony of this life melody relies on the synchronization between the biological, psychological, social, and environmental rhythms. these are some of the metaphors employed by the two approaches explored in this paper; a sociocultural psychology of the melodies of living (zittoun et al., 2013) and a rhythmanalysis of everyday life by sociologist and philosopher henry lefebvre (1992/2004). https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5909-8562 s. h. awad: experiencing change: rhythms of everyday life between continuities and disruptions. qualitative studies: 6(2), pp. 85-107 © 2021 86 the inquiry of this paper starts with the basic assumption that meaning-making constitutes a core process that shapes our life melody. we are in continuous pursuit of meaning to make sense of, and give value to, our lives. this process becomes especially prominent in times when everyday rhythms are disrupted, and we are triggered to make meaning out of change. in such times, we not only make meaning of the present change, but we reconstruct our past and what defines our melody in light of those changes, and we imagine possible alternative futures in pursuit of a sense of continuity after the disruption. the main focus of the paper is on how change affects our rhythms of living and how we make meaning out of that change. the focus will be on change events—experienced individually or collectively—that disrupt our sense of who we are, our relationships with others, and our position within the wider society. in other words, we will be examining change that disrupts the synchronization between our different rhythms. our lives are considered as following micro-rhythms of everyday living (lefebvre, 1992/2004), ways in which we perceive the world, act in certain routines, and relate to our environment. these rhythms are significant in shaping our dynamic movement through our life trajectories and together form our unique melody of living (zittoun et al., 2013). these micro-rhythms are lived within macro-rhythms of the natural environment and of the social, political, and economic structures of society. these micro and macro rhythms are interdependent of each other and a change in one has consequences for the others to varying degrees. in this article, rhythms are used to illustrate the regularity and dynamic movement of our lives as dependent on the harmony between multiple micro and macro rhythms. our rhythms are simultaneously unique and personal, as well as shared. they unfold within a constrained environment shaped by the rhythms of others (glăveanu, 2016b). within this framework, the person-environment relationship is conceived as interdependent, thus changes in micro-rhythms and macro-rhythms mutually affect each other, though not with the same magnitude. in our personal lives we lose loved ones, move and leave behind familiar places, or fall sick and lose our bodily abilities. those changes are rarely experienced individually in isolation of shared social life, as there are socially shared rituals and practices that provide a framework for dealing with those changes, and our own unique rhythms of transition either reproduce or transform those frameworks. similarly, macro-level changes such as revolutions, global pandemics, and environmental crises are experienced collectively, but it is through individuals’ actions and responses to those changes that route for transition and social change become possible. s. h. awad: experiencing change: rhythms of everyday life between continuities and disruptions. qualitative studies: 6(2), pp. 85-107 ©2021 87 in looking at how change affects us and how we act upon change, there is an inherent interest in how personal, social, and environmental changes reciprocally influence one another. the endeavor of analyzing change as such is quite broad, but my proposal is that the experience of change can be understood by looking at rhythms in five interrelated domains that are tied together by a common focus on meaning-making; time, space, the body, social others, and symbolic resources. the purpose of those five analytical domains is twofold. first, they represent the key areas through which change influences our rhythms of living and through which we make meaning out of change, and second, it is through those domains that change transcends reciprocally between the micro and the macro, with some changes being incorporated into one’s life, while others are resisted. in what follows, i will start by looking at the sense of continuity that prevails in our everyday life by means of tania zittoun’s (2009, 2012) sociocultural psychological approach to the life-course and the idea of melodies of living (zittoun et al., 2013), as well as henry lefebvre’s (1992/2004) theory of rhythmanalysis. i will then elaborate on the meaning of change and what constitutes a disruptive change that ruptures a life-course. i will then look at how change unfolds within time, space, the body, and social others, and how change is mediated through symbolic resources. this will lead to a final discussion of how meaningmaking influences the ways in which we act upon change and which rhythms we incorporate into our life melody and which ones we resist. the melodies we live by rhythms, lefebvre (1992/2004) argues, provide us with a privileged insight into understanding everyday life by interrelating space and time. the interest here is not in mechanical consecutive movements and speed, but rather in the organic rhythmic movements of how actors live in everyday life, where there are routines, yet no identical repetitions. lefebvre’s social theory is one that focuses on the details of everyday life rather than on macro-social structures, one that looks at patterns that are generalized from person to person and from society to society (shields, 1999). his theory presents a critique of the repetitiveness and banality of everyday life, especially as a consequence of capitalism (shields, 1999). however, the repetitiveness is never identical, as there is always something new and unpredictable that introduces itself in the repetition. repetitions give birth to difference (lefebvre, 1992/2004). this theoretical approach thus highlights change within the repetitions of our lives, as well as the unique s. h. awad: experiencing change: rhythms of everyday life between continuities and disruptions. qualitative studies: 6(2), pp. 85-107 © 2021 88 identities and different ways of acting within shared routines (elden, 2004). rhythms are distinguished between our body’s basic biological rhythms (e.g., sleep, hunger, physical movements) and how they are influenced by social life (e.g., work, family, social structures) and by the rhythms that we learn as we develop through different social practices (e.g., habits, routines, ways of doing things) (lefebvre, 1992/2004). together they form certain melodies we live by. melodies, zittoun and colleagues (2013) propose, constitute the unique way each life trajectory is lived out in a shared world. our environment is filled with patterns—musical and visual—that we have found and created, and our lives also follow patterns, melodies of living, that shape, and are shaped by, our everyday lives and how we make sense of them. melodies of living combine developmental and sociocultural psychology to understand human development in the life-course by means of three dimensions: time, space (social, material, and institutional), and degrees of reality, that is, the gradual variation of what is experienced as real, imaginary, or anything in-between. methodologically, each life trajectory can only be understood on its own premise, within its own sociocultural context, through those three dimensions. to look at change in everyday rhythms and their influence on life melodies, in this paper i combine the two approaches mentioned above. lefebvre (1992/2004) presents rhythmanalysis as a general theory that has the ambitious goal of analyzing rhythms in all their magnitude, “from particles to galaxies,” with the objective of “separating as little as possible the scientific from the poetic” (p. 104). thus, the rhythm approach can be applied to a variety of topics. however, the theory is presented at an abstract level, and less guidance is provided regarding its application. to use rhythms as a lens, i therefore combine it with a psychological approach that theoretically and methodologically offers a lens into the development of individual melodies within the environment. the lens of rhythms, when combined with a psychological angle, allows us to investigate the patterns of continuities in parallel domains of life, and how disruptions in one domain influence to varying degrees other domains within an individual’s life and across the individual, social, and environmental levels. to combine and apply those two approaches, the paper presents an analytical framework consisting of five domains: time, space, the body, social others, and symbolic resources. this framework extends the three-dimensional model of time, space, and degrees of reality (zittoun et al., 2013), to include the body—an additional dimension that is highlighted by lefebvre (1992/2004) as s. h. awad: experiencing change: rhythms of everyday life between continuities and disruptions. qualitative studies: 6(2), pp. 85-107 ©2021 89 being central to other rhythms. the framework also adds the domain of the social other and that of symbolic resources, which play an essential role in mediating the experience of change. rhythms of living between continuities and change we are all “migrants” travelling in time and space, leaving places and people, exchanging social groups, and adapting to new environments, while continuously trying to keep a sense of consistency in spite of this continuously changing environment (valsiner, 2007). we experience change in everyday activities and encounters. even in the most repetitive experiences, there is always an element of change, but those changes are experienced with a sense of stability, within our daily rhythms of routines and habits. the change i would like to focus on however, is the change that—from the person’s perspective—is experienced as altering their sense of continuity and stability in life, one that calls for a process of transition and reconstruction of meaning. for example, for one person a divorce might not be a rupture in itself, while the subsequent loss of their conception of “home” might very well constitute a rupture. such change events can be seen as ruptures in the melody of one’s life (zittoun et al., 2013). ruptures are positive or negative events that substantially call into question a person’s daily life and routines (zittoun et al., 2013). they can be expected events (such as moving to another country) or unexpected event (such as the death of a loved one or a natural disaster). sometimes we even purposefully introduce a rupture into our lives to find new meanings in life (such as joining or leaving a religious community or embarking on a “life-changing journey”). we also share collective natural, social, or political ruptures (such as a revolution), which often cause subsequent personal ruptures for the individuals witnessing them (awad, 2016). ruptures trigger processes of transitions, which are processes of catalyzed change by which the person reconfigures one’s life so as to integrate the new changes (zittoun, 2009). unlike theoretical approaches that suggest certain gradual stages in response to change, zittoun et al. (2013) argue that transitions are often complex non-linear processes that do not follow a static order, and thus their outcomes are unpredictable. transitions entail three mutually dependent processes: (1) learning processes whereby the person explores new forms of action and understanding, (2) identity changes, whereby new identity positions and social roles are constructed, and (3) sense-making, whereby the person is able to make meaning of the present s. h. awad: experiencing change: rhythms of everyday life between continuities and disruptions. qualitative studies: 6(2), pp. 85-107 © 2021 90 changes within the bigger picture, linking them to past experiences and reconceptualizing them within their life story (zittoun et al., 2003). thus, the perceived predictability of, and our perceived control over, the rupture event play a significant role in our transitioning and overall well-being (zittoun et al., 2013). in lefebvre’s work there is also a focus on those moments when everyday rhythms are disrupted. he argues that we only become conscious of the rhythms running our lives when we experience some form of disruption or irregularity, when a particular rhythm breaks apart (lefebvre, 1992/2004). in such moments we are able to gain some distance from ourselves, and thereby achieve a certain exteriority that enables us to look at our rhythms from the outside, like looking out from a “balcony” to capture the rhythms of a street (lefebvre, 1992/2004). this distance allows us to see the rhythms in interaction with one another and as well as the hierarchy between them—which rhythms holds other rhythms in place, and what are the overarching rhythms of our lives (e.g., the rhythms of family, body, work). lefebvre’s (1992/2004) approach to rhythms highlights the interdependence of personal and social change. in his analysis of the changes that follow revolutions, he argues that social crises always have origins in, and effects on, personal and social rhythms. disruptive changes throw certain rhythms out of order, rendering certain interactions and routines no longer functional. there is, however, a certain poetic potential in those moments of disruption according to lefebvre. he refers to moments of presence as those instances of authenticity that break through the dulling monotony of “the taken for granted” and redeem meaning in the everyday life (shields, 1999). it is in those moments that everyday routines can be overturned or radically altered (elden, 2004). consider events that provide sudden insight into one’s life and social world, for example, when our mundane routine activities of parenting are disrupted, and we are able to realize the wider significance of those activities for our perception of who we are and of our position in the wider society. lefebvre uses examples of the experience of art, love, and revolution to highlight those exceptional moments when the orthodoxies of everyday life are open to challenge (shields, 1999). those poetic moments can be seen as instances that (re)construct, and give meaning to, our life melodies. s. h. awad: experiencing change: rhythms of everyday life between continuities and disruptions. qualitative studies: 6(2), pp. 85-107 ©2021 91 understanding the self through change psychologists have long studied the effect of change on human beings and how we develop by means of change. as gaggioli (2020) shows, this line of inquiry has a long history in psychology and has been studied by means of varied approaches within the field. early on, in his book on religious experiences, william james (1902) reflected on the personal transformation process involved in sudden and dramatic conversions that alters one’s state of consciousness. later, the topic was taken up by personality approaches in which psychologists studied the influence of personal transformations or quantum change on our personality (e.g. miller & c’de baca, 2001) and how epiphanic experiences can deeply alter one’s beliefs about life (e.g., jarvis, 1997; mcdonald, 2008). also, developmental and educational approaches have looked at the process of transitioning through the life-course (e.g., zittoun et al., 2003) and experiences of liminality (stenner, 2017). discursive approaches have looked at how we navigate disorienting dilemmas (e.g., mezirow, 2003), and how we potentially gain cognitive and emotional growth after a crises (e.g., tedeschi & calhoun, 2004). various cognitive factors have been suggested to explain how we perceive change and asses its risk. examples of such factors are our perceived predictability of the change, how we attribute its cause to internal or external factors, and how our culture shapes our perceptions and emotions towards it (joffé, 1999). studies have also looked at the psychological consequences of sudden social and natural disasters on people’s distress levels and behavioral changes, and researchers have investigated factors that influence adaptation and resilience, such as attachment, intelligence, behavioral regulation, and community systems (masten & obradovìc, 2008). researchers have also studied how different factors on the individual level (e.g., age, gender, ethnicity, mental health, cognitive skills), and interpersonal and intergroup levels (e.g., social support, social status, intergroup conflict) influence the impact of change on our lives and affect our resources for adaptation (cadamuro et al., 2021). the broader social, political, and economic factors that affect individual lives have also been taken up, especially within such social theories as durkheim’s classic study on suicide (1897/1951) and more recent research such as rosa’s (2013) work on social acceleration. the approach suggested in this paper is one that aims to encompass different approaches and different levels of analysis so as to enable the interpretation of change within the different domains through which change is experienced and made sense of. it is also through those domains, i suggest, that the interrelation between individual, social, and environmental s. h. awad: experiencing change: rhythms of everyday life between continuities and disruptions. qualitative studies: 6(2), pp. 85-107 © 2021 92 change can be explored. theoretical ideas from sociocultural psychology, anthropology, philosophy, and social theory are brought together to discuss five domains—the core idea tying these domains together being meaning-making. to understand how human beings experience and act upon those different levels of change, the core focus should be on how those experiences are formed by the mind within a cultural system of meaning (bruner, 1990), rather than looking at causal relationships or response behavior predictability. this approach takes processes by which human beings construct meaning as the central focus for understanding experience and action, and it highlights people’s intentionality and agency in relation to certain environmental constraints (bruner, 1990). this approach acknowledges the person-environment interdependence in the experience of change. it does not assume a causal deterministic relationship by which the environment acts on us, nor does it assume a radical constructionist view whereby all reality is constructed by subjective positions. rather, it follows the argument that those two ontological approaches are not exclusive, and that they can be brought together so as to investigate the agentic and constructive role of human beings in shaping their lives within certain environmental constrains (zittoun et al., 2013). from one side, we influence our environment with certain actions (for example, by introducing new rhythms into our routine) and those actions feed forward, influencing our own development individually and collectively (valsiner, 2014). reciprocally, the environment influences our lives, giving affordances or constraints for certain actions, and this influence is mediated by the person’s response to the environment. therefore, causality is unable to satisfactorily describe the person-environment relationship as it fails to account for the mutual and dynamic influences of the environment on our life melody (zittoun et al., 2013). this implies that how we make meaning of our trajectories, and subsequently orient our action, is a process of agentic moral evaluations rather than a causal relationship governed by cause and effect (brinkmann, 2006). we live in a society with certain social norms and social practices that influences the way we make meaning of, and justify, our actions and feelings. we are driven by those norms as most of our everyday thinking is not based on articulated reason but rather on habit. however, those norms are also not deterministic, as our evaluations and subjective moral judgements develop and change (brinkmann, 2006), especially in times where the status quo is disrupted. our agency in making meaning out of change events and in morally evaluating how we should act upon such change—as also constrained within social and environmental factors—shapes our sense of the harmony or disruption of our life melody. s. h. awad: experiencing change: rhythms of everyday life between continuities and disruptions. qualitative studies: 6(2), pp. 85-107 ©2021 93 in the next sections, i will discuss the domains through which change is experienced. those domains are interrelated, as if change starts in one of them (e.g., illness in the body), it often affects all the other domains to varying degrees (e.g., limiting mobility in space, creating a new sense of time, affecting social relations, providing new mediation resources). it is also through those domains that we can see the interrelation between personal, social, and environmental changes (e.g., illness resulting from a shared pandemic and socio-structural change occurring in response to the illness). these mutual influences will always vary from one person to another. in order to determine which change is a rupture for the person, one has to examine the domains it disrupts the most, and how impactful that disruption is on the other domains. time we are thrown into the world in a specific time, in a particular social and cultural space, at a given moment of human history (heidegger, 1953/1996). our experience of life events is shaped by our perception of time and pace situated within a specific historical time. analytically, time can be considered in relation to two interrelated aspects. the first aspect is our sense of temporality (our experience of existence within time and our relationship with time) relative to an “objective” measure of time (where the length of time, as in an hour or a month, does not change). second, our sense of our life pace relative to the pace of others, an aspect that can be called social pace (e.g., social acceleration, see rosa, 2013), and nature/environmental pace (e.g., environmental degradation). lefebvre conceptualizes time as fluid, non-linear, non-calculable, resistant to abstracting generalizations, and as able of being understood only through the process of being lived (elden, 2004). unlike the static objective measurement of time in the recurrent beats of a clock, time as lived is experienced differently across different moments and across the lifecourse. there are moments where “time flies” and moments where “time stands still” or when one feels “out of time and place.” for a child, a year can be experienced as an eternity when it represents one sixth of a lifetime, while in adulthood one might experience that there is “never enough time.” then time might be experienced as slow again when we age, as we begin to measure time against our anticipated time of departure (arendt, 1971). this sense of temporality throughout the life-course also differs from one generation to another, and from one social context to another. our lives are thus not confined to the linearity of the here-ands. h. awad: experiencing change: rhythms of everyday life between continuities and disruptions. qualitative studies: 6(2), pp. 85-107 © 2021 94 now, but rather are mediated through how we interact with our environment and make meaning of our past, present, and future (zittoun et al., 2013). our sense of time is also measured against our pace and our use of time in relation to different time markers. there are biological time markers (e.g., our heartbeat, our aging skin), there are natural time markers (e.g., day and night), and socially constructed time markers (e.g., the calendar, social expectations). social expectations, as well as our personal ambitions, set expectations regarding what we should do by certain times and how fast we should do it (e.g., have children before the age of 40). we experience our rhythms of living as slow or fast, only in relation to other rhythms (lefebvre, 1992/2004). we compare our life pace with those around us, what they have achieved by a similar age as our own, and in relation to what society expects of us. however, there is less social guidance when it comes to ruptures or socially undesired events. there is no expected set time to when we should get a divorce or when we should expect to lose a child (zittoun et al., 2013). a rupture can slow or speed our personal and social life pace, or can hinder life events from following their anticipated time markers. the covid-19 pandemic is a clear example of a sudden slowdown of our everyday pace, with lockdowns at the societal level impacting the pace of many individual lives, as people navigate new rhythms of living within the confinement of the home. the quarantines, coupled with anxiety and temporal uncertainty, have distorted many people’s perception of psychological time (grondin et al., 2020). the fundamental challenge of trying to capture people’s sense of “time” as such, is that our only means of assessing it analytically resides in people’s subjective apprehension of it through semiotic means such as language and numbers (zittoun et al., 2013). the analytical focus is thus on how people perceive time vis-à-vis “objective” time. it takes conscious effort to try to live only in the present moment, as we continuously travel in time through imagination and remembering, re-living moments or anticipating future moments (zittoun et al., 2013). consider how we live through time when a crisis makes us imagine there is no future, or when we, in spite of that, imagine an eternal life after death waiting for us. remembering the past is also an intentionally interpretative process, as instead of a literal recall of a set time, we cognitively and affectively reconstruct past experiences in light of our present identity and interests within the possibilities and constraints of our current environment (bartlett, 1932; wagoner, 2017). consider how a memory of slow and tiresome months of infant rearing are remembered years later with nostalgia as parents experience their children moving out of the home. consider how certain life episodes are reconstructed as “wasted time” after a rupturing s. h. awad: experiencing change: rhythms of everyday life between continuities and disruptions. qualitative studies: 6(2), pp. 85-107 ©2021 95 divorce. similarly, consider how in a moment of collective victory in a revolution, the past is reconstructed by activists in light of the change achieved in the present, and how future time is imagined as holding limitless possibilities. space “melodies of life unfold in a space of constraints” within a historical and geographical environment (zittoun et al., 2013, p. 339). to speak of the space in which our experiences of change unfold is to speak of a broad conception of space that ranges from our personal/psychological space and our material place (e.g., home, city, environment, nature), to broader social and institutional spaces (e.g., culture and social structures). each offers its own possibilities and constraints for fostering or inhibiting certain feelings, actions, and experiences. with different degrees of control, humans co-produce space (lefebvre, 1991) and influence different spaces of social life, while this space reciprocally mediates and influences people’s melodies. starting with the psychological space, one can look at the life space of a person in a specific time and how it is affected by change. life space is the psychologically perceived field in which the individual perceives and interacts with their environment (lewin, 1943). the life space is a product of the interaction of the individual and their environment, and instability in this life space due to a disruptive change event can lead to the instability of the person. it is through the life space that an individual makes meaning of the constraints in their cognitive, material, and social space. even in the most physically confining of situations, such as that of imprisonment, people can imaginatively construct an adaptable life space by means of psychological mobilization and distancing (awad, 2017). psychological distancing, according to bullough (1912), refers to a person’s subjective separation of the self from the context. this distancing does not imply an impersonal relation to the context, but rather a highly affective personal relationship with the context that requires filtering for the person to adapt to the given situation. changes affecting a person’s place of living can also disrupt different rhythms. the material places we live in do not just serve a practical, everyday function, but they form part of our everyday meaning-making processes. as we inhabit certain “homes,” they come to inhabit our life stories and memories. the cities we live in can also influence our everyday practices and rhythms (de certeau, 1984; lefebvre, 1991) as they foster certain behaviors and s. h. awad: experiencing change: rhythms of everyday life between continuities and disruptions. qualitative studies: 6(2), pp. 85-107 © 2021 96 inhibit others (hayward, 2004). subsequently, the landscapes surrounding us provide an interface between personal memories and experiences, and the historical construction of dominant narratives and collective memories (halbwachs, 1950/1980). a place that is perceived as a secure home can feel like a prison once the person is confined to it, or be turned into a place of absence after loss. these ruptures might trigger the person to seek physical mobility to find a new “home.” a further level of space that influences and constraints people’s experiences of change and that is often beyond people’s direct apprehension is constituted by culture and social structures (zittoun et al., 2013). here, the focus is on cultural meanings, systems of beliefs, social norms, social class, and the structural and institutional settings that define one’s boundaries in the social world. this can also include discourses that position us and acknowledge or deny our ruptures, and how we appropriate those discourses so as to position ourselves as victims or survivors, as agentic or acted upon. transitioning through change is particularly demanding when it comes to physical mobility, where there is a partial or total loss of a person’s physical and social environment. as mobility has become both a sought-after virtue within our globalized world and a new form of social stratification (bauman, 1998), it has impacted individuals’ sense of grounded-ness and connection with place. more so in the case of forced mobility than chosen mobility, the experience of relocation implies the loss of significant parts of the self, as well as the loss of affectively valued place and space of living (zittoun et al., 2013). other than geographical mobility, social mobility between different social classes, social groups, and social milieus can also leave one with a continuous feeling of being “out of place” (as can be seen in the biography of edward said or that of zygmunt bauman), a sense of being a “stranger” (schütz, 1944). body whether a rupture directly affects our physical body or not, our experience of a rupture is always embodied. our bodies do not just exist in space and time, but they inhabit space, forming our embodied existence and our relation to the environment (merleau-ponty, 1945/1962). for lefebvre (1992/2004), the body constitutes the central and first point of analysis, as it represents the site of interaction between biological and social rhythms. he would argue that in order to capture and appreciate external rhythms of everyday living, we must first listen to the body rhythms such as our breathing, sleeping, heartbeat, and muscles, and learn their rhythms. valsiner (2018) would further argue that the body is one of the main arenas of s. h. awad: experiencing change: rhythms of everyday life between continuities and disruptions. qualitative studies: 6(2), pp. 85-107 ©2021 97 the meaning-making process because it lies at the interface between the self and the environment. observing what we do with our body informs how we relate to our environment, and how the environment’s possibilities and constraints shape our experience. even in the seemingly individual and private ways of being in, and presenting, our body (e.g., fashion, sex, headscarves, circumcision, tattoos), we are in negotiation with different social, political, and ideological meanings in our social world. this also involves the way in which we inhabit space, which is learned bodily in a particular social and historical context (young, 2005). one can look at the embodied experience of change by observing how certain rupturing events constraint or enable our bodies. consider how certain trajectories make us celebrate, harm, or be ashamed of our bodies, or even inflict pain on the bodies of others (e.g., sexual abuse, war). we respond to change through intentional and non-intentional changes in body rhythms. we change our sleeping or eating patterns. we try to get a sense of control by regulating our bodies, sometimes metaphorically and physically “running away” from an episode through exercise or letting a change event “weigh” one down and shape their posture and the space they inhabit, sometimes leading to isolation or self-harm. we also regulate our bodies in response to social and environmental conditions. a pandemic makes us reconsider our body’s vulnerabilities and enforces physical distance from the social other. one can also look at the influence of socioeconomic inequalities on our bodies and how we treat it, and for example, the correlation between lifestyle diseases and socioeconomic class. social others we are social beings, and our experiences, no matter how solitary they may seem, are experienced in relation to others—with others in mind, or oriented towards a real or imagined other (zittoun et al., 2013). a rupturing experience often involves a disruption in those social relations that constitute a major part of how we identify ourselves and find acknowledgment. this means that transition will often involve reconstructing certain relationships and adapting to new ones with new norms and patterns. social support also plays a major part in transitioning. through intersubjectivity we are able to understand and share experiences with others even when no two life-courses or experiences are “the same” (zittoun et al., 2013). this opens up opportunities for interpersonal s. h. awad: experiencing change: rhythms of everyday life between continuities and disruptions. qualitative studies: 6(2), pp. 85-107 © 2021 98 support as well as social support at the community level, where spaces for help and solidarity are created (e.g., alcoholics anonymous), and possibilities for collective action and social change are present (e.g., the black lives matter & metoo movements) (awad, 2020). there are also aid groups that emerge in times of sudden social or natural crises. participation in such groups can offer venues for emotional engagement and solidarity through new social identities, and it can offer an increased sense of control and resilience in response to emergencies and disasters (mao et al., 2020). on the cultural level, there are also different rituals that mediate transition through ruptures. transition rituals are cultural processes that facilitate a person’s or a group’s movement out of the ambivalence of a liminal space and the transition into new social positions (turner, 1987; stenner, 2017). those ceremonies and festivals inaugurate a new period or mark the ending of one, and in so doing they affirm the new relationship of the individual to the group, and connect the person’s body with a certain space and with the entire society (lefebvre,1992/2004). evidently, the social other is not only a supportive force in transition, but it can also be a hindering one. social influence shapes what life ruptures are celebrated, tabooed, deemed worthy of attention, or deemed unworthy of acknowledgment and support. adapting to new social others also poses a challenge, when a rupture involves social mobility and new demands to “fit in” within new meaning systems and social norms. for example, consider the impact of sexual harassment on a person who is in a context where the incident is not acknowledged and instead of social support they are faced with stigma and public shaming when they speak out about it. this person might suffer in relating to their own body and seek physical and/or social mobility to move away from stigma, which in turn can pose its own new challenges and ruptures. symbolic resources so far, the experience of change has been discussed through its influence on time, space, the body, and the social other. here, i would like to focus on the symbolic resources we draw on in times of ruptures to make sense of the change and mediate our transition. the basic idea here is that we develop in our sociocultural context by continuously constructing meanings and creating/using signs to mediate our psychological functioning and to symbolically act in our environment (vygotsky, 1978; shweder, 1990; valsiner, 2014). as long as a sense of continuity prevails in everyday life, this process follows the routine, but when ruptures occur s. h. awad: experiencing change: rhythms of everyday life between continuities and disruptions. qualitative studies: 6(2), pp. 85-107 ©2021 99 and our meaning of the life we know is shattered, we are then stimulated to reflect and draw on symbolic resources to mediate and amend the rupture (valsiner, 2003). resources here refer to cultural signs and artifacts (e.g., words, images, music) that we create individually and collectively and use with the intention to act on our own mind as well as on others (gillespie & zittoun, 2010). for example, we produce art and memory objects to express our feelings of loss and nostalgia, and we share those experiences and organize them through language and storytelling. by means of those semiotic mediators we are in a continuous process of mutually changing our environment while also being changed by it (valsiner, 2014), as the affordances of those mediators invite and promote certain interpretations and actions, while inhibiting others (glăveanu, 2016a). methodologically, it is therefore useful to look at symbolic resources that become important as a person goes through a rupturing experience, and how those resources facilitate or inhibit transition. when people experience ruptures, they are likely to look for resources in their environment to facilitate the transition process by either maintaining stability in changing times or by mediating transition processes (zittoun et al., 2013). below i will discuss four relevant symbolic resources; language, art, storytelling, and religion. language is a fundamental symbolic resource by which we make meaning of change and (re)construct our identities and social categories from culturally available subject positions. discourses available to us influence how we make meaning out of change events. we interpret those happenings through the use of language, and if we live in a diagnostic culture, we might for example, interpret our grief after an event of death through pathologies and mental disorders (brinkmann, 2014). we also mediate our rupturing experiences through different forms of art. art such as poetry, music, theatre, and paintings facilitate our movement between reality and imagination, and has the potential to transform the way we understand our fate and place in history (zittoun et al., 2013). art also gives us the means to express unelaborated or ambivalent feelings of pain or uncertainty (zittoun et al., 2013). storytelling as a form of art and as an everyday practice is another symbolic resource. stories help us assimilate change and render strange occurrences “normal” through the construction of a narrative (bruner, 2003). narratives have a strong influence in how we understand and represent ourselves, through the stories we tell and the story templates available to us in the given culture (bruner, 2003). when one’s sense of time and space is disrupted and life events cease to be narratable, the person is confronted with disconnected occurrences that s. h. awad: experiencing change: rhythms of everyday life between continuities and disruptions. qualitative studies: 6(2), pp. 85-107 © 2021 100 do not yet make a coherent meaning—they are “an unbearable sequence of sheer happenings” (arendt, 1973, p. 106). stories convey meaning for those events, they imply intentionality and purposeful unfolding in which the significance of one moment becomes revealed in the next (jackson, 2002). through stories we recover a sense of agency in the face of experiences that make us powerless, they allow us to be agents in changing our experiences of the world by symbolically restructuring it (jackson, 2002). through storytelling individual trajectories are interrelated with the social, as it transforms private meanings into public meanings (arendt, 1958). the politics of storytelling lies in how the private realm is related to the public realm (jackson, 2002), and which stories are given the space and the legitimacy for sharing. stories do not just disclose who we are, but also what we have in common, and what adversities we share. to arendt (1958), storytelling is a mode of purposeful action that simultaneously discloses our subjective uniqueness and our intersubjective connectedness to both others and the environmental forces to which we are all subject. religious beliefs have long presented a further way through which people make sense of adversity and unexpected and uncontrollable events. religious meanings (e.g., fate, karma) provide a way to attribute causes to what happens to us and a venue to accept and adapt to what we cannot control. resorting to bigger meanings beyond our lives and the current conditions can significantly affect how we adapt to difficult conditions, when our only freedom is in choosing the meaning for the suffering we are enduring (frankl, 1946/1959). religious beliefs also provide us with another way of conceptualizing time, space, the body, and imagined futures (e.g., resurrection or the after-life) that may affect how we perceive the magnitude of different ruptures. we do not always have the same access to those different symbolic resources to mediate our meaning-making. imagining beyond the struggles of the here and now and utilizing semiotic resources to re-create coherence in one’s life is not always available to everyone all the time. sometimes we feel we are in too much danger or under too much pressure to adventure beyond what now is (zittoun et al., 2013). ruptures can also leave us with an overwhelming sense of shame or guilt that condemns us to remain silent about our stories. there is also always a limit to how our attempts to symbolically amend a rupture or distance ourselves from it and imagine alternative realities can actually have an impact in the face of disempowering circumstances and structural conditions beyond our control—not to mention the destructive potential of symbolic resources. the same religious books that are used to create meaning in s. h. awad: experiencing change: rhythms of everyday life between continuities and disruptions. qualitative studies: 6(2), pp. 85-107 ©2021 101 the face of adversity, can be used to legitimize the harming of others. we see something similar in the case of narratives. just as a certain way of narrating our experience can allow us to create continuity, narratives can also freeze certain self-meanings or certain traumatic memories, thereby inhibiting reconstruction and making an experience colonize an entire life (zittoun et al., 2013). thus, alongside remembering, forgetting is also an important symbolic resource; it is only through remembering, coupled with forgetting, that we are able to move forward and orient our futures. discussion: transitioning through change across our lifetime, change happens—expectedly and unexpectedly—in the private and in the public realms, and to each of us there are certain changes that become disruptive experiences, ruptures to our melody. in such moments our familiar melody of living ceases to continue with the same pattern, and our personal, social, and environmental rhythms are no longer synchronized. our melodies of living, similar to musical pieces, have their own unique genre and pace that is shaped by each person’s individual attributes. at the core of what constitutes a harmonious melody of living is rhythmic synchronization—it is the change in our lives’ rhythmic movements, its different markers of beginnings, endings, and new beginnings. we would struggle to make meaning out of a melody that has only identical consecutive repetitions, or one that gives us no sense of temporality and plays on forever without end, or one that is too slowly or two quickly paced that it becomes beyond our comprehension. using rhythms in different domains as a lens with which to focus on meaning-making allows us to unfold the agency and constraints in our transition through change. rhythm analyses investigates which micro and macro rhythms are affected by a disruptive change event, which domain it disrupts the most, and how the effect transcends to other domains creating constraints for transition. it also allows us to identify which sphere the change initiated in—be it the personal, social, or environmental sphere—and how it transcended from one sphere to the other, and through which domains. meaning-making as a core element of this analysis shows the subjective way through which those micro and macro rhythms hold different values for us. for every person there are overarching rhythms that hold other rhythms in place, and one could rely on continuity in them when other rhythms are disrupted. if disruption occurs in those valued overarching rhythms, the impact on them transcends quickly into other rhythms and its impact on one’s melody is significant. changes in the social and environmental sphere s. h. awad: experiencing change: rhythms of everyday life between continuities and disruptions. qualitative studies: 6(2), pp. 85-107 © 2021 102 are also subjectively incorporated differently into people’s personal lives. while some of those macro-level changes enforce changes and constraints in the person’s micro rhythms (e.g., the economic impact of a revolution), the way people make meaning out of those changes influences how they incorporate certain changes or deem them irrelevant to their personal sphere (e.g., participating in political debate). our melody is continuously constructed through the meanings we make out of different change events and before-and-after moments. i argue that our melody throughout the lifecourse is shaped by those meanings we make out of moments of change, as well as meanings we make out of times of perceived continuity and stability. however, it is especially in times of change that possibilities for a liminal space open up, when a person can gain distance from oneself and observe their own life from the “balcony,” thereby bringing new meanings to the micro and macro rhythms in their life. rhythms show us the range of changes we experience throughout different stages of life, when we need to go faster or slower in our pace, when we need to do more or less of a given practice, or when change requires physical and psychological mobility. however, this range is not limitless. we need not, and should not, live up to every change, and not every change in our rhythm is sustainable. depending on how we make meaning out of change, we deem some rhythms as either sustainable or not to our wellbeing, and this meaning influences how we react to the change. it is therefore suggested that a model for interpreting disruptive changes should move away from setting adaptation as the only sought-after value. from the perspective of psychology as a political and moral science that mutually influences and is influenced by our social worlds, we need to look not only at how we adapt (as in accept and assimilate) to changes in our environment, but also how we are agents in resisting and/or influencing certain changes. in a time where flexibility, mobility, and resilience are sought-after values, and when time, space, and rhythms are turned into commodities (lefebvre, 1992/2004), we should reflect on which rhythms promote or constrain psychological, social, and environmental sustainability. this perspective is pursued by setting meaning-making as the core interpretive and moral dimension of the response to change. as demanding as it is to seek after meaning in times of disruptive changes and search for meaning beyond our individual worlds in connection with others and the environment, it is this meaning that determines our moral position in the society. it is not only the outcome of the meaning-making process that determines how we deal with change, but also the pursuit itself that gives value to a meaningful life. if humans were to “lose the appetite for meaning” and “cease to ask unanswerable questions, they would lose not s. h. awad: experiencing change: rhythms of everyday life between continuities and disruptions. qualitative studies: 6(2), pp. 85-107 ©2021 103 only the ability to produce those thought-things that we call works of art but also the capacity to ask all the answerable questions upon which every civilization is founded” (arendt, 1971, p. 62). in line with this, disruptive changes can sometimes be moments that open up venues for meta-reflections on the person and society, rather than experiences that need to be rapidly “overcome.” in those moments, the realms of the personal, social, and environmental can connect, and we see the impact of our meanings and actions on the different rhythms and the impact of those rhythms on us. in these moments, our experiences of uncertainties may bring us to other people’s experiences in different times and places, and make us see what we have in common and what makes us human. thus, in addition to the pursuit of meaning as a core process for dealing with ruptures, one can also consider how our response to change involves a moral evaluation whereby we intentionally position our melody in relation to those of others. the moral outcome of this evaluation lies in the person finding meaning beyond their own personal worlds and interests, and in the person seeking action to either adapt or resist the change in relation to broader social and environmental senses of well-being and sustainability within the constraints of the environment and power structures. rhythm analysis shows clearly how micro-rhythms and macro-rhythms are interdependent and how change in rhythms in one domain transcends to others within the person and across the personal and public spheres. we do not live alone. it is not only an illusion to think we are in full control of our lives, whether in good 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(2013). human development in the life course: melodies of living. cambridge university press. about the author sarah h. awad is assistant professor in general psychology at aalborg university, denmark. she received her phd in cultural psychology from aalborg university and her m.sc. in social and cultural psychology from london school of economics and political science. in her research, she explores the processes by which individuals develop through times of life ruptures and social change using art and storytelling. she has also a special interest in visual methods and the analysis of urban images and their influence on identity, collective memory and politics within a society. williams negotiating languages of suffering in northern uganda.pdf qualitative studies vol. 6, no. 1, 2021, pp. 158-179 issn 1903-7031 negotiating languages of suffering in northern uganda lars hedegaard williams1 1 london school of economics and political science, firoz lalji centre for africa, houghton street wc2a london uk drawing on ethnographic fieldwork in northern uganda, i argue that psychiatric notions of suffering brought into the region by humanitarian intervention programs interact with local concepts of suffering (based in spirit-idioms) in two ways: in some cases, the diagnostic notion of ptsd and its vernacular counterpart “trauma” psychologize the local cosmology, transforming local spirit concepts from social or moral categories, to psychological ones. in other cases, psychiatric discourses hinged around “trauma” become spiritualized or enchanted, where the concept of trauma becomes usurped by and part of local cosmology. in an attempt to understand these processes, i suggest understanding concepts of suffering through their use in social practice and based on pragmatist epistemology. if viewed as a pragmatist concepts, i argue, it becomes possible to understand the social life of concepts of suffering (such as “trauma”) when they become globalized and negotiated in new contexts and social practices. keywords: trauma, pragmatism, suffering, psychologization, enchantment, psychiatry. introduction psychological trauma therapy is being deployed around the world by ngos and through humanitarian intervention programs on a very large scale. it has been discussed at length in the anthropological literature whether notions of suffering from the global north articulated in psychological and psychotherapeutic terms can be successfully implemented in cultural contexts with different notions of suffering and healing (hinton & good, 2016; broch-due & bertelsen, 2016; hinton & hinton, 2015; hinton & lewis-fernández, 2011). critics have argued that the diagnostic language from the global north has developed out of specific cultural and historical circumstances and therefore is not necessarily suitable for cross-cultural understanding and treatment (summerfield, 1997; bracken, 1998; 2002; torre 2019) and that it constitutes forms of therapeutic governance over the developing world by the global north (enomoto, 2011; pupavac, 2004; 2006). these critiques have highlighted the inherent ethnocentrism in much of the diagnostic vocabulary and thinking and have contributed to an ongoing critical debate on cross-cultural psychiatric practices. nevertheless, many of these l. williams negotiating languages of suffering in northern uganda qualitative studies 6(1), pp. 158-179 ©2021 159 critiques of the globalization of the trauma discourse, fruitful as many of them have been, build on assumptions of an unbridgeable gap between ‘western culture’ equated with modernity and nonwestern cultures viewed as traditional (bubandt, 2008). an alternative way to understand culture, tradition and modernity, which is widespread in the social sciences today, is that of a global space of flows, where we all partake in a globalized and ever-changing cultural landscape from different perspectives or entry points (tsing, 2012; eriksen, 2010; 2014; bubandt et al., 2007). holding this more processual framework of culture and globalization as a backdrop, the relevant questions regarding the application of psychological and psychiatric concepts in describing suffering, become less of the kind questioning as ‘is this concept (e.g. “trauma”) compatible with local culture?’ and more along these lines of ‘what kind of life does the concept (e.g. “trauma”) take on within local culture?’ a handful of studies have examined the spread of trauma discourses in this way. nils bubandt (2008; 2012; 2015) has examined how the globalized discourse of trauma in indonesia became intertwined with local idioms of witchcraft along with the image of the vampire dracula into new forms of ‘traumatized spirits’. erica caple james (2004; 2010; 2012) has examined how discourses of trauma in haiti become the hinges around which ‘occult economies’ pivot and thus create new forms of political subjectivity. sharon abramowitz (2009; 2010) has shown how specific culture-bound disorders becomes transformed into local idioms of trauma, thus collapsing a local cosmological entity into a ‘‘pidgin psychiatry’’ (2010, 376) that fits within humanitarian epistemologies. other current studies of trauma discourse and psychotherapeutic interventions are also beginning to move towards examining the pragmatics and social lives of trauma discourses (behrouzan, 2018; broch-due & bertelsen, 2016; argenti, 2016). this article walks along the same path as these studies particularly following bubandt, (2012, 2008), abramowitz (2009; 2010) and brinkmann and colleagues (brinkmann, 2016; 2014; kirkegaard & brinkmann, 2015)1 in examining what kind of social life discourses of trauma take on in the vernacular, and contributes by exploring two different processes by which the diagnostic language of suffering – and in this case with a particular focus on post-traumatic stress disorder (ptsd) and its more vernacular counterpart “trauma” enters local worlds in northern uganda after the end of the recent armed conflict. i argue that the introduction of a diagnostic language to describe suffering related to war and violence, despite being ubiquitous and dominating, does not replace nor exclude local 1 in reference here to brinkmann and colleagues i follow in this path analytically, not regarding the empirical object of study. with bubandt (2012, 2008), abramowitz (2010, 2009) and the other anthropologists, i mean in regard to both empirical object and methods of analysis. l. williams: negotiating languages of suffering in northern uganda qualitative studies 6(1), pp. 158-179 ©2021 160 cosmological understandings of violence-related suffering, but merges with these in different ways. at least two observable processes take place in this encounter. first, in some cases the introduction of trauma discourses psychologize local cosmology, so spirit concepts, which would usually refer to social or moral categories, have come to refer to psychological ones, and traditional cleansing rituals become viewed as a kind of psychotherapy. secondly, in other cases, discourses of trauma themselves become spiritualized or enchanted, where the concept of trauma has been usurped by, and become part of, local cosmology. these processes can be viewed as a continuous negotiation of, what cultural psychologist svend brinkmann (2014) calls, languages of suffering. i arrive at these conclusions by way of an analysis building from a pragmatist approach to psychiatric concepts and discourse focusing on what people do with specific concepts (such as “trauma”) (kirkegaard & brinkmann, 2015; brinkmann, 2012; abramowitz, 2010; bubandt, 2008) finally, i point towards some epistemological issues connected to the debates on cross-cultural studies of trauma, and suggest a concept of trauma, which builds on pragmatist epistemology, along the lines suggested by brinkmann (2014). through this examination and discussion, i seek to contribute to debates on what happens to discourses of suffering when they are exported from one cultural context to another though the practices of humanitarian intervention programs. methodology the empirical material is based on eleven months of fieldwork conducted between 2016 and 2019. during my first longer trip in 2016, i conducted interviews with psychologists, local counselors and employees of four different ngos working with mental health and psychosocial programs in northern uganda. the work of the respective ngos differs somewhat in practice, but all of them are dealing with psychosocial and mental health issues connected with the consequences of the war, and all have western diagnostic discourses of trauma as central to their work. eventually, my focus narrowed to two particular ngos working specifically with psychotherapy for post-traumatic stress disorder (ptsd). i chose these particular ngos for both reasons of their particular approach to psychotherapeutic intervention and because of access: my main interest was to study an ngo that worked specifically with psychotherapeutic intervention for ptsd, more than others who worked more broadly with “psycho-social support” programs. i also had better access to these particular ngos, because i had made an initial agreement with the leading clinician from one of them that i would be allowed to follow their program over several months, do observations and interview the staff. the other ngo, i gained access to through my field assistant, a young ugandan woman whom l. williams negotiating languages of suffering in northern uganda qualitative studies 6(1), pp. 158-179 ©2021 161 i had been working with for several years and who used to work for the second ngo. the staff of the first ngo were partially europeans who were there for short time periods of time as part of their training in clinical psychology and research, and partially acholi counselors who conducted the therapeutic sessions. along the way, i became acquainted with the european junior staff, with whom i continually met with outside their office spaces and talked to about their work. i followed their work closely for a duration of several months. i interviewed the ugandan counselors about their training at the ngo and the way they conducted their psychotherapeutic counseling; afterwards i conducted several follow-up interviews with them over the next few months. during this period, i focused mainly on one group of counselors, four women and one man, with whom i spent most of my time. i conducted three formal interview rounds with each of the counselors, and additionally, two rounds of group interviews with all of them present, besides many informal conversations with them and participant observations at the ngo headquarters. all interviews were conducted in english, since everyone was fluent in it. we did, however, often discuss translations of english terms into the local acholi language and back, and we often reflected together on epistemological issues arising around these translations. these conversations could be viewed as a process of validity for my understanding of the use and meaning of local concepts. i was also allowed by the senior psychologist at the first ngo to sit in on a series of supervision meetings, where the counselors would present their therapeutic cases to the senior psychologist and receive supervision and guidance on how to understand and deal with the specificities of the cases. the second ngo i focused on, was mainly in the latter fieldtrips, where i had established contact through my field assistant and through ‘snowballing’ the co-worker of my first contacts. during my work with the second ngo my field assistant would help me significantly in many and lengthy discussions about her own training with the ngo and how she and her co-workers had learned to think with and use psychiatric concepts, mainly “trauma”. this became a second process of validating my understanding of the meaning and use of local concepts. on later fieldtrips in 2017, 2018 and 2019 i would return to some of the ngo employees from both ngos for more informal conversation about their work. i still stay in contact with few of them over social media. as i had different agreements with the various organizations about procedures to preserve anonymity, i have decided to keep them all equally anonymous. i have generated the material for the present article over several years and many fieldtrips, however, there are clear limitations to this study. the most serious of these is that it was not possible for me during my fieldwork to interview the counselors’ clients and how they would utilize concepts of “trauma”. therefore, i could only gain access to the clients’ perspectives through conversation with the l. williams: negotiating languages of suffering in northern uganda qualitative studies 6(1), pp. 158-179 ©2021 162 counselors and other staff at the ngo. this weakens the discussion somewhat, since the client’s perspectives on psychotherapeutic practices aimed at them are of key importance to the empirical and analytical context. however, it does not weaken the overall argument, since the argument is not centered around the efficiency of the trauma intervention, but on the social life of the concepts and practices that are at the core of these interventions. i also interviewed local community members about the practices of the ngos psychotherapeutic interventions, along with specific local community members who have been particularly engaged with the ngos in various ways, for example as counselors, or with religious clergy who have collaborated with ngos on various kinds of psychotherapeutic interventions or projects. for prolonged periods between 2015 and 2018, i lived with a family in a rural area where several family members had in the past worked for another ngo. during this period, i did 18 additional interviews on the topic of psychotherapeutic counseling and causes of mental disorder as related to spirits and/or trauma. ethical approval for my research was obtained through gulu university and through the uganda national counsel for science and technology, where i did a protocol presentation in front of the board of representatives before, in 2016, receiving my official ethical clearance for my research. the lra war, haunting spirits and psychotherapeutic intervention in northern uganda the acholi people of northern uganda have seen several decades of war and extreme violence. during the conflict in the 1990’s nearly the entire population was displaced to camps for internally displaced persons (idp camps) by the government ‘to protect them’ from the rebel group lord’s resistance army (lra), which fought the government from the mid-1980s to 2006. besides killings, mutilations and abductions by the rebel group, the population also suffered atrocities at the hands of the government to an extent where scholars have described life in the camps as ‘social torture’ (dolan, 2008). the rebels abducted tens of thousands of children and youth to serve as fighters and ‘wives’ to the commanders (allen & vlassenroot, 2010; dolan, 2008). the atrocities committed over several decades have been devastating, and though the guns fell silent more than ten years ago the region is still dealing with high rates of poverty, alcoholism and suicide (kizza, et al. 2012). psychological therapy, locally known as ‘counseling,’ was brought into the region by foreign ngos in the 1990s l. williams negotiating languages of suffering in northern uganda qualitative studies 6(1), pp. 158-179 ©2021 163 with the hiv/aids programs, where it emerged in relation to hiv/aids diagnostics2. during the late 1990s, the acholi region saw the dawn of reception centers to take care of the returnees from the bush (verma, 2012; allen & schomerus, 2006). here, psychological therapy became a standard process and several of the reception centers worked together with ngos who could extend the offer of psychotherapy beyond the time that the returnees would spend at the reception centers. since then, many ngos have come along to treat and to measure the repercussions of war with the instruments of western psychology. as lawrence kirmayer writes in the introduction to a current volume on cross-cultural studies of ptsd (hinton & good, 2016). “stress and trauma have become globalized languages of suffering and healing, and the construct of ptsd is at the center of this discourse,”. this surely goes for northern uganda as well. one study from 2006 found the highest concentration of depression and ptsd measured in a post-conflict area in northern uganda (roberts et al., 2008). within the population tested, these studies found depression scores of 67% and ptsd scores of 54% measured with the hopkins symptom checklist-25 and the harvard trauma questionnaire. another study from 2012 found that there were still 25 different ngos working in the acholi region dealing specifically with trauma therapy six years after the end of the war (meinert & whyte, 2020). thus, northern uganda seems at first glance to have become part and parcel of an ever expanding ‘empire of trauma’ (fassin & rechtman, 2009)3. however, the people of acholiland, like everywhere else, have their own conceptions of war-related disorders, which predate the introduction of the psychiatric and diagnostic discourses. in traditional acholi cosmology, the idea of spiritual pollution or possession connected to ‘bad’ or immoral death is known as cen. cen is acquired by e.g. killing another person or by being in areas where people have been killed or where dead bodies have been treated in an incorrect manner (victor & porter, 2017; finnström, 2003). symptoms of cen can cover experiences of nightmares, changes of personality, loss of memory, heightened aggression, uncontrolled emotions and visions of the dead. thus, foreign researchers and ngo-workers often understand the symptoms of cen as the expression of traumatic experiences connected to the years of war and violence (victor & porter, 2016). however, within recent years, the interpretation of these symptoms have by many locals also become connected to the diagnostic languages of suffering from the global north. 2 there where of course traditional ways of counseling in acholi predating the introduction of western psychological therapy (harlacher, 2009; p’bitek, 1971). 3 for an elaborated critique of the notion of “empire of trauma” specifically related to northern uganda, see meinert & whyte, 2020 and williams & meinert, 2021. l. williams: negotiating languages of suffering in northern uganda qualitative studies 6(1), pp. 158-179 ©2021 164 psychologizing the spirit world as mentioned above, humanitarian aid and development agents poured into the acholi-region during the 1990s en masse. in the process of arranging trauma relief programs, local concepts in acholi where scrutinized for the equivalence of the english ‘trauma’ and its diagnostic specification posttraumatic stress disorder (ptsd). there is no word in acholi that directly corresponds to the english (diagnostic or lay use of) ‘trauma’, but local concepts like ajiji (intense fear or stress), tam ma dwong (over-thinking) or wiye obale (loss of senses or ‘broken mind’) were tried out for size (meinert & whyte, 2020; victor & porter, 2016; harlacher, 2009). in this process, the concept of cen – the idea of vengeful spirits of the dead returning to claim justice – became an often used translation for trauma, because signs or symptoms of cen would roughly correspond to those of ptsd4, and for many foreigners cen became equivalent to a local idiom of trauma5. the logic applied by the ngos working with psychotherapy is that trauma or ptsd is the actual underlying entity, and ‘cen’ (or whichever local concept is used) is simply a local word for that real, underlying entity. a consequence of this is a psychologization of the local concepts used, and thus a psychologizing of the spirit world in this context. the concept of psychologization refers to something becoming psychological, understood in light of psychological concepts and theories or confined to the realm of the intra-personal, emotional, and thus (often) a de-politicized and de-moralized sphere. (de vos, 2012; madsen & brinkmann, 2010). psychologization has been widely described in the realm of the western hemisphere over the course of the 20th century (de vos, 2013; kofod, 2017)6, but has first recently been applied to analysis of humanitarian intervention in non-western countries (de vos, 2011; fassin, 2008; pupavac, 2004; 2016). as a core example of how local acholi concepts and rituals have been psychologized is the case of cen, the vengeful spirits of the dead, as it is understood by employees of one of the ngos i followed, who engage in a broad spectrum of work considered as mental health intervention. part of the service the ngo provides as psychosocial support is the arranging and financing of cleansing rituals to help the community with problems connected to cen. the process works as such, that when community members experience a problem with cen, e.g. when certain areas where massacres have taken place become haunted or cause people to become ill, they will turn to 4 the question of whether symptoms of cen and ptsd are equivalent to each other is complicated for a series of reasons, the most present being one of classification: where ptsd is presented in the dsm diagnostic manual as a monothetic category, where certain criteria must be met before a phenomenon qualifies for the category; cen, on the other hand, can be said to be a polythetic class, characterized by family resemblance. 5 see e.g. neuner et al., 2012; van duijn et al. 2010; harlacher, 2009. 6 these debates originated from narrow academic circles around german philosophers frege and husserl, and their critiques of the psychologization of logic and epistemology in the writings of e.g. john stuart mill (de vos, 2011). l. williams negotiating languages of suffering in northern uganda qualitative studies 6(1), pp. 158-179 ©2021 165 their local and cultural leaders for help. the community members will ask for a cleansing to be done of the area, hereafter the cultural leaders will turn to the ngo for help with arranging and financing the event7. the ngos would then sponsor the expenses of the cleansing ritual, which are often very expensive in e.g. animals for sacrifice, salary for the ritual leaders, etc. and would during the same event offer psychological counseling. when interviewed on the issues, several people from the ngo, as well as a local psychiatrist working with the ngo, expressed their understanding of the cleansing ritual as a local form of psychological therapy. another local employee, who has worked many years for one of the ngos doing the cleansing rituals, explains that the idea of cen has changed over time along with the psychotherapeutic interventions: traditionally people feared certain areas that were connected to the spirits, like the streams, certain forests, large mountains, under very big trees. these places where traditionally seen as places the bad spirits would go to, when they are chased away from people who suffer from their presence. today many people will see this as old fashioned. today, when we deal with the places where atrocities have taken place, like the massacre in lukodi for example, where people are bothered by … hmm, demonic kinds of things that appear here, then people don’t talk about it in the same way. today we know that science can explain this, and that it is connected to trauma from the war. that it creates trauma inside you, when you experience atrocities (ngo employee, northern uganda, 2017). this kind of explanation, expressing an urge to understand the world in “modern” and scientific, an essentially psychologized terms, is widespread today, particularly in more urban centers and among younger people. this understanding of how the spirit world of cen has changed during times of mental health interventions is a process where spirits as social or moral categories have to a certain degree become psychologized through diagnostic discourse. it is important to underscore, that it is not all of acholi cosmology, which has been recast in psychological categories, and it is perhaps mainly an expression among certain groups. however, a psychologized way of using concepts like cen, as referring to emotional disturbances and suffering connected to experiences of violence rather than 7 ngos sponsoring rituals in northern uganda is more commonly known from the reconciliation ritual mato oput, where the clan of a killer and the clan of the victim are brought together for reconciliation (allen, 2008). l. williams: negotiating languages of suffering in northern uganda qualitative studies 6(1), pp. 158-179 ©2021 166 to social dynamics or moral trespass has nevertheless become common, not only by the foreign ngo-workers who deal with cleansing rituals as trauma therapy, but also by the local staff and the people who are the beneficiaries of these services. as historian of science, roger smith (1997, 577), wrote in his volume on the human sciences, the twentieth century was a time when “everyone learned to be a psychologist […] able and willing to describe life in psychological terms”. smith was here mainly referring to the northern hemisphere, but it seems that this trend has spread much broader today. the vernacularization of trauma the logic of psychosocial interventions concerning trauma, however, did not arrive and live on in acholiland as a purely global imaginary, psychologizing the local cosmology as its only effect. rather, psychosocial technologies and practices have also – simultaneously with the psychologization of cosmological notions become vernacularized by the local staff employed by ngos and by psychologists and health workers who tried to make the psychosocial logic more intelligible to the local population, along with reference to and ‘piggybacking’ on, earlier health interventions such as hiv/aids counseling. one of my key informants explained how his first encounter with the concept of trauma, was when he would work for an ngo who would deal with hiv/aids patients. here he learned that getting an hiv-diagnosis “could cause trauma in people” and this could render the patients “in need of trauma counseling”. during the 1990’s, trauma counseling became connected to other events, as the ngos bringing psychological trauma therapy settled in the idp camps that were spread around northern uganda as a consequence of the armed conflict. here it became known, that “trauma is what happened to you in the bush” or “when you have experienced atrocities” as people would often say. in the reception centers, returnees from the rebel groups would often receive psychological counseling and learn that many of them were “traumatized child soldiers” (verma, 2012; allen & schomerus, 2006), a category intimately connected to globalized ideas of a diagnostic discourse in humanitarian intervention programs. many ngos who dealt with trauma counseling, worked with the reception centers and would do psychotherapy with the returnees afterwards in a variety of ways, and would also deal with local understandings of repercussions of war – as e.g. cen or spiritual curse (kiir) – in very different ways. some ngos would, as in the case above, actively engage with the spirit world by supporting and financing cleansing rituals, while others would actively dissuade their clients from beliefs in witchcraft e.g. through practices of psychoeducation (williams, 2020). l. williams negotiating languages of suffering in northern uganda qualitative studies 6(1), pp. 158-179 ©2021 167 interestingly enough some of the cases where the ngos put more emphasis on dissuading people from traditional beliefs, were also cases where ideas of trauma and practices of psychological counseling would merge with practice and ideas of spirits and demons. another ngo, which i followed for a longer duration of time, would take dna samples at the beginning of every therapy session by either hair or saliva samples. this was done to search for correlations between dna material and the development of ptsd. it nevertheless had the side effect of clients thinking their counselors where witches or demonic creatures (lute pii8), who would take these bio-samples for purposes of witchcraft. as one of the psychological counselors told me: we keep explaining that we are not the lute pii [evil spirits]. many understand, but there are still ones who keep thinking ‘arh, these foreigners, they are the lute pii [evil spirits] also, often people will nod and show they understand it when we tell them that we are not these evil creatures, but then when you walk away, you can still hear them talk about, if it is possible that we could be working with the evil spirits. as countless anthropological studies show, removing something from the body by someone who has authority to heal (and therefor also to make ill) is intimately connected to practices of witchcraft (meyer & pels, 2003; geschiere, 1997; evans-pritchard, 1937). hair-samples, but also other things that have been in contact with the body, like pieces of clothing or bodily fluids, are classic examples of objects, which can be used for both treatment and for witchcraft. when therapy sessions begin by counselors taking hair or saliva samples from the clients, this is perceived suspiciously as behavior connected to witchcraft. the counselors explained that they (the counselors) would say it was for research purposes, but that especially the removing of hair “was too strange for people”. for a while the european ngo workers were also known to be “white witches” in one area where they worked with psychological counseling. as one ngo worker told me: “they called us white witches in that area for a while. they thought we did witchcraft or something like that. people were quite upset and angry for some time. there was also a very angry facebook discussion about it, i remember. but we were there to help them, you know”. 8 the lute pii are believed to be a type of evil, underwater spirit, to whom one can go, if one is willing to make an immoral trade, e.g., “selling a family member to the demons in trade of riches” as one person told me. in these immoral trades, something from the person being sold is needed, e.g. a bio-sample such as hair or a piece of their clothes. l. williams: negotiating languages of suffering in northern uganda qualitative studies 6(1), pp. 158-179 ©2021 168 these examples of different local understandings show how a new and powerful language of suffering, the diagnostic one of trauma from the global north and the practices around “trauma”, does not simply replace or erode local ideas of witchcraft and spirits. it merges with local ideas into new forms, into new ways of perceiving illness and distress. bubandt (2008, 294) writes on discourses of trauma and witchcraft in indonesia, that mental health interventions “allow trauma to become a new kind of magic for old problems”. this could also be argued in northern uganda, where trauma and spirits in unison create new understandings and ways to articulate suffering. as one informant told me: “it is difficult for people who suffer after the war, it is a problem of both spirits and trauma. but maybe the cure is that they receive medicine for the trauma, and prayers against the bad spirits”. the plasticity of the concept of “trauma” and how it merges with local idioms of distress is also echoed in many rural areas, where pentecostal churches are abundant beyond measure. within these small church groups, ideas of trauma and its connection to possession by demons or bad spirits is widely known and acknowledged. here ‘trauma’ is the disordered state, which people may live in if god has cursed them for serious moral trespass, e.g., killing another person, or the more unfortunate situation of madness or diffuse mental illness caused by the devil or demons for no apparent moral reason other than misfortune. in this more diffuse and less causal sense, trauma also sometimes denotes a sort of haunting which usually is connected to the violent years of war, but also can be oriented towards the uncertainties of the future (williams & meinert, 2017; 2021). as one of my informants, who is a farmer in a rural area, would say: “when you can see your neighbors developing, becoming successful, and you are still stuck in poverty, using your hand-hoe in the fields, and your neighbor has a tractor – that causes trauma in you”. in these versions, trauma is not necessarily a demoralized, psychologized or even intra-personal phenomenon, as much as it is a spiritualized, demonic or ethical one, pointing towards moral trespass, spiritual interference, jealousy and social insecurity. negotiating languages of suffering in northern uganda and beyond since the 1990s, trends in humanitarian intervention have moved toward an increased focus on psychological trauma and have increasingly psychologized the effects of war on a global scale (pedersen & kienzler, 2012; de vos, 2012; pupavac, 2004). in this way, the phenomena that humanitarian interventions focus on also increasingly overlap with and become connected to phenomena that would traditionally adhere to the spirit world and witchcraft (james, 2010; 2012; l. williams negotiating languages of suffering in northern uganda qualitative studies 6(1), pp. 158-179 ©2021 169 mogensen & whyte, 2004). this is furthermore enabled by the often-similar strains of logic reigning in realms of the psychotherapeutic notions of trauma and that of witchcraft, as bubandt (2008, 294) writes: there are clear parallels between the social morality inherent in witchcraft and the morality of theories of traumatic memory that seek to represent an existing pathology as being caused by hidden (i.e., repressed or forgotten) acts of evil that took place in the past. these entanglements call for examination and debate. however, much of the debate around the applicability of, e.g., western psychological concepts outside the imagined realm of the global north, have hinged on premises of both a highly debated and criticized tradition/modernity distinction (mentioned early in this paper) and an epistemology of correspondence inherent in much of western philosophical and scientific though (brinkmann & tanggard, 2010)9. in this final section, i will argue that these epistemological issues concerning psychological and psychiatric categories are as relevant as ever in cases where the diagnostic language of clinical psychology is being exported out to all corners of the world and meeting and merging with local spirit-concepts on its way. the starting point for this claim is, like i have shown above, that the concepts of trauma is not simply introduced in northern uganda as a ‘cosmological misfit’ (abramovich, 2010) or as a replacement of traditional cosmological elements. instead, ‘trauma’ takes on a series of new meanings in different contexts. as a rough overview, trauma in northern uganda can refer to at least the following: (1) it can be used interchangeably with ptsd in the diagnostic sense as used in current dsm-manuals; (2) it can refer to a state of disorder that the spirits have brought onto someone for moral reasons, e.g., in the case of cen; (3) as the disordered state that demons or the devil can bring down on someone as a case of misfortune or moral trespass (mainly in pentecostal christian contexts); (4) sometimes as an illnessphase on a continuum ranging from mentally healthy, over disordered states of ‘pre-madness’, which are referred to as ‘trauma’, to finally a state of full-blown madness, from which people will never return and which is surpassed only by death; and finally, (5) as a more diffuse, broader concept signifying that ‘something is not right’ in sort of a haunted way10, but without pointing directly to the cause, e.g., when people talk of someone as a ‘trauma person’ or as when people say that ‘competition 9 there are nevertheless many exceptions to this conception e.g. good et al. discussion of ptsd as a ‘good enough’ concept (2016) or finley (2015) of how ptsd is negotiated within the american military which are both examples of pragmatic debates on these practices. 10 see williams & meinert, 2021. l. williams: negotiating languages of suffering in northern uganda qualitative studies 6(1), pp. 158-179 ©2021 170 between neighbors can cause trauma’11 thus expressing or encompassing negative emotions such as envy or frustration. these empirical observations beckon epistemological considerations of what kind of epistemic life discourses of trauma take on in the vernacular. since trauma has a longer array of meanings depending on contexts and actors present, i will argue that ‘trauma’ as it is used in social practice, cannot sufficiently be understood on basis of a correspondence theory of truth, which is what lies at the heart of the concept in its diagnostic sense (bracken, 2002; young, 1997; williams & meinert, 2017) and which many of these current debates on deployment of trauma-intervention orbit around (broch-due & bertelsen, 2016; breslau, 2004; pupavac, 2004). trauma as a utilized concept within social practices in northern uganda (and possibly elsewhere) does not (always) refer to a thing in the world, or as an active entity that lies behind events12. instead, it can be more constructively understood as a pragmatic concept of suffering, one that people use to transform, engage with, and cope with the world. this type of epistemology, i will argue, can more fruitfully account for the social life of the concept in post-conflict settings. the difference between these epistemologies has been debated in many corners of intellectual life, but probably most forceful by american pragmatists like john dewey and william james (dewey, 1922, 1925; menand, 1997; james, 1909), and in a european context in wittgenstein’s later philosophy (wittgenstein, 1966, 1953). more recently, scholars debating classification and epistemology within psychology and psychiatry has taken up these currents of though. cultural psychologist svend brinkmann has analyzed psychological categories such as ‘grief’, ‘stress’, ‘attention deficit hyperactivity disorder’ (adha) (2014a; 2014b; 2016a; 2016b; brinkmann & kofod, 2017) as well as more general psychological phenomenon like guilt (brinkmann, 2010) and shame (madsen & brinkmann, 2012) through a pragmatist epistemology. in anthropology susan whyte’s scholarship, and that of her colleagues and students, expresses this tradition of analysis (whyte, 1997; meinert & whyte, 2017, 2020) the purpose here is to steer a course between essentialist and (radical) social constructionist conceptions of mental disorder, while focusing on what lives certain psychological categories enable people to live or what possibilities they serve. brinkmann (2014) argues that this approach permits us to understand, not simply what diagnosis refer to, but what people do with their 11 these different uses of trauma interestingly enough roughly mirror what abramowitz (2009) has found in a similar study in liberia. 12 this does not mean that ‘trauma’ is not sometimes used in this corresponding way as in certain clinical use. the point here is that the way it is used varies depending on context and actors involved. l. williams negotiating languages of suffering in northern uganda qualitative studies 6(1), pp. 158-179 ©2021 171 diagnosis – how they do suffering what possibilities become open to them and which they shut down (brinkmann, 2014a; 2014b; kirkegaard & brinkmann, 2015). the concept of ‘trauma’ has hardly been studied explicitly through this epistemological lens, even though the analysis of some scholars lie close to this approach, for example abramowitz’ (2010; 2009) discussion of how local spiritidioms (such as ‘open mole’) become a local expression of the diagnostic ‘trauma’ in liberia13. similarly, to what abramowitz (2010; 2009) has shown, cen has also created a space for the deployment of psychiatric classifications systems in acholi vocabulary and local worlds. this happens when cen and trauma are conflated simply as a translation of each other. abramowitz calls this a ‘lexical switching point’, an intersection where communication and ways of understanding suffering become translatable. however, this idea of ‘translation’ hinges on the before mentioned correspondence theory of truth, where concepts in language have mirror images in the world and in other languages. what this understanding hides is the pragmatic and everyday-transformation that concepts and understandings undergo within social practice, that they are being transformed while translated and communicated. therefore to understand what people do with concepts of suffering, and how they do suffering, these very concepts, i propose, must be understood, as menand (2002, xi) proposes, as “tools—like forks and knives and microchips—that people devise to cope with the world in which they find themselves”. examining trauma as a pragmatist concept of suffering and as a lived part of specific social practices becomes no less relevant, i argue, in cases of psychological interventions in postconflict settings. in fact, these settings add to the complexity of conceptualizing suffering because of the many different horizons of interpretation available, e.g., the realm of the local spirits, christianity, islam, clinical-diagnostic languages and the endless ways in which all of these can mix. understanding ‘trauma’ as a pragmatic conception in social practice will better enable us to understand discourses of suffering as something connected to specific practices where certain things are done, e.g., when cleansing rituals are arranged in certain ways by ngos to handle trauma and haunting spirits, the doing of trauma and suffering becomes part of a process of psychologizing a traditional acholi ritual. or when languages of suffering hinged around trauma and ptsd become the frame and justifications for taking dna samples and conducting psychotherapy in certain ways, then the concept of trauma frames these processes of enchanting or spiritualizing the psychotherapeutic encounter. similarly, james (2004) has shown how traumatic experience and narratives of war become assembled into ‘trauma portfolios’ in haiti, were ‘trauma’ becomes a 13 see also behrouzan (2016) for a similar argument concerning depression in iran. l. williams: negotiating languages of suffering in northern uganda qualitative studies 6(1), pp. 158-179 ©2021 172 currency by which one can trade security and assistance. she writes on the ‘trauma portfolio’ that it “may become a symbolic index of worth or one’s holdings, as well as a material representation of one’s victim identity.” (james, 2004, 132). security, resources and identity are at stake in the ‘political economy of trauma’ (james, 2004) and james asks us to consider the cost when we use such portfolios to understand human suffering in the light of pathology instead of for example as political struggles. a pragmatist conception of trauma thus entails a criticism of purely cognitivist or purely social constructivist conceptions of mental disorder. where the cognitivist conception of trauma would hold that there are underlying etiologies of mental disorders, which simply sometimes shows up as specific cultural manifestations, the purely social constructivist conception would view the introduction of western discourses of trauma as pathologizing, as social control or expressions of biopower. both of these current conceptions fail to grasp the agency that people in the vernacular show in doing things with the discourses of trauma, the processes of psychologization as well as spiritualization or enchantment. it is this doing of suffering and trauma, which i argue must be the focus, if we wish to understand the introduction of new languages of suffering in post-conflict societies. possible implications of a pragmatist epistemology of trauma for psychotherapeutic interventions if we take this pragmatist epistemology serious when conceptualizing suffering in cross-cultural contexts, what does that mean for intervention programs focusing on trauma? according to argenti (2016: 245), there is a risk when applying a medicalized language of suffering that these theoretical complexes become “theories of atomization.”: clients are singled out not only as suffering, but as “isolated from his or her social world, doomed to live in perpetuity in the frozen time of their original trauma” (argenti 2016: 245). this, argenti (2016) argues, takes places particularly when existing social structures for managing mental illness (traditional healers, churches, traditional leaders) are ignored or disregarded. a suggestion following the discussion above, could be to collaborate and enter dialogue with local actors to a higher degree on how interventions could take place and with what goals. although, if this were done, there is a need to understand that local management of affliction is also always embedded within local power relations. a local market of healing exists, in uganda as elsewhere, in which people sometimes compete and sometimes collaborate with one another (williams 2019). implementers must carefully consider who the recipients of resources are, who might be missing out, and what the consequences might be (torre 2019). but perhaps then we could move away from understanding people as silent sufferers to, “celebrating the struggles of the l. williams negotiating languages of suffering in northern uganda qualitative studies 6(1), pp. 158-179 ©2021 173 marginalized”, as argenti (2016: 263) suggests, acknowledging the agency people still have in managing their afflictions. conclusion the empire of trauma, as fassin & rechtman (2009) names the expanding regime of diagnostic language from the global north to the rest of the world, has forcefully arrived in northern uganda within the last decade. however, from the local vantage point of rural acholiland the local has not been subsumed under the global, but has produced new kinds of social life in its presence. trauma discourses have become imaginaries and technologies by which people understand suffering and healing in northern uganda, and traditional ways of handling repercussions of war, e.g., cleansing rituals against spiritual pollution, have in many cases become psychologized as well as the western diagnostic language has been vernacularized and usurped into the realm of spirits. these ideas and practices around trauma, as we have seen, do not spread globally as platonic ideas detached from social practices, but are always intimately connected to these. there is no such thing as the introduction of an idea of suffering, in this case trauma and ptsd, in abstraction from some form of social practice. this, i have argued, calls for a rethinking of the epistemology of trauma by way of pragmatist notions of suffering to properly account for how ideas 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(2021). touched by violence: configuring affliction after war in northern uganda. in l. meinert & j. seeberg (eds.) configuring contagion in biosocial epidemics. new york, usa: berghahn press. wittgenstein, l. (1953). philosophical investigations. london, basic blackwell. wittgenstein, l. (2007 [1966]). wittgenstein: lectures and conversations on aesthetics, psychology and religious belief. oakland, usa: university of california press. young, a. (1997). the harmony of illusions: inventing post-traumatic stress disorder. princeton, usa: princeton university press. about the author lars hedegaard williams, ph.d. is an anthropologist with primary research interests focusing on mental health and illness in different cultural contexts. his research has centered on how cultural notions and practices shape experiences, symptoms and course of treatment of mental illness. he has conducted long-term ethnographic fieldwork in northern uganda and shorter ethnographic research in denmark. he is currently a visiting fellow at the london school of economics & political science and an external lecturer at university of copenhagen at the department of anthropology. microsoft word højholt kvalitativ forskning om situeret ulighed i skolen.docx qualitative studies vol. 7, no. 1, 2022, pp. 86-111 issn 1903-7031 kvalitativ forskning om situeret ulighed i skolen charlotte højholt1 1 institut for mennesker og teknologi, roskilde universitet, universitetsvej 1, 4000 roskilde denne artikel diskuterer modsætninger og muligheder i kvalitativ forskning med forskning om ulighed i skolen som eksempel. på baggrund af en begrebsmæssig diskussion af hverdagslivets historiske dimensioner udforskes skolen som en social praksis hvor mange deltagere i situeret samspil med hinanden lever hverdagsliv og udgør betingelser for hinandens livsførelse. artiklen vil pege på muligheden for gennem kvalitativ udforskning af skolens sociale situationer at fremanalysere sammenhænge mellem politiske konflikter i og om skolen, personlige konflikter i hverdagslivet og ulige betingelser for at deltage i skolelivet – det er netop sådanne sammenhænge kvalitativ metode kan bidrage til at forstå. herigennem vil artiklen diskutere metodologiske udfordringer for kvalitativ psykologi særlig forholdet mellem forskere, og dem de forsker med og både i relation til begrebsudvikling, situeret generalisering og mere praktiske guidelines for forskningssamarbejde og feltarbejde. formålet er at bidrage til udviklingen af sprog, begreber og metodologi for kvalitativ psykologi. keywords: forskningssamarbejde, ulighed, feltarbejde, deltagelse, social praksis introduktion kvalitativ forskning synes at stå stærkt i forskningsverdenen med bred tilslutning og anvendelse, men kæmper samtidig med legitimering, videnskabelige argumenter og præciseringer omkring, hvilke former for viden den skaber. det fremstår som et paradoks og rejser spørgsmål til kvalitativ psykologis interne udfordringer, dilemmaer og modsætninger – kommer vi fx til at legitimere vores forskningsarbejde gennem videnskabelighedskriterier, vi tog udgangspunkt i at overskride? på trods af vendingen mod hverdagslivet (fx brinkmann 2013, dreier 2011), bevægelsen fra laboratorieforskning til udforskning i almindelige sociale situationer (fx mcdermotte 1993, lave 2019) ’den situerede vending’ på trods af opgøret med at viden skabes hinsides social praksis for bagefter at føres ind for at korrigere ‘the messy everyday life’ (fx jensen 2001, schraube & højholt 2019) på trods af opgøret med c. højholt: kvalitativ forskning om situeret ulighed i skolen. qualitative studies 7(1), pp. 86-111 ©2022 87 kunstige opdelinger mellem objektiv forskningspraksis og subjektiv brug af viden (at nogen skaber den viden andre skal bruge) – på trods af masser af feltarbejde og begrebsudvikling – finder jeg at vi stadig slås med disse spørgsmål og med modsætninger i vores videnskabelige praksis. selv om de er veldiskuterede, belastes konkrete redegørelser omkring kvalitativ forskning af kunstige opdelinger mellem teori og praksis, mellem ’dem og os’, mellem hverdagspraksis og viden. som ingold (2014) formulerer det i en hidsig kritik af begrebsbrug omkring etnografisk feltarbejde, fortsættes en reproduktion af ’a pernicious distinction between those with whom we study and learn, respectively within and beyond the academy.’ (p. 383). det er netop den opdeling og de dilemmaer omkring ’distance’, ’andetgørelse’ og mystik den viderefører, der står centralt for diskussionerne i denne artikel. problemerne med opdelinger og andetgørelse af grupper af mennesker, og med deraf følgende hierarkiske vidensbegreber og opdelinger mellem, hvem der har viden, og hvem der ‘bare er involveret’ – fremstår samtidig som en del af den ulighedsproblematik, som jeg i forbindelse med forskning omkring børn i vanskeligheder i skolelivet også er optaget af. jeg diskuterer derfor de metodologiske problematikker i relation til at udforske ’situeret ulighed’ som eksempel både på metodologiske udfordringer og på, hvordan kvalitativ psykologi kan bidrage med viden om, hvad et problem kan hænge sammen med i hverdagslivets sociale praksis hvordan vi på baggrund af kvalitativ udforskning kan foretage situerede generaliseringer netop om sammenhænge i det sociale liv. ved at inddrage konkret forskningspraksis ønsker jeg at lægge op til at udvikle metodologi for kvalitativ forskning ved at udveksle vore erfaringer og forbindelserne mellem, hvordan vi arbejder, og hvad vi kommer frem til så konkret som muligt. mit udgangspunkt er at se forskning som et samarbejde – et særligt samarbejde om noget særligt, som fx at udvikle almene forståelser, begreber og viden, og som derfor indebærer særlige måder at deltage på, bevæge os i felten på, arbejde med begreber og forståelser på, etc. (højholt & kousholt, 2019). jeg vil i artiklen veksle mellem metodologiske diskussioner og eksempler fra vores forskning – mellem udfordringer i ulighedsforskning og mere generelt i kvalitativ forskning og artiklen vil ende op i diskussioner om hvordan vi konkret kan samarbejde, deltage og bevæge os i feltarbejdet. c. højholt: kvalitativ forskning om situeret ulighed i skolen. qualitative studies 7(1), pp. 86-111 ©2022 88 undervejs er der 3 forhold, jeg særlig ønsker at diskutere: det første er forankringen af kvalitativ psykologi i hverdagslivet (se også brinkmann, 2013), også begrebssat af blandt andre dreier (2011) og lave (2019) som en decentrering af vores forskning. at tænke og organisere sin forskning fra hverdagslivet har betydning for de problemstillinger denne artikel berører. for det andet spørgsmålet om, hvordan vi anskuer genstanden for forskningen. fremfor at genstandsgøre andre personer eller grupper af personer vil jeg argumentere for formuleringer om at forske med og fra de involverede om fælles problemstillinger i det forbundne sociale liv. det sætter fokus på sammenhænge i det sociale liv og får betydning for problemforståelser og måder at søge almen viden og generalisere på. endelig vil jeg som det tredje forhold fremhæve udfordringerne i, hvordan vi kan organisere forskningssamarbejde til at overskride kunstige opdelinger. for at drøfte disse forhold gennem konkrete eksempler fra forskningspraksis vil jeg beskrive min egen forskningsmæssige vej ind i ulighedsforskningen, samt metodologiske problematikker i dette felt, hvilket fører mig over i forholdet mellem situeret hverdagsliv og historiske konflikter om samfundsmæssige problematikker. med denne begrebsmæssige baggrund vil jeg da præsentere nogle empiriske eksempler for at danne baggrund for artiklens metodologiske drøftelser af konkrete dilemmaer knyttet til forskningssamarbejde og feltarbejde. først må jeg dog søge at konkretisere og illustrere hvordan videnskabsteoretiske modsætninger synes at føre til dilemmaer for kvalitativ forskning. hvad er problemet? modsætninger illustreret gennem sprogbrug omkring kvalitativ forskning særlig igennem mit samarbejde med unge forskere oplever jeg, at de møder dels modsætningsfulde kriterier i forbindelse med at argumentere for, at det de bedriver, er videnskab, og dels abstrakte kriterier om fx afstand og fremmedgørelse i forskningsprocessen, ’forbud’ mod involvering eller mistænkeliggørelse af erfaringer med forskningens spørgsmål. at skærpe udvekslingen om kvalitativ forskningspraksis på måder, der tydeliggør modsætninger, kan måske kaste lys over de konflikter, disse indebærer, og som mange kvalitative forskere oplever sig ’fanget i’. det er udfordringer, der også er formuleret gennem påpegning af illusionen om at skabe viden from a point of nowhere (haraway 1991, schraube, 2014), men selv om c. højholt: kvalitativ forskning om situeret ulighed i skolen. qualitative studies 7(1), pp. 86-111 ©2022 89 det synes en velkendt pointe at gøre op med at viden, teori og begreber kan udvikles hinsides social praksis (fx jensen, 1999, 2001), synes begreber og kriterier fra en mere abstrakt tænkning stadig at spøge i udvekslingerne om kvalitativ forskningspraksis. mine erfaringer peger på, at det særlig er i relation til observationsarbejde, sådanne modsætninger gør sig gældende – måske vi indenfor psykologien i højere grad har fået diskuteret og herigennem overskredet nogle af mystifikationerne i forbindelser med interviewarbejde. ikke fordi man ikke stadig støder på dilemmaer med ikke at måtte påvirke, dem vi interviewer, og heraf følgende teknikker til at holde sig tilbage og nå ind til noget uberørt, egentligt og skjult (for en diskussion heraf se fx højholt & kousholt 2019, 590; kvale 1996), men det forekommer mig mere udbredt at kritisere sådanne teknikker og at betragte interviewet som en fælles – interaktiv og intersubjektiv – søgeproces (se også forchhammer, 2001 og nielsen, 2012). i denne artikel diskuterer jeg derfor i højere grad sprogbrug omkring deltagerobservationer, men finder at de mere almene pointer gælder kvalitativ forskning bredere set, og særligt hvordan vi kan redegøre for vores kvalitative arbejde. hvordan kan det blive akavet at udveksle og samarbejde om udforskning? her vil jeg henlede opmærksomheden på sprog og begreber for feltarbejdet. dewalt og dewalt’s (2011) klassiske bog om participant observations giver gode diskussioner til udvikling af vores udveksling herom, men den illustrerer også, hvordan sproget næsten ‘fanger os ind’ i de forståelser, vi som udgangspunkt gerne ville overskride. hvordan man deltager som observatør bliver fx diskuteret i relation til et kontinuum mellem en abstrakt ide om ikke at involvere sig, ikke at påvirke materialet, nærmest ikke at være til stede – overfor en komplet deltagelse, hvor forskeren nærmest går i et med og skal lære om praksis ved at være som personer her. sådanne formuleringer kan tjene som baggrund og forståelse for de dilemmaer, man som forsker kan opleve, når man på en gang vil følge metodeforskrifterne og følge ingolds pointe om at ’knowledge grows from the crucible of lives lived with others’ (ingold, 2014, p. 387). dewalt & dewalt (2011) skriver således også om metodediskussionerne i relation til at være en form for lurer, der ikke afslører forskningsinteresser og forskningsspørgsmål og nogle gange ikke en gang at man er forsker – ’some researchers act as lurkers… without revealing that they are researchers... others, however, have lurked more openly…’ (p. 23). her bliver en relevant udveksling om feltarbejde igen ’fanget’ i et en c. højholt: kvalitativ forskning om situeret ulighed i skolen. qualitative studies 7(1), pp. 86-111 ©2022 90 slags kontinuum for åbenhed frem for at præcisere, hvordan vi samarbejder og bevæger os ud fra, hvad vi udforsker, hvor og med hvem – altså et udgangspunkt om åbenhed og transparens og om eksplicit at inddrage medforskere i vores nysgerrighed samt spørge til deres. endelig vil jeg nævne det desubjektiverende ved formuleringer som ‘the people being studied (the other)’ (p. 28, 36) samt de mange henvisninger til forskeren som ’instrument for dataindsamling’. det er et sprogbrug, der ret direkte lægger op til othering af medforskere og til at forskersubjektet ikke skal handle som et subjekt. disse små indblik kan måske kaste lys over modsætninger og dilemmaer, vi kan opleve i vores deltagerobservationer, og ses som opfordring til at begrebssætte en særlig forskerposition, der søger viden om en særlig praksis, fra særlige perspektiver og om problemer medforskerne har erfaringer med. det peger fx på en udforskende, kollaborativt deltagende forskerposition med særlige erkendelsesinteresser – fremfor illusioner om ikke at deltage eller at gå i et med. jeg rejste indledningsvist spørgsmålet, om vi i kvalitative forskning kommer til at legitimere vores forskningsarbejde gennem videnskabelighedskriterier, vi tog udgangspunkt i at overskride. arbejdet med denne artikel har ført til en del eksempler på, at svaret må være ja. jane ege møllers formulerer dette som ’genspejlingstendenser’, ’erstatningsmetaforik’ og forsøg på at formulere kvalitative gyldigheds kriterier på kvantitative præmisser, hvilket både kommer til at stadfæste disse som universelle idealer for forskningen og til at skævvride fokus i fremstillinger af kvalitativ forskning (møller, 2015, p. 24f). de her omtalte problemstillinger må dog først og fremmest ses i lyset af, hvilke former for viden forskningen søger at skabe og om hvilke problemstillinger. kvalitativ forskning har en særlig styrke i relation til at fremanalysere sammenhænge i menneskers sociale hverdagsliv hvilket indebærer adgang til sådanne sammenhænge og muligheder for at bevæge sig ’rundt om problemstillingerne’ – både i interviews og observationer. de rejste dilemmaer knytter sig altså også til udfordringen om at kontekstualisere sin forskning og at overskride abstraktion og isolation af problemstillinger. dilemmaerne, og hvordan de kan adresseres i kvalitativ forskning, kan illustreres gennem forskning om ulighed, og jeg vil derfor bevæge mig over i dette forskningsfelt og pege både på metodologiske udfordringer her og på muligheder for, at kvalitativ forskning kan bidrage til forståelser for situeret ulighed i hverdagslivet. c. højholt: kvalitativ forskning om situeret ulighed i skolen. qualitative studies 7(1), pp. 86-111 ©2022 91 fra konflikter om børn til ulige betingelser for deltagelse i skolelivet baggrunden for de metodologiske modsætninger, jeg ønsker at vende i denne artikel, knytter sig til mange års samarbejdsorienteret praksisforskning og teoretisk optagethed af, hvordan vi kan forstå processer og samspil omkring vanskeligheder i børn og unges hverdagsliv. det var den nævnte optagethed af et decentreret blik på hverdagslivet, og hvordan psykologien og psykologisk rådgivningsarbejde kan få betydning her, der førte mit arbejde fra et udgangspunkt om børn i vanskeligheder over konflikter om og i børns og unges hverdagsliv og til et fokus på ulige betingelser for deltagelse. hurtigt opsummeret blev min indgang til forskningsverdenen at interviewe forskellige parter omkring børn henvist til pædagogisk psykologisk rådgivning, og den første overraskelse gik på, at dét, vi som psykologer tænkte handlede om familieproblemer, snarere eller også så ud til at handle om forskellige former for konflikter om, hvad der ’egentlig er problemet’, når børn bliver henvist til ppr (højholt, 1993). de voksnes forskellige perspektiver på børn, problemer og psykologarbejde førte til forskningsmæssig opmærksomhed både omkring samarbejde og konflikter på børneområdet og omkring indholdet for konflikterne: børns og unges hverdagsliv på tværs af deres livssammenhænge. i de forskellige forskningsgrupper, der udforskede disse problemer, måtte vi altså bevæge os rundt i problemernes sammenhænge – børnenes hverdagsliv på tværs og de voksnes samarbejde og konflikter om dem. deltagerobservationer og interviews, der fulgte dette fælles liv på tværs, satte hurtigt fokus på børn og unges fællesskaber, betydninger for hinanden og muligheder for deltagelse i for dem så eksistentielt væsentlige sociale praksisser. set i bakspejlet handlede meget af denne forskning om konflikters og samarbejdsvanskeligheders betydninger for børn og unges deltagelsesmuligheder – som vi nu fokuserer ind på i en optagethed af situeret ulighed, ulighed i skolens sociale situationer. det, der skrives om i denne artikel, har altså baggrund i tidligere forskning, som sådan set ikke handlede om ulighed, men ofte endte dér i sine konklusioner. et mere alment spørgsmål er blevet, hvordan vi kan forstå sammenhænge mellem konflikter om skolen, i skolen, mellem skolens deltager og for deltagere i vanskeligheder. analyserne af børn og unges deltagelse har både illustreret samfundsmæssige konflikter om skolen og i skolens hverdagsliv og hvordan børn og unge konfronterer ulige betingelser i forhold til at håndtere konfliktualiteten. c. højholt: kvalitativ forskning om situeret ulighed i skolen. qualitative studies 7(1), pp. 86-111 ©2022 92 denne lille baggrundsfortælling fører altså over i ulighedsforskning, som jeg her vil inddrage for at illustrere metodologiske problematikker er der parallelle problematikker i ulighedsforskningen? det er der i hvert fald mange, der kommer frem til, når de gennemgår den, og jeg vil trække nogle pointer herfra frem. især fremstår det som et paradoks, at vi let kommer til at fokusere på ’these individuals’ frem for på de ulige vilkår, der vel sådan set var anledningen. på trods af et udgangspunkt i ulige sociale betingelser kommer vi åbenbart hurtigt til at fokusere på ‘de andre’ – sociale betingelser falder faktisk ofte ud af ligningen, og vi bliver optaget af ’særlige individders særlige adfærd’1. der synes at ske en problemforskydning, hvor sociale konflikter fortoner sig i et fokus på individuelle mangler i relation til at klare hverdagslivet. jeg vil blandt andet forbinde dette til en metodologisk problematik: den manglende decentrering ind i hverdagslivet kan føre til abstrakte generaliseringer om individuelle mangler, og uden en konkret kontekstualisering bliver det svært at pege på konkrete ulige betingelser. mcdermott og vossoughi (2020) problematiser, hvordan selve tilgangen til problemet bliver en del af problemet og fremhæver i deres gennemgang af fattigdomsforskning, at fattigdom bliver forbundet med opdragelsesstil, kognitive og lingvistiske mangler ‘a weak psychological base’ (p. 62). det paradoksale er, at netop ulige betingelser forsvinder ud af problembestemmelsen og nærmest synes at forskydes til ’mentale betingelser’. samtidig påpeger forfatterne, at en del af de systematisk ulige betingelser er, at når man kommer fra ’den slags hjem’, bliver man mødt anderledes. ovenstående rejser spørgsmål til hvordan vi kan udforske forholdet mellem livsbetingelser og hvad mennesker kan komme til at gøre i deres liv? gennem diskussion af problemer i ulighedsforståelser kan nogle forskningsmæssige udfordringer og opgaver for kvalitativ psykologi måske skrives frem. ulighed som knyttet et spørgsmål om social arv ulighed knyttes indenfor vores felt typisk til social arv og statistiske undersøgelser om ulighed bygger typisk på idéen om ‘intergenerational transmission of social problems’ (e 1dette kan fx illustreres med følgende citat: ‘maladaptive behaviours established early in life may select these individuals into particular environments in which they face continuing challenges and stress. for example, negative interactions with family members, peers, and school authorities may over time limit the educational and occupational opportunities of these individuals. (saltaris et al., 2004, p. 105). c. højholt: kvalitativ forskning om situeret ulighed i skolen. qualitative studies 7(1), pp. 86-111 ©2022 93 g barnes et al., 2012; serbin & karp, 2003). samtidig illustrerer de statistiske undersøgelser om ulighed modsatrettede resultater, manglende viden om sammenhænge og om, hvad der har betydning for hvad, og de præges af ideologiske debatter (bird 2007, v). det skal i respekt for denne forskning nævnes, at det er i selvsamme rapporter over statistiske undersøgelser, at disse problemer fremhæves, og det efterlyses, at ’noget umåleligt sociologisk og psykologisk’ må inddrages (bird, 2007, p. ix). desværre synes efterlysningen at blive til en efterlysning af flere faktorer, hvilket også gælder efterlysningen af ‘agency’: der argumenteres for at ‘kombinere’ ‘human agency’ med ‘structural factors’ og at involvere ‘agency’ i forskningen, men i de statiske modeller fremstår disse opmærksomheder som uafhængige variable og som låste i en mekanistisk begrebsbrug om ‘transfer of risk’, ‘impact’, effekt og ‘særlige individer’ (for en grundigere diskussion heraf, se højholt, 2016). her ser vi altså eksempler på begreber, som skulle hjælpe os med at se sammenhænge i hverdagslivet og som fremstår ret så fjerne fra menneskers livsførelse, samspil, deltagelse, håndteringer og måder at se betydninger og muligheder på. sådanne problematiseringer kan ses som en opfordring til kvalitativ forskning om at inddrage sociale samspil, processer og agency – ikke som faktorer men som muligheder for at fremanalysere sammenhænge i social og historisk praksis. lige præcis at fremanalysere sammenhænge i det komplekse hverdagsliv er dér, hvor jeg finder at kvalitativ forskning har en opgave. mcdermott peger på, at opdelinger i adskilte variable og mekanismer skjuler kompleksiteten i det at leve hverdagsliv – og sådan set også mennesker som handlende og meningsskabende subjekter (se også brinkmann, 2016, p. 3). som det væsentligste vil jeg dog pege på pointen om, at overskride ’“we-they” thinking’ i ulighedstænkningen, som jeg lagde ud med som metodologisk problematik (mcdermott & vossoughi, 2020, p. 65). endnu en vinkel fra ulighedsforskningen går på, at tallene viser noget andet end de gængse konklusioner: statistiske analyser udfordrer almindelige forståelser af ulighed som en form for overførsel af social baggrund. som morten ejrnæs har vist på dansk grund, er der flere, der overskrider end reproducerer en vanskelig social baggrund og misvisende opfattelser af denne overførsel belaster forventninger, forståelser og tilgange c. højholt: kvalitativ forskning om situeret ulighed i skolen. qualitative studies 7(1), pp. 86-111 ©2022 94 til de børn, ’den rammer’ (ejrnæs, 2017; ejrnæs et al, 2007). i forlængelse af disse og andre lignende resultater (for et grundigere indblik se højholt & røn larsen 2020, 2021) tales der mange steder om, at vi må åbne ’ulighedens sorte boks’. at der findes strukturel ulighed, synes ikke anfægtet, men den må forstås på nye måder, og vi må ind i klasseværelset for at ’åbne denne boks’. selve begrebet sort boks signalerer jo noget mystik – noget vi ikke ved noget om, men har sprunget over eller lukket inde – og begrebet blev da også allerede problematiseret af hugh mehan i 1992. her kritiserer han det mekanistiske syn på skolens reproduktion af ulighed blandt andet med formuleringer som: “the structural aspects of society are not pale reflections of large-scale institutional and historical forces; they are contingent outcomes of people's practical activity” (mehan, 1992, p. 16). sådanne problematiseringer kan ses som en kærkommen opfordring til kvalitativ psykologi om ikke bare at interessere sig for skolen empirisk, men også at arbejde med begreber for sammenhænge, med en situeret tilgang til skolens sociale hverdagsliv og med en forskningspraksis, der kan udforske, hvad der er på spil her i samarbejde med og fra forskellige deltageres perspektiver. skolen er ikke vel begrebssat som en ‘sort boks’, hvor det er rimeligt entydigt, hvad man skal leve op til – des mere vi beskæftiger os med skolen, des mere får vi øje for netop en mangfoldighed af forskellige krav, hensyn, dagsordener, muligheder og dobbeltheder (højholt & kousholt 2018, 2020). udover ulighedsforskningens entydighed omkring betydningen af social baggrund har der også været en tendens til entydighed omkring skolen og skolenormer, sprog, kultur. det fremhæves fx, hvordan forældre fra forskellige sociale klasser konverserer forskelligt med deres børn, og hvordan forskellig forældrestil har betydning for, hvordan børn mødes af skolens kultur (lareau, 2002). i forlængelse af mcdermott’s pointe kunne man sige, at forståelsen bliver, at visse familiers rimelig entydige kultur kontrasteres af en rimelig entydig skolekultur (højholt & kousholt, 2019) – hvilket ikke giver os indblik i de konfliktuelle situationer i skolen. jeg vil her lægge vægt på at udforske skolen som social praksis, levet hverdagsliv, samspil mellem mange parter, samarbejde og konflikter om, hvad skole bør være – skolen er på én gang mange menneskers livssammenhæng og en historisk samfundsinstitution. med erik axels begreber kan skolen ses som en (politisk) mangesidet og modsætningsfuld ‘fælles sag’ (axel, 2020), hvilket får betydning for analyser netop af c. højholt: kvalitativ forskning om situeret ulighed i skolen. qualitative studies 7(1), pp. 86-111 ©2022 95 samspil, vanskeligheder og deltagelsesmuligheder i skolen. skolen både samler mange forskellige parter omkring et ansvar knyttet til det at ’gøre skole’ og er genstand for politisk debat om, hvordan vi skaber en fælles skole i et velfærdssamfund som det danske. forskellige parter har forskelligt ansvar for forskellige aspekter af det mangesidede skoleliv og udvikler forskellige perspektiver på, hvordan der bør prioriteres her. livsførelsesbegrebet og håndtering af modsætninger i hverdagslivet ovenstående peger på en metodologisk udfordring om at udforske skolen som social praksis og begrebsmæssigt at forbinde subjektiv agency konkret til sociale betingelser og ikke som noget ‘udenfor’ – som endnu en isoleret faktor i en ligning om årsagsfaktorer. fremfor at se isoleret på manglende livshåndtering eller problematisk ’adfærd’ må vi vende blikket mod, hvad det er, der skal håndteres i forskellige menneskers forskellige livsførelsesudfordringer. børn og unge må fx mingelere i modsætninger og konfliktuelle krav til dem og i deres optagethed af at ’være med’ i kammeratskabsgrupper og at samarbejde med hinanden netop om at udforske og gribe hverdagslivets muligheder. ulighed kan i det lys ses knyttet til betingelser for sammen med andre at kunne manøvrere i relation til hverdagslivets dilemmaer, modsætninger, sociale koordineringer og konflikter. for at overskride abstraktion og isolation af ulighedsproblematikker må vi have begrebsmæssige muligheder for at udforske og analysere hverdagslivets modsætninger og konflikter samt hvordan mennesker må håndtere disse sammen og ’samtidig’ – opgaverne kan ikke forstås og udforskes isoleret fra hinanden og fra hverdagslivets sammenhænge (dreier 2011, p.12). jeg vil derfor henlede opmærksomheden på livsførelsesbegrebet som en analytisk mulighed, der kan hjælpe os med at få greb om hverdagslivets manøvreringer og konfliktuelle koordineringer. begrebet er udviklet til at begrebsliggøre forbindelserne mellem samfundsmæssige livsbetingelser og personlige måder at deale med dem på sammen med andre i hverdagslivet – til brug for analyser af empirisk materiale i kvalitativ forskning. idéen med livsførelsesbegrebet er således at forbinde de kulturhistoriske (og strukturelle) betingelser med det aktive subjekts ’arrangeren sig i hverdagslivet’ – med den personlige måde vi lever livet på (dreier, 2011; holzkamp, 2013). man kan også sige, at idéen er at få fat i de hverdagslige handlinger, koordineringer og organiseringer af hverdagens c. højholt: kvalitativ forskning om situeret ulighed i skolen. qualitative studies 7(1), pp. 86-111 ©2022 96 gøremål, krav, og personlige anliggender. hverdagslivet ’sker ikke af sig selv’ – også rutiner og mere eller mindre selvfølgeligheder må man forholde sig til, tage stilling til og nogle gange konflikte med andre om (højholt & schraube, 2016). med svend brinkmanns formuleringer: “a life does not lead itself, but is an active process involving the person in collectives of others” (2016, p. 4). ole dreier udbygger begrebet med et særligt fokus på, at livet leves på tværs af kontekster, og at vi hver især forfølger en række forskellige anliggender. netop denne opmærksomhed er blevet relevant for at forstå de personlige dilemmaer, man kan opleve i skolen. læring og undervisning i skolen foregår jo i et socialt liv, hvor der er masser af sociale dynamikker på spil samtidig. skolens deltagere må kontinuerligt forholde sig til de sammenvævede dagsordener om undervisning, faglige opgaver, personlige læreprocesser og samspil i deres fællesskaber. fælles udforskning af konflikter i og om skolelivet i deltagelsesobservationer i skolelivet ser vi en mangfoldighed af ’foreninger’, hvor børn formår at få deres optagethed af deres fælles sociale samspil og engagement (i fx forbold) til at gå op i en højere enhed med samtidig at få løst fx deres matematikopgaver og drøfte matematikkens begreber (højholt & schwartz, 2018, p. 75). vi ser også, hvordan de forskellige hensyn og anliggender kan kollidere og skabe konflikt både mellem børn og unge og mellem dem og deres lærere (højholt 2016, p. 155). i den følgende observation foretaget af christina poulsen er begge dele faktisk på spil – nogle af drengene samarbejder og mingelerer mellem opgaveløsning og snak, men en af dem synes ikke på samme vis at have adgang til dette samarbejde. i matematik skal eleverne i 4. klasse samarbejde om at løse opgaver i hæftet. en firemandsgruppe består af thomas, mikkel, rasmus og joakim. rasmus er hurtig til at få lavet matematikstykkerne på den første side i hæftet. han venter med at regne videre til mikkel og joakim også er kommet til s. 2. thomas laver ikke noget. han siger lige så stille: ”jeg kan ikke finde ud af det”, men ingen af de andre synes at reagere. de småsnakker om noget forskelligt (bl.a. fodbold og de faglige opgaver), og thomas forsøger igen at skabe kontakt, da han stille siger, at det er alt for svært. mikkel hører det. han kigger på det og kommenterer, at ”det er da nemt”. c. højholt: kvalitativ forskning om situeret ulighed i skolen. qualitative studies 7(1), pp. 86-111 ©2022 97 drengene fortsætter med at snakke om henholdsvis fodboldtræning, kammerater og matematikstykker. de hjælper hinanden med stykkerne og kommer med ideer til udregninger. thomas deltager ikke i drengenes samtale, når den omhandler det faglige, men når der tales om fodbold, forsøger han at bidrage – af og til lidt højlydt. thomas kalder på læreren, men hun har travlt, da der er mange, som påkalder sig hendes opmærksomhed. han begynder at sige nogle høje lyde, og læreren beder ham om at skrue ned for volumen. i takt med at thomas bliver hægtet mere og mere af det faglige indhold, bliver han tilsvarende hægtet af den samtale, der finder sted blandt drengene – en samtale hvor det faglige og det sociale blander sig. thomas virker efterhånden ret opgivende og begynder at larme mere. han rejser sig og går hen og slukker lyset, hvilket fører til opråb fra klassekammeraterne og irettesættelse af læreren. læreren kommer hen til thomas og forklarer ham opgaven og påpeger samtidig, at thomas skal koncentrere sig om opgaven og ikke snakke om fodbold. (højholt & poulsen 2021) jeg inddrager dette udklip både for at illustrere kvalitativt materiale fra hverdagslivet, og fordi jeg finder, vi heraf kan fremanalysere, hvordan også børns konflikter kan ses knyttet til skolens modsætningsfyldte praksis og konflikter herom. i drengenes klasse er der en hel del vanskeligheder og konflikter, hvilket i udvekslinger om problemerne blev forstået ud fra, at nogle af eleverne, heriblandt tomas, blev opfattet som havende en ressourcesvag baggrund. uenigheder udspillede sig både mellem lærerne, mellem lærere og elevere og mellem børnene, og de handlede blandt andet om, hvordan det sociale liv i klasseværelset skulle reguleres. regulering blev både en strategi i relation til problemerne og et belastende konfliktpunkt blandt børnene. sådanne samspil kan altså analyseres i sammenhæng med skolekontekstens særlige modsætningsfulde hensyn. skolens deltagere forholder sig til og samarbejder på subjektive måder om at forene skolens forskellige aspekter og anliggender – som de tager sig ud fra deres perspektiv. her er jeg optaget af elevernes perspektiver, hvorfra kammeratskaberne og deres ’fælles sager’ fremstår centrale – ikke isoleret fra skolens undervisningsdagsorden, dygtighed, vurderinger og behov for ro og koncentration, men netop forbundet hertil. når vi kigger fra eleverne, fremstår dét at have adgang til fælles c. højholt: kvalitativ forskning om situeret ulighed i skolen. qualitative studies 7(1), pp. 86-111 ©2022 98 håndteringer af skolelivet, som væsentlige sociale ressourcer i relation til at forene modsætningsfulde krav og engagementer, at blive anerkendt og forstå sig selv i denne særlige kontekst. børn ser ud til netop at have forskellige betingelser for at forene de forskellige aspekter af skolelivet. hvor de tre drenge i observationsudklippet kan mingelere socialt liv og faglig deltagelse, kan det ikke komme til at hænge sammen for thomas, og han ser ud til at opgive. lærerne har fortalt om pres både fra forældre, ledelse og hinanden, og den metodologiske pointe knytter sig også til betydningen af et forskningsprojekts design – hvad kan vi fremanalysere, hvad kan vi sætte i sammenhæng med hinanden, og hvordan får vi adgang til forskellige processer, samspil og perspektiver, der kan have betydning for at forstå en konkret situation i klasseværelset? mit svar vil først og fremmest være gennem samarbejde. det er gennem samarbejde med de involverede, at vi får adgang til forskellige begrundelsessammenhænge. jeg vil ikke gå i detaljer med vores projektorganisering, da det er væsentligt for mig, at forskningssamarbejde kan organiseres på mangfoldige måder alt efter forskningens problemstillinger og spørgsmål, lokale muligheder, forskernes betingelser osv. jeg vil blot fremhæve muligheden for at organisere et forskningsfællesskab, der giver anledning til kontinuerligt at udveksle åbent med sine medforskere om selve forskningsprocesserne, at inddrage dem i sin nysgerrighed, i den kontinuerlige udvikling af forskningens design, analyser og almengørelser, etc (højholt & kousholt, 2019). pointen lige her er, at vi gennem vort forskningssamarbejde fx lærer om samarbejdsmæssige og forståelsesmæssige forholds betydninger for den problemstilling vi udforsker. herigennem kan vi få blik for de forskellige konflikter om forståelser (af fx vanskelige forløb) og forståelsernes betingelser. vi kan fx se sammenhænge mellem individualiserede problemforskydninger og pres, afmægtighed og gensidig opgivenhed. det har givet os analytiske muligheder for at se sammenhænge mellem konflikter om skolelivet og konflikter i skolelivet og de ulige deltagelsesbetingelser, der kan udvikles i vanskelige forløb. i de konkrete eksempler ser der ud til at ske en ‘generalisering af det specielle’ – det er allevegne tomas (og mange andre børn) er ‘specielle’ og for en metodologisk diskussion kunne man pege på, at vi kommer til at mangle kontekstualitetens sammenhænge i denne generalisering. hvordan det konfliktuelle samarbejde forløber, og c. højholt: kvalitativ forskning om situeret ulighed i skolen. qualitative studies 7(1), pp. 86-111 ©2022 99 hvordan der forskydes og kategoriseres på låste måder, ser ud til at være afgørende for disse processer og de betingelser, der stilles til de involverede. jeg vil således forbinde den situerede ulighed i klasseværelset til mange parters afmagt og desuden pege på, hvordan den personlige ’agency’, der blev efterlyst i forskningen om social arv, må ses knyttet til deltagelse i konfliktuelle samspil og processer og til forskellige betingelser for at tage del her – og altså ikke som uafhængig variabel. materialet fra skolens mere almene hverdagsliv og modsætninger her kan sætte børnenes begrundelser for at gøre som de gør i sammenhæng med den konfliktuelle praksis de deltager i: det vi ser gå igen i disse processer er udvikling af gensidig opgivenhed mellem parterne og nogle personlige konflikter eller livsførelsesdilemmaer for de involverede. det er en metodologisk pointe også at udforske de andre involveredes grunde, det almene hverdagsliv og skolepraksis. både at få indblik i børn og unges personlige grunde, knyttet til de fælles konflikter om måder at deltage i skolen på, og de sociale betydninger af at thomas slukker lyset. vi må altså fremanalysere de konkrete dilemmaer og personlige konflikter i børn og unges livsførelse. forbindelsen til uenigheder, pres, afmagt og problemforskydning er således væsentlig for at forstå problemstillingerne i deres kontekst – det situerede og subjektive samspil omkring historiske og almene konflikter i relation til hvordan skoleliv reguleres, hvem skolen er til for, og hvordan den skal prioritere og forbinde sine interne modsætninger. for at kunne fremanalysere sådanne sammenhænge har vi dog også brug for begrebsmæssige muligheder for at kunne se det historiske i det situerede. jeg vil derfor runde denne teoretiske sammenhæng, før jeg samler de mere metodemæssige diskussioner til sidst i artiklen. hverdagsliv og historiske modsætninger ovenstående fører os ind i situerede samspil og processer i en historisk institution som skolen – en metodologisk udfordring om at udforske det historiske i det situerede hverdagsliv. jean lave skriver om, at vores fælles sociale liv må forstås som historiske forandringsprocesser, og det fanger for mig på en flot måde, hvordan det sociale liv, vi lever sammen med andre her og nu, også er led i foranderlige og forandrende historiske processer. når vi manøvrerer i hverdagslivets kompleksiteter, deltager vi også i historiske forandringsprocesser knyttet til de problemer, vi slås med. i vores hverdagsliv forholder vi os altså til historiske anliggender fx om, hvordan vi i vores samfund kan organisere en c. højholt: kvalitativ forskning om situeret ulighed i skolen. qualitative studies 7(1), pp. 86-111 ©2022 100 fælles skole, hvem den er til for, og hvordan man kan tage del her. vi forholder os til børns og unges livsbetingelser, hvad der er godt og vigtigt for dem, hvad de skal lære, og hvordan deres vanskeligheder skal forstås og håndteres. der er masser af forhandlinger om den slags fx på et forældremøde, og pointen er, at politiske forhandlinger om den slags spørgsmål ikke kun findes blandt politikere og afgøres i folketinget – men også i måderne deltagerne i og omkring skolen ordner og håndterer deres konflikter. maja røn larsen forbinder denne pointe om ’politics of everyday life’ netop til psykologarbejde og samarbejde omkring skolen (røn larsen 2019, højholt & røn larsen 2021). i de politiske konflikter om skolen stilles forskellige aspekter af skolelivet ofte op overfor hinanden og skilles ad i polariserede diskussioner om, hvad der er vigtigst. i skolelivet hænger de sammen, og man må koordinere sig med andre omkring det. i den forbindelse har erik axels begreb om konfliktuel koordinering udgjort en central analytisk mulighed for at se sammenhænge i skolens sociale liv (axel, 2011, 2020). situeret ulighed hænger således også sammen med konkrete håndteringer af historiske sammenhænge – deltagerne i skolen må forholde sig til skolens historiske modsætninger og de politiske kampe i hverdagslivets fælles koordineringer. lave inviterer os til at stille spørgsmål til ‘historical societal divisions and struggles’, som jeg her vil forbinde til opdelinger og ulige livsbetingelser og til konflikter både i og om hverdagslivet. hun formulerer yderligere, at vi møder disse kampe og opdelinger i ’landskaber af muligheder’ og knytter vores bidrag til de historiske forandringer til ’personers engagement i deres livsførelse’ (lave, 2019, p. 51). lærere fortæller i vores forskningssamarbejde med dem om dilemmaer i deres arbejdslivsførelse knyttet til at have ’mange stemmer i nakken’ og om konstant at måtte prioritere mellem forskellige forventninger og krav fra mange parter samt mellem deres egne vurderinger af, hvad der aktuelt er brug for i relation til at skabe relevante læringsbetingelser for de forskellige børn, de har med at gøre (mardahl-hansen, 2019, p. 62) samtidig illustrer deltagerobservationer i skolens hverdagsliv, hvordan lærere hver dag jonglerer med en mangfoldighed af opgaver i en kontinuerlig udforskning af de sociale og faglige muligheder i klasseværelset (mardahl-hansen, 2018). børneområdet er vældig illustrativt for, hvordan både børn og unge og deres voksne må forholde sig til og forfølge forskellige konfliktuelle krav og muligheder. livsførelse skal altså her forbindes til at manøvrere i en mangfoldighed af krav og c. højholt: kvalitativ forskning om situeret ulighed i skolen. qualitative studies 7(1), pp. 86-111 ©2022 101 muligheder og også modsætningsfyldte opgaver og konflikter herom. at deltage i de historiske forandringsprocesser, lave har fremhævet, er ikke en harmonisk sag, og vi må begrebssætte kompleksiteten i at forene mange modsætningsfulde forhold i hverdagslivet, samarbejde og håndtere konflikter, koordinere og navigere i berigende men ikke enkle ’landskaber af muligheder’. personer forfølger mange anliggender og må aktivt ’arbejde i’ at få det hele til at hænge sammen og samtidig passe på sig selv (dreier, 2011, p. 12). det er netop sådanne udfordringer vi møder når vi kigger fra og med børn og unge og ud i deres sociale situationer og særlig de unge illustrerer hvordan de bliver presset af konflikter og må passe på sig selv (højholt & schwartz 2018). vi kan dog ikke forvente at børn og unge leverer den analyse, der kan forbinde deres oplevelser til historiske modsætninger i de institutioner de deltager i. for at overskride et isoleret blik på ’adfærd’ må vi kontekstualisere og fremanalysere sammenhænge. hvilket materiale vi har og vores projektdesign og samarbejdsmuligheder har således stor betydning for, hvad vi overhovedet kan sætte i sammenhæng med hvad. jeg håber med eksemplerne at pege på betydningen af at interviewe om og observere den almene praksis, hverdagslivets samspil, sociale dynamikker i skolens læringsfællesskaber, etc., hvilket indebærer både at fokusere på en problemstilling og at fokusere fleksibelt, og det er hvad jeg vil berøre i artiklens sidste del. hvordan opnå viden om sådanne sammenhænge? hvordan samarbejde og deltage som forskere, for at skabe materiale om sammenhænge i det sociale hverdagsliv? om at fokusere fleksibelt og samarbejde i feltarbejdet “[t]o observe is not to objectify; it is to attend to persons and things, to learn from them, and to follow in precept and practice. indeed there can be no observation without participation— that is, without an intimate coupling, in perception and action, of observer and observed” (ingold, 2014, p. 387). når jeg nu vender mere fokuseret tilbage til de metodologiske spørgsmål fra artiklens udgangspunkt, vil jeg også vende tilbage til ingold og hans irritation over sprogbrug og adskillelser i relation til udveksling om feltarbejde. ingold formulerer skåledes på skarp vis, hvordan begrebsmæssige opsplitninger mellem ’being in the world and knowing about it’, mellem deltagelse og observation og mellem engagement og udforskning har udspring i særlige kriterier for videnskabelighed, som stadig synes at mystificere og c. højholt: kvalitativ forskning om situeret ulighed i skolen. qualitative studies 7(1), pp. 86-111 ©2022 102 forvirre ikke mindst relationerne i forskningsarbejde og forskeres oplevelser af deres forskerposition: these questions, however, are founded upon a certain understanding of immanence and transcendence, deeply rooted in the protocols of normal science, according to which human existence is constitutionally split between being in the world and knowing about it. the alleged contradiction between participation and observation is no more than a corollary of this split. as human beings, it seems, we can aspire to truth about the world only by way of an emancipation that takes us from it and leaves us strangers to ourselves… (2014, p. 387) det er netop denne fremmedgørelse, jeg kan opleve, når vi som forskere deler dilemmaer og overvejelser over måder at deltage på, involvering, engagement, forskerpositioner og bekymringer over fx hvordan ’de observerede’ oplever forskningen og måske generes af den. det er seriøse og solidariske bekymringer, der samtidig synes at pege på modsætninger og mystifikation i forskningspraksis – og som ikke sjældent kan imødekommes ved det simple forslag: du kan jo spørge dem. sådanne håndteringer af dilemmaer knytter sig til at overskride et ’de og vi’ også i feltarbejdet. darin hodgetts foreslår, at vi for at overskride/bryde med abstrakte videnskabskriterier som fremstår som en spændetrøje for psykologisk forskning må udvikle tættere og mere fleksible måder at samarbejde og bevæge os i feltarbejdet: the style of research in which we engaged in our project operates in a more flexible manner where we try harder to fit into everyday events … a case-based methodology characterized by closer and more engaged relations between researchers and participants than is typically evident in psychology (hodgetts et al, 2016, p. 141– 142). denne vending mod hverdagslivets konkrete muligheder samt de tætte og engagerede relationer kan være inspiration til at udvikle nye måder at kunne gøre rede for vores forskningsarbejde. den kan udgøre et udgangspunkt for at udvikle begreber om, hvordan vi interviewer og bevæger os decentreret i hverdagslivet på fagligt fokuserede og dog fleksible måder. psykologien er problemfokuseret, men forskere må interviewe c. højholt: kvalitativ forskning om situeret ulighed i skolen. qualitative studies 7(1), pp. 86-111 ©2022 103 om og bevæge sig rundt i problemernes sammenhænge – som i vores eksempel blandt andet de andre børn og unges håndteringer af skolelivet, fællesskabernes dynamikker, de voksnes konflikter om klassen – og de historiske konflikter om skolen. for at fokusere på sagen i dens kontekstuelle forbindelser må vi fokusere fleksibelt og decentrere vores opmærksomhed. at fokusere er således selektivt og kontekstuelt på samme tid, og det er netop den dobbelthed, der guider vores deltagelse og måder at bevæge os i feltarbejdet. vi må fokusere på relevante sammenhænge, hvilket jo ikke er givet på forhånd2 (axel & højholt, 2019). dette knytter sig til selve det at kontekstualisere: kontekstualisering kan ses som at sætte problemer ind i deres sammenhænge – vi opdager fx, hvad ulighed hænger sammen med i hverdagslivets samspil og processer og får mulighed for at udvide vores forståelse af problemet og af problemets betingelser (hvilket kan pege på forhold at ændre på). for mig at se giver samarbejdsperspektivet en mulighed for at udvikle en relevant, mangesidet og praksisforankret viden set fra hverdagslivet og fra de, der har med forskningens problemstillinger at gøre. at anskue forskning som et samarbejde er bl.a. udviklet indenfor en praksisforskningstradition og handler grundliggende set om at anskue mennesker som udforskende subjekter, der allerede – gennem deres livsførelse er i gang med at undersøge de problemstillinger, forskningen har fokus på. vi kalder det i denne tradition at personer, der er involveret i forskningens ’sag’, er medforskere, som vi på vældig forskellig vis kan organisere et samarbejde med. i de forskningsprojekter, jeg har deltaget i, har det udfoldet sig forskelligt og har typiske handlet om at organisere et forskningsfællesskab, hvor vi kan udveksle omkring deltagernes erfaringer, viden og forskellige perspektiver samt fremlægge eksempler og sammen drøfte analyse og forståelser af sammenhænge. det giver mulighed for at opnå adgang til feltets mange vinkler og sammenhænge og for at vende sine teoretiseringer om disse sammenhænge med dem, der både kender til dem og måske opdager noget for dem relevant igennem vore udvekslinger. denne mulighed ligger dog også i måden vi interviewer på og måden vi observer og deltager i praksis – i stedet for at fremstå mystiske og lukkede kan vi 2 ofte må vi udvide hvem vi interviewer og om hvad – ved at forfølge ’begrundelseskæder’ kan vi komme til at bevæge os fra fx specialundervisningen til visitationen og interviews med ppr psykologer for at forstå konkrete situationer (røn larsen 2011). c. højholt: kvalitativ forskning om situeret ulighed i skolen. qualitative studies 7(1), pp. 86-111 ©2022 104 invitere ind i nysgerrighed og lægge op til fælles undren og undersøgelse fremfor færdige svar. man kan også pege på samarbejdets muligheder i relation til diskussionerne om, hvorvidt kvalitative forskere læser deres egne forståelser ind i deres empiriske materiale. denne problematik søges ofte undgået gennem dels egen refleksion – nogle gange fremført som en ide om at krænge sin forforståelse af sig – og dels gennem distance. antropologerne vangkilde og sausdal behandler denne problematik som ’overthinking’ og påpeger, at forskerens individuelle refleksion ikke er nok til at forholde sig til dilemmaet – medforskernes refleksioner bør inddrages. de illustrerer desuden, hvordan selve ideen om distance modsiger sig selv: “this is precisely what the number one method in ethnographic research—participant observation—is all about; that is, generating knowledge through an inside, participatory intimacy while upholding an outside, observational distance” (vangkilde og sausdal, 2016, p. 7). i stedet argumenterer forfatterne for den nærliggende pointe at arbejde med dilemmaet omkring forskerens indlæsning af egne tanker netop gennem inddragelse af medforskere: “in particular, we stress the potential of a greater insistence on including our fieldwork subjects in our thinking whilst being in the field” (p. 7). vangkilde og sausdal (2016) argumenterer for at placere samarbejde i hjertet af feltarbejde og vel at mærke ikke blot samarbejde som at besvare spørgsmål, koordinere og tolerere observationer, men at ”ethnographers need to engage actively with their dialogic, epistemic partners in the field, who, accordingly, turn into counterparts and coproducers of interpretations and knowledge” (p. 10). forfatterne påpeger at det vil være disrespektfuldt ikke at dele sine tanker med samarbejdspartnere i felten og at dilemmaet med ’overthinking’ i kvalitativ forskning: ”may be revealed, revised, and resolved by purposely and openly exposing and discussing our ideas and understandings with our intellectual partners, thus inviting them into a critical debate rather than side-lining them as "mere" empirical mediators” (vangkilde & sausdal, 2016, p. 3). sådanne formuleringer giver jo ganske anderledes muligheder for at tænke, udveksle og samarbejde om feltarbejde og kan være til inspiration for begrebsudviklingen i kvalitativ psykologi. c. højholt: kvalitativ forskning om situeret ulighed i skolen. qualitative studies 7(1), pp. 86-111 ©2022 105 sammenhænge i hverdagslivet og situeret generalisering en situeret tilgang med vægt på samarbejde og fokus på subjektivitet og social praksis vil ofte få spørgsmålet: skaber vi så bare lokal viden? i sin artikel om det almene og særlige i viden argumenterer ole dreier (og mange andre med ham, som fx jann valsiner, 2019) for at almene eller generelle aspekter er til stede i konkrete sammenhænge, og skriver om viden i kvalitativ forskning: overfor at ”viden er om faste forbindelser mellem isolerede variable, der indgår som bestanddele i abstrakte kategorier og mekanismer, er viden i kvalitativ forskning om, hvordan ting hænger sammen i social praksis” (dreier, 2007, p. 20). det kan lyde vagt, men peger på en væsentlig kvalitet: at forstå et problem i sine sammenhænge giver både ny forståelse for problemet og nye muligheder for at gøre noget ved de betingelser problemet hænger sammen med. problemer er jo ikke bare faste essenser – de er med jean laves ord ’deres relationer’ og de er med et efterhånden ret så udbredt begreb: wicked problems – sammenflettede med andre problemer og uden entydige afgrænsninger og finale ‘løsninger’ (lave, 2019). vi kan lære om problemer gennem de konflikter, der opstår omkring modsætninger i hverdagslivet, hvis vi gennem analyse forankrer konflikterne i social praksis. almengørelsen af viden begynder på sin vis allerede ved at forbinde de forskellige perspektiver til den fælles verden, de udspringer af. forskning handler jo blandt andet om at fremanalysere almene sammenhænge (fremfor at særliggøre nogle mennesker). det kan ses som en uddybning af kontekstualisering: at se forbindelsen til de sammenhænge, som det udforskede problem indgår i, er en del af, med dreiers ord hænger sammen med. fremfor at differentiere mellem forskelle som adskilte entiteter kan forskelle gennem en analyse netop fortælle noget om sammenhænge i det fælles. uffe juul jensen skriver om, at vi må udforske ulighed på nye måder og særligt, at vi må inddrage de berørte for at forstå, hvad ulighed hænger sammen med ny erkendelse om ulighed må udvikles med deltagelse af de berørte (jensen, 2015, p. 149). man kunne tilføje, at der er mange berørte – fx også de professionelle, de andre børn i klassen, deres forældre, de der er involveret i samarbejde og konflikter om at løse problemer i skolelivet etc. vores opgave bliver altså at analysere betingelser og situationer oplevet fra de involverede i stedet for at karakterisere grupper af mennesker c. højholt: kvalitativ forskning om situeret ulighed i skolen. qualitative studies 7(1), pp. 86-111 ©2022 106 som nogle ’andre’ og i stedet for at karakterisere samfundsmæssige institutioner som fx skolen som noget entydigt, nogle individer ikke ’kan passe ind i’. gennem forskningssamarbejde kan vi udforske ikke blot forskellige forståelser af vanskeligheder i skolelivet, men også hvad disse forståelser kan hænge sammen med – vi kan udforske forståelsernes betingelser. ovenstående analyser peger fx på at problemforskydning, individualisering og reduktionisme sker i processer, hvor afmagt og opgivenhed hersker, og hvor konflikter ikke tages op, men deltagerne stiller vanskeligere og vanskeligere betingelser for hinanden. særligt de involverede professionelle kan opleve, at de får opgaver, de ikke kan lykkes med og at problemerne stammer andre steder fra og er udenfor deres rækkevidde. de nævnte processer omkring thomas kan siges at hænge sammen med mange menneskers konfliktuelle samarbejde og afmagt i relation til det de gerne vil opnå, og synes at udvikle sig til konflikter i børnenes livsførelse. personlige konflikter fremstår på den måde indvævet i samfundsmæssige og politiske konflikter. for at fremanalysere sådanne sammenhænge må forskningen søge hverken at gå udenom konflikterne eller blive fanget i dem. konflikterne kan analyseres, og de forhold, de hænger sammen med, kan fremanalyseres ved at vise situerede sammenhænges forankring i historisk social praksis. ernst schraube beskriver bevægelsen fra one-sided (over)generaliseringer til many-sided undersøgelser af almene sammenhænge fra abstrakte kategoriseringer til situerede generaliseringer. situeret generalisering knytter sig til kontekstualisering og til en bestræbelse på at overvinde det ensidige og de videnshierarkier, der fremstiller kontekstuel, involveret hverdagsviden som subjektive synspunkter, der skal korrigeres gennem objektivitet (schraube & højholt, 2019). hvis vi igen ser på ulighedsforståelser som indholdet for disse metodologiske diskussioner, vil jeg altså pege på muligheden for gennem kvalitativ udforskning af skolens sociale situationer at fremanalysere almene sammenhænge mellem politiske konflikter i og om skolen, personlige konflikter i hverdagslivet og ulige betingelser for at deltage i skolelivet. det indebærer for mig at se at overvinde andetgørelsen og at organisere forskningssamarbejde og feltarbejde, der baner vejen for at udfordre de gængse hierarkier og fremfor at genstandsgøre medforskere, at afmystificere forskningssamarbejde. c. højholt: kvalitativ forskning om situeret ulighed i skolen. qualitative studies 7(1), pp. 86-111 ©2022 107 referencer axel, e. 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(2016). overponderabilia: overcoming overthinking when studying "ourselves". forum qualitative sozialforschung, 17(2), [28]. http://www.qualitative-research.net/index.php/fqs/article/view/2497 about the author: charlotte højholt, cand.psych., ph.d., er professor ved hverdagslivets socialpsykologi, institut for mennesker og teknologi, roskilde universitet. hun er i sin forskning optaget af samarbejdsorienteret praksisforskning og af på en gang at arbejde med børns liv på tværs af deres forskellige livssammenhænge (som fx familier, institutioner, skoler, specialinstitutioner og kammeratskabsgrupper) og med professionelles samarbejde om børnene. hun har fulgt børn i deres forløb på tværs af steder, hvilket både har givet et fokus på samarbejde og konflikter mellem de involverede voksne (bla forældre, pædagoger, lærere, psykologer og konsulenter), på børnenes betydninger for hinanden og deres deltagelse i fællesskaber og på ’situeret ulighed’. arbejdet retter sig desuden mod metodeudvikling i relation til, hvordan viden kan udvikles gennem, samt bidrage til, samarbejde og udviklingsprocesser i praksis. qualitative studies vol. 6, no. 2, 2021, pp. 30-53 issn 1903-7031 30 the pitch as meaning-directing activity: implications for students and education when fast pace and a striving for novelty set the scene nicolai nybye department of applied business research, ucl university college, denmark seebladsgade 1, 5000 odense c. the elevator pitch is part of a global tendency toward homogenization of entrepreneurial content in educational programs (fletcher, 2018), and this article shows how the pitch is naturalized as a new language because it must be decoded in order to pass an innovation course for health students at a danish university college. a core communicative component of the pitch is speed. using pragmatism, the article shows how the pitch guides the meaning making of students and how the compressed time element reduces the space for reflection. thus, the educational rhythm is set by values from the pitch and innovation. further, the article problematizes how the pitching situation separates the pitched end product both from reflections on possible consequences of new solutions and from the dynamic forces that actually created the pitch. keywords: entrepreneurial education, pragmatism, meaning, communication, values. introduction this article draws on findings from my phd project (nybye, 2020). in the project, from a perspective of pragmatism as philosophy of science, i studied how, why and with what consequences students from various welfare bachelor programs make meaning through entrepreneurial projects within their co-constitutive educational setting, a danish university college.i in that context i have gathered rich, detailed ethnographic data from ten cases of students realizing ideas as part of entrepreneurship and innovation courses.ii in this article, i focus on one aspect of the phd data, namely the pitch as a goal-directing activity for health https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6225-7870 n. nybye: the pitch as meaning-directing activity implications for students and education when fast pace and a striving for novelty set the scene qualitative studies: 6(2), pp. 30-53 © 2021 31 students in an interdisciplinary innovation and entrepreneurship course (nursing, radiography, physiotherapy, occupational therapy and bio-analytics). generally speaking, the pitch has become an omnipresent, naturalized, contemporary form of communication used in educational institutions, entrepreneurship competitions, organizations, companies, investor springboards and on television (e.g., shark tank, dragons’ den or the danish version the lions’ cave). the communication form is based on a fast pace, as in an elevator going up: in the elevator pitch, you pitch a proposal to a key person while going up the elevator, and hopefully you will get buy-in from that person as you reach the top floor of the building! hence, the pitch is, conventionally speaking, often about values such as selling and persuading others. according to fletcher (2018), there is a global tendency to homogenization of entrepreneurial content in education programs in the pursuit of “generic skill sets” among students, which hytti (2018) critically discusses as a standardized “one-size fits all” model. the homogenization takes place as elements of entrepreneurship education spread worldwide, e.g., “principles of effectuation, business model canvas, the business plan, elevator pitches, pivoting, the notion of opportunity, prototyping etc.” (fletcher, 2018). findings in the phd dissertation show that the pitch phenomenon in education organizes the way students orient themselves in terms of actions, decoding and speech and that tensions occur because the pitch as a tool and language is new to the health students (nybye, 2020). as such, the pitch creates a certain educational rhythm from a dynamic relationship between educators and students. thus, the questions at issue here are: how does the pitch affects the students’ meaning-making processes in the innovation course and what educational consequences arise from the pitch as a new language and practice of values? i structure the article as follows. first, i turn to a theoretical perspective which has its roots in pragmatism. here, i build especially on the communicative perspective outlined by j. dewey to approach the processes of meaning making in an educational context. this holds a premise for my analysis that the making of meaning is dynamic and responsive and that opposing energies resist each other and form the undergoing processes of meaning (dewey, 1934, pp. 161-163). this premise establishes rhythm as an analytical lens in the article. thus, for dewey, these energies form life that, metaphorically speaking, is a drama of rhythms that we explore more or less consciously, such as dawn and sunset (dewey, 1934, pp. 153-155). in the theory section, i elaborate on this dynamic understanding of meaning, drawing on values n. nybye: the pitch as meaning-directing activity implications for students and education when fast pace and a striving for novelty set the scene qualitative studies: 6(2), pp. 30-53 © 2021 32 realizing theory (hodges, 2007, 2009) to discuss educational consequences for the meaningmaking processes of the pitch as a new language and practice that realizes values. in the theory section, this fusion of dynamic meanings and values leads to a definition of rhythm. after the theory section, i present the data to be analyzed, followed by the analysis, which first addresses the research question with a focus on the meaning-making processes, followed by a discussion of consequences of the pitch as a values-realizing educational tool. theory entrepreneurship is a multiplying and heterogeneous phenomenon (steyaert & hjort, 2003; landström, 2005; hjort, 2012). as entrepreneurship has become institutionalized in research and higher education institutions, it has retained this multiplicity and complexity (fayolle, landström, gartner & berglund, 2016; fayolle, 2018); in this, entrepreneurship education reflects its mother field of entrepreneurship (thrane, blenker, korsgaard & neergaard, 2016). at the same time, however, within this stream of multiplicity concerning the object of entrepreneurship, higher education programs explore the global and general tendency to homogenization of key entrepreneurial content (fletcher, 2018). the pitch is part of this homogenization. the rhythm of the pitch is fast, compressed, focused, pre-structured and linear (see, e.g., the nabc approachiii). it involves several different performative settings, as mentioned in the introduction. these settings frame the pitch situation differently. an entrepreneurship competition is framed by a stage, judges and often a huge check, award or prize for the winners and pictures taken of the winners. in the reality shows on tv, investors act in a television set, often sitting in armchairs, waiting for the entrepreneurs to pitch their ideas. values realization (hodges, 2007, 2009) underpins the situations (e.g., being the best, making a profit, being unique and different, getting high tv ratings). hence, neither the situations nor the content pitched in the situations are neutral elements. educational content in general possesses this non-neutral status in spite of any given natural status (dewey, 1929). in that sense, the pitch is enacted symbolically and is an element relating not only to students’ idea-creating endeavors but to the ways that educational settings are realized (nybye, 2020). this understanding has its roots in pragmatism and connects to meaning making among participants in communication (biesta, 2013), to which i turn in the following passages. n. nybye: the pitch as meaning-directing activity implications for students and education when fast pace and a striving for novelty set the scene qualitative studies: 6(2), pp. 30-53 © 2021 33 the element of action, pragma, affects the way ideas and artifacts become meaningful in entrepreneurial processes, here understood as effectual processes as opposed to prescriptive causal processes per se (sarasvathy, 2001, 2008). action is intertwined with how and why words are ascribed meaning by students and in entrepreneurial processes in general: [a]ction is necessary for ideas to matter and words to acquire meaning; and action transforms matter and experience into useful artifacts. this effectual action may, however, find its distinct philosophical stance in pragmatism. (sarasvathy, 2008, p. 190) however, meaning is in its nature abstract and intangible, and requires some additional perspectives. j. dewey (1859-1952), one of the founding fathers of pragmatism,iv writes about meaning as part of his view on communication in chapter 5 of his grand oeuvre, experience and nature. in the chapter, dewey explains this abstract and intangible nature, claiming that it is difficult to pinpoint the exact physiological mechanism of meaning, but that it can be ascertained as a fact in various situations (dewey, 1929/2013, p. 229). meaning is experienced and contains the difference in the structured relationship between mere doing and undergoing (dewey, 1934, p. 46). if i put my hand in a fire, this is not necessarily to have an experience in a deweyan sense. i must grasp the relationship between action and consequences, because this joined relationship “is what gives meaning” (ibid.). to grasp this relationship is for dewey “the objective of all intelligence,” which indeed nuances the famous notion learning by doing, because this grasping is a more conscious understanding above the practice of mere doings! further, dewey stresses that meaning is not a psychic existence but is part of cooperative behavior. meaning is primarily “intent and intent is not personal in a private and exclusive sense”; meaning is only “secondarily a property of objects” (dewey, 1929, pp. 229-230). an implication of dewey’s understanding of meaning is that the practice of education is constituted through communication and shared social participation (biesta, 2006, p. 30). thus, education is situations guided and generated by processes of meaning and interpretation, not a simple process of transmission of knowledge from a to b (biesta, 2013, pp. 26-31). moreover, education realizes intent and constitutes its own existence through “a sense of purpose, direction or orientation” (biesta, 2020).v thus, education is not an egocentric n. nybye: the pitch as meaning-directing activity implications for students and education when fast pace and a striving for novelty set the scene qualitative studies: 6(2), pp. 30-53 © 2021 34 endeavor. educators and students are responsive to intents, and students learn in that way not only about knowledge, say the curriculum, but also what certain intentions mean, say the fulfillment of more or less visibly defined criteria about how to “play” the very “‘game’ of schooling” (biesta, 2013, p. 32). dewey explains this responsive mechanism in the creation of meaning in his famous example where a requests b to bring him a flower that a at the same moment points to. b reacts to the movement and learns that this is pointing. b does not act according to the object in itself (the flower) but to a’s relationship to the object and the whole sequence of movement, gaze and sounds. b experiences this not egocentrically but as it can function in a’s experience, while a sees the object as something that can be “grasped and handled by b” (dewey, 1929, p. 227). when meaning is considered in the triadic light of communication and the responsive dynamic behavior between at least two people who communicate and things, it follows that meaning and communication unfold as transactions between subject and world (dewey, 1929; dewey & bentley, 1949; brinkman, 2006; biesta, 2020). no persons, physical objects or events are isolated “entities,” “essences” or “realities” as such (dewey & bentley, 1949, p. 108). they are interrelated, non-static and undergo changes (brinkmann, 2006, p. 55). hence, my own actions affect the world, and this connection affects me as an organism (biesta, 2020, pp. 121122). language plays a certain role here. language is considered by dewey “the tool of tools” because it makes “appliances, application, utensils and use” possible (dewey, 1929, p. 217). communication is in that sense both consummatory and instrumental (ibid., p. 254). it creates the basis for different consequences: “it is a means of establishing cooperation, domination and order. shared experience is the greatest of human goods,” as dewey puts it (ibid.). the ontology of such established output is dynamic. order, for example, indicates a stable form, but – as dewey (1934) explains in art as experience – form exists only in a dynamic sense, and a “final” end is nothing but a rhythmic pause (p. 143). in other words, order is also potential disorder and an “end” must be anticipated in an external way (ibid.), which is a basic emergent openness in pragmatism (elkjær, 2009; james, 1907; sarasvathy, 2008). communication and openness impact our understanding of form – e.g., the pitch as performative form. any expressive art (architecture, sculpture, painting, music) is language, and for dewey “language exists only when it is listened to as well as spoken” (dewey, 1934, p. 110). the hearer is as such an indispensable partner to the speaker (ibid.). dewey defines n. nybye: the pitch as meaning-directing activity implications for students and education when fast pace and a striving for novelty set the scene qualitative studies: 6(2), pp. 30-53 © 2021 35 form in this dynamic sense as follows: “form may then be defined as the operation of forces that carry the experience of an event, object, scene, and situation to its own integral fulfillment” (ibid., p. 142). from this it follows that substance is inherent in the creating processes and created from the dynamic forces. hence, substance is not imposed from without (ibid.), and humans engage actively in communicative practice where messages and knowledge are not just found in the world and then transferred and transmitted instrumentally from one center to another (biesta, 1994). socio-cultural habituation is important here (dewey, 1938/2013, pp. 762-764; biesta, 1994).vi despite this dynamic worldview in pragmatism, humans establish stable symbols that we take for granted and as ready-made (dewey, 1938).vii these symbols – take, for example, our understanding of subjectivism (dewey, 1929, p. 38) or a physical concept such as h2o – represent what dewey calls “true being” (ibid., p. 245). a symbol divides the experienced world from, for example, the essential properties of water, and in this process the experienced world is modified. in education, this symbolic division and modification is naturalized as everyday practice, e.g., communicating about adult human beings as students or placing end value on the exam and numbers. in the classrooms such symbols are objectified in responsive communication, constituting significant meaning (mead, 1967), e.g. when the educator expresses beliefs, true knowledge and desired actions to the students (searle, 1976). in this process subject and object constitute each other (e.g. the i as educator) (dewey, 1929; mead, 1967). a more hidden aspect here is that this objectification produces and reproduces values (“true being”) (dewey, 1929, p. 55). however, values are not static, isolated entities. as i show below, values create tensions because in practice they clash with each other and influence each other (hodges, 2009). in values-realizing theory, values are heterarchically defined, which according to hodges means “that actions are mutually constrained by all the values, so that there is no fixed, hierarchical ordering of values; rather, across time and task, values vary in their ordering for the sake of the joint realization of all the values (i.e., the ecosystem as a whole)” (hodges, 2009). for hodges, realization of values is heterarchical, as when a driver follows the traffic rules and realizes the value of safety (rule-following) in one situation, while an emergency situation might demand increased speed, compromising safety (ibid.). further, values are an expression of a goal-seeking activity, something that people strive for and which is realized through actions and language in use (hodges 2007; hodges & baron, 1992; hodges, 2009; n. nybye: the pitch as meaning-directing activity implications for students and education when fast pace and a striving for novelty set the scene qualitative studies: 6(2), pp. 30-53 © 2021 36 hodges, 2017). hence, according to hodges, all actions, whether driving or conversing with a colleague, are limited and legitimized by varying values. values actually define what is good driving, conversation or good education. they are coherent with other values, and actions realize these values (hodges & baron, 1992; hodges, 2009; hodges, 2017). however, there are real tensions between the values in practice over time, giving “energy to action, emotion, and cognition” (hodges, 2009, p. 632). at the same time, physical and regulatory conditions exist, or as gibson (1979) puts it, affordances affect the human ability to realize values in the environment. thus, despite the heterarchical relations, values work jointly as a coherent dynamic form such as in “good driving,” where there is a “continuous balancing act” between e.g., safety and efficiency (e.g., speed) (hodges, 2009). this establishes rhythm as analytical lens in which variations of intensity and speed create rhythms that take place in a larger whole (dewey, 1934) and leads to a definition of rhythm as “ordered variations of changes” (ibid., p. 160). following the definition of rhythm, values create rhythms of tensions in the interplay between the individual and the environment that, with social/cultural researcher ulrich bröckling, i theorize as interplays of “affecting, being affected and self-affecting” (bröckling, 2016, p. 2). according to bröckling, market mechanisms intrude upon these interplays as they penetrate into other social areas outside economics and the medium of money in line with a discourse about the entrepreneurial self (bröckling, 2016). inspired by foucault, bröckling analyses how this discourse tells people how they should perceive themselves, how they should act and participate in the marketplace in the form of “utility semantics” that can be found in various contemporary social technologies such as training manuals, psychological advice books and management and self-management programs but that also extends, for example, to institutions, expertise systems and learning programs (ibid., p. 4). as i will show in my data examples and analyze and discuss in the following sections, certain valued innovative skills manifest themselves to the health students as expectations that unfold in interplays of tense meaning making that the students cannot escape while they progress toward the pitch situated in a fair for new solutions at the end of the innovation course. n. nybye: the pitch as meaning-directing activity implications for students and education when fast pace and a striving for novelty set the scene qualitative studies: 6(2), pp. 30-53 © 2021 37 field study data and empirical situation as part of my phd project, i gathered rich, detailed ethnographic field study data in the context of a danish university college providing professional ba programs in various welfare professions. the data was gathered through observation, video/audio-recordings, interviews and written and visual materials from ten cases of students realizing ideas as part of the following courses: learning material design and entrepreneurship (lmde) (teacher education); social innovation and entrepreneurship (sie) (social education); innovation across health professions (iahp). one case of three students (occupational therapy (oct)) is not part of a course and is thus considered extra-curricular. the field study (geertz, 1973; lofland, 1995; lofland et al., 2006, eberle & maeder, 2016) was carried out in the period from september 2016 until june 2017. the case data in focus in the article was gathered around the iahp course. it was originally in danish and is translated in this article. in the iahp course, the empirical situation is constituted by 50 students following a mandatory three-week full-time course. the course is part of a broad set-up for approximately 250 students from various health education programs (nursing, radiography, physiotherapy, occupational therapy and bio-analytics). on day 1, after a plenary presentation, the overall group of students are divided into five sub-courses called “islands.” two educators introduce the island that i observe as field researcher. they introduce the course to the students using a powerpoint presentation displayed on two whiteboards in the classroom. the scope of the course is written on the first slide of the powerpoint. this first lesson is crucial for understanding the actual intent of the course. the intention occurs in a deweyan sense as a responsive oral communication between people and things when the two educators, referring to the powerpoint, communicate to the students as hearers. i present selected excerpts from this oral communication in the following section, because this situation is crucial to understanding a principal component of the actual meaning of the three-week course. the language in use is in itself important to consider in order to understand the intent as more than the educators’ own exclusive meanings. as stated theoretically by dewey, language is “the tool of tools,” and it makes “appliances, application, utensils and use” possible (dewey, 1929). hence, the language communicated creates a focal ground for how the students are expected to understand the official order of the course and how they are expected to perceive themselves as participants in n. nybye: the pitch as meaning-directing activity implications for students and education when fast pace and a striving for novelty set the scene qualitative studies: 6(2), pp. 30-53 © 2021 38 the course and as health professionals in general. in that sense, the primary communication is instrumental, because it frames the context in which the pitch is included as the final step in the three-week period as part of a final fair for new solutions and thus becomes a goal-seeking activity. however, the language also reveals a desirable response in part of the students concerning innovative behavior. this points to what is a desirable purpose: the educational aim of an innovative health employee as socializing figure: educator 1 (ed1) tells the students: “[…] but the competencies that are the focus of the three weeks […] are the innovative ones, and they are about collaboration and project management, so you will again train some muscles that are not quite as strong. […] but i’ll be surprised if you can’t use this [the course] no matter what your professional background [health] will be in the future. that is at least what the intention has been.” educator 2 (ed2) argues: “[…] you must be innovative in terms of thinking in new ways, you must be dead good [“dødgode” in danish] at it; if you are, then you also get an exciting working life, […] we must think completely new, new method of treatment, new… we have to implement something brand new […]” (audio file) further, it is stressed directly to the students by ed1 in a slightly abstract way that the educators (“we”) have to get the students (“you”) “to come up with something”. the actual process of the three weeks is outlined for the students, emphasizing six steps.viii after the presentation, i explore a certain complexity associated with a subsequent group formation process. on the right and left side walls of the classroom hang a total of four sheets of a3. each sheet describes a challenge that the students have to solve for an external organization: 1) “happy kids”; 2) “smoking cessation among young people – [name of school]”; 3) “taking care of each other infectious hygiene in a pedagogical perspective”; and 4) “early detection of health problems among socially disadvantaged citizens in a danish municipality.” all five “islands” are assigned the same challenges. during a break, students walk around the classroom and read about the challenges. eight teams of six students are formed in a self-organizing process as the students choose which challenge they will work on. due to a high group complexity with a large number of students in each group, i concentrated predominantly on two different teams. n. nybye: the pitch as meaning-directing activity implications for students and education when fast pace and a striving for novelty set the scene qualitative studies: 6(2), pp. 30-53 © 2021 39 on that basis, i followed two groups more closely as cases in the field study. furthermore, yet other cases were already part of my overall field study design. one of the team cases was about the challenge “smoking cessation among young people” [team1], and the other was about “taking care of each other” [team2]. i also gathered data from a third group, “smoking cessation 2”, from situations in the classroom, an initial team contract meeting between the students (audio), data from their pitch (video) and a group interview. team1 consisted of one occupational therapy student, two physiotherapy students and three from the nursing course. team2 consisted of one radiography student, four from the nursing course and one from physiotherapy. in the following, i will not enter into the specific venture ideas but will concentrate on the meaning making in relation to the pitch with excerpts from my analysis in the phd study. i will focus especially on qualitative data from the team2 case. analysis the first part of the analysis shows how the pitch as direction and established official order set by the educators in the innovation course affects the students’ meaning-making processes. this is a rather progressive analytical part in which excerpts from the rich ethnographic data speak. it shows how another, highly dynamic, tense, responsive and interpretative world occurs when the students act, learn and experience through their own projects as a contrast to the outlined stable intentions of the course. secondly, i build on the first part of the analysis to discuss why the realization of values entails consequences relating to the pitch as educational tool. in this second part, i touch on strengths and a reservation in my analysis leading to an opening towards a value of reflection that might challenge the ongoing meaning making and rhythm relating to the pitch and the innovation course. the pitch experienced although i emphasize the case data from team2, i will mention that my analysis reveals that team1 and team2 have different approaches to the process in the course. team1 acts with counter-reactions to the educational process outlined by the educators. from a video recording (data collection) in a group room at the educational institution, st4 reads out that “there is a workshop on thursday about the business model”, to which st1 responds that “they have made n. nybye: the pitch as meaning-directing activity implications for students and education when fast pace and a striving for novelty set the scene qualitative studies: 6(2), pp. 30-53 © 2021 40 it.” there is a bit of laughter, and it is mentioned that there is a “workshop about pitching” the following friday, to which st3 laughs: “we do not show up at all” (video file). one of the following messages from the students’ self-organized meeting, captured by the video recording, is that the students in team1 do not think the course is “especially cool,” that they are looking forward to returning to their ordinary health studies and that they just have to be registered as being present to complete the course. in an interview with the group, the students explain their reactions as alienated meaning making: they feel that they had to “force the healthcare aspect like a hat down over their project,” and one of the students in the interview expresses this as a less positive, distanced them vs. us dynamic: “they [educators] say we have to think outside the box, but they put us in a box.” team2 is reacting more adaptively to the elements in the process outlined for them. they try to take the elements in and fit them to the intentions of the course. a consequence of this is that doubt occurs as part of the meaning making. the doubt occurs in various situations, e.g., as part of a supervision session between students and ed1 where the students are uncertain as to whether their venture idea must cost anything to develop. they look for an answer. doubting and the search for meaning underpin the process leading towards the pitch, and by this they also create meaning. little by little, in a responsive collective process, the underlying meaning of the pitch is decoded. as we will see later, the powerful index in this interpretation of a new language is not the portability of a flower as in dewey’s responsive a/b example, but the passing of the course by appearing innovative. the meaning of the pitch is made (clear?) in a dialogue in which the students try to decode the meaning of the word “pitch” and the intentions that follow the pitch as practice. from the audio data gathered at a meeting between the students, i hear that the criterion that frames the students’ understanding of the forthcoming pitch situation is a division between what is spelled out as “10 minutes’ presentation and 5 minutes’ feedback.” this is followed by the search for a clearer understanding of this. i present it here as excerpts from a longer dialogue. i have two audio files from this meeting. in the first part, before noon, the students have a first experience of the speech speed, which surprises them. further, they try to decode the form with statements such as that “the pitch is the first two minutes” and, with reference to the online tool “pitcherific,” that the pitch “is about a catchy introduction.” one of the students doubts whether they all are going to say something, and they discuss whether the pitch has something to do n. nybye: the pitch as meaning-directing activity implications for students and education when fast pace and a striving for novelty set the scene qualitative studies: 6(2), pp. 30-53 © 2021 41 with fine clothes. after lunch, they return to the topic (file 2) in approximately ten minutes of dialogue in which words, sentences and half-completed phrases succeed each other in a stream of decodings and discovery about the essence of the pitch. i quote excerpts here that highlight this qualitative aspect of the dialogue. the structure of the pitch undergoes examination. first, about the beginning of the pitch:  st4: are we not starting to pitch?  st1: yes, but to start with, we just have to present who the hell we are.  st6: that’s what they said, we should not come and say hey, we’re so-and-so and we’re here to talk about such-and-such.  st1: no, no, but we probably still have to do…, how to say it… […]  st6: yes [weakly], i just thought we should pitch a bit in the beginning and then the presentation in the middle or a presentation and then a little pitch at the end ... but i don’t know. […] later about the completion:  st4: yeah, what does it say in pitch? [sentence not completed but refers to some sort of written guidance that they have access to on their laptops, e.g., the abovementioned tool, pitcherific.]  st5: ehm ... [silence] it says ... [silence, pause] a strong ending ensures that the person you are pitching to remembers your pitch or a specific message after the pitch is completed. an ending could be a summary of what your main message is as well as a call to action...  st6: yes… i understand the meaning of that… it’s just damn hard to get it down on paper... it makes a lot of sense to just summarize quickly, therefore you have to choose, bam, bam, bam... bam, bam, bam like... it’s almost like one of those advertisements on television... bang, and the dirt is gone (slightly caricatured voice)… something you can remember […].  st1: start with them, end with them, do you get it, then you have come a long way... [silence] (audio file, 00:55:00) n. nybye: the pitch as meaning-directing activity implications for students and education when fast pace and a striving for novelty set the scene qualitative studies: 6(2), pp. 30-53 © 2021 42 during the conversation, we hear that one of the students considers contacting a friend who, in another educational context, has been pitching in an entrepreneurship competition. in that sequence, it becomes clear that the pitch is a new experienced language that acquires meaning in communicative practice on the students’ way towards the outlined pitch in the educational program:  st6: how on earth do you spell to pitch p i t c h ... […] (audio file, 00:52:28) the day after, in preparation for the pitch, the students divide up who says what. this situation highlights how the pitch is intertwined with a business model discourse. st5 mentions that they have to include the “the business model”, at which st1 exclaims: “i don’t give a damn.” they now talk about what the business model is. st1 reasons “why it creates added value” and adds rejective meaning: “i don’t think the business model did shit to help me […]”. two fellow students support this, stating that the business model was nothing but an element that they had to fill out and hand in as part of the course (audio file). a curiosity appears in the process because the group end up presenting two solutions to the challenge about infectious hygiene in a pedagogical perspective. one of the solutions is presented as the primary idea because it answers more directly the challenge issued by the partner from a danish municipality. the students are arguing for the need to install alcohol dispensers in day care institutions, drawing on knowledge and positive experiences of this practice from the hospital sector. a part of their solution is an analytical poster outlining “the vicious circle” and how infectious hygiene in day care institutions emerges as a systemic chain that can be broken. one message is that their solution will break the chain of bacteria transmissions. the secondary solution to the challenge builds on a minor observation study the students conducted in a concrete day care institution. here, the students saw the need for a children’s book. the students pitch this as a secondary idea at the final fair. they have made initial drawings for the book of their own creations, “snottus and influz,” which appear on children’s hands as bacterial monsters. the colorful drawings should be followed by rhymes and chants of how to perform proper hand hygiene. this idea is inspired by the now historical n. nybye: the pitch as meaning-directing activity implications for students and education when fast pace and a striving for novelty set the scene qualitative studies: 6(2), pp. 30-53 © 2021 43 story karius and baktus by the norwegian author thorbjørn egner, in which the two tooth trolls play around inside jens’s teeth, making havoc. the pitch as evaluative judgment of end products the final fair takes place in a classroom. because of the overall number of about 250 students in the entire program, fairs are distributed over several classrooms. i find the space in the classroom i observe to be rather crowded, with stands distributed along the walls of the room and relatively huge groups of students waiting to pitch at their stands. i have been allowed to video-record the group of students that i am following as field researcher. when the students have finished pitching their solution(s) about hand hygiene, the pitch is followed by an evaluative judgment. educator (ed3) has a scorecard in her hand that represents a number of sub-categories, on which ed3, ed4 and an external consultant from the municipality must provide evaluative feedback. in the following excerpt, a central illocutionary force (searle, 1976) reveals a true-versus-false dimension regarding what is evaluated as innovative (new). ed3: the innovative part of…, the innovative power…, it must be said, you didn’t suggest anything new, but what you did, which was innovative, was that you put some already-known things together in a way that covered the challenge. you have clarified this, so in that way, it worked really well. then you have thought further and made karius and baktus […] eh potentials, yes certainly, in relation to the book maybe, right, it could make a big difference. the other [solution] would be fine to implement, but in reality the big difference could be with snottus and influz […]. a rationalistic perspective dominates the situation. the “innovative power” is presented as an object that can be assessed on objective criteria. the communication to the students establishes a stable “order” in the form of a final judgment, and this in itself establishes an asymmetric form of “judges of innovation” evaluating “creating students”. thus, authoritative force defines the form and carries the experience of the situation, telling the students what is to be considered new and what the students have done. basically, the feedback recognizes the students having made their work fit the expectations of the course. however, the view of innovation communicated seems difficult to discern, because the judgment both denies that it is something n. nybye: the pitch as meaning-directing activity implications for students and education when fast pace and a striving for novelty set the scene qualitative studies: 6(2), pp. 30-53 © 2021 44 new and in the same sentence acknowledges that it is something new, because existing things can be combined. pragmatism questions the tendency seen above to establish true being. the analysis of the situation shows that the criterion is not a “thing” separate from the situation in which several people communicate responsively. the pitch situation itself is a game of persuasion. whether an analogy is the pitch in music or in baseball, the pitch sets the tone of a game in actual relations between actors and artifacts, e.g., the singer, the song and the listener; the players, the rules, judges, opponents and audience. when the pitch is judged on objective criteria, it leaves the impression that the pitch is nothing but transmitting a message of truth from a to b. but the solutions cannot simply be transmitted linguistically. they are communicated within asymmetric interpretive relations (students and judges). the students’ solutions are interpreted from more or less implicit theory, and i interpret the confirmation of what is considered innovative as an unspoken schumpeterian (1934) theoretical version of innovation as new combinations. however, no distinction is made between the interpretations that arise in the situation from the assessors and possible implicit and explicit theory. students must accept this confusion as an overall objective judgment of what is considered new, and a distance in terms of a “final” overall judgement is created to the students’ own experiences and considerations during the creating process in the course. in the following, i discuss this “separation” further as a consequence relative to how values affect how and why students are expected to think, act and participate in the innovation course, and i end by discussing whether reflection is valuable when students are pitching in innovative endeavors. values-realization: discussion of consequences seen in the analytical light of rhythm as ordered variations of changes, the concept of innovation as a concept of judgment as a “final” end seems problematic, as it places one value, novelty, in the hierarchy above the obsolete past. let us assume that the students’ hygiene station is brought into an experimental process in which, over time, actors actually come up with solutions to a hygiene problem. in this hypothetical yet possible and realistic situation, it would in a sense be of less importance whether the idea at a given time in a decoupled context were to be judged innovative. thus, previous research shows that innovative solutions can benefit from practice because they are developed over time by co-creating, co-communicating and interpreting n. nybye: the pitch as meaning-directing activity implications for students and education when fast pace and a striving for novelty set the scene qualitative studies: 6(2), pp. 30-53 © 2021 45 stakeholders, as is known from research on the entrepreneurial and innovative emergence of modern wind turbines in denmark (garud & karnøe, 2003). through space and time, one trait originally developed for one purpose can serve as the basis for new success known as exaptation (sarasvathy, 2008, p. 187). hence, new ideas are not a dominant order in itself. the “order” of the rhythm in the innovative and entrepreneurial process is ongoing variations over time like the ebb and flow of tides (dewey, 1934). new ideas about how something can be done are relative to the path of experience and knowledge from old ideas like the transformation of ideas from the old flour mill to modern wind turbines. in that sense, it could be valuable to consider the pitch as a rhythmic pause (dewey, 1934) in an entrepreneurial process instead of as a final judgment of the students within a given time limit. the time limit is expressed through speech and a physical motion as the group of judges produce a next institutional step (searle, 1976; nybye, 2020, p. 188). they turn to the right and walk to the next group in the room, who must present their idea, and the very course process is in that sense rhythmic, a pause before the next group in a series must present their pitch. here, time and space are organized through an educational norm of sequence that guides the right actions, just as the overall educational process was outlined in six steps in the first lesson. the order of succession is connected to the content, and this constitutes a certain perception of what is to be considered as real or said, with dewey, to be true being. fast pace the real true meaning of the pitch is that it is conducted quickly at a fast pace, and there is no time to go into the students’ reflections, as the next pitch is waiting. thus, when values of speed and efficiency intertwined with those of novelty and completion underpin the conditions of participation in the innovation course, these affect the pace of the learning process. why is it actually the secondary solution, the one that the students themselves experienced as meaningful on the basis of their own inquiry, that actually gets the most recognition? why is the students’ sketch model of the hand hygiene problem as a “vicious circle” not extremely relevant? in the evaluation of the students’ solution, the analysis inherent in the sketch model is not articulated. why does it fall foul of the judgment of innovative force (novelty) and the realization of the next institutional step (completion)? the values are “rules” to be followed. the course in itself realizes efficiency. it is defined by a framework of 3 weeks. the setting defines the direction n. nybye: the pitch as meaning-directing activity implications for students and education when fast pace and a striving for novelty set the scene qualitative studies: 6(2), pp. 30-53 © 2021 46 and pace of acquisition and understanding of knowledge and skills. the pitch as educational tool represents the value of speed in connection with efficiency, novelty and completion. is this argument valid? it seems efficient that over 200 students distributed in space are pitching ideas (discursively called solutions) at the same time through the same time slots, effectuating institutional steps towards the ending of the course. in danish, the discourse of solutions can cover an “action, phenomenon or product that solves, for example, a problem, a conflict, a task or a riddle.”ix but why is the discourse of solutions relevant? and, if we find an answer to this, it may be obvious to investigate some of the connotations that follow the discourse, which i admit complicate the assumption that objective value can be created rapidly over a short predetermined period and communicated in few minutes. it is possible, but are these solutions then lasting solutions? historically speaking, there are clear positive consequences from new inventions in the wake of sciences such as engineering and medicine that expand the human possibilities in life (dewey, 1929, p. 35), and a reservation to the present analysis is that i do not explore the benefits of the outcomes presented as innovations by the students on the course. that said, a philosophical consequence for dewey was the separation of subject and object and a world of things “indifferent to human interests” if one forgets the connection between the scientifically produced objects and that of primary experience (ibid.). educational research has argued that this separation of meaning and end products of practice risks creating “an artificial distance between the learner and the curriculum” because objective discoveries are valued in favor of the creative impact of humans (biesta, 2006, p. 35). the focus on meaning in the present analysis as “located in human practice” (ibid.) establishes an analytical contrast that actually shows that innovation as an educational topic creates this tendency to separation and distance between end products and primary experience. thus, a strength of the present analysis is that it reveals a far more complex and hidden rhythm of education than evaluations of pitched end products (innovative solutions) per se, and this establishes a ground for consideration of how to scaffold future entrepreneurial education and bring the student’s primary experiences to the foreground through a focus on reflection on the interconnection between subject and object (dewey, 1929, pp. 27-34, 39) which, in the following, opens up a choice regarding educational ideals that can be explored further in future works. n. nybye: the pitch as meaning-directing activity implications for students and education when fast pace and a striving for novelty set the scene qualitative studies: 6(2), pp. 30-53 © 2021 47 a self-questioning approach as a possible challenge to the rhythm of speed an implication of dewey’s pragmatism for education and educational research is that students are not acquiring knowledge in any passive way (biesta & burbules, 2003, p. 9). the immaterial mind is not acquiring the material world outside that mind (ibid.); in dewey’s pragmatism, analytical thinking actually plays a crucial role in reflecting on what humans experience as naturalized qualities (dewey, 1929; dewey, 1938, pp. 762-764). the data reveals a positive opportunity in that the students experience engaging as active participants and voices in the current development and communication of health knowledge and future health practice. however, values of speed and the striving for novelty dominate expectations of students’ outcomes amplified by course efficiency and the aim of completion. this values-realizing situation narrows down the room for deeper reflection on substance, on historical, political or environmental issues relevant to new ideas and on the student’s own experiences of the learning process. based on the present analysis, my argument is that speed and the striving for novelty become affordances for the health students, and through the pitch the students are expected to act as a version of saleswo/men in a marketplace for new solutions to an audience of assessing judges, while the active, reflective student as figure is left behind. this reflects the impact of the above-mentioned market mechanisms that constitute a subjecting contemporary cultural discourse of “utility semantics” (bröckling, 2016). but what is the educational ideal in this semantic development? what if the why in the naturalization of the pitch is further investigated (hytti, 2018)? why is the pitch as tool relevant to a specific knowledge area such as health? is it to learn students to adapt strictly to externally defined criteria for what is judged new and useful, or to engage in a self-questioning approach to the entire chain of “affecting, being affected and self-affecting” (bröckling, 2016)? i argue that a self-monitoring approach (biggs & tang, 2011) and a more critical pedagogical approach in entrepreneurial education (berglund & verduijn, 2018; lackéus, 2017; lindbergh & schwartz, 2018) can lead to active participatory reflection among students: what do i affect in positive and negative terms when engaging in innovative endeavors? for whom and for what are my ideas good or bad? which interests, tools and discourses affect me, why, and with what consequences? such questions of course need scaffolding, and they will challenge the rhythm of speed and create a tension between values, because an analytical pace enters the game of persuasion relative to the pitch situation! the questions outlined draw on the basic openness in n. nybye: the pitch as meaning-directing activity implications for students and education when fast pace and a striving for novelty set the scene qualitative studies: 6(2), pp. 30-53 © 2021 48 pragmatism, treating more explicitly the pitch as a rhythmic pause – not the final truth, which, to paraphrase dewey's fellow spirit w. james, basically opens the quest rather than closing it (james, 1907, p. 21). pragmatism then unstiffens our theories rather than finding final answers (ibid.); this places reflection and analysis in the very stream of the student’s experiences and makes reflection critical, non-static and forward moving. conclusion the article investigates the pitch as educational tool in an innovation course at the health studies department in a danish university college. on the basis of dewey’s pragmatism and his view of communication, the analysis shows that the meaning of the pitch is not a stable or neutral fact. it gains its “essence” from an educational rhythm of opposing energies among educators and students who make meaning as communicating and experiencing subjects. values of speed and the striving for novelty dominate expectations of students’ outcomes. amplified by course efficiency and the aim of completion after three weeks on the course, these values support a rationalistic educational discourse in which educators, as judges of students’ innovative solutions, mainly evaluate the end products of practice. a consequence is that this asymmetric structure establishes a value-based hierarchy (true being, dewey, 1929) in which news value is demanded and deeper nuances of innovation and the students’ primary experiences that created the end products are absent in favor of “utility semantics” (bröckling, 2016). the students can escape neither the values, the language nor the pitch as a sales practice if they are to pass the innovation course, and this illustrates how the pitch as a tool is naturalized as a normative element not only in society but within educational contexts. finally, the article suggests an opening, self-questioning educational approach pointing towards the need for a reflective value that can challenge the established system of values and the “objective” innovation discourse. the standpoint in pragmatism then challenges the established meaning making relative to the pitch and the innovation course, offering a different pace and rhythm. n. nybye: the pitch as meaning-directing activity implications for students and education when fast pace and a striving for novelty set the scene qualitative studies: 6(2), pp. 30-53 © 2021 49 references berglund & k. verduijn (2018). revitalizing entrepreneurship education: adopting a 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(2003). new movements in entrepreneurship. cheltenham, uk: edward elgar. thrane, c., blenker, p., korsgaard, s. & neergaard, h (2016). the promise of entrepreneurship education: reconceptualizing the individual-opportunity nexus as a conceptual framework for entrepreneurship education. international small business journal, 34(7), 905-92. notes i see pittaway & edwards (2012) for distinctions between four forms of entrepreneurship education: “about”, “for”, “through” and “embedded” / “in”. ii one case of three students (occupational therapy (oct)) was not part of a course and is thus considered extra-curricular. iii also referred to as the stanford model. developed from stanford research institute: carlson, curtis r. & wilmot, william w., (2006). innovation. the five disciplines for creating what customers want. new york, crown business. https://archive.org/details/innovation00curt/page/n5/mode/2up iv the historical roots of pragmatism were set by american philosophers of science c.s. peirce (1839-1914), w. james (1842-1910) and j. dewey (1859-1952) and further developed by e.g. g.h. mead (1863-1931) (biesta & burbules, 2003). v in his writings, biesta argues for the functioning of education through three domains: “qualification” (knowledge, skills and dispositions – that qualify someone to do something); “socialization” (becoming part of existing traditions and cultures and ways of being and doing) and the more philosophical domain “subjectification” (the process of becoming-a-subject) (biesta, 2020, p. 34). vi pragmatism was originally developed as part of a cultural critique of rational cartesian thinking that e.g. leads to a mechanical understanding and of way of life that separates rational scientific thinking from human experience and feelings (james, 1907; dewey, 1929/2013; biesta & burbules, 2003). vii according to r. stacey, etymologically, the word “symbol” derives from greek symbolon (a mark or token) and sym-ballein (to throw together) (stacey, 2003, p. 68). building on g.h. mead, stacey argues that a symbol means that meaning is thrown together with its object and as such is communicative action and stands for something for someone (ibid.). n. nybye: the pitch as meaning-directing activity implications for students and education when fast pace and a striving for novelty set the scene qualitative studies: 6(2), pp. 30-53 © 2021 53 viii secondary data from the powerpoint presentation. six pre-defined steps: “(1) research and analysis week one; (2) vision/challenge week one; (3) idea development week two; (4) prototype/concept development, possibly tests and adjustments week two; (5) implementation (or a plan for this) week three; (6) knowledge sharing week three” (org. listed with bullet points). ix ref.: https://ordnet.dk/ddo/ordbog?query=l%c3%b8sning about the author nicolai nybye, ma, phd, is an assistant professor in the department of applied business research, ucl university college, denmark. he conducts qualitative research on the relationship between entrepreneurship, innovation and education. qualitative studies vol. 6, no. 2, 2021, pp. 5-29 issn 1903-7031 5 phenomenology of rhythm: the role of rhythm in written language casper feilberg1 & john maul2 1aalborg university, department of communication and psychology, teglgårds plads 1, 9000 aalborg, denmark 2independent researcher, hornbækvej 82, 9270 klarup, denmark based on existential-phenomenological perspectives from merleau-ponty and løgstrup, we examine the significance of rhythm for written language skills. rhythm is both omnipresent and a difficult phenomenon to explore. methodologically, the article presents phenomenological descriptions and exemplifications, not least a case study of a secondary school student with written language difficulties. our intention is to illuminate connections between rhythmic perspectives in movement, speech, working memory and language as prerequisites for the acquisition of written language skills. we conclude that rhythm is an essential aspect of our bodily being, and based on the work of merleau-ponty, we are able to bring to light relationships between body, rhythm, and written language skills in ways that would not be possible from a natural scientific point of view. inspired by merleau-ponty's analytical approach and the hermeneutic phenomenology of ricoeur, we will combine an understanding perspective with both human scientific and natural scientific explanations, into a holistic interpretation. the article thus draws empirically on qualitative descriptions of rhythmic phenomena, and theoretically on perspectives from philosophy of language, developmental psychology and neuropsychology, but they are all interpreted in the light of existential-phenomenological ontology. key words: researching rhythms, existential phenomenology, qualitative case study, writing, reading, dyslexia introduction rhythm comes from the greek ‘rhythmos’ meaning ‘wave’ or ‘a regular recurring motion’ with strong and weak elements, as in the pronunciation of the word phenomenon. pronounced without stress and accent, all speech would be a monotonous and undifferentiated mass. rhythm also plays a https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5312-0829 https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2058-7956 c. feilberg & j. maul: phenomenology of rhythm: the role of rhythm in written language qualitative studies: 6(2), pp. 5-29 © 2021 6 significant role in our ability to express ourselves in writing, which is the focal point of this article. we will examine the significance of rhythm for written language skills, but we will do so through a holistic interpretation of the many activities that are involved in being able to express ourselves in writing such as the acquisition of language, being able to read, being able to read aloud and convey a meaning, and finally being able to write and express oneself as a whole. with respect to all of these activities, rhythm constitutes both an omnipresent and an implicit phenomenon, which nevertheless holds the key to understanding more about written language skills in general, and written language difficulties (dyslexia) in particular. out of the existential phenomenologists, maurice merleau-ponty and knud e. løgstrup in particular, have dealt with language and music including rhythm. we will show that particularly existential phenomenology is an obvious basis for analyzing and understanding the significance of rhythm for written language skills (compton, 1997; feilberg, 2012, 2014, 2019). there is something mysterious or rather magical about our ability to communicate through language and written language. as part of his analysis of the patient schneider, merleau-ponty (2012) makes use of the metaphor of a melody to describe the magic of an everyday event such as retelling a story. due to a brain damage schneider is unable to retell a story: “and indeed, if the patient is told a story, rather than grasping it as a melodic whole with its strong and weak beats and with its characteristic rhythm or flow, he only retains it as a series of facts that must be recorded one by one” (merleau-ponty, 2012, p. 134). according to merleau-ponty, we are (unlike schneider) able to understand a story because we grasp it as a ‘melodic whole’, with a ‘characteristic rhythm’ and strong and weak beats, through which we “accentuate” some parts and others less so, and thus the story is meaningful as a ‘lived’ ‘human event’ (ibid.). all this happens before any explicit analysis and as part of the normal subject’s power to live the event by identifying herself with the situation and thus give meaning to it (ibid., pp. 134-135). all this happens at a pre-reflective and bodily level of our being, which we cannot fully explain in a natural scientific way. the same goes for the phrases we formulate in normal fluent speech. they are, according to merleau-ponty, ”organized all by itself” (merleau-ponty, 1967, p. 87). but, adds merleau-ponty, “the first words must already have the kind of rhythm and accent which is appropriate to the end of the sentence, which is nevertheless not yet determined, except as the last notes of a melody are performed in its global structure.” (1967, p. 87). expressed in other words, the beginning of the sentence is rhythmical and accent-wise organized in relation to the whole. in the normal person, it happens all by itself. in relation to music, merleau-ponty observes the following: ”the same notes in two different melodies are not recognized as such. inversely, the same melody can be played two times without the c. feilberg & j. maul: phenomenology of rhythm: the role of rhythm in written language qualitative studies: 6(2), pp. 5-29 ©2021 7 two versions having a single common element if it has been transposed” (1967, p. 87). and merleauponty points out that the same can be said of language. according to merleau-ponty, the note of the music or the sound of speech emerges only as a figure and an experience, by virtue of a background or a context that together creates a gestalt. a gestalt or a holistic experience that represents more than the individual parts. in the background, the body and rhythm play a crucial role for the experience or the expression that is perceived or created. this background is ultimately the lifeworld understood as a common social and cultural background of meaning (barbaras, 2005, pp. 208, 227-228). in other words, there is a play between what we directly live and experience, and the background from which the experienced emerges (ibid.). an understanding of this interaction between body and world, and between figure and background, is a central theme in existential phenomenology, and it suggests that a phenomenological approach is relevant to examine and to understand the importance of rhythm for oral and written communication. but not only phenomenology. the question of language acquisition, reading and writing is so complex that a philosophical approach as well as an interdisciplinary approach is necessary to gain a glimpse of the fundamental significance that rhythm has on these activities. let us take a closer look at the essence of language from a linguistic and a phenomenological point of view, and return to our argument for the human scientific, qualitative and existentialphenomenological approach in this article to rhythm and language. the body and rhythm in relation to language to merleau-ponty (2012), the body forms a magical connection with the world at a pre-reflective level. rhythm appears as an interplay between the silent bodily knowledge and the reflective thought, which is also reflected in the fact that you only know what you mean when you have heard what you say (ibid., p. 425). and when we listen to the speech of others, the fact is that we sense the language as little as the ears we hear with. the language ‘will be overlooked’ according to løgstrup (1976, p. 174), it is transparent and belongs to our pre-reflective being and bodily habits. the fish does not care about the water in which it swims any more than we care about the language we are surrounded by. we do not hear speech, we hear meaning we are as merleau-ponty has expressed it "condemned to sense" (2012, p. lxxxiv). we cannot choose to hear a familiar language as noise. hence the cliché: ‘i could not help overhearing what you said’. if you have to reproduce what someone else has said, it will extremely rarely be a faithful copy, but you reproduce the contents in other words. and likewise with rhythm. c. feilberg & j. maul: phenomenology of rhythm: the role of rhythm in written language qualitative studies: 6(2), pp. 5-29 © 2021 8 we cannot analyze rhythms in the same act as we live them, according to lefebvre (2013, p. 95). nor can the rhythm of language be accounted for in linguistics, neither objectively nor scientifically. linguists such as hansen and lund (1983) had to give up defining the rhythm of sentences and instead just state: "native danes generally agree on where to put stress and what is accented" (hansen and lund, 1983, our transl.). but according to the philosopher of language grønbech it is possible to understand the role of rhythm in speech: “in words i can communicate my thoughts to the outside world partly though; in the melody i announce the deep play of thought” (1943 p. 66, our transl.). the rhythm of speech in the form of prosody and intonation is also referred to as suprasegmental, ie. that these are elements which are underlying the noticeable speech sounds, by which they evade a linguistic and phonetic analysis. for instance, it can be exemplified by the fact that in modern hearing aids the sounds from the bass area are amplified, which otherwise extend below the normal speech area and therefore have no effect on the perception and discrimination of the speech sounds. but one gets the chance to catch the rhythmic and prosodic elements of the language, and it has proven to be an important aid for perceiving and understanding linguistic meaning and significance. this is why in the effort to obtain scientific explanations about the cause of written language difficulties based on linguistics (eg. elbro 1990), one is easily led to assumptions that overlook perspectives of philosophy of language as well as qualitative perspectives of being. the result will be an absorption in one’s own partial understanding, where, for example, the linguistic awareness is made the focal point of theory formation, causal explanations, and intervention, as it is evident from the linguistic reading theory of elbro (1990). our existential-phenomenological and qualitative perspectives will challenge elbro's linguistic reading theory and other linguistic theories. in linguistics, one deals with the objective language which can be dissected and measured. in the philosophy of language, one deals with the lived language as it is practiced. unlike such a technical knowledge-guiding interest in prediction and control of objectified processes, a practicalunderstanding knowledge-guiding interest will lead the researcher to develop descriptions and theoretical concepts that can contribute to a greater understanding of the matter (habermas, 1978; gadamer, 2004). the work of merleau-ponty (2012, 1968) is a good example of this practical-understanding knowledge-guiding interest. in his works, he was preoccupied with understanding our immediate experience in a way that did not lead to an intellectualization of our being-in-the-world or to a reduction of it from an objectivist conception of science. to merleau-ponty: c. feilberg & j. maul: phenomenology of rhythm: the role of rhythm in written language qualitative studies: 6(2), pp. 5-29 ©2021 9 “literature, music, the passions, but also the experience of the visible world are no less than is the science of lavoisier and ampère the exploration of an invisible and the disclosure of a universe of ideas. the difference is simply that this invisible, these ideas, unlike those of that [natural] science, cannot be detached from the sensible appearances and be erected into a second positivity” (merleau-ponty, 1968, p. 149). according to existential phenomenology, when we inquire into the sense of rhythm with respect to writing or other human phenomena from a practical-understanding knowledge-guiding interest, we cannot do so without taking the experiential dimension into account. this is different from the explorations of physical objects made by natural science such as physics and chemistry, which is able to do just that: put the ideas of things into a second positivity with concepts such as ampere, voltage etc. inquiry into lived human phenomena demands a fundamentally different approach than a natural scientific knowledge-guiding interest. because, according to merleau-ponty, “we do not possess the musical or sensible ideas, precisely because they are negativity or absence circumscribed; they possess us” (1968, p. 151). we are only given the opportunity to explore and understand the 'ideas' or the phenomena, because they are not separate from ourselves as an object on the laboratory table, but on the contrary are part of ourselves and our lifeworld as corporeal and perceptive beings (ibid., p. 150). merleau-ponty puts it this way: the phenomenological”…philosopher is always implicated in the problems he poses” (1968, p. 90). the phenomenological ontology of merleau-ponty is an indirect ontology of fleshly being (1968, p. 88, 179), meaning it tries to describe “the immediate perception of sense and significance that does not really appear directly” (feilberg, norlyk & keller, 2018, p. 218). in this article, we take on the same aim with respect to rhythm and written language skills. in describing such an indirect ontology, merleau-ponty is well aware of the impossibility of fully expressing this ontology through language as a ‘second positivity’. even our qualitative descriptions of an experience are not quite close to our perception and immediate experience: ”the explicitation does not give us the idea itself; it is but a second version of it, a more manageable derivative” (1968, p. 150). descriptions remain a derivative version of the lived phenomenon. the phenomenon of human science research is made more understandable through analysis and language, but never fully grasped, unless the reader at the same time sense what is discussed in the light of her own corporeal being and lived experience. therefore, merleau-ponty has chosen the poetic and literary style in his existential phenomenology, as a break off from and a development of c. feilberg & j. maul: phenomenology of rhythm: the role of rhythm in written language qualitative studies: 6(2), pp. 5-29 © 2021 10 husserlian phenomenology (olesen, 1993; merleau-ponty, 2012, p. lxxxiv). he makes use of literature, metaphors, case examples and other examples from everyday life, in order to describe and bring alive the phenomena that he analyzes. if, as a writer, one succeeds in bringing life and movement to the reader through the language, the phenomena that are scientifically described and investigated can at the same time appear in the reader by virtue of his bodily being as well as the common social and cultural lifeworld; and here rhythm has a special significance for bringing phenomena to ‘life’ in reading, speaking and writing, three of the central topics of the article. in this article, we will go beyond phenomenological descriptions, and in line with the spirit of merleau-ponty's work (2012) combine descriptions of immediate experiences and qualitative observations with natural scientific and human scientific perspectives. the descriptions and the explanatory perspectives culminate altogether in what ricoeur in explanation and understanding (1991) has called an interpretation. merleau-ponty (2012) is also known for incorporating perspectives of developmental psychology and gestalt-psychology in his phenomenological work, by which we are also inspired. in this article, we draw on knowledge from neuropsychology, linguistics, phonetics, developmental psychology, philosophy of language, and combine it with a qualitative interpretation of a case study (maul, 2000; feilberg & maul, 2019). the rest of the article is organized as follows: in section a) we present preliminary perspectives on language, reading and writing in the normal subject from existential phenomenology, philosophy of language, developmental psychology and music theory. though in order to better understand the invisible and implicit character of rhythm and writing, we introduce a qualitative case study of a young man with dyslexia called brian. in section b) we present the methodological reflections and the qualitative case study that make possible a more developed phenomenological analysis of rhythm in writing. in the case of brian, we are able to bring to light relationships between the way of walking, writing by hand, speaking, remembering rhymes, spelling, reading and expressing oneself in writing, all of which have aspects of rhythm in them. in section c) we will discuss our findings on rhythm and its consequences to our understanding of written language skills, dyslexia and qualitative inquiry in general. there are a number of other contributions to phenomenological analysis of rhythm, such as grants' some suggestions for a phenomenology of rhythm (2010), which is specifically about music. wiskus (2013) has also analyzed rhythm in music as a way of shedding new light on our bodily involvement c. feilberg & j. maul: phenomenology of rhythm: the role of rhythm in written language qualitative studies: 6(2), pp. 5-29 ©2021 11 in the world, and the importance of art for philosophical reflection. but none of these examines the significance of rhythm on written language skills. a) forming the basis of understanding the mystery of language to express oneself in writing through the body merleau-ponty (2012, pp. 145-146) describes the enigmatic interplay between body and mind at play when typing at a pre-reflective level. a person can express his thoughts via the keyboard without having any conscious knowledge of where on the keys the individual fingers are located. if you have learned to touch type with all ten fingers you no longer know where on the keyboard the individual fingers are, all the while you are formulating meaningful sentences on the computer screen. to merleau-ponty, ”it is a question of a knowledge in our hands, which is only given through a bodily effort and cannot be translated by an objective designation” (2012, p. 145). and he links this phenomenon directly to the organist's musical manifestations on the keyboard in the church, and states that an experienced organist can play on different keyboards in several churches (2012, p. 146). but as with the keys on the keyboard, it is not the position of the individual keys in relation to the fingers on the keyboard that is decisive, but rather the body's rhythmic movements that give meaning and accent to language and music. orienting oneself on the keyboard does not presuppose mental images of its geometric coordinates, but rather that their spaciousness is incarnated and is already in the body, arms and fingers as a habit. when, by contrast, you write by hand with a pencil, other additional dimensions are brought into play. first, we can talk about the 'movement paths' of the letters, which in childhood are picked up as learned motor clichés, which are always performed for each individual letter in a continuous course of movement with the same beginning and end each time. it is often referred to as automation of alphabetic writing and is the result of many erratic attempts in early childhood towards a confident performance; which, rather than automated, is rhythmized, i.e. embedded in obvious movement patterns similar to the same letter each time. just like chinese and japanese graphic characters, which are not, as many believe, drawn as spatial figures, but rather as a result of fluid movement patterns in implied and rhythmized, habitual sequences of movement. such movements are often described as automated movements, stemming from the greek autómatos for self-moving or self-willed, but rhythmizing is a better term. and that is because automating in a modern sense refers to automaton and machine, while rhythmizing points to a bodily expression of motor learned and self-evident c. feilberg & j. maul: phenomenology of rhythm: the role of rhythm in written language qualitative studies: 6(2), pp. 5-29 © 2021 12 habits. writing thus becomes a progressive and rhythmized movement that almost proceeds by itself prior to the conscious thought. this leads directly to the next stage of a normal development of handwriting, which is the connection of the writing in fluent handwriting. common to all connected forms of handwriting is that they are based on ‘kinetic movement melodies’ as a prerequisite for the handwriting to flow completely freely and the writer to be preoccupied with the content in the same way as on the keyboard. merleau-ponty refers to typewriting as a ‘modulation of motricity’ and a ‘modulation of the manual space’ (merleau-ponty, 2012, p. 145). modulation comes from latin: modulātiōn, ie. adjust the pitch, tone, or volume of your voice, in this context modulation or rhythmization of motricity. these processes occur pre-reflectively when they are acquired. one way to learn more about the importance of motricity for written language skills is by examining dyslexic students' difficulties with rhythmizations. this is done in section b. rhythm as a fundamental phenomenon in speech, language and written language skills the rhythmic perspectives will now be expanded from typing and handwriting to speech, language and written language skills. we begin with a perspective of developmental psychology, as rhythm is at play in human developmental psychology from before birth. the scottish child psychologist threvarten and the norwegian music researcher bjørkvold have presented important knowledge in this area. according to bjørkvold (1992), already at an early embryonic stage, the future human being is affected by ‘the music of the earth’. gravity is the first sensory perception we receive and that forever connects us to our position in the universe as the core point of all sorts of other sensory perceptions. and immediately thereafter, the sense of hearing follows and the fetus is stimulated early with the mother's heartbeat and the deepest notes from the surroundings, just like when you hear music or voices as a dull sound through walls corresponding to the mother's body. it is predominantly a rhythmic influence with deep notes containing the melody of speech (ibid.). the development of language thus begins before birth. it begins with tone, tempo and dynamics, and for the fetus it is the music in the mother's voice that matters, not the semantic meaning of the words. experiments have suggested that newly born babies can recognize fragments of nursery rhymes that their pregnant mothers read aloud to them during pregnancy (ibid.). once the baby is born, the rhythmic interaction between mother and baby continues in the form of a synchronization of motricity, facial expressions and sounds. the newborn's motricity is implemented and c. feilberg & j. maul: phenomenology of rhythm: the role of rhythm in written language qualitative studies: 6(2), pp. 5-29 ©2021 13 synchronized with the adult's organized language acts. in bjørkvold’s (1992) view the mother tongue is imprinted into the infant's body as an interplay of sound, rhythm and movement. trevarthen (1987, 1988, 1999, 2010) imagines that the mother, like a conductor, strikes with the baton and creates a mutual understanding between herself and the child regarding a basic pulse. these first conversations create musical forms of participation, where the common tempo tends towards a slow andante or an adagio. the infant's early vocalizations have metric and harmonic features that can be compared with both speech and with a musical performance. this provides a prosodic framework for the development of conversations. not only in the interaction between infant and adult, but also in the adult's conversation, has synchronicity been demonstrated between the speaker's voice and the listener's body movements. and it shapes our spoken language and reading skills in ways of which we are not aware, but that philosophy of language can shed light on. german philosopher julius stenzel’s work philosophie der sprache (1934) is particularly relevant here. løgstrup sums up stenzel's insight as follows: “thanks to the tone and the timbre of the words, we are set, just as surely as imperceptibly, in a certain direction, and not only by the spoken, but also by the written word. the acoustic figure that the sentence, not least as a rhythmic whole, gets from the intention of meaning, is important. he who reads without overseeing the whole does not understand what he is reading and he is not understood. to the meaning corresponds a rhythmic clause of the sentence as a sound figure, and that is the prerequisite for speech and comprehension. the raising and lowering of the voice, pauses, are means of clarifying what is meant. it is a misconception that the language is composed of already definitively finished parts. rather, the real life of language is fulfilling itself much more in the influence of the whole on the parts, the sentence on the word, the word on the syllable, the syllable on the sound.” (løgstrup, 1976 p. 12, our transl.) according to stenzel rhythm plays a significant role in fluent reading anticipating and adjusting the course of the process so that the prosody the direct connection to understanding supports the listener through difficult paragraphs. this support via the prosody occurs immediately and by itself, so that one often notices its necessity only when it is absent, as we saw in the example of schneider (merleau-ponty, 2012). let us bring another example. some people who suffer from autism can read technically perfectly and c. feilberg & j. maul: phenomenology of rhythm: the role of rhythm in written language qualitative studies: 6(2), pp. 5-29 © 2021 14 seemingly completely unobtrusively, but they reveal themselves in their reading with their deviant accents and rhythm; and it turns out that they do not have a full understanding of the content they are reading. it is equivalent to being able to play technically perfectly on a musical instrument, but only those who have the intention of expressing a feeling or a meaning with the music are seriously recognized. the existential phenomenologist knud e. løgstrup elaborates on the same relationship as regards reading: "if a person reads aloud, a speaker on the radio for example, he may lecture very clearly, distinctly and correctly, but if he thinks of other things or does not understand what he is reading, you notice it immediately, and you notice it by having to constantly make an effort to understand what he is saying, although the content is quite simple and straightforward. understanding the spoken does not go as otherwise by itself. the words are only syntactically linked, and it is not enough, they must be connected in meaning, and they are not, because the tone takes care of that, and it is missing" (løgstrup, 1976, p. 11, our transl.). løgstrup emphasizes here once again the accent and thus the rhythm as the main phenomenon in both reading and understanding what is read. the danish musician peter bastian continues this line of thinking under the heading ‘resonance’ in his main work into the music (1987, p. 47): “we are hit by sound waves, and then we begin to feel. the energy in the body flows differently and is distributed differently”. peter bastian sees a relatedness between the ‘reading’ of a piece of music and the reading of a text. “the work process is a constant interaction between the linear analysis and the holistic design. we can perceive the music image as a text consisting of 'words', 'sentences' and 'paragraphs'. we say that the melody articulates in words, sentences and paragraphs, but in contrast to the written language, where there is a pause between the individual words, syntax, comma and full stop, the note image looks like this: ’thereisnospacebetweenthewords’” (bastian 1987, p. 104, our transl.). admittedly, in the music image the composer can indicate certain signs of help, but it is the musician who, by his own pausing and accent, has to perform the music. this requires prior practice and experience, and sometimes during rehearsal you can hear the music performed as follows: ’ther eisn ospa cebetw eent hewo rds’ (ibid.). and then it might sound like a person who has difficulty reading c. feilberg & j. maul: phenomenology of rhythm: the role of rhythm in written language qualitative studies: 6(2), pp. 5-29 ©2021 15 aloud with random accent and pausing, where it should have sounded like this:’there is no space between the words’ (ibid.). phenomenologically, the same thing is true for the reader of a text who, according to merleau-ponty, is met by a meaningful organization of words and stress that organizes itself before the person's eyes as a gestalt or a whole (2012, p. 147; 1967, 87). it happens naturally and implicitly for most of us. therefore, the significance of rhythm emerges more clearly in people who do not have these skills as natural habits, such as in people with dyslexia. b) deepening the understanding of written language through a case study of dyslexia presentation of the qualitative assessment inspired by merleau-ponty’s use of cases in phenomenology of perception (2012), we take a case study of a secondary school student with written language difficulties as our starting point. this case makes it possible to further investigate the significance of rhythm as a prerequisite for written language skills. the case is based on qualitative observations, descriptions, anamnesis and an assessment report. the assessment of dyslexia is based on a qualitative test material developed by maul (2000). this test material is inspired by a.r. luria’s qualitative neuropsychological investigation structure (christensen, 1975, 1999). maul’s qualitative observations and assessments of dyslexic students led him to write a phd dissertation that identified a rhythmic-sequential theme in these students (maul 1995 and 2000). the rhythmic alludes to an accent in a linear pattern, partly with relations to movement patterns, partly with relations to intonation and prosody. the sequential alludes to a series of consecutive accents in motor movement sequences and the linguistic syntax. by theme is meant a set of elements of characteristic features that have a way of appearing again and again, e.g. in music and here in dyslexia as a fundamental set of characteristics in a person (ibid.). luria’s neuropsychological investigation procedures were developed for the evaluation of brain injuries and higher functions (christensen, 1975, 1999). the danish version of the investigation procedures has since been developed into several different test materials with different purposes, including the assessment of dyslexia (maul 2000a). thus, it is not a standardized test that produces objective, measurable and operationalizable data. on the other hand, it is a qualitative assessment which develops understanding by virtue of the prehistory, the test material, the observations, the situation and the ability to communicate the findings in an assessable way (maul, 1995, 2000, 2000a and 2019). the evaluation situation itself is not standardized either, as it takes place as a ‘dialogue’ c. feilberg & j. maul: phenomenology of rhythm: the role of rhythm in written language qualitative studies: 6(2), pp. 5-29 © 2021 16 between the assessor and the student in a way where the test material is harmonized with the student's answers in a fluid interaction. bringing an exploratory and qualitative test material into play presents a unique opportunity to experience the diversity of signs of dyslexia. in the assessment situation, observation, interaction and communication are all important elements for the development of a holistic interpretation. the intention of the assessment has been to observe, describe and interpret signs of dyslexia in order to identify relevant special educational recommendations. briefly, the test material consists of four key procedures to assess prerequisites for written language skills: rhythmic-motor skills, perceptual skills: auditory, visual, spatial and tactile kinesthetic, impressive language skills and expressive language skills. all of these skills play an important role in reading and spelling. via the test material, the student's dyslexic signs are thematized. the term ‘theme’ (maul, 1995, pp. 7 8, 168) refers to something that has a way of appearing in exactly the same way as the theme of a piece of music. it is recognizable when it appears again and again, but as the theme of a piece of music can be performed with different instruments and still be audibly recognizable, the themes of dyslexia are not played with exactly the same combinations of difficulties every time. it varies according to the fact that each person is both unique and typical at the same time, and has his or her own personal prerequisites and difficulties that must be taken into account. the case selected for this text has been chosen from among 100 other cases in john maul’s phd thesis (1995) on studies in a rhythmic sequential theme in dyslexia. with this case in particular and the other 99 cases as nuances and variants, the idea arose of a rhythmic-sequential theme in dyslexia. it will be described in the following using the case of brian. through the case, we will try to highlight rhythmic-motor contexts from the way of walking, speaking, remembering meaningless rhymes, inflectional endings, spelling patterns and reading aloud, in other words a special and pervasive theme in written language difficulties. furthermore, these contexts can shed light on the importance of rhythm for written language skills in general. presentation of brian an unusual mathematician brian went to a special needs pre-school at a special education institution before starting school. the medical record from that period mentions expressive dysphasia in the form of syntactic difficulties and difficulties articulating fluency correctly in age-appropriate sentences. but he also showed good language comprehension and normal giftedness. brian's school career was hampered by reading c. feilberg & j. maul: phenomenology of rhythm: the role of rhythm in written language qualitative studies: 6(2), pp. 5-29 ©2021 17 difficulties over a long period of time and spelling difficulties throughout. in return, he did so well in science subjects such as mathematics, physics and chemistry that he could be admitted to a mathematical upper secondary school. during his first year, his danish teacher realizes that he has some unusual difficulties in spelling and writing, while his french teacher notices unusually persistent difficulties in acquiring and remembering french phrases. hard-pressed by the academic requirements, he makes excuses by saying that he already as a child went to a special needs preschool at a special education institution, and they refer him to it again, and john maul is given the task of assessing his written language difficulties based on the anamnestic information from the medical record at the institution. observations from the qualitative assessment of brian brian seemed clearly nervous when he came the first day of assessment. he went up the stairs arrhythmically and staccato-like. during the following hour and a half, he remained seated at a table opposite john maul. brian was presented with a series of activities aimed at identifying the crucial prerequisites for reading and spelling. during the assessment procedure, the following three characteristics were observed. 1) drawing test: the first characteristic was seen when brian was to trace sequential patterns. it went fairly well with the first ones, though he drew them big and rough. but as he traced the third and final pattern, it was as if he lost control and the pattern disintegrated for him. it was clear that he was easily exhausted and could not fluently and rhythmically trace simple sequential patterns. figure 1: a) at the top: the drawing pattern that brian must imitate, and which he is allowed to see at the same time as the movement is shown to him with an emphasis on the fluid course. b) in the middle: brian’s drawing pattern, which shows that he loses control of the movement towards the end. c) bottom: a pattern that brian has drawn with eyes closed. c. feilberg & j. maul: phenomenology of rhythm: the role of rhythm in written language qualitative studies: 6(2), pp. 5-29 © 2021 18 when he was asked to put the writing tool back on the paper and draw a 'bite' of the last and most difficult pattern with his eyes closed, he reproduced it with the correct proportions (cf. figure 1, item c). it shows that with eyes closed in slow execution brian masters the visuo-spatial configuration of the pattern to the full, but not the rhythmic-sequential execution of the pattern at a normally fluent pace. a spatial strength against a temporal rhythmic weakness. 2) rhythmic knock test: secondly, brian could not quantify simple rhythms when he could not see the rhythm beats performed simultaneously. especially not when it came to changes of pace. it went fairly well with monotonous rhythms, but if he had to imitate ‘a knock on the door’ with one accented beat and two quick and unaccented ones afterwards, brian ‘heard’ it at first as 5, then as 4, and only when he was allowed to see the rhythmic knocks without them being hidden behind a sheet of cardboard, he understood that there were only three. it also caused him problems to catch up with other rhythms with changes of pace, whereas he managed monotonous rhythm beats much better. 3) nursery rhyme test: thirdly, brian could not recite a simple nursery rhyme like: sip sipper nip sip sirum sip. in brian’s recitation of sentences with accumulations of consonant connections, he had difficulties with the immediate and spontaneous programming of the melodic patterns of speech. he 'stumbled' over difficult consonant connections and occasionally had to pause to avoid this 'stumble'. when brian had tried to say ‘sip sipper nip sip sirum sip’ a few times without success, he looked slightly offended at john for not being able to repeat a trivial nursery rhyme and asked: “what should i use it for”? interpretive comment: there is probably a connection between these rhythmic problems and brian’s problems acquiring the ability to immediately reproduce and automate french phrases such as: qu'est-ce qu'il y a and qu'est-ce que c'est. the latter was what his french teacher in his upper secondary school listed as some of his problems. at the same time his danish teacher mentions related difficulties in spelling danish inflectional endings, which is the same problem in the form of not being able to rhythmize in an articulate way. from rhymes and spelling to working memory the basic elements of the rhythmic-sequential theme in the form of rhythmic knocking, drawing patterns and nursery rhymes can be linked to the short-term memory which is also referred to as working memory. and brian had difficulty both quantifying and imitating rhythms with changes of c. feilberg & j. maul: phenomenology of rhythm: the role of rhythm in written language qualitative studies: 6(2), pp. 5-29 ©2021 19 pace unlike monotonous rhythms without variations in stress and accent. similarly, he had difficulty reciting meaningless rhymes, sentences with complex articulation melodies, and spellings of especially danish inflectional endings. here we are dealing with a phenomenon about which miller wrote a mythological article in the middle of the 20th century: the magical number seven (miller, 1956). through experiments, he came to the conclusion that man can remember 7 plus and minus 2 when it comes to isolated individual elements such as numbers, letters, words, objects and pictures and more. recent research has revised the result from 7 down to 5. the working memory develops from a few elements in early childhood and peaks when starting school with about 5 7 elements. however, we can exceed the 'magic number 7' by adding meaningless elements that make it easier for the brain to use its associative power by, for example, linking a series of digits to a friend's birth data or the like, it is also called mnemonics. a much more natural and often unconscious way of doing this is by rhythmizing and embedding a rhyme or a sequence of numbers in an accentuating pattern, by which one link in the chain grips and drags the next with it. it has also been called the ‘trojan horse of memory’ by nørretranders (1998), which means that much more content is smuggled into working memory than there was actually room for. this is how we have, among many other things, learned the alphabet rhyme, the days of the week and the names of the months. you can try how difficult it is to name just one of these rhymes backwards, and as for the alphabet rhyme completely and utterly impossible. it clearly shows that the rhythm of the rhyme is more important than the individual elements. that is why charles ives states: “don’t pay too much attention to the sounds. if you do, you may miss the music” (cowell & cowell, 1968, pp. 23–24). memory researcher alan baddeley (1984, 2003, 2010) has for decades dealt with working memory and divided it into two main forms: ‘a visual writing pad’ and an ‘articulation loop’. he refers to them as ‘slave systems’ for the working memory for short-term storage of visual and auditory stimuli, respectively. he assumes that the ‘articulation loop’ acts as a refresher or activation mechanism for the working memory, which appears to be important for auditory and articulatory discrimination as well as recalling syntactic patterns of sentences and syllable word structures. according to baddeley, such a 'speech loop' in the inner voice is based on prosody and intonation. looks like it is from here brian is having his linguistic and written language difficulties. dyslexics are poorer at repeating and reproducing sequences of rhymes and words with a complex articulation course. according to baddeley, it seems that the inner voice provides an additional articulation coding during the reading process. c. feilberg & j. maul: phenomenology of rhythm: the role of rhythm in written language qualitative studies: 6(2), pp. 5-29 © 2021 20 conversely, brian performs dramatically much better when it comes to the cognitive skill of visual memory because it does not fall within the rhythmic-sequential theme. alan baddeley (1983) consistently refers to visual memory as visuo-spatial memory because he believes that ‘tracking’ via the eye movements is involved in the retention and recall of visuo-spatial stimuli. it fits in with brian being already at pre-school level a skilled memory player with picture cards, and it fits in with dyslexics' often surprisingly strong visual memory. the consequences for reading and writing at this point brian had a reasonable reading skill and managed academic texts at upper secondary school level. when he read silently, he was a slow reader. but when he read aloud, it was at a staggering speed without considering to control pauses and accents. brian did not take periods and the delimitation of wholes of meaning into consideration, and within these he did not pay regard to commas. it can be assumed that brian's silent reading is similarly troubled in terms of pace, progress and comprehension. what does brian's reading style reveal? brian fails to create a resonance2 between the text and the reader; here resonance means reverberation, understanding. or resonance in the sense that oscillations in one body produce similar oscillations in another body. not only rhymes but also ordinary texts have their own rhythm. reading is, in its origin, an oral skill. the written only comes to life when it is read aloud or the reader performs it in his own inner voice. there must be a resonance between the text and the reader. and each text has its own very precise pace. it is important to get breathing, phrasing and stressing right, so that the text is integrated into and synchronized with the reader's own rhythm and syntax. in doing so, it is absorbed, so to speak, into the reader's body and carries itself through. brian had a hard time with this. similar features were seen in brian's composition writing. there were no basic syntactic problems, but he clearly lacked the sense to pause in his units of meaning. and not only had he trivial punctuation problems, he had to an even greater extend no sense of pausing at full stop. this meant that his compositions were characterized by the absence of a common thread and a tendency to overly long sentences, which often led to far-reaching associations. brian's spelling difficulties were particularly related to inflectional endings which are unaccented in danish, and therefore difficult to 2 here, the concept of resonance is applied specifically to the interaction between text and reader and the harmony that arises between them; with hartmut rosa (2019), the concept is becoming considerably more widespread and is put into play on much more extensive sociological conditions. c. feilberg & j. maul: phenomenology of rhythm: the role of rhythm in written language qualitative studies: 6(2), pp. 5-29 ©2021 21 pick up for a student like brian with rhythmic-sequential difficulties. it seems that brian does not have immediate access to spontaneously rhythmize these inflectional endings instead of trying to remember them visually, auditorily or orthographically. but without the more unconscious support of rhythmization, he makes mistakes upon mistakes. he can spell foreign words much better. as an example, he mentioned the english word: interview, which he had never had problems with. probably because it is more a matter of remembering the visuo-spatial form of the word than the rhythm of the syllable sequence. rhythmic-sequential weakness and visuo-spatial strength contrary to the rhythmic-sequential difficulties in written language skills, brian had never had difficulties in science subjects such as mathematics, physics, and chemistry. brian's, and other dyslexics', relative success in these subjects may be due to completely different sets of prerequisites. it seems that reading and spelling require rhythmic and audio-sequential skills, while mathematics requires bodily and visuo-spatial skills. the observations of the differences in brian's strong and weak cognitive skills show that brian clearly has stronger prerequisites for arithmetic and mathematics, which can be linked to the greek mathematical geometric spaciousness. brian feared being examined in a poem, probably because his ability to break the rhythmic code of the lines would be violently challenged; instead he hoped to be examined in image interpretation. a very good intuitive expression of rhythmic-sequential weakness and visuo-spatial strength. in the research context, the two cognitive aspects are also referred to as ‘syntagmatic’ for the rhythmic-sequential and ‘paradigmatic’ for the visuo-spatial. by syntagmatic is meant the motor, articulatory and linguistic functions that man uses to control movements, the melodious programming of speech and the planning of syntax. the syntagmatic is linear and sequential. it has to do with sequences, rhythms and syntax. this is about organizing elements in time. by paradigmatic is meant the human skills that have to do with sensing touch on the body, the interrelationships of the body to the environment. furthermore, to be able to perceive and place things spatially in relation to each other and finally to be able to categorize and associate linguistic concepts as a background for language comprehension. the paradigmatic has to do with seeing contexts and being able to relate perceptually and linguistically in space. brian had written language difficulties due to the syntagmatic while the paradigmatic formed the soundboard of his strength in subjects such as physics, chemistry and mathematics. c. feilberg & j. maul: phenomenology of rhythm: the role of rhythm in written language qualitative studies: 6(2), pp. 5-29 © 2021 22 summary of the rhythmic-sequential theme brian's gait shows something arrhythmic. it continues in obvious difficulty in tracing visual patterns in kinetic movement melodies and related difficulties in handwriting. on an articulatory level, he does not master the repetition of meaningless rhymes and sentences with complex articulation connections. and it is in itself closely linked to short-term memory in the form of the articulation loop, which is central to the ability to spell and to sound, especially danish inflectional endings. it is heard in the reading aloud as arrhythmic accents which must affect the comprehension in silent reading. the basic mechanisms of the rhythmic-sequential theme turn out to be bodily grounded in motor, articulatory, and linguistic difficulties in rhythmicizing sequences. the consequences seem to be most obvious for reading, spelling and writing. it seems to have implications for learning to read and to spell in the form of a limited approach to a rhythmic-sequential strategy. it is as if the rhythmicsequential ‘freewheels’ and does not actively participate in the reading and spelling activities. from anamnesis to catamnesis in his special needs pre-school brian received help as a child to overcome his spoken language difficulties. in school, he experienced written language difficulties, which he partially overcame over time. in the upper secondary school he ran into written wording difficulties and was put under pressure in foreign languages like french. that made him consult the special needs institution for help. here he was assessed by john maul and he was helped to help himself. afterwards, he moved on to university and was increasingly supported by innovations in computer technology. there was no information from his earliest childhood that could explain the problems he experienced, which is not unusual when it comes to dyslexia. we now turn to the catamnesis, or how did it go brian? brian did well in the upper secondary school thanks to the science subjects. he passes his a-levels with a scraped pass grade in french and in danish composition, but at the same time with an overall grade point average, so that he could be admitted to university. so now the former child of special needs education began a university education in science, which later leads to a leading position in the public administration. c. feilberg & j. maul: phenomenology of rhythm: the role of rhythm in written language qualitative studies: 6(2), pp. 5-29 ©2021 23 c) discussion: rhythm, dyslexia, science, and existential phenomenology and science opposing views of dyslexia let us conclude by comparing an existential-phenomenological approach to written language difficulties with a natural scientific approach in the form of the linguistic reading theory. it is an anglo-saxon inspired reading theory (see eg. bryant & goswami 1990) with great impact in scandinavia. in his doctoral thesis from 1990 carsten elbro has given a coherent presentation of this linguistic reading theory of dyslexia. here, the phoneme or language sound is made the central focal point as a causal explanation and as a means of training and teaching students with dyslexia. here, reading difficulties are understood as difficulties with the individual sound of the language on a conscious linguistic and cognitive level. dyslexia is defined in a linguistic context primarily as significant difficulties in learning to read and write on the basis of a slow and imprecise translation of letters and letter sequences into language sounds. in other words, according to this theory, dyslexics have difficulty in dividing coherent speech into the language sounds or phonemes that form the basis of writing. the linguistic theory can be summed up in the following sharply cut definition of reading: “decoding x comprehension = reading” (elbro 2001, p. 28). it has over time been modified and nuanced but has unmistakable similarities with newton's second law of motion (mass × acceleration = resultant force) and thus a natural scientific approach to reading and dyslexia. when, on the other hand, one learns to read, spell and write in an existentialphenomenological perspective, the visual wholes of the writing in the form of the combinations of word pictures of the individual letters are translated into fluid articulation movements and writing movements via the body, so that we end up perceiving and expressing ourselves in writing. we understand and express ourselves in spoken language; and this, of course, without having to perform conscious operations with individual elements of language sound during the process. in merleauponty it becomes similar to: ”the word that is read is a modulation of visual space, the motor execution is a modulation of manual space, and the whole question is how a certain physiognomy of “visual” wholes can call forth a certain style of motor responses, how each “visual” structure in the end provides its own motor essence, without our having to c. feilberg & j. maul: phenomenology of rhythm: the role of rhythm in written language qualitative studies: 6(2), pp. 5-29 © 2021 24 spell out the word or to spell out the movement in order to translate the word into movement” (merleau-ponty, 2012, p. 145). the impeccable reading with perfect understanding of both the listener and the reader himself also requires pre-accents, so one must ask oneself whether the accent is the prerequisite for the understanding or the understanding is the prerequisite for the accent. it can be heard in brian's reading which goes over “hedge and ditch”, and it characterizes his silent reading which is slow and uncertain. the impaccable reading is a difficult character to capture in scientific terms. to merleau-ponty, it is an enigmatic phenomenon of which we will never get to the bottom. ricoeur (1991) has pointed out the differences between immediate understanding, explanation and interpretation, and pointed out that explanation can contribute to a greater understanding. however, it remains a sub-perspective if it is not linked to the immediate experience of the case in an overall holistic interpretation. in this article we try to offer such an interpretation, which stems from a lived understanding, which draws on partial explanations of phenomena from both human science and natural science perspectives combined in a holistic interpretation (feilberg, 2019). it is the latter that is unique in human scientific understanding e.g. in the form of having an eye for a rhythmicsequential theme in order to comprehend such a complex phenomenon as written language difficulties, without the expectation that one can explain everything. existential phenomenology does not offer a scientific explanation, but we are offered an understanding that the acquisition of written language is something you identify yourself with and practise in an interweaving of movement, rhythm, speech and graphic characters. part and whole, figure and background as we pointed out in the introduction, merleau-ponty shows the importance of including an understanding of the background, of the hidden in relation to understanding human phenomena, which cannot meaningfully be freed from the experiential dimension they arise from (merleau-ponty, 1968, p. 90). to understand phenomena as a whole, one must have an eye for the background from which they emerge: one must have an eye for the ‘invisible’, and thus for the whole we are part of, which merleau-ponty terms the lifeworld. the point is, in short, that the parts must not be taken out of their context, otherwise we are mistaken about them. with the concept of bildung (gadamer, 2004), the human scientific tradition will point out that the formation of a scientific culture depends on the building of a readiness to understand and interpret in the light of a nuanced and inclusive understanding of the complexity of human phenomena (feilberg & maul, 2019). as merleau-ponty c. feilberg & j. maul: phenomenology of rhythm: the role of rhythm in written language qualitative studies: 6(2), pp. 5-29 ©2021 25 puts it: “the certitude, entirely irresistible as it may be, remains absolutely obscure; we can live it, we can neither think it nor formulate it nor set it up in theses. every attempt at elucidation brings us back to the dilemmas” (1968, p. 11). man is a mystery of which we must explain and understand as much as possible, without falling into the belief that we are “the creator of the world”, as arendt has put it (1946, p. 37). understanding for arendt is therefore rather about coming to terms with the inscrutability of the world: “understanding, as distinguished from having correct information and scientific knowledge, is a complicated process which never produces unequivocal results. it is an unending activity by which, in constant change and variation, we come to terms with and reconcile ourselves to reality, that is, try to be at home in the world” (arendt, 1994, pp. 307-308). as human beings, it is important to be able to wonder and to want to understand more, but without believing that one can explain everything and thus get life and existence where one wants it. in a contemporary world characterized by scientism and natural scientific ideals for documentable knowledge, it can be an extremely difficult position to occupy in practice. conclusion we have presented an existential-phenomenological analysis of rhythm and its part in the understanding of our ability to express ourselves in written language. we have done this by combining perspectives from a number of different approaches in the form of knowledge about dyslexia, developmental psychology, neuropsychology and qualitative observations. we have combined these approaches in an overall phenomenological holistic interpretation, which constitutes more than the parts. in line with merleau-ponty's work, we have applied an existentialphenomenological attitude, in the sense of presenting different perspectives as a contribution to an overall understanding, but doing so in the light of an explicit ontology of the human being, which takes the experiencing body-subject as the basis and our starting point. in other words, when we apply a perspective on a phenomenon, it can only be a subperspective that merely highlights one aspect of a phenomenon, i.e. just contributions or "moments c. feilberg & j. maul: phenomenology of rhythm: the role of rhythm in written language qualitative studies: 6(2), pp. 5-29 © 2021 26 of my total being" (merleau-ponty, 2012, p. 482). we live more than we can conceptualize and describe. thus, we have arrived at the main message of the article: that human science knowledge contributes crucial aspects of the conceptuality and the understandings that all other sciences take for granted. countering reductionism, showing that scientific achievements can be combined and interpreted in the continuation of human science understanding, was one of the characteristics of merleau-ponty's existential phenomenology, and a tradition to which we wish to continue to contribute. references arendt, h. 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(1968). the visible and the invisible. evanston, il: north-western university press. merleau-ponty, m. (2012). phenomenology of perception. (transl. by d. landes). london: routledge. miller, g. a. (1956). the magical number seven, plus or minus two: some limits on our capacity for processing information. psychological review, 63(2), 81–97. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0043158 nørretranders, t. (1998). the user illusion: cutting consciousness down to size, uk: allen lane penguin press. olesen, s. g. (1993). filosofien i frankrig eller frankrig i filosofien [philosophy in france or france in philosophy]: slagmarks skyttegravsserie. ricoeur, p. (1991). from text to action – essays in hermeneutics, ii, chap. 6: explanation and understanding (pp. 125-143). evanston il: northwestern university press. rosa, h. (2019) ressonnance. a sociology of our relationship to the world, cambridge: polity press. stenzel, j. (1934). philosophie der sprache (philosophy of language), r. oldenburger verlag, münchen. trevarthen, c. (1987). sharing makes sense. intersubjektivity and the making of an infant's meaning in: r. steele (ed.): language topics essays in honour of michael halliday, amsterdam, philadelphia. trevarthen, c. (1988). infant's trying to talk, how a child invites communication from the human world, in: r. söderbergh (ed.), children's creative communication, lund. trevarthen, c. (1999). musicality and the intrinsic motive pulse: evidence from human psychobiology and infant communication. musicae scientiae, 3(1_suppl), 155–215. https://doi.org/10.1177/10298649000030s109 c. feilberg & j. maul: phenomenology of rhythm: the role of rhythm in written language qualitative studies: 6(2), pp. 5-29 ©2021 29 trevarthen, c. & malloch, s. (2010). communicative musicality: exploring the basis of human companionship, oxford university press. wiskus, j. (2013). the rhythm of thought art, literature, and music after merleau-ponty. chicago: university of chicago press. about the authors casper feilberg, phd, is an associate professor in educational psychology at the department of communication and psychology, aalborg university, denmark. his topics of research are pedagogy, bildung, professional development in higher education – especially the profession of psychology, problem oriented project work. the main philosophical and theoretical inspirations are existential phenomenology (merleau-ponty, heidegger, gadamer, ricoeur), psychoanalysis (bion) and critical theory (habermas, negt). i make use of qualitative methodology and several research methods. john maul, phd, speech therapist and former ass. professor in special education at the danish university of education, later university college of northern jutland. john maul is originally speech therapist from the royal danish school of educational studies and phd with a dissertation on a qualitatively interpretive view of dyslexia; based on a working odyssey through cerebral palsy, aphasia, dysphasia and dyslexia with consequences for understanding the importance of movement, rhythm and body. homepage editor of livsverden.dk, homepage of the danish society for existential phenomenology. http://www.livsverden.dk/ jacobsen suffering in the sociology of zygmunt bauman.pdf qualitative studies vol. 6, no. 1, 2021, pp. 68-90 issn 1903-7031 68 suffering in the sociology of zygmunt bauman michael hviid jacobsen1 1 department of sociology and social work, aalborg university, fibigerstræde 13, office no. 75, 9220 aalborg øst, denmark the topic of human suffering loomed large throughout the writings of zygmunt bauman. if anything, his work can be characterized as a ‘sociology of suffering’. from the early writings until his very last, suffering constituted a key concern in bauman’s description of the transformation of society from a solid-modern to a liquid-modern outlook. in his work, there are certain shifts in who and what he regards as the embodiments or expressions of suffering, and there is thus a keen eye on the changing landscape of suffering, its causes and consequences, from past to present. but there is nevertheless always a continuous and vehement defence for those living at the outskirts or at the bottom of society. the article will also explore what bauman suggest should be done about the presence of suffering, and the article will briefly discuss the viability of his ideas on a morality of proximity as a way to alleviate suffering. keywords: keywords: zygmunt bauman, sociology of suffering, solid-modern suffering, liquid-modern suffering, solidarity, morality introduction suffering makes the world go around. although this may sound as an excessively gloomy and cynical observation, all societies throughout human history have produced and perpetuated human suffering either through elaborate and determined measures or through the neglect of those who in one way or other have fallen below the level of human decency and outside our realm of concern and care. think of wars, famines, natural disasters, killings, ethnic cleansings, genocides, persecutions, stigmatizations, marginalization’s and so on. the outcome has always been human suffering in some shape or form. suffering is thus an integral part of the human condition – in the past as well as in the present. some of the causes of this suffering are beyond human control or stem from non-human forces, whereas other causes are the direct or indirect outcome of human action or social forces. m. jacobsen: social suffering in the sociology of zygmunt bauman qualitative studies 6(1), pp. 68-90 ©2021 69 the theme of suffering has always attracted the attention of thinkers, poets, politicians and social commentators. from theologians and moral philosophers to psychologists and sociologists, suffering has constituted a recurrent topic in the analysis of human and social life. one of the most prominent contemporary observers of the human condition was polish-english sociologist zygmunt bauman. for more than half a century, he practiced the discipline and heeded the calling of sociology. throughout the years, he has at an almost inhuman pace published numerous pieces of work that have left a lasting and indelible imprint on future studies of a variety of sociological topics such as, most prominently, the holocaust, morality, postmodernity, utopia, culture, the intellectuals, critical sociology, liquid modernity, globalization, identity, fear, inequality, ethics, education, community, love, individualization, education, freedom, consumerism, surveillance, religion, nostalgia, etc. in his writing, bauman regarded the practice of sociology as a hermeneutic enterprise in which the sociologist in the role of ‘interpreter’ should decipher the unfolding of human life and translate and mediate this knowledge back to society, thus allowing the members of society to act on this new knowledge (bauman, 1978, 1987). in his own words, sociology is an ‘ongoing conversation with human experience’ (bauman, 1992:213), and it is this human life experience that has continued to animate and to constitute the core of his curiosity. there is, however, also an unmistakable critical dimension to bauman’s interpretative work – a gnawing dissatisfaction with the way the world is currently working, a relentless critique of the seemingly unchangeable character of the way life is lived and a valiant defence of the possibility of creating a better world (bauman, 1976a, 1976b). throughout his comprehensive body of work, bauman set out to criticize the perpetuation and continuation of suffering in all its shapes and forms no matter what specific topic he was writing on, and in this way he may meaningfully be characterized as a ‘sociologist of suffering’ par excellence. in this article, we shall revisit and review the work of zygmunt bauman in order to excavate some of his main ideas on suffering or what will here be framed under the notion of ‘social suffering’. in all of bauman’s books – no matter their specific topic – suffering has always been a prevalent concern whether explicitly stated or more implicitly hidden between the lines. first, we shall look into how we may understand social suffering as a human and social emotion. following this, we will dig into bauman’s oeuvre in order to detect the changing role of suffering has played in his writings. this leads us into a delineation of how suffering according to bauman is experienced during solid-modern times in the shape of, for example, totalitarianism and genocide. before we turn to how social suffering in his view is experienced and expressed m. jacobsen: social suffering in the sociology of zygmunt bauman qualitative studies 6(1), pp. 68-90 ©2021 70 during liquid-modern times. this leads to the final section in which we will present and discuss of bauman’s suggestions for how suffering may be alleviated. suffering as emotion suffering is an integral part of our being-in-the world. very few people pass through life without experiencing suffering at some point or other. in this way, suffering is something most can relate to. still, however, it is difficult to define suffering in a simple one-liner, the reason being that suffering is a multi-facetted phenomenon. fundamentally, suffering is the experience of undergoing pain or hardship, whether physiological, psychological or otherwise, and whether directly felt or derived from other types of experience. it is often – however not exclusively – the outcome of externally imposed or inflicted harm, resulting in inner feelings of pain, deprivation or distress. due to its multi-facetted nature, suffering can be studied from many different perspectives, each with their own specialized vernacular and frames of understanding: medicine, theology, psychology, sociology and so on. often scientific studies of suffering differentiate between physical suffering (frequently described as ‘pain’) on the one hand, and suffering as a social experience connected to structural, cultural or relational aspects of life, on the other (sometimes called ‘social suffering’). whereas ‘pain’ often evokes a physical imagery of harm inflicted directly on the human body, suffering as a social experience is much more of an undefinable and slippery phenomenon, difficult do describe by reference to bodily pain. suffering can thus be concrete (like the pain associated, for example, with physical assault or somatic disease) or it can be less tangible and more abstract (such as, for example, the experience of weltschmerz or the outcome of social deprivation). ludwig wittgenstein once insisted that ‘no torment can be greater than what a single human being may suffer … the whole planet can suffer no greater torment than a single soul’ (wittgenstein cited in bauman, 2001a:210). despite its sympathetic message, the veracity or validity of this statement is obviously difficult to determine, as experiences of suffering are almost impossible to measure and compare. there is, however, no doubt that suffering is experienced both at the individual and at the collective level. suffering is simultaneously a generalized and an individualized experience – something that happens to many people (sometimes at the same time and for the same reasons), but also something that afflicts actual and concrete individuals (and some more than others). the proportion of suffering in the world is thus not equally distributed, and like most other unequally distributed phenomena, those at the bottom of society often carry a heavier burden of suffering than those at the top (see, e.g., bourdieu et m. jacobsen: social suffering in the sociology of zygmunt bauman qualitative studies 6(1), pp. 68-90 ©2021 71 al., 1999). suffering is thus not only an experience suffered by the individual in isolation, but something that affects larger groups of people (sometimes even cross-generationally), which is why it is an important topic for scholars working within a field such as sociology concerned as it is with ‘the social’. as already c. wright mills (1959) famously informed his readers, the ‘sociological imagination’ consists of connecting what at the outset may seem to be merely private or individual experiences with the larger structural and social conditions under which they occur. often suffering is regarded as the existential or phenomenological experience of being human in the world, something being born with us from the very beginning. in this way, suffering is surrounded by some innocence – it is almost unavoidable – and thus to be human is to suffer. however, in recent years, there has been an increased concern with notions of ‘social harm’ and ‘social suffering’ (see, e.g., pemberton, 2016; wilkinson, 2004, 2005), both concepts stressing the social nature and causes of harm/suffering. ‘social suffering’ can be defined as ‘collective and individual human suffering associated with life conditions shaped by powerful social forces’. moreover, according to arthur kleinman, veena das and margaret lock (1996: xi), social suffering ‘results from what political, economic and institutional power does to people, and, reciprocally, how these forms of power themselves responses to social problems’. there is a dual-process involved here – that suffering is created or inflicted by institutions and agencies and that they again respond to how such suffering is to be managed. there thus seems to be a circular process in social suffering: that suffering is socially produced and then again socially reproduced by the way suffering is approached and handled. that suffering is ‘social’ also entails that suffering is not natural, and thus not something to be passively observed and accepted. suffering can thus be countered, objected to, diminished and prevented if active engagement with the roots of suffering is pursued (jacobsen, 2020). this objective has also been a main motivational force behind many political and social movements throughout history. suffering is therefore, in its many different shapes and forms, a social experience. perhaps most importantly, suffering or social suffering is an emotional experience – it is an emotion. suffering is something that people feel not just something they think – it influences the mind and body of the sufferer in a qualitatively different manner than other emotions. in recent years, the ‘sociology of emotions’ has risen to prominence as a sub-discipline devoted to the study of emotions within different social contexts (see, e.g., bericat, 2016). however, suffering has often been neglected as an emotion deserving of attention within this line of research, perhaps being regarded as too intangible and philosophically abstract to investigate. looking through most encyclopaedias or handbooks of ‘the sociology of emotions’, suffering is hardly ever mentioned m. jacobsen: social suffering in the sociology of zygmunt bauman qualitative studies 6(1), pp. 68-90 ©2021 72 and there is no separate entry devoted to a definition of suffering as an emotion. this is quite surprising, because suffering is – after all – an emotion alongside so many other emotions studied by sociologists such as trust, loyalty, shame, pride, embarrassment, love, hate, contempt, remorse and so on. yet suffering is still conspicuous by its absence. but why is this the case? there are many possible reasons, but perhaps the most obvious is simply that suffering is mostly not regarded as ‘an emotion’ or ‘a feeling’. it seems more abstract than these other emotions and true, it does lack several of the characteristics of an ‘emotion’ as specified by arlie r. hochschild (1990). despite this, there is little doubt the suffering is indeed something that people feel. contrary to many other emotions – in emotions research particularly the so-called ‘primary emotions’ such as fear, happiness, sadness or anger– suffering does not have a definitive physiological reaction or bodily expression. it may thus be difficult to see or document that people in fact suffer, because many suffer invisibly and in silence. suffering may be seen or unseen, excruciatingly painful or less so, lasting or fleeting, and so on. social suffering is the often invisible emotional response to inhumane and indecent treatment of humans against each other. sometimes there is no identifiable instigator or perpetrator of suffering (structural forces and symbolic violence are widely known to be difficult to observe directly), but at other times specific groups or individuals are responsible for inflicting pain and suffering. a world of suffering zygmunt bauman is conventionally not regarded as an obvious contributor to the particular sub-discipline of ‘the sociology of emotions’, although his work does in fact contain frequent references to and analyses of a number of emotions such as love, fear, freedom, nostalgia, ambivalence and suffering. the interesting thing about bauman’s work is that he seems to treat emotions in a rather unemotional manner. by this is meant that he does not dig deep into how it actually feels for people to experience their emotions, but he rather sees these emotions as something being socially produced and reproduced (and not least distorted) through various processes and by different agencies (jacobsen, 2019). bauman is thus not an archetypal sociologist of emotions, he is more a general social theorist, and he thus not so much presents a phenomenology of suffering, explicating and detailing what suffering feels like, but more of a critical perspective on the structural causes and human consequences of social suffering. anyone who has read bauman’s books will know that they ooze of suffering – suffering has been there from the beginning to the end. hence, it is unsurprising that there has been a certain academic interest in bauman’s perspective on suffering (see, e.g., best, 2016; jacobsen m. jacobsen: social suffering in the sociology of zygmunt bauman qualitative studies 6(1), pp. 68-90 ©2021 73 and marshman 2008; wilkinson, 2007). his sociology can best be described as a critical and humanistic enterprise, always focusing on the relentless impact of social forces on human life, and asking his readers – mostly an academic audience – to accept their responsibility for making the causes and consequences of suffering known to the world (tester, 2004). as dennis smith once observed: ‘the driving force behind zygmunt bauman’s work as a sociologist has been two things: first, a sense of intellectual and moral outrage about the extent to which societies are run on the basis of untruth and self-deception; and, second, a deep dissatisfaction with the evil and suffering this makes possible’ (smith, 1998:40). suffering thus remained one of the key topics running throughout bauman’s extensive writings, often closely connected to a concern with understanding how culture changes and shapes experiences of suffering. as bauman once remarked in an interview when asked to look back upon his own previous contributions there ‘were actually two things with which i was concerned throughout my writings, throughout my academic career. one was the working class, standing for the downtrodden or the underdog, for suffering in general. for a long time there was a sign of identity between the two: the working class as the embodiment of suffering. that was one topic, and the other was culture… to understand how the visibility, tangibility and power of reality – and the conviction concerning the belief in reality – are being constructed: that is why i became interested in culture’ (bauman, 1992:206). suffering and culture thus constitute the core of bauman’s body of work. throughout his work, bauman remained a champion of the weak, the poor, the marginalized and those who are treated inhumanely. his specific focus on suffering, however, changed over the years. in his books one will therefore find many different depictions of man’s inhumanity towards man whether as part of the class-based oppression in capitalist society, in the concentration camps of world war ii or as part of contemporary neoliberal politics (see, e.g. bauman, 1982, 1989, 2011). sometimes this suffering has an identifiable social sender, at other times seemingly more anonymous and amorphous social forces seem to be at work such as globalization and individualization. there are thus many specific as well as general faces of suffering appearing throughout bauman’s work: the working class in capitalist society, the jews in concentration camps, strangers, refugees, the ‘underclass’, the ‘new poor’ and ‘flawed consumers’ and all the ‘vagabonds’ and the human ‘waste’ of contemporary liquid-modern life (jacobsen and marshman, 2008). however, particularly the persistence of economic poverty, social inequality and the inability to uphold a decent human life spurred his sociological and moral indignation (see, e.g., bauman, 2011, 2013). he even denoted poverty the ‘meta-humiliation’ that in turn serves as a ‘trampoline’ for other humiliations and indignities in life (bauman and tester, 2001:154). hence all of bauman’s books ooze with m. jacobsen: social suffering in the sociology of zygmunt bauman qualitative studies 6(1), pp. 68-90 ©2021 74 solidarity and sympathy for people caught and suspended in the webs of power, oppression, persecution, poverty and potential extermination. he thus claimed that we, in the last instance, can only judge the moral character of ‘society by the care it takes of its weakest members’ (bauman, 1990:23). like all other emotions, it is – at least in my view – pointless to try to quantify suffering. suffering is for all practical intents and purposes a qualitative experience whose depths and dimensions – human and social – are complex, thus making them difficult to capture or measure through surveys or statistics (even though many within positivist or behaviourist paradigms attempt to do so). even though some scholars have excelled in quantifying and measuring levels of, for example, happiness, fear or grief, it often seems unconvincing when ‘levels of happiness’ between different countries are compared or when ‘scales of fear’ are used to analyse the fluctuating level of fear in individuals or societies. in bauman’s writings suffering is primarily presented as a qualitative phenomenon – something that has depths, processes, directions, density, and the like. moreover, his treatment of the topic of suffering is almost exclusively conceptual and theoretical as he has not carried out empirical studies of suffering. in his work, we see the different faces of suffering through conceptual development, case stories from news reports and insights from existing research. although bauman cites reports for example from the who or oecd about the state of global poverty, the unequal distribution of the wealth of the world or the total number of refugees in the world (see, e.g., bauman, 2004:78-79; 2013:67; 2016:7), his descriptions of suffering are always, in one way or other, concerned with showing how suffering is brought about by social conditions and how it has serious human consequences. some of the suffering analysed by bauman is what might be called ‘spectacular suffering’ such as ground-breaking historical events like the holocaust with its millions of human casualties (bauman, 1989). however, most of the suffering described by him is rather ‘silent suffering’ – the suffering that largely goes unnoticed and which does not attract headlines or changes historical consciousness or development. this is the kind of suffering experienced by individuals and groups in society unable to raise their voices, to demand assistance or crave relief. let us look a bit more into this world of suffering described by bauman. solid-modern suffering particularly throughout the 1980s, bauman established himself as a staunch critic of modern society with what he regarded as its obsessive drive for order. in books such as legislators and interpreters (1987), freedom (1988), modernity and the holocaust (1989) and modernity and m. jacobsen: social suffering in the sociology of zygmunt bauman qualitative studies 6(1), pp. 68-90 ©2021 75 ambivalence (1991a), he provided an in-depth analysis of some of the (in)human consequences of the dark side of modernity. although modernity and modern society is often associated with positive developments such as progress, liberation and rising levels of prosperity, bauman – in a manner true to critical social theory – almost one-sidedly concentrates on the negative aspects of modern society (carleheden, 2008). as he once observed: ‘modernity was a long march to prison. it never arrived there (though in some places, like stalin’s russia, hitler’s germany, or mao’s china, it came quite close), albeit not for lack of trying’ (bauman, 1992:xvii). in bauman’s work, modernity is thus depicted as a period in which order, reason, unfreedom and repression become ‘normalized’. moreover, he also shows how modernity waged a war against difference, diversity and ambivalence in its quest for order (bauman, 1991a), and that this obsessive urge – pursued through a number of general strategies by bauman sometimes called ‘social engineering’ or ‘gardening’ – to force order on an innately unorderly world came with high human costs. it is in bauman’s award-winning book modernity and the holocaust (1989) that this perspective was elaborated and exemplified with special reference to the persecution and genocide of the european jews during world war ii. like many european jews from assimilated families at that time, bauman’s first wife janina had experienced her jewishness in the light of the holocaust, and her memoirs winter in the morning deals with her teenage-years in the warsaw ghetto and the uncertain and insecure periods of hiding from the nazis. in 1944, while still in hiding and continually in fear for her life, janina experienced something of an epiphany regarding her sense of belonging: ‘i belong to the jews. not because i was born one or because i share their faith – i never have done. i belong to the jews because i have suffered as one of them. it’s suffering that has made me jewish. i belong to people who have been murdered or who are still struggling to escape death’ (bauman, 1986:181). one might speculate that it was the reading of janina’s experiences during the holocaust that inspired zygmunt to write modernity and the holocaust. he acknowledged the impact her book had upon his own thought: ‘having read janina’s book, i began to think just how much i did not know – or rather, did not think about properly. it dawned on me that i did not really understand what had happened in that ‘world which was not mine’’ (bauman, 1989:vii). janina survived the concentration camps, and zygmunt himself had escaped the persecution of the jews during the war as he was stationed as a polish solider in russia. but the experiences of the jews still became an important prism for his critical analysis of the suffering caused by the industrialized and organized killing of millions of people. in modernity and the holocaust bauman thus outlined the social processes making the holocaust possible and also the social processes that made it possible to exempt m. jacobsen: social suffering in the sociology of zygmunt bauman qualitative studies 6(1), pp. 68-90 ©2021 76 oneself from responsibility for the atrocities and suffering imposed on the jews. the holocaust was indeed an extreme (yet not entirely exceptional) example of socially imposed suffering (langer, 1996), but it was nevertheless in many ways symptomatic (bauman calls it a ‘byproduct’) of the way modern society sought to solve its problems with deviance, difference and ambivalence: to remove it from the face of the earth through dehumanization, stigmatization, incarceration or annihilation. even though the fate of the jews was only one extreme example of solid-modern suffering, it was caused by the same mechanisms and strategies also employed in less extreme situations and with less atrocious outcomes. in bauman’s view, there are thus several driving forces behind the holocaust and solidmodern suffering, some of which can be boiled down to individual brutalism and sadism, ideological indoctrination, blind obedience to authority and culturally constructed stereotypes of the victims. however, also other seemingly more ‘innocent’ social causes and processes were involved such as what he terms ‘adiaphorization’ – meaning the emptying of action of moral content. according to bauman, adiaphorization exists as a three-legged phenomenon: (1) by the articulation of action into the hierarchy of command and execution thereby placing actors in an ‘agentic state’ (stanley milgram’s (1974) term) in which their actions, however horrific, are not evaluated according to standards of individual conscience or moral indignation; (2) by ‘effacing the face’ of the victim, which consists of casting the objects of action into a position in which they are not regarded as worthy or deserving of moral considerations and thus evicting them from the class of beings for whom we should feel morally responsible; and (3) by destroying the object of action as a self and reducing it to a collection of separate parts or attributes whereby the total moral subjectivity of the individual or groups of individuals towards whom action is taken is utterly denounced and denied (see, e.g. bauman, 1995:148-152). obviously, solid modernity was not all about mass murder and human suffering, but bauman’s point is that many important traits of modernity made the very scope, effectiveness and denial of these inhumanities possible. bauman concluded modernity and the holocaust with a critique of what he called ‘durksonianism’ (a neologism constructed by combing the surnames of émile durkheim and talcott parsons) and functionalist explanations of the social/societal grounds of moral behaviour claiming that ‘society is the cure for the wolf in man’ (beilharz, 2000:42), which – seen in the light of the holocaust – were unable to explain the inhumane atrocities as well as those who refused to follow suit and instead helped the victims. moreover, in the appendix to the book bauman outlined the contours of a postmodern theory or morality to which we shall return later. m. jacobsen: social suffering in the sociology of zygmunt bauman qualitative studies 6(1), pp. 68-90 ©2021 77 liquid-modern suffering at the threshold of the new millennium, bauman published a book that would significantly define and shape the subsequent writings until his death in 2017. that book was liquid modernity (2000a). the book – and the string of titles published in its slipstream – all used the metaphor of ‘liquid modernity’ to capture contemporary society. it was bauman’s contention that the concept of ‘postmodernity’, which he had preferred throughout the 1990s, had now served its purpose by paving the way and clearing the ground for this new notion that signalled (together with its concomitant notion of ‘solid modernity’) how something substantial had happened to the world, which required a new vocabulary. whereas ‘solid modernity’, as we saw above, was conceptualized as a time of nation states, heavy capitalism and an industrialization of genocide, ‘liquid modernity’ is rather a time marked by a dissolution of the solids of the past (states, collective identities, communities, relationships and so on), meaning that they are unable to hold their shape for long. moreover, it inaugurates a time when deregulation, marketization, privatization and a separation of power and politics making the latter impotent in dealing with the problems faced by society (bauman, 2007). this ‘liquidization’ process impacts all dimensions of society from the macro-global level to the most intimate aspects of human life. it also impacts the way suffering is experienced, expressed, distributed and managed. whereas the suffering associated with solid-modern society according to bauman was often the outcome of totalitarian tendencies inherent in modernity, in liquid-modern society suffering is much more dispersed, mediated and intangible. as he in the beginning of the new millennium stated on this transition from solid-modern to liquid-modern violence and the suffering resulting from it: a century likely to go down in history as one of violence perpetrated by nation-states on its subjects has come to a close. another violent century – this time a century of violence prompted by the progressive disablement of the nation-states by free-floating global powers – is likely to succeed it (bauman, 2001a:219). this transition does not mean, however, that the suffering caused by totalitarianism, nationalism and state-sponsored violence (symbolic or actual) has disappeared, but it has increasingly been supplemented by a plethora of largely invisible social forces leading to new forms of suffering – some of which are difficult to detect and document, but they are nevertheless experienced as suffering. this is the suffering that is the outcome of large-scale social processes such as m. jacobsen: social suffering in the sociology of zygmunt bauman qualitative studies 6(1), pp. 68-90 ©2021 78 individualization, marketization and globalization (and a concomitant retreat of state powers and a dismantling of the welfare state). in bauman’s perspective, we therefore need to reorient the focus of sociological analysis towards these new roots and expressions of suffering and social injustice. whereas jürgen habermas (1984) had famously suggested that we need to pay critical attention to the incessant colonization of the lifeworld by the system, bauman instead proposes that we in liquid-modern times need to look carefully at how the public sphere is increasingly colonized by private interests: the task of critical theory has been reversed. that task used to be the defence of private autonomy from the advancing troops of the ‘public sphere’, smarting under the oppressive rule of the omnipotent impersonal state and its many bureaucratic tentacles or their smaller-scale replicas. the task is now to defend the vanishing public realm, or rather to refurnish and repopulate the public space fast emptying ... it is no more true that the ‘public’ is set on colonizing the ‘private’. the opposite is the case: it is the private that colonizes the public sphere (bauman, 2000:39). thus, according to bauman the suffering experienced (and the violence in liquid-modern society no longer primarily stems from bureaucratic or totalitarian repression or industrially organized mass murder but also – and perhaps more so than previously – from the pitfalls of a shrinking and increasingly militarized public sphere, from the pains associated with individualization, from the failures of successful consumerism and from the relentless and uncontrollable forces of globalization creating ‘collateral damages’ on all levels of social life. throughout his writings in the new millennium, bauman thus identifies several engines of liquid-modern suffering and he labelled individualization and globalization the two ‘metacauses’ of suffering. the title of his book globalization – the human consequences (1998a) almost says it all: there are winners but also losers of the globalization game. the winners are the ‘tourists’ who can enjoy all the freedoms and opportunities available to them and who are welcomed with open arms everywhere, whereas the ‘vagabonds’ are the losers who remain on the move out of need and who are welcomed nowhere (perhaps a fitting metaphor for many of the refugees and migrants). it is bauman’s point that mobility – its causes and outcomes – is one of the greatest stratifying factors of contemporary society. moreover, as bauman described m. jacobsen: social suffering in the sociology of zygmunt bauman qualitative studies 6(1), pp. 68-90 ©2021 79 in detail in the individualized society (2001a), in times of individualization one is increasingly individually responsible for one’s successes but also for one’s own suffering. there is no more salvation from society – the winners can pride themselves of their successes, whereas the losers will have to bear their failures in shameful solitude (bauman, 2001a). as a consequence, previously popular notions of a ‘collective fate’ – of the working-class or the jews – no longer make sense in the same way as they did a century ago (even though bauman does recognize the increasingly utilized notion of the ‘precariat’). as bauman asserted: ‘present-day miseries are not synchronized; to each door catastrophe knocks selectively, on different days, at different hours … our sufferings divide and isolate: our miseries set us apart, tearing up the delicate tissue of human solidarities’ (bauman, 1999a:53-54). this does not mean, however, that ‘collective fates’ have necessarily disappeared (just think of the many groups still persecuted collectively around the world), but it does suggest that at least in a western context the process of individualization has gradually shifted the focus from collectives to individuals. previously, in bauman’s view, hardships and defeats were suffered collectively, and the responsibility for relieving suffering was placed on the strong shoulders of collective charity, social solidarity and the welfare state. now, private insurance schemes and a gradual winding down of the welfare system make the motto ‘every man for himself’ the mantra of our times. in liquid modernity, there are no ‘joining forces’, no ‘us’, no ‘standing arm in arm’, no ‘mutual responsibility’ – everything in the last instance falls back upon the increasingly isolated and vulnerable individual. as bauman observes, ‘in our ‘society of individuals’ all the messes into which one can get are assumed to be self-made and all the hot water into which one can fall is proclaimed to have been boiled by the hapless failures who have fallen into it’ (bauman, 2001a:9). no sympathy, no solidarity, no shared responsibility, only individual shame, self-recrimination and guilt. in a liquid-modern society of apparently ‘self-made’ men and women, there is no more any salvation to be expected from society. it is your mess and your problem, so stop blaming somebody else or society! divided we stand, and divided we fall. the fate of the so-called ‘human waste’ (bauman, 2004) and of those living in the ‘involuntary ghettos’ (bauman, 2001b) is no longer a common concern. moreover, in recent times we have also witnessed the transformation from a society of producers to a society of consumers. nowadays individual identity according to bauman is mainly constructed around the image of the consumer and society simultaneously engages with and interpellates its members as consumes (bauman, 2000a:76, 2007). obviously, there has always been poor people – those unable to earn a living and those outside of the labour market forced to live off the ‘benefits’ provided by others. however, in a society of consumers or a m. jacobsen: social suffering in the sociology of zygmunt bauman qualitative studies 6(1), pp. 68-90 ©2021 80 consumer society, the losers are now those excluded from consuming. they are not only barred from contributing to production and from making a living, but adding insult to injury they are also excluded from participation in the game of consumption. they are what bauman (1998b) calls ‘flawed consumers’ and being such a flawed consumer is regarded as one’s own fault – due to laziness, lack of effort or simply bad luck: ‘being excluded is presented as an outcome of social suicide, not a social execution’ (bauman, 2000b:207). in bauman’s view, in liquidmodern society primarily two strategies are employed in order to deal with the poor, global as well as local, or at least to make their misery unmistakably their own fault. first, the ‘criminalization of poverty’, and second, the ‘brutalization of the poor’. both strategies consist of policing and incarcerating the poor, cutting their welfare benefits to a bare minimum, and by presenting their suffering as self-inflicted misfortune. bauman wonders: ‘under such conditions, one would expect a widespread feeling of injustice, with a potential to condense into a mass protest movement, if not an open rebellion against the system. the fact that this does not happen testifies perhaps to the effectiveness of the combined strategies of exclusion, criminalization, and brutalization of potentially ‘problematic’ strata’ (bauman, 1997b:235). consumerism’s cutthroat competition, self-blame and mutual estrangement has replaced cooperation, collective responsibility and solidarity (with tolerance, as mentioned, squeezing solidarity to the side), thus leaving the suffering to their own misfortune. as is evident from this condensed extract from some of bauman’s ‘liquid-modern writings’, many of the causes of suffering in contemporary society remain blurred, amorphous or abstract. moreover, the human experiences of suffering are often hidden from plain sight – tucked away in ghettos, refugee camps or other sites with little or no public interest. it is important to stress that adiaphorization has thus not disappeared – it was not only part of the bureaucracy and technology of solid-modern times. bauman mentions how adiaphorization today expands primarily through processes of ‘insensitivitization’ via the constant exposure to suffering and cruelty on the media and the ‘distanciation’ between the actions of the perpetrators of cruelty and their victims due to technological advances (bauman, 1995:148-152). in this way, a lot of the suffering in liquid modernity remains as invisible and unnoticed as it is routinely ignored. is there a cure for suffering? people have suffered throughout thousands of years. but the way suffering is caused and experienced seems to have changed. in bauman’s work, suffering is primarily treated as a social m. jacobsen: social suffering in the sociology of zygmunt bauman qualitative studies 6(1), pp. 68-90 ©2021 81 phenomenon, although it may be individually experienced. suffering is a human emotional response to different experiences of degradation, harm, pain, maltreatment, marginalization and so on. obviously, the above separation between solid-modern and liquid-modern sources and causes of suffering does not really make sense. only analytically can we claim that some causes of suffering are more solid than liquid. bauman’s shift in orientation towards the processes of globalization, individualization and consumerism therefore does not signal that these causes of suffering have replaced previous ones, but it is his way of showing – and perhaps today more than before – that suffering can also be the outcome of seemingly ‘innocent’ social processes. the adiaphorizing engine set in motion in the mass murder of the jews – aided and abetted by modern bureaucracy and technology – is still with us today and is at work in ethnic cleansings or war atrocities around the world (think, for example, of the displacement and murder of the rohingya people in myanmar). it remains a latent source of suffering. but whereas the suffering experienced in solid modernity was often associated with state-sponsored violence and brutality and totalitarian means of coercion and oppression, in liquid modernity there is often no immediately identifiable perpetrator or culprit of the evil that happens to people, just anonymous forces of capitalist deregulation and privatization of every aspect of human life. this apparent invisibility of the sources of suffering may mislead us to thinking that the causes of suffering almost become amorphous and that there is no responsibility involved. even though bauman is not searching for someone to blame, he insists that the causes of suffering are social and therefore not inevitable or immune to intervention. in bauman’s work, there is thus no interest in natural suffering – a suffering that has its roots in natural conditions of human life. the suffering that concerns him is always caused by and is experienced in social circumstances. there is nothing natural about inequality, evil or persecution in his work. it is created and perpetuated by social arrangements or structural conditions and the outcome is, for example, genocide, unemployment, poverty, marginalization, deprivation and so on. hence, can something be done to alleviate suffering? although there is no doubt about bauman’s ambition to annihilate suffering, besides occasionally arguing for ‘basic income’ he remains silent when it comes to spelling out specific strategies or policies that may be put to use. one might perhaps suspect that the best way to minimize or eliminate social suffering would be resorting to social mechanisms and solutions. however, this is not bauman’s position – or at least not the primary one. bauman’s position – developed throughout several books from the early 1990s – is that we cannot meaningfully legislate about morality, and the problem and persistence of suffering is fundamentally a moral matter. in his view, even though he acknowledges the importance of strong social and global institutions, the creation and perpetuation of m. jacobsen: social suffering in the sociology of zygmunt bauman qualitative studies 6(1), pp. 68-90 ©2021 82 suffering is ultimately a matter of personal responsibility. morality is a pre-social impulse – it does not stem from society but from the moral individual. morality is, for all practical intents and purposes, not suited for legislative initiatives or formalized procedures. as he stated, leaning heavily on the philosophical ideas of emmanuel levinas and k. e. løgstrup: ‘[t]he greater the moral responsibility, the dimmer is the hope of its normative regulation’ (bauman, 1998c:20, original italics). the truly moral self, in bauman’s view, is constantly haunted by the gnawing suspicion that he/she is not moral enough and that more could have been done to alleviate the suffering of others (bauman, 1993:80). we cannot claim to be moral beings without recognizing and embracing – however painful, inconvenient, unrewarding or time-consuming – the moral responsibility for the well-being of the sufferers. morality is not about reason or rationality. our genuine moral commitment cannot be decided on pious desires or idle daydreams, but only on our willingness to practice what we preach. if morality remains a matter of pure thought or inner conversation, then it will not suffice. the good samaritan was good not because of what he contemplated doing, but due to what he actually did – intervening in the suffering and taking care of the need of an absolute stranger. to turn our backs, to refrain from intervening or protesting, amounts to accepting that there are structures and processes in the world that perpetuate inhumanity and create suffering. throughout his work, bauman insisted that we need to orient ourselves to the reality of suffering and to actively pursue the alleviation of suffering. as he stated: the price of silence is paid in the hard currency of human suffering. asking the right questions makes, after all, all the difference between fate and destination, drifting and travelling. questioning the ostensibly unquestionable premises of our way of life is arguably the most urgent of the services we owe our fellow humans and ourselves (bauman, 1998a:5). unquestionably, there is something utterly utopian about bauman’s moral stance (that our individual moral responsibility will suffice, that we can help everyone, and that we are willing to go very far to do so). bauman was fully aware that we cannot care equally for everybody in the world – there are limits to whom we can care for. he thus proposed that there are certain ‘victims of suffering’ towards whom our concern should particularly be directed – this is the m. jacobsen: social suffering in the sociology of zygmunt bauman qualitative studies 6(1), pp. 68-90 ©2021 83 suffering of those who are defenceless and unable to demand our sympathy and solidarity. as he once stated about those who most need not only our moral concern but also our moral action: the children, bodily too weak to resist physical force and mentally too inarticulate to oppose, or even ask for, an argument and a proof; the animals, devoid of language in which the demand could be phrased and of the skills to solicit rights by bargaining or coercion; the yet unborn single beings or generations of beings, unable to address us, to reciprocate or retaliate, even to appear to us as faces, as bearers of needs and givers of demands; the poor and indolent, the deprived and the dispossessed, denied human rights by the law, convention or custom, or too feeble to execute such rights as have been formally awarded to them … these are the cases of moral responsibility reaching its peak (bauman, 1998c:20). these groups – children, generations of the yet unborn, animals, the social outcasts and the weak – epitomizes the suffering other, whose plight we are particularly responsible for relieving. it is bauman’s position that the weaker the other, the more the burden of responsibility weighs upon our shoulders. bauman’s understanding of morality (and with it the answer to the problem of suffering) is thus mainly in opposition to what might be called the hobbesian answer to the problem of order – that of instituting a moral and social order that pre-empts its members’ freedom of choice. bauman is opposed to an anarchic state of nature (such as the one found in contemporary consumerism) inhabited by the homo lupus – man as a wolf – in which everybody wants to have their cake and eat it. bauman, however, is also opposed to the bureaucratic ethos as well as business ethics, any type of organizational contraption that either forces or seduces people into acting in ways at odds with their unconditional moral responsibility for the wellbeing of others and which results in a ‘free-floating responsibility’ (see, e.g., kaulingkreks, 2005). for bauman, our responsibility is personal. for example, to him it does not matter how many people opposed the suffering and killing of the jews during world war ii but that some did (bauman, 1989:207). solidarity and morality, like suffering, is not a matter of quantity, but of quality – of the suffering and the actions taken to prevent it. his answer, no matter how unrealistic and unpersuasive it may seem, is thus a ‘morality without ethics’– a human form of moral responsibility not regulated by externally enforced rules and societally induced norms m. jacobsen: social suffering in the sociology of zygmunt bauman qualitative studies 6(1), pp. 68-90 ©2021 84 (as in a functionalist view of the world), but by an innate sense of responsibility and solidarity. bauman’s moral stance is that of a ‘morality of choice’ rather than a ‘morality of conformity’ (bauman, 1998c) – if morality is forced through, it stops being ‘morality’ and turns into ‘ethics’. bauman is painfully aware that this ‘morality of proximity’, as he also calls it, cannot stand alone. he recognizes the almost insurmountable obstacles to the realization of such a micro-moral stance in a world ruled by forces of globalization, individualization and consumerism (see bauman, 1997b, 1999b). in times marked by such global challenges, morality more than ever before needs the backing of large-scale initiatives and requires more solid levers than just individual conscience and responsibility. as he once noted: ‘morality which always guided us and still guide us today has powerful, but short hands. it now needs very, very long hands indeed’ (bauman, 1993:218). without being coupled with political intervention of a more extensive reach, such a localized/personalized morality will prove impotent in dealing with and suffering on a global scale. as mentioned, in bauman’s view there is nothing natural or inevitable about other people’s suffering – it can be prevented. it requires awareness and willingness to act. in our increasingly globalized world, however, these two dimensions are often found missing. politics and power have been separated, and the suffering we witness is often ‘distant suffering’ that we find difficult to relate to (boltanski, 1999). it also means the willingness – not least within bauman’s often academic readership – to nurture an awareness of how suffering is a structurally created and maintained phenomenon. as should be evident from the above, bauman’s work is unmistakably moral in that it respects the reader and yet calls upon the him/her to respect the text and, also, understand the circumstances of her or his own being in the world. in that way, the reader will see that his/her own personal situation is intimately linked to wider public issues and, thereby, sociology will have engaged in its specific action of enlightenment. richard sennett once mentioned this moral dimension of bauman’s work, by saying that bauman speaks to the present because ‘he suggests that there is a real realm to navigate of personal responsibility, and that makes contact with young people … it really appeals when someone tells them that they’re responsible for relating to others in an ethical way. that’s why he is so popular’ (sennett in bunting, 2003:20). conclusion this article has presented and discussed the perspective on suffering as developed by zygmunt bauman throughout his extensive body of work. it has been shown how the theme of suffering has continued to constitute an important leitmotif in his concern with understanding the social m. jacobsen: social suffering in the sociology of zygmunt bauman qualitative studies 6(1), pp. 68-90 ©2021 85 world. as should be evident from the above, bauman always sides with those who are suffering, no matter whether their suffering is spectacular or invisible, publicly recognized or silenced. bauman’s sociology presents us with a distinctly qualitative look into the diversified world of social suffering. his work on suffering – social inequality, violence, mass murder, marginalization and so on – does not rest on statistical refinery or measurements. although he does at times quote some official statistics, most of his ideas on suffering are of a theoretical nature, relying primarily on insights from philosophers, social theorists and his own unique analytical template. we have also seen how the specific focus on suffering has changed throughout his work: from a focus specifically on the working-class, then later the jews to a more generalized perspective of the different faces of liquid-modern suffering. it seems as if there has been a change from concreteness to abstractness in his treatment of suffering – in its causes and in its experiences. this not least pertains to the increasing invisibility or blurring of the liquid-modern causes of suffering. of course, corporate (or casino) capitalism, neoliberal deregulation and consumerism can rightly be blamed (see, e.g. giroux, 2011), but today it is seemingly far more difficult to single out identifiable culprits responsible for the production, proliferation and perpetuation of suffering than it was with many of the solid-modern predecessors. bauman’s work thus raises the question: who are the suffering really? who are these outcasts, strangers, wasted lives, human weeds, new poor, the underclass, lives unworthy of life and whatever else bauman throughout his work has called the groups of sufferers? are they the refugees in the asylum centres, the recipients of social benefits, the homeless, the sexually deviant and persecuted, the starving in the developing countries, the unemployed, ethnic minorities, or perhaps all of the above? for better or for worse, bauman only rarely (besides in his work on the jews in the concentration camps) specifies the sufferers and they therefore often remain strangely nameless and faceless in his work. moreover, perhaps bauman even overlooks some sorts of suffering. at least according to ali rattansi (2017), bauman throughout his work neglected topics such as race, imperialism and gender in his analyses. this also means that bauman is somewhat blind to the suffering related to these specific areas. moreover, although bauman’s work is generally characterized by a global outlook, many examples from non-western contexts might in fact challenge or even refute some of his claims, e.g. on the importance of processes of individualization or consumerism on contemporary experiences of suffering. in his work, bauman outlined, as we saw, some of the moral implications of the persistence of suffering. in his view, we should all be outraged at the knowledge and sight of suffering and spurred into action. however, it is his contention that we have become increasingly blind m. jacobsen: social suffering in the sociology of zygmunt bauman qualitative studies 6(1), pp. 68-90 ©2021 86 or immune to the suffering of others in liquid-modern society (bauman and donskis 2013). whereas people living in solid-modern society could conjure up excuses that they did not know what was going on (e.g. to the jews in the concentration camps) in order to sooth their conscience, nowadays such an excuse is as hollow as it is untrue. most of us – not least due to the network of information technologies now available – know about and sometimes even witness atrocities as they unfold. we are no longer capable of shrouding our inaction with lack of knowledge, innocence and non-complicity. bauman thus uses his writings as a clarion call to his readers to take on their responsibility, and although ‘bauman’s voice is often friendly … it is uncompromising in the demands that it makes upon the reader as reader and as ethical actor’ (beilharz, 2001:3). bauman demands of his readers that they not only recognize the reality of suffering but that they armed with this knowledge will also accept the responsibility that follows from this knowledge. bauman’s sociology is thus a normative endeavour – aimed at pointing to the many inequalities, injustices and inhumanities of social life – and asking us to make a difference. in summary, zygmunt bauman in his writings provides us with a sociology of the underdog, the outcast, the downtrodden and the sufferers. his sociology, however, is not a defeatist declaration that we must passively accept this situation. suffering is real, and killing it by its roots may seem utopian, but bauman was and remained a utopian of sorts. we can do something about suffering. despite this claim, he almost always steered clear of providing concrete solutions, prophylaxes or recipes for action (besides his defence for a basic income), the danger lurking of closing down options rather than opening reality up to human intervention and transformation. we should therefore always keep our eyes open for the unused possibilities, the uncovered terrains, the unchartered territory. bauman continuously insisted that the world can be made into a better – more just, more free, more humane – place, but that it is up to us to decide to do something about it and to act upon our conscience and moral responsibility – it cannot be legislated or forced through. as keith tester once admirably pointed out about bauman’s work: ‘within his sociology, bauman tries to show that the world does not have to be the way it is and that there is an alternative to what presently seems to be so natural, so obvious, so inevitable’ (tester in bauman and tester, 2001:9). bauman’s sociology is thus an uncompromising all-out attack on any assumptions about the world as readymade or unchangeable. the suffering in the world cannot simply be wished or analyzed away, it needs to be countered and challenged, and sociology plays an important role in this. as bauman thus stated in his inaugural lecture in leeds in 1972: ‘[e]ither sociology will make sense of the human world, m. jacobsen: social suffering in the sociology of zygmunt bauman qualitative studies 6(1), pp. 68-90 ©2021 87 thereby living power to the powerless, or it must admit its own powerlessness to make sense of its own existence’ (bauman, 1972:186). references bauman, janina (1986): winter in the morning. london: virago. bauman, zygmunt (1972): ‘culture, values and science of society’. university of leeds review, 15 (2):185-203. bauman, zygmunt (1976a): socialism – the active utopia. london: hutchinson. bauman, zygmunt (1976b): towards a critical sociology – an essay on common sense and emancipation. london: routledge and kegan paul. bauman, zygmunt (1978): hermeneutics and social science – approaches to understanding. london: hutchinson. bauman, zygmunt (1982): memories of class: 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(1996): ‘the alarmed vision: social suffering and holocaust atrocity’. daedalus (special issue on social suffering), 125 (1):47-65. milgran, stanley (1974): obedience to authority: an experimental view. new york: harper & row. mills, c. wright (1959): the sociological imagination. new york: oxford university press. permebrton, simon (2016): harmful societies – understanding social harm. bristol: policy press. m. jacobsen: social suffering in the sociology of zygmunt bauman qualitative studies 6(1), pp. 68-90 ©2021 90 rattansi, ali (2017): ‘race, imperialism and gender in zygmunt bauman’s sociology – partial absences, serious consequences’, in michael hviid jacobsen (ed.): beyond bauman – critical engagements and creative excursions. london: routledge, pp. 65-85. smith, dennis (1998): ‘zygmunt bauman – how to be a successful outsider’. theory, culture and society, 15 (1):39-45. tester, keith (2004): the social thought of zygmunt bauman. london: palgrave/macmillan. wilkinson, iain (2004): ‘the problem of ‘social suffering’: the challenge to social science’. health sociology review, 13 (2):113-121. wilkinson, iain (2005): suffering: a sociological introduction. cambridge: polity press. wilkinson, iain (2007): ‘on bauman’s sociology of suffering: questions for thinking’, in anthony elliott (ed.): the contemporary bauman. london: routledge, pp. 241-256. about the author: michael hviid jacobsen is professor of sociology at the department of sociology and social work, aalborg university, denmark. his research interests cover: social theory, the sociology om emotions, criminology, qualitative research methods, death, dying, grief and immortality. duara, hugh-jones and madill forced adulthood.pdf qualitative studies vol. 6, no. 1, 2021, pp. 11-37 issn 1903-7031 11 ‘forced adulthood’: an aspect of ‘quarterlife crisis’ suffered by young english and assamese adults raginie duara1 , siobhan hugh-jones2 & anna madill3 1south sarania, guwahati 781007, assam, india 2school of psychology, room 1.19, university of leeds, leeds ls29jt, uk 3school of psychology, university of leeds, lifton place, leeds, ls2 9jt, uk quarterlife crisis’ describes difficulties experienced by young people in their transition to adulthood. little is known about how this crisis manifests in different cultural contexts or the impact of educational background. using photo-elicitation and timeline interviews, we explore the lived experience of ‘quarterlife crisis’ among 22-30 year olds from england (n=16) and assam, india (n=8), each group including people with and people without a university-level education. data were analysed with interpretative phenomenological analysis. we report the key theme of ‘forced adulthood’, consisting of the traumatising experience of having to assume adult roles and responsibilities before one feels capable of so doing. we explore how cultural and educational factors shape this experience though: feeling rushed to financial self-sufficiency; having to train oneself to be an adult; and having to be the ‘man of the house’. in conclusion, we demonstrate that, even though there is some consistency around the traumatising effect of too early an assumption of adult responsibility, culture and educational background can change the contours of this experience and its meaning. keywords: life span, identity crisis, cross-cultural differences, young adulthood, visual methods, phenomenology. introduction high rates of mental health problems have been noted globally among individuals aged 18 to 25 years (bittner et al., 2004; kessler & walters, 1998). this has been linked to a decrease in social connectedness (twenge, 2000) and rise in youth unemployment (galambos, barker & krahn, 2006; mcgee & thompson, 2015). given the potential for lifelong negative consequences, contemporary researchers have shone the spotlight on depression and anxiety among young people in order to understand how this impacts life trajectory (e.g., aseltine jr & gore, 2005; mcgee & thompson, 2015; mossakowski, 2011). socio-economic context is one important factor influencing transition to adulthood and, in developing countries, this can be complicated by a clash between westernization and traditional values which can unsettle r. duara, s. hugh-jones & a. madill: an aspect of ‘quarterlife crisis’ suffered by young english 12 and assamese adults qualitative studies 6(1), pp. 11-37 ©2021 young people’s “dreams, aspirations […] and overall quality of life” (fatusi & hindin, 2010, p. 500). the purpose of this study is to explicate lived experiences of young people in the uk (developed country) and india (developing country) who perceive experiencing crisis during their transition to adulthood. research on transition to adulthood has explored the relation between young people’s psychological wellbeing and typical developmental tasks during this period such as employment and marriage (arnett, 2000; roisman, masten, coatsworth & tellegen, 2004). for example, aseltine and gore (2005) found that enrolment in college or having full time work were associated with lower levels of depression and positive quality of life. a sense of direction appears to be important, with fewer psychological problems reported when young people had a sense of structure in their daily life. from interviews with young americans, robbins and wilner (2001) coined the term ‘quarterlife crisis’ to describe a problematic transition to adulthood, defining it as a “state of panic, sparked by a feeling of loss and uncertainty” (p. 7). however, although the term has been popularised in television, cinema and music (thorspecken, 2005), there is little research into its validity, meaning or impact on young people’s lives. the concept is not completely new, though, and the idea of a ‘quarterlife crisis’ is compatible with the earlier lifespan development theories of levinson (1986) and erikson (1950). both these earlier theories propose that crises are more likely at certain life stages and that these are shaped by biology as well as by a typical trajectory in familial, social, educational, economic and political conditions. specifically, crises are theorised to arise when a change in values, possibilities and/or circumstances prompt a re-evaluation or re-structuring of the purpose and direction of life, accompanied by a sense of urgency to resolve the situation, but amidst significant challenges to doing so (hermann, 1972). arnett’s (1997) concept of ‘emerging adulthood’ also includes aspects of vulnerability and potential crisis. emerging adulthood is described as a time of exploration, but also of instability due to breaking with institutions, such as school and family, that had provided safety, purpose and direction. facing multiple choices, arnett argues that emerging adults need to find their place in the world in line with social expectations, which includes securing a life partner, appropriate occupation, and strong sense of identity. young people may suffer if they perceive too wide a gap between their current position and societal expectations, often alongside a sense that this needs to be resolved within a pressured timeframe (billings, milburn & schaalman, 1980). moreover, robbins and wilner (2001) see similarities between ‘quarterlife crisis’ and r. duara, s. hugh-jones & a. madill: an aspect of ‘quarterlife crisis’ suffered by young english and assamese adults qualitative studies 6(1), pp. 11-37 ©2021 13 its more famous cousin ‘midlife crisis’ in that both implicate a “major life change” (p. 2). however, they propose that, whilst midlife crisis is theoretically associated with monotony and stagnancy, ‘quarterlife crisis’ is a state of unpredictability and apprehension amidst multiple choices, generating feelings of being “alone, confused, and anxious one minute and social, centred, and calm the next” (atwood & scholtz, 2008, p. 241). stage models of development and the notion of crisis are highly contested, particularly in terms of their assumed inevitability and universality given that many studies fail to find evidence of crisis and most have been limited to university-educated western populations (bynner, 2005; henry & kloep, 2010; rossi & mebert, 2011). yet there is growing evidence that young people can experience crisis (côté, 2006; robinson & smith, 2010) across a range of cultural settings. for example, pole’s (2014) study of the tongan community in new zealand found that, upon completing education, young adults experienced a form of ‘quarterlife crisis’ which involved a sense of failing to contribute to community goals. this finding is particularly illuminating given that the population on which the concept of ‘quarterlife crisis’ was developed, i.e., young americans, experience their crisis in terms of failing to attain stability and direction in personal and professional life (robbins & wilner, 2001). this variability in experience of crisis directs attention to how social and cultural context set the parameters of success. for example, according to hofstede (2011), typically, in developing countries with traditional values, “people from birth onwards are integrated into strong, cohesive in-groups” and are protected “in exchange for unquestioning loyalty” (2011, p. 11). hofstede (2011) contrasts this to the anglophone west where it is more typical for parents to encourage independence and autonomy in their children. in practice, the situation is more complex and killen and wainryb (2000) highlight how “concerns with autonomy are not absent from traditional societies, but are played out differently for individuals in different roles and positions, resulting in a complex interweaving of independence and interdependence” (p. 16). this is true also of ‘individualistic’ societies where people are socialised also to care about the welfare of others (killen & wainryb, 2000). with globalization and new ways of interacting, such as social media, young people are exposed to a wider range of cultures and, potentially at least, choice of affiliation (wichalls, 2012). for example, there is evidence that in some asian countries, like india, china and japan, that emphasise collective values (hofstede, 2011), are undergoing a cultural shift whereby young people have increasing aspiration for self-determination which may be in tension with r. duara, s. hugh-jones & a. madill: an aspect of ‘quarterlife crisis’ suffered by young english 14 and assamese adults qualitative studies 6(1), pp. 11-37 ©2021 obligations they are expected to meet with regard to their family-of-origin (hamamura, 2012). however, traditional cultural values have immense inertia and provide the frame within which potential changes are interpreted and evaluated: “one could say that while a social system is structurally open (i.e. it clearly has contact with other systems and cannot be regarded as a container), it is functionally closed (i.e. the mechanism for interpretation does not come from the outside, but from within the cultural system itself)” (wichalls, 2012, p. 15). hence, forging a life path against expectations is not easy and many such young people may experience difficulties finding their place in the world. the aim of our study is to elucidate central features of the ‘quarterlife crisis’ as experienced by young adults in two different cultural contexts and with reference to educational background. we recruited young people from one developed country england – and a state in one developing country assam, india. typical of the developed west, english culture emphasises individualism, autonomy, and independence while assamese culture represents the more collectivist values prioritising common goals and aspirations (hofstede, 2011; markus & kitayama, 1991). we generated accounts of experience through semi-structured interviews, photo-elicitation, and timelining. semi-structured interviews allowed us to focus on theoryrelevant topics, while being open to new information (madill, 2012). a timeline provided structure for autobiographical events (rhodes & fitzgerald, 2006) and contextual details (adriansen, 2012). participants were asked to bring images to the interview to help tell their story, with the expectation that this would facilitate a participant-led process and help us generate new insights (meo, 2010). we selected interpretative phenomenological analysis (ipa) to analyse our data given its focus on how experiences are perceived and interpreted by the participants. specifically, ipa requires the researcher “to identify, describe and understand two related aspects of a respondent’s account: the key ‘objects of concern’ in the participant’s world, and the ‘experiential claim’ made by the participant” (larkin, watts & clifton, 2006, p. 111). hence, we considered this approach to have potential to illuminate how cultural meanings contribute to our participants’ understanding of their experiences as a crisis. method the study was approved by the ethics committee of the school of psychology, university of leeds, uk. signed informed consent was obtained from all participants. r. duara, s. hugh-jones & a. madill: an aspect of ‘quarterlife crisis’ suffered by young english and assamese adults qualitative studies 6(1), pp. 11-37 ©2021 15 participants our inclusion criteria are that participants are between 22-30 years old, self-define as having experienced difficulties ‘finding one’s place in the world’, british nationals (when recruited in england) or indian nationals (when recruited in assam). english participants were recruited via the university alumni website, posters on university campuses, and by word of mouth. the first-round sample consisted of 13 english participants, only one of whom had not attended university. early analysis indicated that this participant’s experience was distinct and appeared to relate in important ways to educational background. hence, we recruited an additional three english participants who had not attended university in order to explore this potentially significant life difference. the first author is assamese and, having progressed with the analysis of the english sample, observed interesting differences in her own experiences of transition to adulthood. we therefore took the opportunity to explore cultural differences and she recruited a further eight participants in assam through personal contacts and word of mouth, making sure to sample those with and without a university education. the final sample consisted of 16 english and 8 assamese participants. the english sample was recruited from leeds, liverpool, manchester, london, keighley and lancaster. the assamese sample was recruited from the city of guwahati given the huge differences between rural and urban contexts and the particular economic disparities across the state (deka, 2005). on the other hand, assam does have greater cultural cohesion than many indian states in terms of gender equality, for instance in not following practices such as dowry and childmarriage (deka, 2013). the sample is a little larger than the 3-16 participants considered typical of ipa studies by robinson (2014) but within the range able to provide depth of analysis suggested by pietkiewicz and smith (2014). the english sample is twice than that of the assamese. this is because, as described above, the analysis of the original english sample alerted the first author to potentially interesting cultural differences. we therefore understand the assamese sample to be analogous to a ‘deviant’ or ‘negative’ case analysis in which even one carefully selected instance can prove illuminating. that is, this technique can reveal relevant phenomena via comparison (hanson, 2017) and has been described as “an ideal way to expand the content of a theory [or concept]” (emigh, 1997, p. 659). table 1 describes the sample based on culture, age, gender and education. r. duara, s. hugh-jones & a. madill: an aspect of ‘quarterlife crisis’ suffered by young english 16 and assamese adults qualitative studies 6(1), pp. 11-37 ©2021 table 1 participants’ distribution based on cultural background, gender, age and education cultural background (english/assamese) age (mean) gender education male female attended university not attended university english 24.31 (sd=1.85) 8 8 12 (6 males, 6 females) 4 (2 males, 2 females) assamese 27.25 (sd=2.31) 4 4 5 (2 males, 3 females) 3 (2 males, 1 female) data collection and analytical procedure people showing interest in the study who possibly met the inclusion criteria were provided with the information sheet. they were asked a set of questions to establish eligibility: “have you ever experienced difficulty establishing what ‘kind of person’ you are?”, “have you ever felt stuck in life?”, “have you ever felt anxious about choosing the next step in life?” if the person answered yes to one or more question, they were asked at which age they had this experience. if this was between the ages of 22 and 30 years, they were then invited to take part in the research. as is typical in photo elicitation studies, two weeks prior to interview, participants were asked to collect and send to the researcher photographs or images related to their difficulties ‘finding one’s place in the world’. participants took part in an audio-recorded semistructured interview with the first author. each was asked to create a timeline on a piece of paper relevant to telling their story. the interview was driven by discussion of the timeline, each participant placing their images in an appropriate position and explaining its relevance in representing their experience (e.g., see figure1). with permission, timelines were photographed for analysis. figure 1. jack’s timeline (from 1995 to 2015) r. duara, s. hugh-jones & a. madill: an aspect of ‘quarterlife crisis’ suffered by young english and assamese adults qualitative studies 6(1), pp. 11-37 ©2021 17 where appropriate, the interviewer drew in additional lines of enquiry such as feeling stuck, worries, relationship issues, responsibilities, regrets and coping strategies, indicated to be important in the literature on emerging adulthood (arnett, 2000; robbins & wilner, 2001; setterson & ray, 2010). the data was analysed using ipa (smith et al., 2009). transcripts were first coded individually with concepts and phrases assigned to portions of the text to identify and represent reported experiences. a cross-sample analysis was then conducted of codes in order to identify similarities and differences between cultures and between people with different educational background. finally, codes with similar meaning were grouped to generate cross-sample conceptual themes and sub-themes. analysis we present one key theme here – ‘forced adulthood’ – because it captures an important crosscultural experience of ‘quarterlife crisis.’ we start by explicating the theme ‘forced adulthood’ before presenting its three sub-themes. table 2 shows the distribution of sub-themes across participants. table 2 participant demographic, interview length, number of photographs brought, and contribution to analytic sub-themes pseudonym* sex age (yrs) ethnicity (as indicated by participa nts in screening test) highest qualificati on# source of recruitmen t interview (mins) photos subtheme 1 2 3 mary f 25 english phd scholar word of mouth 46 7 hannah f 27 english bsc university of leeds 80 33 ü r. duara, s. hugh-jones & a. madill: an aspect of ‘quarterlife crisis’ suffered by young english 18 and assamese adults qualitative studies 6(1), pp. 11-37 ©2021 alumni website olivia f 23 english ba university of leeds alumni website 54 10 ü avril f 28 english ba (hons) word of mouth 48 9 ü erica f 24 english currently bsc university of leeds alumni website 74 13 ü silvia f 25 english phd scholar word of mouth 37 7 ü sarah f 23 english diploma through acquaintan ce 39 9 ü amy f 26 englishindian gcse through acquaintan ce 140 14 ü bill m 23 english ba (hons) university of leeds alumni website 73 5 andrew m 22 english ma through acquaintan ce 128 6 ü max m 25 english ma through acquaintan ce 70 5 ü r. duara, s. hugh-jones & a. madill: an aspect of ‘quarterlife crisis’ suffered by young english and assamese adults qualitative studies 6(1), pp. 11-37 ©2021 19 denver m 22 english currently ba through acquaintan ce 49 5 ü alex m 23 english currently masters through acquaintan ce 36 8 harry m 26 english ba university of leeds alumni website 59 11 ü aran m 25 english gcse poster 54 5 ü ü jack m 22 english gcse through acquaintan ce 52 18 ü aman m 29 assames e indian ma through acquaintan ce 88 10 ü ravi m 25 assames e indian currently ba through acquaintan ce 111 28 raj m 24 assames e indian a-levels word of mouth 41 8 ü vikram m 30 assames e indian a-levels word of mouth 39 12 ü ü ishita f 26 assames e indian msc through acquaintan ce 28 10 ü ü amrita f 30 assames e indian ma through acquaintan ce 103 6 ü ü isha f 26 assames e indian ma word of mouth 79 6 ü ü r. duara, s. hugh-jones & a. madill: an aspect of ‘quarterlife crisis’ suffered by young english 20 and assamese adults qualitative studies 6(1), pp. 11-37 ©2021 niti f 28 assames e indian a-levels word of mouth 48 5 ü *note 1: participants listed in order of ethnic group, gender and education (attended and not attended university within gender) #note 2: abbreviations, phd (doctorate), ba (bachelor of arts), bsc (bachelor of science), gcse (general certificate of secondary education), ma (master of arts). msc (master of science) theme: forced adulthood most participants felt pressurised to assume adult-like responsibilities, although they varied in terms of the age at which this was expected to occur. some experienced this pressure due to culturally-recognised staging-posts and feared falling behind. others found themselves catapulted into ‘adulthood’ by external events. however, in both scenarios, ‘adulthood’ was experienced as forced: that is, as necessary but unwelcome. although there were similarities across the english and assamese samples, there were also cultural differences in the way in which ‘forced adulthood’ manifested. english participants felt rushed towards financial selfsufficiency and/or described the expectation of being able to inhabit an adult role on their own in order to attain independence from their family. assamese participants, in contrast, were more likely to assume adult roles and seek financial security within the context of fulfilling, often heavy, responsibilities to their family-of-origin. educational background determined the kind of support available to build life skills necessary to assume adult roles and responsibilities. sub-theme 1: rushed into financial self-sufficiency. most participants reported suffering from a pressure or drive to become financially selfsufficient, and that this was an intense struggle, often necessitating the sacrifice of personally meaningful and fulfilling interests. we therefore characterised their experience as ‘rushed’. some participants experienced an abrupt demand for financial independence. for example, olivia (english) had been supported by her family during university and had expected ongoing support as she transited from education into a fulfilling job. she reported suffering a crisis when her family’s financial support was no longer available: “when i had some family problems i was basically left to be completely independent financially and everything, and i ended up in r. duara, s. hugh-jones & a. madill: an aspect of ‘quarterlife crisis’ suffered by young english and assamese adults qualitative studies 6(1), pp. 11-37 ©2021 21 a job that i felt was really unsuitable based on my expectations of where my career would be going” (olivia, female, university-educated). in contrast, some participants reported purposefully seeking increasing financial selfsufficiency post-university, but that this led to feeling trapped and somewhat in crisis. for example, avril (english) chose to get a job to give her some financial independence even though she had an advantaged background, but she soon felt stuck in a job that did not draw upon her university education or ambition: “i sort of noticed that financial administrators…there was like so many jobs going for that so i just thought i’ll get this job for now because there’s loads of them, i’ll just get this job and then i’ll find something else later. so it was just to have some money really, just that’s how i got into it” (avril, female, university-educated). at the time of interview, avril’s job had reached a dead end where she felt she could not progress. she had previously imagined she would be a jewellery designer “cos that’s what i was doing a lot of when i was doing my foundation degree”. she brought a photograph (figure 2) that expressed her current feeling of crisis characterised by entrapment (‘like it’s a prison [with] no change’) and pressure to escape before it’s too late: “mostly like now it’s because where i feel stuck at the minute is just ‘cos i feel like time’s running out ‘cos i’m getting older now and i feel like if i need to change my life around and make a decision i need to do it now…” (avril, female, university-educated). figure 2. avril’s photograph: ‘this is how i feel with my job at the minute’ r. duara, s. hugh-jones & a. madill: an aspect of ‘quarterlife crisis’ suffered by young english 22 and assamese adults qualitative studies 6(1), pp. 11-37 ©2021 many english participants reported this sense of being at a dead end, either through uncontrollable circumstances or personal choices they had made in their attempt to attain financial independence. their feeling stuck at a time when they ‘should’ have been progressing with their lives was central to their experience of a crisis. however, assamese participants presented different experiences to the english sample around financial independence. as part of the indian socio-economic and cultural context, indian parents are entrusted with the responsibility to support and aid their children, at least till they are financially independent (sinha, 1995). with this comes the responsibility for children to respect parental position and expectation (hofstede, 2011; sinha, 1995). ishita, for example, was an assamese participant who had parental support throughout her education but who then postponed pursuit of an interesting, meaningful career in order to become financially less dependent on her family and to ‘pay them back’: “this is my first job i would say so right now finance does have a play […] i want to be able to stand up on my own feet. interest there is interest but what i feel is that interest will take a big step once i reach the stage when i know i’m financially secured […] i always wanted to be in the corporate world. earn some penny for myself and being a support in small little way to my family and to all my near and dear ones” (ishita, assamese, female, university-educated). for ishita, crisis stemmed from postponing pursuit of an interesting career. participants not engaged in higher education appeared to face different challenges around limited options and the place of personal goals. financial independence was more a necessity than a choice. for example, raj (assamese) had dropped out of university and was under pressure from his family to prove himself by building a business to establish a stable future. he had suffered financial losses in trying to do this. his father had imposed time restrictions to prove himself in business before he would be compelled to take a government job: “i got losses in net café and game parlour so next time i don’t want to lose because my age is going on and after that if i don’t do anything r. duara, s. hugh-jones & a. madill: an aspect of ‘quarterlife crisis’ suffered by young english and assamese adults qualitative studies 6(1), pp. 11-37 ©2021 23 my father will force me to do a job” (raj, assamese, male, nonuniversity-educated). raj’s account shows the intense pressure he felt under parental expectations and ultimatum. he was highly sensitised to the clock ticking (“my age is going on “) and so every loss in his business felt crippling, bringing him closer to the dead-end job he did not want. just like in the case of ishita, but with more imposition, we see reflection of compliance to authority in the indian context, that can limit and frustrate personal options and choices. sub-theme 2: train myself to be an adult. this sub-theme had specific applicability to two english men and one english-indian woman. these participants had not pursued a university education and had lived away from their parent/s without experiencing, what might be considered, a supported transition to adulthood. assuming ‘adult’ responsibilities had been an urgent requirement for them. for example, aran described life after leaving his home neighbourhood: “there was nothing to do in the area so i moved out at 16 got me own place and just had to train myself to be an adult you know. getting a proper education and getting myself out there. get a job. it was an extremely hard struggle ‘cos i had to learn to cook and clean and you know pay bills. i didn’t have much help. i didn’t know where to go for help i didn’t know what decisions needed to be made first so it was such a struggle that i had to keep asking different agencies and basically work my way around to find out the support that i could get. and obviously that takes time and during that time not knowing that you’re, you know, fundamental adult skills that you need to survive. it was extremely hard. i became really depressed” (aran, english, male, non-university-educated). aran’s experiences with the difficulties of day-to-day living gave rise to a sense that he needed to learn how to fulfil this new adult role, ‘to train [him]self to be an adult’. aran needed to be self-sufficient yet ‘didn’t have much help’, ‘didn’t know where to go for help’ and ‘didn’t know what decisions needed to be taken’. his perceived lack of fundamental living skills meant that r. duara, s. hugh-jones & a. madill: an aspect of ‘quarterlife crisis’ suffered by young english 24 and assamese adults qualitative studies 6(1), pp. 11-37 ©2021 aran felt stranded with unmanageable responsibilities with effects on his mental health. aran’s description of ‘training himself to be an adult’ implies he assumed that, in normal circumstances, a young person learns how to be an adult, and develops competencies, over time and in a way that is less demanding and relatively subtle. a similar experience was shared by jack who was forced to leave home (at the age of 16) with very little awareness of the things he would have to handle: “that’s what this picture’s about ((places photo – figure 3)). i’d never lived on my own so i just steadily went into decline healthwise […] like smoking and just eating crap like pasta every day. and then pasta became too expensive ‘cos i was spending my money on other stuff and then like yeah, noodles, other people’s food dust anything that i, as long as i didn’t have to spend money on it” (jack, english, male, nonuniversity-educated). the photograph that represented living away from home was an image of a tray full of cigarette butts (figure 3). jack attributed the cause of his decline in health to being unprepared and inexperienced in making good decisions for himself as “i’d never lived on my own”. the image (figure 3) reflected his perception of failure in handling his own life. his crisis stemmed from not knowing how to take care of himself, and in a context where helpful resources and alternatives were unknown. figure 3. jack’s photograph: ‘i just steadily went into decline healthwise’ at the point of interview, jack’s life had moved forward and, at the age of 22, he was about to have a child with his girlfriend: r. duara, s. hugh-jones & a. madill: an aspect of ‘quarterlife crisis’ suffered by young english and assamese adults qualitative studies 6(1), pp. 11-37 ©2021 25 “i think i’ve become a lot more responsible and you know ‘cos i’m having a kid and stuff. and that’s the next thing for me is having a kid and trying to be a dad which is daunting but in the same hand i kind of think you know i can do it…” (jack, english, male, non-universityeducated). although fatherhood was a “daunting” prospect, jack was optimistic about his ability to manage: “i can do it”. interestingly, there was an assumption in many participants’ accounts of chrononormativity, i.e. that life events ought to occur in a particular sequence. we see this in jack’s descriptions of fatherhood as the “next thing for me”. however, jack’s timeline (figure 1) showed that he was experiencing overlapping challenges, not yet financially secure to fulfil his own needs while also trying to raise a child. there were non-linear and nonsequential milestones and events depicted in his timeline. amy’s difficulties in managing adult responsibilities started when she got married at the age of 20 and started living with her husband: “and then came the responsibilities of rent and bills and all that kind of stuff and you know buying furniture ((giggles)). as dumb as it sounds dishes. that’s when i started to really understand life without mum and dad and how difficult it is. that it’s not that easy especially when neither of you, not you nor your husband, have settled into life. we don’t have brilliantly well paid secure jobs […] neither of us had experience in financing and budgeting so we were still blowing money going out every friday” (amy, english-indian, female, non-universityeducated). amy’s account shows the challenges she faced in learning ‘on the job’ how to be an independent adult. her description that neither she nor her husband had “settled into life” before facing life independently from their families suggests she felt she needed more time for a kind of interim maturing process. contextually, the impact of a low income but new freedom, created a particularly dangerous mix which led to a relationship breakdown and a return, by amy, to her family home. r. duara, s. hugh-jones & a. madill: an aspect of ‘quarterlife crisis’ suffered by young english 26 and assamese adults qualitative studies 6(1), pp. 11-37 ©2021 thus, across aran, jack and amy, we understand that some english young people, in this case those without higher education and possibly from a low-income background, can feel unprepared, unskilled and unable to cope when living independently from their birth family, even when this independence is sought or expected. each of these participants described their encounter with adulthood as extremely challenging: “an extremely hard struggle”, “just steadily went into decline”, “how difficult it is”. sub-theme 3: ‘man’ of the house. just like our english participants, many of our assamese participants dreamed of a fulfilling life but reported negating these in order to take on ‘adult’ roles to support their birth family, in line with cultural expectations. moreover, contingent events, such as the death of the father (applicable to four of our assamese participants) catapulted some into important family roles with little preparation. for example, by virtue of social norms, aman’s position as eldest son in the family meant he was assigned considerable responsibilities which weighed on him during his transitional process: “being the eldest son, i have to do all the work. all the work, be it dropping my sister or picking my sister up from school… even that. be it feeding my brother’s pam…pampering. i have to pamper him. listen to his scolding, listen to his threats. and then do the work… meeting people, being… outside i’m the eldest son, you know s [mentions family name]. i had a moustache for god’s sakes man! (interviewer laughs). i have to keep that. i don’t have a picture. i should have taken a picture because that was (stresses on the last two words) remarkable. i had a goddamn moustache man! i had handlebar moustache (says in hindi). so… so yeah finding it very difficult to find my place” (aman, m, assamese, attended university). aman’s account paints a picture of relentless responsibilities, but as “i’m the eldest son you know”, he orients to a shared assumption that he would do this willingly. although sporting a ‘handlebar moustache’ to appear more adult, he ‘struggled to find his place’ in this new adult arena. he later described that he had committed to his dying father (which he represented in figure 4), that his place would be as the eldest son, carrying on his father’s legacy: r. duara, s. hugh-jones & a. madill: an aspect of ‘quarterlife crisis’ suffered by young english and assamese adults qualitative studies 6(1), pp. 11-37 ©2021 27 “i made a promise to him that ‘i will live with your ideologies. i’ll just sacrifice everything that was mine’. he passed away. i had to look after my business. my mom got insecure. relatives poured in. that was again a time when i triedactualall this was training ((gesturing to the timeline before the turning point)). this was the actual job ((gesturing to the rest of the part of the timeline yet to be marked)). finding my place in the world being the eldest son of the [names the company] empire. this is the eldest son and he’s going to be looking after it.” (aman, assamese, male, university-educated) figure 4. aman’s photographs: ‘i made a promise to him’ depicting a transfer of responsibilities such a commitment by aman meant he would “just sacrifice everything”. although brief, the comment points to a denial of his personal ambition and needs in order to take up his ‘ordained’ place in the family. yet being catapulted into this position was overwhelming for aman and he felt confusion, fragmentation and huge doubts across all parts of his life: “i didn’t know if i was a, i was a son. i didn’t know whether i was a proprietor of [name of company]. i didn’t know whether i was a good boyfriend or where was i. i was nowhere. seriously i was nowhere. i was not being able to be a good son. not be a good brotherelder brother. not be a good fiancé. not be a good friend to her. and all these were affecting my work and god knows how i held on to my work” (aman, assamese, male, university-educated). r. duara, s. hugh-jones & a. madill: an aspect of ‘quarterlife crisis’ suffered by young english 28 and assamese adults qualitative studies 6(1), pp. 11-37 ©2021 aman’s crisis was characterised by a loss of identity and direction (“i was nowhere”). he questioned his ability, although not his motivation, to perform well and be a good son, a good brother, and good fiancé. at a time and age when one is typically developing personal identity, aman was struggling to assume different identities all of which were based on demands from others rather than an outcome of his self-exploration. the imposing of adult responsibilities before he was ready had thus had wide-ranging impacts on his relationships, ability to work, and sense of confidence in who he was. coming from a less affluent background than aman, and not university educated, when his father died, vikram’s main concern was to provide a steady income for his birth family. this meant putting their needs first: “my education wasn’t that much that i would get a good job. family also mother was alone. there will be problem that she’s alone. so for my mom i used to come here and then work here. then i took mom and went to [name of city] then [name of city]. there my mother couldn’t adjust with the climate. then we returned here and then continued to do this job” (vikram, assamese, male, non-universityeducated). here, multiple contextual features impinged on what was possible for vikram; his education level, the death of his father, the needs of his mother and the need to generate an income. feeling the “tension all the time” in having few options but many responsibilities, vikram’s crisis was characterised by regret, lack of fulfilment and relentless manoeuvring to ensure others’ well-being. after her father’s death, amrita too had to assume family responsibilities and said, “after i lost my dad i had become the man of the house”. she explained: “when i lost my dad the basic thing was that like you know i could no longer afford to be little kiddish anymore. […] i was approximately 2223 at that point of time and i couldn’t you know afford to be a child anymore. not even child-like. so basically it kind of it was like ((pause)) boom you know. [interviewer: taking on responsibility?] r. duara, s. hugh-jones & a. madill: an aspect of ‘quarterlife crisis’ suffered by young english and assamese adults qualitative studies 6(1), pp. 11-37 ©2021 29 yeah i was like i have to irrespective of the fact whether i’m ready or not” (amrita, assamese, female, university-educated). amrita’s reference to “ready or not” suggests that if she had more time, she would be more prepared to cope with the expected responsibilities. she experienced some resentment in no longer being able to be “kiddish” or “child-like”. the need to look after her mother came as a shock and, in addition to her responsibilities at home, she was struggling to attain some financial stability through her career: “so that is one dilemma which is kind of biting me in the ass ((both laugh)) because it is very pissing off you know. once you cross 25 you want you know financial stability and as a guest faculty in a college it does not pay enough” (amrita, assamese, female, university-educated). amrita was dissatisfied with her family responsibilities, low pay, and faltering life trajectory. “once you cross 25” demonstrates her implicit assumption of milestones, towards increasing security and stability, and her frustration that she was not attaining this. a further part of her crisis arose from the context of being the ‘man of the house’ but having a future which necessitated being fully feminine and without duties and she worried what would happen to her mother if she married: “what do i do when i’mif i get married? if i get married. i do worry about my mother thatwill i take her along. if i take her along what will i do of this huge house? you know things like that. andand when i have talked to a few guys who were like ‘your mo-’ they have asked me ‘what will you do with your mother because you’re the sole support of your mum?’” (amrita, assamese, female, university-educated). here, amrita plays out the many ‘what-ifs’ about her future, wherein her responsibilities are milestones for others. feeling constrained in the present and the future, and seeking to do the right thing in both, gave rise to significant challenges and crisis for amrita. r. duara, s. hugh-jones & a. madill: an aspect of ‘quarterlife crisis’ suffered by young english 30 and assamese adults qualitative studies 6(1), pp. 11-37 ©2021 discussion the aim of our study was to elucidate central features of the ‘quarterlife crisis’ as experienced by young adults in two different cultural contexts and with reference to educational background. although the transition to adulthood was perceived differently across, and within, the two cultural groups, a common feature was that participants felt unready for a particular version of adult roles that they were in, and therefore experienced adulthood as forced. by forced, we mean feeling one has to assume an adult role with little choice or preparedness. the sub-theme, ‘rushing into financial self-sufficiency’, was relevant to most of our participants. even when financial needs had been anticipated, they discovered the path to financial independence was not as smooth as expected and many felt trapped in unfulfilling, low-paid jobs. commensurate with pole’s (2014) study of the tongan community in new york, our findings support the broad difference between societies driven by individualist and collectivist values. the rush to financial self-sufficiency for the english young people had, at its core, the goal of being able to support oneself. hence, ‘adulthood’ implicated separation from one’s parents. on the other hand, assamese participants described pressure to generate an income in order to support their family, or to meet their expectations, and felt accountable for their family’s financial investment in them. thus, the english and assamese participants showed different cultural and contextual factors triggering and shaping their crisis. ‘train myself to be an adult’, the next sub-theme, was specific to the non-universityeducated english participants living away from their family-of-origin. their experience of crisis stemmed from pressures for self-sufficiency from a relatively young age and with minimal support. the woman contributing to this theme was unusual in coming from a financially-secure, english-indian family on whom she could lean. on the other hand, two young men contributing to this theme took the brunt of an individualistic culture which, while promising opportunities for personal fulfilment, can leave the vulnerable to struggle alone. their experience of crisis was likely intensified by english working-class constructions of masculinity in which it is important to portray a sense of invulnerability, while this group of men are often disadvantaged in the job market (dolan, 2011). while the assamese participants did not report being left to ‘sink or swim’ in the same way as the english participants, they faced alternative challenges captured in the sub-theme ‘man of the house’. the assamese participants demonstrated a strong connectedness with family that was, at the same time, saturated with responsibility. the indian constitution, under the code of criminal procedure 1973, states that elderly people are entitled to assistance from r. duara, s. hugh-jones & a. madill: an aspect of ‘quarterlife crisis’ suffered by young english and assamese adults qualitative studies 6(1), pp. 11-37 ©2021 31 their children if they do not have resources to support themselves (sonawat, 2001). however, there is a general community expectation that young indian people take on responsibilities with respect to their family (sinha, sinha, verma & sinha, 2001) and, although traditionally vested in sons, is also becoming the responsibility of daughters (sonawat, 2001). being the ‘man of the house’ was also apparent in a poor latino population studied by sanchez, esparza, colon and davis (2010). such sentiments were not typical of our relatively disadvantaged english participants, suggesting that sociocultural, rather than economic factors per se, are implicated. the picture appears, however, increasingly complex for young indian people who were trying to strike a balance between family obligations and more individualistic goals of attaining financial self-sufficiency and finding a fulfilling career. according to côté (2000), the demise of traditional cultures has made social markers of adulthood, such as marriage and parenthood, less important. hence, in many ways, adulthood has become a psychological phenomenon achieved through striking a balance between one’s own aspirations and care for others. however, life chances are still, for many people, linked strongly to social and cultural background (roberts, 1997) and the tension between this and the wish for self-determination can create a feeling of crisis finding one’s place in the world. our participants experienced many challenges during the transition to adulthood, a finding resonant with the proposals of arnett. keniston (1970) suggests a tension between society and the emergent self and, while this may be closer to our findings with regard to english participants, young people from collectivist culture may accept the need to balance, or even sacrifice, personal goals with family obligations. this is similar to the findings of seiter and nelson’s (2010) study of young people in coimbatore (in india). the authors found that ‘norm compliance, ‘family capacities’ and ‘independence’ were highly endorsed as markers of adulthood by their young participants, showing coexistence of both independence and interdependence in contemporary india as reflected in the present study. our research suggests that concepts of midlife and ‘quarterlife’ crisis may be more similar than initially thought. robbins and wilner (2001) state that “often for people experiencing midlife crisis, a sense of stagnancy sparks the need for change” (2001, p. 2). our participants also displayed a sense of stagnancy and a need for change (see also keniston, 1970), particularly when they felt ambivalent about the decisions they have made with regard to job and/or relationships. however, a major difference between the two crises lies in the degree of instability experienced at times of crisis. in one’s twenties, people may experience r. duara, s. hugh-jones & a. madill: an aspect of ‘quarterlife crisis’ suffered by young english 32 and assamese adults qualitative studies 6(1), pp. 11-37 ©2021 relatively high instability, as did our participants, for example with respect to balancing financial needs with personal aspirations. on the other hand, the ‘midlife crisis’ is associated with a deliberate change to a life structure found stifling rather than unstable (levinson, 1978). another major difference is that people in ‘midlife crisis’ tend to be confident recognising and utilising support, possibly because the phenomenon is widely acknowledged (robbins & wilner, 2001). on the other hand, none of the participants in the present study acknowledged the possibility of other young people suffering similar problems to their own and blamed themselves for their predicament. self-blame is a suicide risk factor (yen & siegler, 2003). according to the world health organisation (2016), the risk of suicide is high when people are faced with crisis and feel unable to cope with stress from such issues as financial problems, relationship breakdown and illness. specifically, in the uk, suicide is one of the leading causes of death among young people aged between 20 to 34 years (office of national statistics, 2015). similarly, in india in 2010, 40 percent of suicides among men and 56 percent of suicides among women were within people aged 15 to 29 years (patel et al., 2012). lack of problem recognition is one of the most prevalent reasons for not seeking help for suicidal ideation or mental health issues (gould et al., 2012). thus, improving public understanding – particularly in youth culture – of the kinds of normative challenges people face could assist young people to feel relatively normal, that they are not to blame, and to encourage help-seeking. there are some limitations to our study. first, our data collection methods could be an obstacle for participants who are not ‘visual’ and one participant found it hard to juggle verbal and visual modes during interview. second, there was an unequal number of participants between the two cultures (16 english; 8 assamese) and between those with and without a university education (17 university educated; 7 non-university educated). in defence of this strategy, qualitative research is interested in the potential transferability of findings from indepth analysis of small, carefully contextualised samples rather than making claims to generalisability from large samples (horsburgh, 2003; smith, 2018). moreover, ipa stresses the idiographic and building knowledge through multiple case studies (schweitzer & steel, 2008; smith, 2004). assamese participants initially posed as a comparison sample, but became a distinct sample for analysis in themselves as we recognised how their experiences within a particular context led us to expand the content of the concept of ‘quarterlife crisis’. for example, parental authority and family obligations were always on the horizon for the r. duara, s. hugh-jones & a. madill: an aspect of ‘quarterlife crisis’ suffered by young english and assamese adults qualitative studies 6(1), pp. 11-37 ©2021 33 assamese participants in a way that was not the case for the english participants, and helped us to see how crisis can emerge from self-sacrifice. our study involved young people who recognised themselves as experiencing difficulties finding their place in the world. future research could explore the transition to adulthood of those who did not suffer such difficulties in order to understand if they do not meet the same challenges or if they navigate them differently and, if 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(2000). the age of anxiety? the birth cohort change in anxiety and neuroticism, 1952–1993. journal of personality and social psychology, 79(6), 1007-1021 witchalls, p. j. (2012). is national culture still relevant?. interculture journal: onlinezeitschrift für interkulturelle studien, 11(19), 11-19. world health organisation. (2016, april). suicide (fact sheet). retrieved from http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs398/en/ yen, s., & siegler, i. c. (2003). self-blame, social introversion, and male suicides: prospective data from a longitudinal study. archives of suicide research, 7(1): 17-27. about the authors: raginie duara, phd, is a research fellow, school of psychology, university of leeds, leeds, united kingdom. she is conducting an international research funded by esrc and gcrf on youth substance addiction in assam. siobhan hugh-jones, phd, is an associate professor in mental health psychology, school of psychology, university of leeds, leeds, united kingdom. anna madill, phd, is a professor, chair in qualitative inquiry and school internationalisation lead, school of psychology, university of leeds, leeds, united kingdom. qualitative studies vol. 8, no. 1, 2023, pp. 1-15 issn 1903-7031 editorial writing off the beaten track martin hauberg-lund laugesen 1 & charlotte wegener 2 1university of southern denmark, the department of media, design, education and cognition, university of southern denmark, campusvej 55, 530 odense, denmark 2 aalborg university, department of communication and psychology, teglgårds plads 1, 9000 aalborg, denmark 1. why ‘writing off the beaten track’? even if you are not an outright bibliophile, you (and many other avid readers of learned books) may have experienced the serendipity involved in walking down an alleyway in a new city and finding an antiquarian bookshop, pushing the door open and entering the shop, savouring the unmistakable odour of pre-loved, aged books, letting your eyes wander from shelf to shelf and, suddenly, stumbling upon a book that for some (perhaps unconscious) reason sticks out and beckons to be read. you take the book from the shelf; you open it, skim the table of contents, move quickly to the opening page, and start to read. the book instantly enthrals you with the wonderful magic that only words can conjure; you forget about time and place and vanish into the well-phrased investigation that the book generously offers. not rarely do such experiences come about due to kinds of writing that one has not hitherto encountered – that is, writing off the beaten track. on the other hand, and in stark contrast to the romanticised opening of our editorial, we all know the feeling of reading an academic text that drags us down and gets increasingly boring. we invariably zone out, become unfocused and gradually lose interest in the text at hand. perhaps we become frustrated and disappointed at having spent https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0000-3626 https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5600-7824 m. h.-l. laugesen & c. wegener: editorial qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 1-15 ©2023 2 well over an hour of our finite life on such uninspiring and non-urgent writing. perhaps we push stubbornly on and finish the text because we are intrigued by the content – the theoretical observations, the empirical findings and/or the practical implications of the work. perhaps we read the piece to the very end because we want to make use of it in one of our own writings, even if the reading experience is itself uninspiring. under different circumstances we all react differently, but one thing we must all be presumed to have in common: we would all like always to be reading good academic texts (see caulley 2008). the big question then becomes: what constitutes good academic writing? for one thing, the goodness of academic texts can stem from various sources. it can stem from the quality of the content of the text: “these findings are so exciting!”. it can stem from the quality of the writing itself: “this article is a real page-turner!” or “this chapter really gets me thinking!”. or it can stem from a third, fourth or fifth source. what we want to emphasise, initially, is that good academic writing does not follow automatically if authors stick to a given list of pre-defined, universal rules of thumb for success in writing academic texts. good academic writing can be as different in methods, styles and final appearances as species are different from one another in a healthy and biodiversity-rich environment, and as quality-conscious readers we often seek out singular flavours, styles and voices in the texts we trawl for in the ocean of publications – be it in online databases or in physical antiquarian bookshops. as editors, we called for writing off the beaten track in order to declare that the kind of writing and theorisation of writing that we wanted to include and exhibit in the special issue is writing that strays from the well-trodden paths of standardised academic writing. standards exist for a reason: they have proved to work well, and there is nothing wrong with standards when used wisely and in ways that assist what we want to say. however, these standards can be too rigidly applied, they differ greatly from field to field, and they do not always support (or might even contradict) what the authors want to convey and how they wish to convey it. the title of the special issue also draws meaning from the call for radical thinking contained in german philosopher martin heidegger’s 1950 essay collection holzwege, which in its 2002 english translation bore the title off the beaten track. according to heidegger, genuine thinking (denken) entails radical questioning of the most basic assumptions about what we take to be true and real. thus, we would like to think that many of the contributions to the special issue do just that: they m. h-l. laugesen & c. wegener: editorial qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 1-15 ©2023 3 radically question what constitutes good academic writing – either implicitly, in a performative manner (showing it) and/or explicitly, in a reflective manner (telling it). most of the articles do both, but some fall more clearly into one or the other of these two categories. there is a fundamental difference between, on the one hand, showing how academic writing can be done differently and what the value thereof might be and, on the other hand, discussing theoretical and methodological questions as to what academic writing is and can be. in contrast to heidegger’s way of thinking, most articles in the special issue draw on empirical investigations using qualitative methods such as ethnographic observations and/or semi-structured interviewing. we hope that readers of the special issue will find the many empirical illustrations to be valuable as tangible examples of how writing can be done differently and, ultimately, expand the playground of academic writing itself (wegener, meier & maslo 2018). a. badley’s call for post-academic writing: for and against? our initial decision to publish a special issue of qualitative studies focusing on different and creative approaches to academic writing stemmed from our collaboration on a phd course back in 2020. we had named the course “style and voice in the phd thesis: between conventions and creativity”, and it was designed to inspire and support emerging researchers to undertake rhetorical and stylistic experiments, taking back control over their writing and relying to a greater extent on their own modes of expression instead of (simply) reproducing a generic and impersonal academic style and voice. one of our sources of inspiration was a generously provocative 2019 article by graham francis badley entitled “post-academic writing: human writing for human readers”. in this article, badley calls for a renewal of academic writing and presents his readers with an initial seven-point programme for writing post-academically. amongst other things, he emphasises the need for and value of telling stories with rich narratives, of being authorially present in one’s text as a recognisable human voice, of adopting first-person perspectives be they one’s own and/or those of others, of taking a human stance focusing on issues, dilemmas, worries, wishes and longings of real human beings of flesh, blood, and bone and not just of some theoretically constructed subject floating in the element of abstract thinking (see badley 2019: 182-187). m. h.-l. laugesen & c. wegener: editorial qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 1-15 ©2023 4 while we sympathise with many of badley’s recommendations, we hesitate to jump on the bandwagon of overly critical researchers wanting to reject the whole damn tradition of academic writing. ongoing experiment and dialogue regarding the style, voice and format of academic publications are indeed crucial to high-quality, creative research. there is, however, much to be gained through the study of the treasure chest of the academic canon. immortal writers such as plato, spinoza, kierkegaard, nietzsche, arendt, heidegger, de beauvoir and murdoch all drew their excellence in part from their exceptional abilities as writers. but it is important to add that for newcomers they are in no way easy to read: they are subtle, complex, at times convoluted, obscure, enigmatic and riddlesome. they devise hitherto unheard-of concepts, and they use ordinary, wellknown words and phrases in extraordinary and singular ways to name and refer to un(der)disclosed things, ideas and other aspects of reality. none of these linguistic masters, these wizards of the written word, conformed to accepted standards of how one ought to write – they were all dissidents, innovators, originators of style and, consequently, of singular modes of thinking, knowing and experiencing the world. and in this radicality they gained their special status as true knowers, giving rise to whole schools of thought and/or influencing the disciplines and debates that their writings concerned themselves with. it was thus not because of their immediate clarity and transparency that they gained historical success and influence; it was always because of their initially cryptic voices and the untapped wisdom they were able to utter that they came to prominence (see lather 1996: 528). a vivid example to illustrate this homogenising and standardising ‘development’ in academic writing is the appearance of a whole literature on how to write academic texts. like an armada of academic self-help books, this ever-increasing literature on how to succeed – and survive! – as an academic writer seems to block the sun of knowledge and wither the otherwise sprouting seeds of academic curiosity in young researchers especially. many of these (perhaps) well-intended guidebooks potentially do more harm than good. as evidenced by barbara kamler and pat thomson, overly technical, complex and generic guidelines on how to succeed as an academic writer may, in many cases, do “disservice to students while positioning them as obedient rule followers” (2008: 511). by framing every challenging aspect of academic writing “as a problem that can be solved with a universalized solution”, the academic self-help books often “work paradoxically m. h-l. laugesen & c. wegener: editorial qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 1-15 ©2023 5 both to assuage and to heighten students’ anxieties” (2008: 511) because the readers of such books might internalise a discourse about academic writing that has as one of its central dogmas the implicit decree that good academic writing is generic academic writing. but the truth of the matter is that, when it comes to academic writing that ends up meaning something important both to individual readers (be they students, researchers or generally interested lay people) and to whole research communities, good does not equal generic – quite the contrary, as reflected in badley’s energetic plea for postacademic writing. it is our hope that the special issue will illustrate many aspects of writing off the beaten track and thus spark dialogues on where and how to wander off the beaten track and when the beaten track is in fact the most appropriate and proper road to travel by. b. surprising level of interest in contributing to the special issue we have received surprisingly many and surprisingly diverse and enthusiastic pitches for article contributions for the special issue. all in all, we arrived at a line-up of 14 international contributions with wildly different takes on the meaning of writing off the beaten track. we could not have been happier, with authors from almost literally all over the world: from the usa, from lagos in nigeria, from new zealand, from bangladesh, from denmark, from norway, from canada, from australia and from the uk, including a multimodal piece by internationally eminent writing research expert helen sword. we take this to be tangible evidence that there exists an internationally widespread interest in exploring different ways of writing within academia, different ways of doing academic writing and different ways of being an academic writer, and we hope that the special issue can nourish the further growth of this interest in time to come. despite the many different geographical, linguistic and cultural contexts of the contributors to the special issue, they all engage in bold explorations of what writing off the beaten track might entail. whether the context is cultural studies with a focus on the history of african-american folx or literacy research with a focus on danish schoolchildren’s creative writing, researchers from across a range of fields are in unison when it comes to the value and urgency of exploring alternative theories and creative practices of academic writing. we therefore hope that the special issue will be relevant to m. h.-l. laugesen & c. wegener: editorial qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 1-15 ©2023 6 students and researchers from many different disciplines across the boundaries of faculties, countries and cultures around the world. 2. how we write matters substantially: good writing is a need-to-have, not just a nice-to-have that how researchers write matters significantly to research is not a surprising claim, much less a controversial one – at least not to those who have, at some points in their lives and careers, thought deeply about their own writing experiences and about what writing is in general. as laurel richardson has put it: “no textual staging is ever innocent” (richardson & st. pierre 2005: 1412). that being said, there exists a widespread folk-theoretical assumption in society at large and within academic institutions (perhaps especially in natural science environments) that writing is to be considered as no more than a neutral vehicle for information dissemination. if the craft of writing is perceived as something that it is not important to develop intentionally and continuously, one’s writing risks halting and getting stuck at a novice level, subsequently inhibiting the researcher or student in question in his/her intellectual pursuits (see, for instance, sommer & salts 2004). to cultivate curiosity and experiment as part of one’s writing practice is crucial to gradually becoming a good academic writer, whatever that concretely means in the context of one’s work. without wanting to sound overly mystical, when thought about attentively, different subject matters demand to be dealt with in different styles of writing. sometimes it can even seem necessary to write off the beaten track so as to respect the integrity of the subject matter under scrutiny. and if the researcher does not possess a relatively wide range of ways of expressing him/herself in writing, he/she will probably not be able to hear the nuances in the call of the subject matter itself. it is, therefore, worthwhile for academics to rehearse different styles of writing by wandering off the beaten track, at least once in a while... 3. flavour, style and voice: setting researchers free to experiment it is our hope that the special issue will inspire academic writers to free themselves from the shackles of genre convention that their writing might be inhibited by. it is not that we m. h-l. laugesen & c. wegener: editorial qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 1-15 ©2023 7 claim to be able to point to a style that is better than others, or a kind of writing that is superior to all others. the point is simply that we want to celebrate the (epistemological, methodological and ontological) value of experimenting with modes of written linguistic expression that stray from academic writing’s well-trodden paths. we would thus like to think of the special issue as a platform for the scrutiny of the modes, limits and boundaries of academic writing. partly based on badley’s case for a revision of academic writing practices, we called for contributions off the beaten track to encourage researchers to push the boundaries, and maybe even go beyond them to explore new territory and inviting dialogues about what academic writing currently is and what it might become in the future. what, in the end, can be recognised as genuinely academic writing? and why do we accept the rather few literary personae that rule the discursive kingdom of academic writing (see becker 2007: 33)? all this is also a question of writing with pleasure, to use helen sword’s expression (see sword 2023: 3ff). a lot of academics do not particularly enjoy writing their books and articles. some might even say to you with a sceptical demeanour that there is something amiss with one’s writing if you happen to enjoy it. many students and researchers experience writing as tiresome, boring, difficult and generally unpleasurable – which it need not be if writing is approached differently. as one of the contributors to the special issue wrote to us towards the end of the editorial process, reflecting the invitation of the initial call for papers to be creative and playful: “it is one of the funniest articles i have ever written.” another contributor wrote to us that writing her article was very much about “finding my own voice or, perhaps more precisely, using my own voice with more registers, also in an academic context”. many of the contributors to the special issue have written to tell us how they feel that their writing process has been enjoyable, interesting and insight generating in a different way than their usual writing aimed at other, more standard journal publications. as editors of the special issue, we are most happy with the fact that our contributors have found their writing to be both personally engaging and professionally enjoyable and rewarding. that writing should be both engaging and enjoyable for writers and readers alike is a central tenet of the special issue. we are pleased that “writing off the beaten track” has sparked accounts of the value of approaching academic writing differently. m. h.-l. laugesen & c. wegener: editorial qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 1-15 ©2023 8 4. presentation of the articles as editors, we would like to encourage all readers approaching the special issue to lose themselves in the labyrinth of contributions. there is no obvious or rational chronology to follow, and as a reader one should not feel obliged to read all the articles from a to z. instead, we would like to imagine the ideal reader of the special issue as someone who dares to follow the wise advice of joseph campbell: “follow your bliss!”. whatever strikes your eye as interesting, as appealing, as provocative, as intriguing, check it out and see whether there is gold to be found at the end of the text’s rainbow rays. personally, as well as professionally, we got something of great value out of reading every single one of the publications included in the special issue, and we both found it a joy to give the authors continuous feedback along their respective journeys towards finalising their manuscripts and having them published. so, we encourage you to use whatever entry point you find most appealing and from there to follow your interest to perhaps yet another article in the special issue. in any case: welcome to the maze! what now follows is a brief presentation of all 16 contributions to the special issue: 14 peer-reviewed articles, one review (with permission from both sides) and 1 invited piece. 1. helen sword and selina tusitala marsh have contributed a comic strip accompanied by an abstract that invites their readers to contemplate the treasures, pleasures and potential serendipity of collaborating with others on multimodal academic writing. their contribution simultaneously functions as an appetiser for sword’s 2023 book writing with pleasure (princeton university press). make sure to check it out – as well as sword’s other insightful publications! we would like to think of sword and marsh’s joint contribution as a fitting and aesthetically enthusiastic opener for the special issue, and we have therefore placed it at the very top of the table of contents. 2. how may the art of music contribute to the understanding of writing as a phenomenological act? this question sparks bo kampmann walther’s article. in reply to his question, walther introduces parts of the vocabulary, theory and practice of flamenco to investigate the musicality of the handwritten personal signature. rather than using the “language” of flamenco as merely a metaphor for the pre-reflexive production of meaning in writing as such, he exploits specific skills and features of flamenco in a m. h-l. laugesen & c. wegener: editorial qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 1-15 ©2023 9 direct and bodily fashion and this way critically discusses how certain combinations of motor actions (fingers and hands) and operative knowledge (mastery of palos, genres and modes, scales, cadences etc.) resonate in writing as a praxis-form. he thus finds that the rhythmic and sonoric faculties of flamenco may shed light on vital aspects of the phenomenology of writing. 3. britton williams has written a personally generous and performative article on the importance of broadening the epistemological standards of academia to include, for instance, black culture, black people and the cultural history of black folx in general. like (for example) gripsrud’s piece, williams’ article is visibly off the beaten track, and we cherish her contribution for that reason. she has included poetry to a large extent – both her own and that of important canonical voices in the history of africanamerican poetry. williams has also included an image from the family archives to show the intergenerational bond between her mother and herself as a beautiful illustration of the importance of cultural roots and a deepfelt sense of belonging. williams uses as her point of departure her research on a project known as the black map research project, and her article also contains more standard or recognisably academic passages that reflect on the epistemological implications of including and excluding voices and people from the academic conversation in society. 4. marianne høyen has written a self-reflective article on the value of new journalism and portraiture as writing strategies for qualitative researchers. using an analytical exposition of one of her own qualitative research publications as her point of departure, høyen shows both the academic value of the methods of new journalism and portraiture and how her readers can themselves go ahead and craft portraits of their own. høyen’s article thus both reflects on and showcases the epistemological value of what badley would call post-academic writing, where the researcher makes use of rich narratives, first-person perspectives and human issues, and draws on his/her own engagement in the topic(s) and people at hand. in other words, høyen shows the value of taking a human stance as a (qualitative) researcher. 5. hazel r. wright has creatively found a way to revitalise the figure of the flâneur/flâneuse as ethnographic character. in her well-crafted article, she explores how one might see, hear, observe and write as a flâneur/flâneuse and how this m. h.-l. laugesen & c. wegener: editorial qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 1-15 ©2023 10 character/figure might contribute to our understanding and practice of academic writing – especially in the context of ethnography and/or other qualitative methods. her article is yet another demonstration of how taking a human stance as a researcher can enrich one’s research itself as well as one’s communication of the results thereof. take a walk with hazel as she traverses the local footpaths, alleyways and marketplaces during covid lockdown and conjures lively writing to tell tales about the manifold manifestations of the human condition. 6. stine heger’s contribution to the special issue is a lively, historically insightful and empirically generous piece that offers timely and original perspectives on writing pedagogy for children. the crux of her argument – that children become better at writing in school settings if they engage in free creative writing on a regular basis – challenges fundamental and widespread beliefs about writing pedagogy. reaching back to the ancient rhetorical training programme of progymnasmata, heger shows how contemporary pedagogies of writing have lost (or perhaps actively repressed) the intricate connection between creative writing and academic writing – as well as how the former can enrich the latter and allow more and different types of pupils to learn and thrive in l1 contexts. 7. nathali solon herold and heidi philipsen explore the value of practiceled research for students of creative writing. through systematic and facilitated selfmonitoring, students of screenplay writing can refine and develop their writing practices. herold and philipsen show convincingly how such an approach can be generalised and put to good use within a higher education setting – also outside of screenwriting programmes specifically. they thus challenge the damaging public narrative of the isolated genius conjuring artistic writing out of thin air and instead show how there is a craft behind creative writing and one that can actually be taught and developed. 8. birgitta haga gripsrud’s writing is made of the stuff of life itself. her article is many things: a gripping personal narrative about her relationship with her breast cancer-suffering mother , a sharp intellectual reflection on the impetus(es) of writing itself, a phenomenological exploration of intergenerational bonds exemplified through her own mother-daughter relationship and a courageous experiment in writing off the beaten track, merging different styles and voices, weaving a mosaic tapestry of insights m. h-l. laugesen & c. wegener: editorial qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 1-15 ©2023 11 and perspectives on life pushing through, as her title goes. her article is furthermore accompanied by a telling photograph from the family archives that supplements gripsrud’s writing and adds biographical depth to her narrative. like (for example) williams’s essay, gripsrud’s contribution is demonstrably and courageously off the beaten track, and we are thankful for her contribution for that reason. 9. bukola aluko-kpotie contributes an article that demonstrates why it is crucial that we, as academics, write about marginalised people in society who would otherwise not have a (legitimate) voice in the public sphere and would thus be politically non-existent. aluko-kpotie shows concretely how writing off the beaten track can serve the noble purpose of standing up for those who are positioned in a socially, culturally and economically precarious manner. aluko-aluko-kpotie’s is an empowering piece of writing that very aptly showcases how important it is that we intentionally choose the/a proper way of writing about certain human issues, topics and questions – in her case, female carpenters in a discursively gendered and prejudiced market and cultural context. 10. cee carter, mariam rashid, benjamin d. scherrer and korina m. jocson are wandering beyond the beaten track, “prompted by collective engagements that unsettle knowledge, methods, analysis, and ideas shaped by the western canon in the neoliberal academy”. their text moves toward freeing blackness from a captive position. through fragments, pauses, vignettes and notes they offer living curiosities, unanswered questions and poetic lines. a method in progress. 11. their contribution is followed by a review we consider to be off the beaten track as well. lisa grocott’s a goat track review is so well written, poetic and personal that we felt it deserved a broader audience. thank you to grocott for the review and to carter, rashid, scherrer and jocson for your consent to publishing the review. peer review comprises many hours of academic writing, triggers emotions and guides the hard work of revising manuscripts. yet very few people read each other’s reviews. if we want to encourage writing off the beaten track, we may need to pay more attention to the ways in which peer-review practices can both support experiment and ensure quality. 12. lisa grocott, stacy holman jones, anne-lene sand, helle marie skovbjerg and shanti sumartojo report and reflect on a writing workshop entitled m. h.-l. laugesen & c. wegener: editorial qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 1-15 ©2023 12 wandering feasts in which 16 phd students were invited to experiment with genres in academic research and writing. the authors engaged in exploratory exchange with their phd students and each other. in this article, as a continuation of the workshops, they reflect on their stance toward wandering feasts and find that the performatively layered approach to writing the article afforded them a space in which to conjure freedom and surprise on the page and to respond to each other’s accounts in creatively constructive reciprocity. 13. dan hvidtfeldt’s article discusses the difficulties of and ideas for methodologically exploring and writing about musical creative processes. drawing on his work with music, musicians and music festivals, he develops a broader and more general definition of musical creativity, one that extends beyond the practices of musicians. performed music and other forms of “emergent phenomena”, he says, are fundamentally social and ephemeral: they exist only in the moment and depend on the involvement of and relationship between the specific social elements participating in the process. yet they hold material qualities for the creative processes that initially and continuously create them. through a socio-material take on creativity in explorations of work processes underlying musical practices, he looks for “languages for musicality” and their relevance for qualitative written studies of creative emergent processes. he thus reflects on the immanent demand of music research to wander off the beaten track to find language(s) that resonate with music as subject matter. 14. elliott kuecker promotes the list as genre. the list, he argues, is: a mutable yet sturdy form of writing, finding its way into many genres, adapting quite easily to them. lists are, however, often integrated into academic writing as organisational paratext such as: bibliography, table of contents, index. perhaps the list has been neglected as a core form of academic expression because it: m. h-l. laugesen & c. wegener: editorial qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 1-15 ©2023 13 lacks most of the fundamentals we associate with long-form academic writing, often contains fragments of sentences, has its own ordering systems and categories, is lawless in terms of length and the use of punctuation. kuecker loves lists, and so do we after reading his paper. we simply had to include a list in this editorial. 15. in a contribution presented largely in dialogue form, shona mcintosh and sarah ruth lillo kang reflect on the editorial challenges and pleasures of fostering dialogic, collaborative writing for equity. drawing on their experience of creating an innovative co-edited book, they consider the risks and possibilities of experimentation in high-stakes writing and editorial work. to foster connection, academics, educators, practitioners and alumni were grouped to undertake dialogue-centred collaborative writing about equitable engagement in global citizenship education. the authors argue, and demonstrate, that this dialogical way of writing (and editing) has potential to include knowledges that are less commonly visible in academic publications, and they invite us to find spaces for equitable collaborative writing in our own fields. 16. farrah jabeen and susan carter show how using lively, provocative artworks can spark emerging researchers’ development as academic writers learning to master the craft of arguments, evaluations, analyses and personal accounts in their doctoral writing. jabeen and carter illustrate how banksy’s street art can be used in workshops to facilitate important and learning-furthering dialogue between doctoral students with different cultural and linguistic backgrounds – different, also, from where they conduct their doctoral research. the article tells an important story about how to teach academic writing based on art, aesthetics and mutual dialogue accessible to all. their article thus exemplifies a writing pedagogy off the beaten track. now, the only thing left for us to say is: enjoy! we hope that reading some of the contributions to the special issue will inspire you to experiment with alternative approaches to academic writing and also to teach writing to your students off the beaten track, encouraging them also to engage in experimentation whenever the situation invites m. h.-l. laugesen & c. wegener: editorial qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 1-15 ©2023 14 it or perhaps even calls for it. in any case, taking a road “less travelled by” can turn out, retrospectively, to have “made all the difference”, to borrow a couple of phrases from american poet robert frost (frost 2001: 105). we wish you a good journey off the beaten track… references becker, h. (2007) writing for social scientists: how to start and finish your thesis, book, or article. 2nd ed. london: university of chicago press. caulley, d. n. (2008). making qualitative research reports less boring. in: qualitative inquiry 14(3), pp. 424-449 frost, r. (2001). the poetry of robert frost. vintage kamler, b. and thomson, p. (2008). the failure of dissertation advice books: toward alternative pedagogies for doctoral writing. in: educational researcher (37:8), pp. 507–514 lather, p. (1996). troubling clarity: the politics of accessible language. in: harvard educational review (66:3), pp. 525-545 richardson, l. & pierre, e. a. s. (2005). writing: a method of inquiry. in: denzin, n. & lincoln, y. (ed.). the sage handbook of qualitative research (3rd edition). sage, pp. 1410-1444 sommer, n. & saltz, l. (2004). the novice as expert: writing the freshman year. in: college composition and communication (56:1), pp. 124-149 sword, h. (2023). writing with pleasure. princeton university press wegener, c., meier, n., & maslo, e. (2018). cultivating creativity in methodology and research: in praise of detours. palgrave macmillan. nrk ytring https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-60216-5 https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-60216-5 m. h-l. laugesen & c. wegener: editorial qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 1-15 ©2023 15 about the authors martin hauberg-lund laugesen is postdoc at university of southern denmark. his research focus is wide and promiscuous, and he has taught and published on a large array of topics throughout the years: speculative realism, new literacy studies, dark pedagogy, german idealism, psychoanalysis, (late) modern sociology, capitalocene/anthropocene, cosmic pessimism, and more. he does not like to get caught up in academic niches for too long, practices a proud nomadic life as a brutally curious scholar and tends to think of the breadth of one’s knowledge as the central source of academic profundity. he completed and defended his phd thesis written engagement in 2021. his thesis focuses on emotional, psychological, and existential aspects of the relationship between undergraduate students’ exam writing and their learning and disciplinary identity development. martin is also a passionate university teacher and an avid speaker at conferences. he also often participates in the development of educational practices through research-based collaborations with schools and educational institutions. charlotte wegener is an associate professor at the department of communication and psychology, aalborg university, denmark. she researches social innovation in elderly care across care practices and vocational education. she is passionate about writing and writes in various genres and genre blends. she also acts as a writing coach, runs writing workshops and retreats, and is involved in researcher-practitioner collaborations with an interest in dissemination of research to diverse audiences. charlotte is co-editor for the journal qualitative studies. vol. 5, no. 2, 2018, pp. 125–139 issn 1903-7031 treatment of dual diagnosis in denmark: models for cooperation and positions of power katrine schepelern johansen competence centre for dual diagnosis, mental health services in the capital region, boserupvej 2, 4000 roskilde: denmark (katrine.schepelern.johansen@regionh.dk) • treatment for dual diagnosis in denmark is divided between a medically based psychiatric treatment system and a sociallyoriented substance use treatment system; consequently, in order to deliver the most effective treatment to people with dual diagnosis, the two need to cooperate. a number of projects have been initiated to try out different models for cooperation, yet, on a larger, societal scale, we have not solved the puzzle of how it can be made to work in practice. my focus in this article is to suggest some reasons why it is so difficult to introduce cooperation between psychiatry and addiction treatment despite the many projects directed explicitly towards this. i suggest that at least part of the answer lies in the unequal power relations between psychiatry and substance use treatment. keywords: dual diagnosis, cooperation, organizational interfaces, power. • introduction ‘dual diagnosis’ is the term used to describe the co-presence of a mental disorder and a substance use disorder in a single individual. it is a rather common occurrence, although actual numbers are uncertain and disputed. in the danish context, it is often estimated that approximately 50% of people in substance use treatment also have a mental disorder and approximately 30% of people with a mental disorder will, at some point, have a substance use disorder (flensborg-madsen et al., 2009; frederiksen, 2009; toftdahl, nordentoft, & hjorthoj, 2016). in other european countries the numbers seem to be a bit lower, in the us somewhat higher (carrà, bartoli, brambilla, crocamo, & clerici, 2015). treatment for dual diagnosis in denmark is divided between a medically based psychiatric treatment system and a socially oriented substance use treatment system, meaning that, in order to deliver the most effective treatment to people with dual diagnosis, the two systems need to cooperate.1 this has been emphasized in political statements (sundhedsog sundhedsog ældreministeren, 2016) and bureaucratic guidelines, and a number of projects have been initiated to try out different models for cooperation, yet, on a larger, societal scale we have not solved the puzzle of how it can be made to work in practice. my focus in this article is to suggest some reasons why it is so difficult to introduce cooperation between psychiatry and addiction treatment despite the many projects explicitly directed towards doing so. in this analysis i draw upon the analytical framework of ‘organizational interfaces’ from organizational theory (brown, 1983) to describe the cooperation between psychiatry and substance use treatment. however, i further develop brown’s concept by explicating the hierarchical relations between the two organizations, thereby introducing power as an important dimension in understanding what is going on in the course of cooperation. power, i should point out, is an issue that none of the projects have addressed explicitly. after this introduction, i briefly present why the constellation of mental and substance use disorders make up a special problem area, and then review the organization of the dual diagnosis field in denmark more thoroughly. an introduction to the different cooperation projects on which i build my analysis in this ar125 mailto:katrine.schepelern.johansen@regionh.dk 126 k. johansen: models for cooperation and positions of power qualitative studies 5(2), pp. 125–139 ©2018 ticle follows, including a discussion of my position as researcher and practitioner in the dual diagnosis field. in the ensuing analysis i describe current cooperation between psychiatry and substance use treatment before presenting some learning points that could guide future work in the dual diagnosis field. i conclude with a review of the analysis and my methodological approach. the problems of dual diagnosis dual diagnosis patients are one of the groups that create difficulties for the treatment system and the way it is organized. this is the case not only in denmark but throughout the western world, where most existing research takes place (carrà et al., 2015; drake et al., 2016; mueser, noordsy, drake, & fox, 2003). as an illustration, i begin by introducing michelle, a woman with a dual diagnosis whom i met at a treatment facility (johansen, 2009), before summarizing the different types of difficulties. michelle had a very serious personality disorder and used a range of drugs, including heroin, cocaine and cannabis. she often had psychotic episodes after drug use or when she was stressed – frequent occurrences due to her drug habit. she lived in a small tworoom flat with her boyfriend who, like michelle, also had a personality disorder and used drugs; they financed their drug habit by dealing and michelle’s having sex with men for money. michelle had many – often negative – contacts with different treatment facilities. she was registered at a drug treatment facility where she received methadone for her heroin addiction, but because of her chaotic lifestyle she often missed her appointments and was reduced in dosage because of no-shows. this made her contact with drug treatment a largely negative experience, as most of it was about methadone doses. furthermore, she had a preference for injecting her methadone when possible and it created conflicts when she could not take it home with her but had to take it at the treatment facility. staff members strongly doubted whether all the conflict was due to her personality disorder. they had tried to refer her to the psychiatric treatment system but she was rejected as she could not be diagnosed properly due to her frequent drug intoxication, and because there was no treatment for patients with personality disorders if they were using drugs at the same time. she was told to return when she had been clear for some months. she was, however, often in contact with the psychiatric emergency room when she became psychotic. no long-term contact with psychiatry was established on the basis of these visits as michelle was always eager to leave the facility as quickly as possible to return to her boyfriend and the drugs. due to her lifestyle and the drug use michelle’s physical health was also in poor condition. she had no contact with her general practitioner after she had been forbidden to visit the consultation for threatening the doctor in an attempt to have him prescribe benzodiazepines for her. staff at the drug treatment facility tried on a number of occasions to establish cooperation with the psychiatric treatment system but this was always declined on the basis that, firstly, michelle was not a patient of theirs and, secondly, that she was not properly diagnosed as her diagnosis had been made by the doctor at the drug treatment facility who specialized in general medicine, not by a psychiatrist. the difficulties with dual diagnosis lie at three different levels in the danish context: that of the individual patient/client, of organization and of cooperation: patient/client level: dual diagnosis patients have more serious symptoms and a poorer prognosis than those with only a mental or substance use disorder, as the two disorders apparently mutually reinforce each other, interacting in complex ways that impact both medical and social treatment (helsedirektoratet, 2012; johansen, 2009; mueser et al., 2003). organizational level: the division of the treatment system between psychiatric and substance use treatment creates uncertainty about which system has treatment responsibility for a particular patient. the psychiatric treatment system has a history of rejecting or discharging people with co-occurring substance use problems and the substance use treatment system has traditionally not had the competencies to diagnose and treat mental health problems (johansen, 2009; merinder, 2007). cooperation level: the two systems have difficulties cooperating for several reasons: difk. johansen: models for cooperation and positions of power qualitative studies 5(2), pp. 125–139 ©2018 127 ferences in treatment approach, professional culture / language and in legal terms; a lack of incentives supporting cooperation and thus often an absence of management support; and no common it systems frequently combined with physical distance between the units (johansen & børsting-andersen, 2015; regeringens udvalg vedrørende psykiatri, 2013; rambøl & implement, 2017). the difficulties linked to the interactions of mental disorder and substance use disorder and its patients are not unique to the danish context, and are thoroughly described in the literature (drake et al., 2006; mueser et al., 2003). the difficulties linked to different professional cultures are also well described (ibid.). there is considerable literature discussing cooperation problems between specialized, hospital-based psychiatry and more community-based interventions (bengtsson, 2011; folker et al., 2017; johansen, larsen, & nielsen, 2012; ware, tugenberg, dickey, & mchorney, 1999).2 however, denmark has created a treatment system where we experience the full force of the difficulties. in the following section i look more closely at the organization of dual diagnosis treatment in denmark. the dual diagnosis field in denmark from the time when psychiatry was established as a professional discipline at the beginning of the 18th century up until the 1960s, substance use disorders – primarily alcoholism and morphinism – were conventionally considered mental disorders that should be treated in psychiatry along with other disorders such as schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and depression (kragh, 2015). but in the 1960s and 1970s denmark removed substance use disorders –– especially drug use disorders— from the field of psychiatry, making them the object of a growing field of social substance use treatment (houborg, 2014; winsløw, 1984). alcohol use disorders were not removed in quite the same way; the psychiatric treatment system retained the task of treating acute alcohol intoxication, while more long-term therapy became the task of general practitioners and, later, treatment facilities located in the municipality or private agents. the division between medically based psychiatry and socially oriented substance use treatment that was established in those years is still maintained in denmark. psychiatry is part of the health care system and, as such, it is the responsibility of the danish regions (of which there are five); the treatment system consists of emergency rooms, closed and open wards, and district mental health centers offering outpatient treatment. outside of the hospitals we find privately practicing psychiatrists and psychologists. all these are defined as specialized treatment, while non-specialized psychiatric treatment is offered by general practitioners. apart from psychologists, treatment is free, with access to the psychiatric treatment system being gained either by referral from a general practitioner or from the emergency units. substance use treatment, on the other hand, is the responsibility of the municipalities (of which there are 98 in denmark). many municipalities have their own substance use treatment facility, while some buy services from other municipalities or private agents. most treatment slots are for outpatients; in-patient treatment demands referral by the municipality. substance use treatment in denmark consists of both social interventions and – if appropriate for the substance use in question – medical intervention (for example, substitution treatment). there only exist a few specialized treatment facilities for dual diagnosis in denmark – most of them located in the capital region – and the majority of people with dual diagnosis will receive psychiatric and substance use treatment separately (if they receive treatment at all). yet the division of the treatment system contradicts a range of different recommendations for dual diagnosis, all of which advocate integrated treatment in which both the psychiatric and the substance use disorder are treated at the same time (see, for example, helsedirektoratet, 2012; nice, 2011, 2016). another characteristic of the division is that it exists at all levels: from frontline staff, through organizational units, to the authorities, the law, ministries and so on. there is no place in the bureaucratic hierarchy where the two elements come together, no one who has joint responsibility for the dual diagnosis field, and therefore no one who can make a final 128 k. johansen: models for cooperation and positions of power qualitative studies 5(2), pp. 125–139 ©2018 decision on, for example, whose responsibility it is to provide proper treatment for a patient like michelle. at the same time, there is considerable political and bureaucratic interest in the field, recently exemplified by a new guideline issued by the danish health authorities in december 2016 that references the division between substance use treatments and psychiatry, and the concomitant need for cooperation (sundhedsstyrelsen, 2017). another example is a project that the ministry of innovation ran in 2017 identifying different ways that digitalization could support cooperation between substance use treatment and psychiatry (rambøl & implement, 2017). in december 2017 the ministry of health announced that it was looking at models for another way of organizing the dual diagnosis field (sundhedsog ældreministeriet, 2017). in march 2018, the danish regions and some partners published their idea of what this could look like, suggesting that the psychiatric treatment system take over the responsibility of dual diagnosis treatment (lægeforeningen, dansk psykiatrisk selskab, bedre psykiatri, & danske regioner, 2018). in denmark, the situation is often described as one in which the dual diagnosis patient falls between two stools – that of substance use treatment and psychiatry; talking about the interstices between welfare service organizations is a case in point, as clearly illustrated by michelle’s case. political and bureaucratic levels have tried to deal with this in the danish context by calling for cooperation – better cooperation and more of it (regeringens udvalg vedrørende psykiatri, 2013) – meaning that many projects focusing on initiating and supporting cooperation have been carried out in recent years. if we look at the joint dual diagnosis field in terms of treatment initiatives and projects, it is possible to develop the typology presented below of different categories of treatment and cooperation within it. 1. actual treatment units providing integrated treatment. 2. the extension of one kind of current treatment to include aspects of the other mode: when substance use treatment also provides, for example, treatment for anxiety; or the community psychiatric center offers groups focusing on substance use. this often has an ad hoc character depending on locally experienced needs and/or the competencies of local staff. 3. the employment of staff from one sector in the other sector: for example, when substance use treatment facilities hire psychiatrists or when nurses with expertise in substance use are hired in psychiatry. 4. the establishment of formal and obligating cooperation. this mode can be further subdivided into the following levels (socialstyrelsen & sundhedsstyrelsen, 2015): • exchange of information; • stable patterns of cooperation; • coordinator; • cross-sectional teams; • organizational integration. the first two categories, as already mentioned, run counter to the official organization of the field in denmark, and no publicly funded projects have been carried out focusing on these types of interventions. we do, however, find a few treatment units, both regional and local, providing integrated treatment (category 1) or more informal adjustment of treatment methods (category 2). the institutions found under category 1 are exceptions in denmark. their establishment and continued existence is often linked either to visionary leaders promoting this kind of treatment, or a local institutional history wherein the profound need for a facility that could contain dual diagnosis patients, often with behavioral problems, was experienced. the different projects that have been carried out in the last couple of years (presented below) all fall into the third and fourth categories. empirical material my analysis draws on two different sources of empirical material. in my current position, i k. johansen: models for cooperation and positions of power qualitative studies 5(2), pp. 125–139 ©2018 129 work as head of the competence centre for dual diagnosis (ccdd) in the mental health services in the capital region in denmark. the ccdd is a small department working with research and development within the dual diagnosis field. that means that i am both a researcher with a background in social anthropology and a practitioner in the dual diagnosis field, working with the organization of the field and competence development among staff, as well as research. that puts me in a unique position to gather knowledge and empirical examples, resulting in a deep understanding of the field and the challenges it contains (watson, 2011; ybema, yanow, wels, & kamsteeg, 2009). this means that i have a very privileged position in terms of conducting participant observation – the traditional data-generating method in anthropology. one of the challenges of participant observation is to find the proper balance between participating and observation (o’reilly, 2005). this is no less of a challenge when one is a salaried and integral element of the observational field. alvesson, who encourages the conduct of fieldwork in one’s own organization due to the intimate knowledge and easy access thus provided, writes of the concept of participant observation: the person [the fieldworker] is thus not an ethnographer in the sense of being a ‘professional stranger’ (agar, 1986) or a researcher primarily oriented to studying the specific setting. participant observation is thus not a good label in this case; ‘observing participant’ is better at capturing the meaning i have in mind…. participation comes first and is only occasionally complemented with observation in a researched-focused sense. (2009, p. 4) this description resonates with my own experience. another challenge – also described in detail in textbooks on ethnographic methods (emerson, fretz, & shaw, 2011) – lies in keeping meticulous fieldnotes, a challenge which does not decrease when one is part of the discussion, workshop or meeting, with no time afterwards to write it up. consequently, i have a profound sense of the field and ‘the game’ of dual diagnosis in the danish context, but not piles of notes to sort and code when working with an article like this. i do not have a clinical background. therefore, i am part of the field without actually treating patients or clients; i can talk to them without checking for symptoms or signs of treatment success or failure, interact with them without having to act (except in extreme situations like the threat of suicide). furthermore, i am in a situation in which both patients / clients and staff are my informants, with both perspectives equally important and equally valid. this means that, while i am not best qualified to describe and comprehend, for example, the clinical effect of a specific medical or therapeutical intervention, the anthropological perspective provides insight into social relations, cultural meanings and structures of power, all of which have equal importance if we want to understand what goes on in the dual diagnosis field (watson, 2011; ybema et al., 2009). in this article, this knowledge allows me to produce a thorough description of the context of the different examples and projects mentioned. the other type of data used in this article is drawn from a range of cooperation projects that have been carried out within the dual diagnosis field in denmark from 2008-2017.3 the six projects presented here all took place in the capital region of denmark, although projects have also been carried out in the four other regions; many of them along the same lines as the projects described here. most have produced evaluation reports that describe the interventions and provide an impression of their success; these constitute the main part of my empirical material (i should mention that i have contributed to several of them). two of the projects have not yet been officially evaluated and my knowledge of those stems from my involvement qua my position as head of ccdd. i want to emphasize that this is not a study of what actually goes on in interactions as staff from the fields of psychiatry and substance use treatment try to cooperate. i am working with another kind of data here: the reports of, and dialogue with, the practitioners who have been working with the specific projects, with the purpose of discovering what we can learn about the dual diagnosis field by looking at how the cooperation is described. as such, i am inspired 130 k. johansen: models for cooperation and positions of power qualitative studies 5(2), pp. 125–139 ©2018 by the approach described by shore and wright in their book, anthropology of policy (1997), and the research questions they perceive within this frame: how do policies ‘work’ as instruments of governance, and why do they sometimes fail to function as intended? what are the mobilizing metaphors and linguistic devices that cloak policy with the symbols and trappings of political legitimacy? … how are normative claims used to present a particular way of defining a problem and its solution, as if these were the only ones possible, while enforcing closure or silence on other ways of thinking and talking? (1997: 3) in the same way, i am interested in the focus on cooperation in the different publicly funded projects and the lack of focus on the uneven power structures between the cooperating partners. the projects are very briefly summarized below. the social nursing project (projekt socialsygepleje – det gode patientforløb). this was part of a larger project in which nurses specializing in substance use treatment were placed in hospitals – both somatic and psychiatric. their task was to facilitate better treatment for patients who also had a substance use disorder. the project was well evaluated at the somatic hospitals and continued in those locations after the project period finished. in the psychiatric departments, however, the social nursing project was not successful. the social workers in the psychiatric departments perceived the nurses from the project as competitors, and their competence in substance use treatment was not recognized by the psychiatrists. furthermore, the psychiatric nursing staff experienced competition with the social nurses in making alliances with the patients (ludvigsen & brünés, 2013). the integrated approach project (projekt integreret indsats). this was a cooperation project involving one psychiatric hospital and two local municipalities. the project worked with seriously mentally ill people who were also in contact with social psychiatry and substance use treatment. the working method of the project comprised cross-sectional treatment meetings every other week, during which common clients/patients were discussed and a joint approach decided upon. the project found that these meetings created an integrated approach to the clients/patients that facilitated both cooperation and a better treatment outcome for the patients (deloitte.social, 2016). however, the project managers also reported that it was important that the cooperation received ongoing attention and that the different institutional cultures were addressed directly and continuously if cooperation were to be successful (johansen & børsting-andersen, 2015). the clinic for substance use and nonpsychotic mental disorder (klinik for misbrug og ikke-psykotiske sindslidelser). this was another cooperation project involving a different psychiatric hospital and seven municipalities, which was directed at dual diagnosis patients with non-psychotic disorders. the clinic was established at the psychiatric hospital and treatment staff from the local substance use treatment facilities were to join the work at the clinic. the project was rather un-successful. the psychiatry-based clinic did not manage to incorporate the staff or treatment approaches from substance use regimens. on the contrary, several of the approaches applied in substance use treatment were rejected with the explanation that they were not evidence-based and not sufficiently well described to be included in a psychiatric treatment facility. the project managers from the psychiatric hospital themselves conducted a literature survey and decided on screening instruments and treatment principles identified through this work. the psychiatric staff did not see the need to include the staff from the substance use treatment facilities, and the latter could not see why they should participate. instead of cooperation, the project created a situation of competition among the participants (buch, thygesen, & johansen, 2015). the cross-sectional team at a social psychiatric housing facility (fællesteam på botilbud). this was yet another cooperation project between a psychiatric hospital and a municipality. two psychiatric nurses, a psychiatric consultant and two staff members from the local substance use treatment facility formed a team to provide integrated treatment of dual diagnok. johansen: models for cooperation and positions of power qualitative studies 5(2), pp. 125–139 ©2018 131 sis to people living at a social psychiatric housing facility. the team reported having been able to include most residents in the treatment despite earlier problems with retention. cooperation with the local psychiatric hospital was successful and facilitated more planned admissions, although the team experienced major obstacles to accessing the it systems of the psychiatric hospital and the municipality, making cross-sectional work difficult. despite good results, the team was shut down after the project period. the experience gained through this project was used to create two new cooperation projects. the coordination plan (den koordinerende indsatsplan). in 2014, the government issued new guidelines on what is called the coordination plan. this suggests that people who are in contact with both the psychiatric treatment system and the substance use treatment system should have such a plan, to be developed at a meeting between representatives for both treatment systems and the patient/client. here it should be agreed upon ‘who would do what and when’, so that the different treatment initiatives could be coordinated. the coordination plan has been implemented in several projects but without marked success. staff members find it demanding of resources to initiate and are often in doubt whether it is actually necessary to have such planning meetings, while it has proven difficult to get consent from some patients / clients (buch & petersen, 2017). it has also been clear that psychiatry and substance use treatment systems have very different incentives for involving themselves in the work of implementing such plans. substance use treatment operatives hoped that the coordination plan could work as a shortcut into psychiatry, thus avoiding standard visitation procedures and also assuring clients treatment in psychiatry, whereas the psychiatric treatment system primarily had an interest in assuring that this did not happen, thus safeguarding their limited resources. the joint screening project (screeningsprojekt på frederiksberg). the last project to be mentioned is one focusing on screening for mental disorders at a local substance use treatment center. this type of project has been carried out several times in several places, resulting in an article describing a project instigated in århus (frederiksen, 2009); the frederiksberg project that i discuss here is a duplicate. staff at the local substance use treatment center use standardized screening tools for mental disorder. if they identify someone with problems, they can refer the client for further assessment by a psychiatrist at the local psychiatric hospital. this psychiatrist also makes an evaluation of relevant treatment possibilities and will refer the client to the correct treatment facility (most often psychiatry or a general practitioner). the project is positively evaluated by the participants. among other things, they mention that the formalized cooperation makes informal exchange possible and facilitates counselling when necessary. though these six projects are very different in size and scope they indicate the political interest in the field, meanwhile documenting how cooperation is seen as the main solution to the challenges of the dual diagnosis field. the projects are summarized in table 1 below: 132 k. johansen: models for cooperation and positions of power qualitative studies 5(2), pp. 125–139 ©2018 table 1: overview over projects and problems identified. cooperation between psychiatry and substance use treatment — organizational interfaces organizational theorist david brown has introduced the concept ‘organizational interfaces’ (brown, 1983) that is central when analyzing cooperating organizations.4 brown states that ‘[t]he definition of an interface depends on the shared goals and interdependencies that press parties to continue to act’ (1983: 22). he continues: many organizational interfaces, for instance, are defined by shared tasks, for whose accomplishment the parties need each other. … other interfaces are based on common social identifications. … some interfaces are defined by acceptance of common authorities… still other interfaces are defined by physical space. (ibid.: 22–23) in his approach there are four central elements that require analysis in order to comprehend organizational interfaces: 1) the interface itself; 2) the parties to the interface; 3) the party representatives; and 4) the larger context. if we apply brown’s concepts to the danish dual diagnosis field, we can produce the following model: k. johansen: models for cooperation and positions of power qualitative studies 5(2), pp. 125–139 ©2018 133 figure 1: the danish dual diagnosis field, version 1. if we look at the different projects through the lens of brown’s organizational interfaces we can see that, to a large extent, they may be characterized by this concept. we can identify the interface between psychiatry and substance use treatment and we can identify the cooperating parties – psychiatry and substance use treatment. the party representatives in the different projects can be identified – whether they be social nurses, ordinary staff assigned to the project or project managers working with the projects – and likewise the context in which the cooperation takes place: the larger danish society. in some of the projects, cooperation seemed rather successful and in line with brown’s model. staff from the two sectors seemed to agree that both parties are needed if proper treatment solutions are to be made. the integrated approach project and the crosssectional team at a social psychiatric housing facility are examples of this. yet some of the projects show quite another picture, one that makes brown’s model seem too equable. some of the projects clearly showed that the rationales for substance use treatment and psychiatry when entering into agreements of cooperation and joint project work are not necessarily the same. the rationale of those operating in substance use treatment seems to be a wish to gain access to psychiatric professionalism, diagnosis and treatment, as demonstrated by the project exploring the coordination plan. if one applies the definition of cooperation borrowed from brown, then, from their perspective, there is a need for cooperation that is defined by a shared task – that of treating people with a dual diagnosis. the psychiatric field, on the other hand, does not seem interested in the professional perspective of substance use treatment, at least not to the same extent. in one project – the clinic for substance use and non-psychotic mental disorder – psychiatry operatives dismissed the perspective of substance use treatment altogether when they characterized it as ‘not evidence-based’. in another project – the social nursing project – the psychiatric staff did not seem to think that social nurses had anything to contribute. rather, they seemed to be confident that they could manage dual diagnosis treatment quite well on their own. 134 k. johansen: models for cooperation and positions of power qualitative studies 5(2), pp. 125–139 ©2018 this points to asymmetrical power relations in the organizational interface wherein the psychiatric profession has the upper hand. there are probably several different explanations for this. one could be that psychiatry – as a specialized service with restricted access – represents a scarce and therefore more attractive resource than substance use treatment, which is a low threshold treatment mode open to everybody. another obvious explanation is that psychiatry as a medical profession draws on the prestige of modern medicine, whereas substance use treatment in the danish context is linked to the less prestigious field of social work: an issue throughout the otherwise successful integrated approach project. the rejection of the approaches of substance use treatment with the argument that they were not evidence-based that we saw in the project with the clinic for substance use and non-psychotic mental disorder is also an example of medicine being more prestigious than social work. another characteristic of the danish dual diagnosis field is, as mentioned in the introduction, that the division between psychiatry and substance use treatment exists on all levels – from frontline staff, through organizational units, to the authorities, the law and ministries – and none of these levels offers joint responsibility in the dual diagnosis field. that means that the context of the organizational interface does not really provide a frame for interaction, as the model presented above indicates. i would therefore suggest that the model for organizational interface, when it comes to the dual diagnosis field in denmark, is more properly portrayed like this in some situations: figure 2: the danish dual diagnosis field, version 2. most of the cooperation projects introduced above do not address this potentially conflictual cooperation situation, with the integrated approach project being a partial exception as, half-way through the project, the project managers established a meeting forum for project participants where different institutional cultures, ethical questions and power relations k. johansen: models for cooperation and positions of power qualitative studies 5(2), pp. 125–139 ©2018 135 were directly addressed (johansen & børstingandersen, 2015). in the majority of the projects, the project designers and project managers seemed to think that the situation resembled that indicated in model 1. for some of the projects this might have been true initially, but then, during the course of the project, the organizational interface developed into a situation more like that presented in model 2. for other projects, the situation was probably more like model 2 from the outset but without project designers and project managers addressing this issue in the project design and project work. this indicates that the organizational interface between substance use treatment and psychiatry is not static; rather, it can change over time. the actual manifestation of the interface will probably also depend on, for example, local organizational principles and histories of cooperation, among other elements. model 1 and model 2 can also be seen as the poles of a continuum, with most cooperation projects being placed somewhere between the two extremes, although tending to be placed closer to model 2 if questions of differences in culture, language and power are not explicitly addressed (see also johansen et al., 2012). an under-organized interface in model 2 of the organizational interface, i introduce another of brown’s analytical concepts – that of organizational interfaces as either underorganized or overorganized – neither of which is a positive outcome (1982: 28-30). an underorganized interface has the following characteristics: there is little agreement about who has authority, and interface goals are undefined or conflicting. formal regulatory mechanisms are not well-developed: representative roles are fragmented, conflicted, of undefined, and procedures for handling issues are unclear or ineffectual. informal mechanisms provide few clear constraints: theories and values about the interface are not shared; representatives believe that chaos is imminent, some fighting or fleeing are appropriate; cultural differences based in the invading environment are more important than task differences. (1982: 28) the dual diagnosis interface can best be described as underorganized (see also christensen, 2011), and the underorganized interface creates a range of problems. in brown’s words: several problems are characterized within underorganized interfaces. resources are typically in short supply; the interface lacks personnel, information, energy and time. available energy is diffused by the lack of clear focus and the everpresent potential for leaving the system. finally, differences easily lead to two forms of negative conflict permitted by loose organization: (1) withdrawal from differences and (2) escalation of conflict. (1982: 28) again, we find these characteristics in the different projects described above. some of the agents – in my material primarily psychiatric staff – do seem reluctant to invest in the interface, seeming to prioritize using their resources within their own system. in two of the projects – the clinic for substance use and non-psychotic disorders and the social nursing project – we saw a situation with a high level of conflict between the two parties. it is also tempting to understand the concept of underorganized in a slightly different way than brown, however. suggesting that a field is underorganized could also describe a situation in which there is room for a range of local initiatives and projects. the above lists of treatment initiatives and projects and models of cooperation could thus be seen as the result of the underorganization of the field: as formal regulations for the interface are lacking and as there is no formal structure to regulate the dual diagnosis field, local initiatives are created in an attempt to fill its interstices. on the one hand this could be seen as positive – there is room for local initiatives and models for cooperation. but i suggest that the underorganized character of the field, resulting in the large number and variety of local initiatives, add a further level of difficulty to the dual diagnosis field. not only do we have those connected to patient/client organization and cooperation mentioned in the introduction to this article, the many different 136 k. johansen: models for cooperation and positions of power qualitative studies 5(2), pp. 125–139 ©2018 initiatives also create a field characterized by randomness and changeability. learning points based on the included projects and the analysis of the interface it is possible to identify some elements in the projects that could assist in the direction of policy-making. in the integrated approach project, as already mentioned, the project managers became aware that they needed to address the cultural differences between the participating parties (in this case, psychiatry, substance use treatment and social psychiatry). in their experience, staff members from the different sectors wanted to cooperate but, when facing difficult cases or situations, they often withdrew to more traditional and therefore safer positions – focusing on the core tasks of their own institution and not on cross-sectional cooperation. in their experience, the cultural differences need continuous attention if this withdrawal from cooperation is to be avoided (johansen & børsting-andersen, 2015). examples of activities addressing this problem are cross-sectional competence development, cross-sectional supervision and the involvement of relevant leaders in supporting the cross-sectional work (see also johansen & wiuff, 2014). another positive example from the projects listed above is the cross-sectional team at a social psychiatric housing facility. they successfully established a team that worked well together, where the different perspectives of the involved staff members were fully integrated, thereby providing evidence that such a setup is possible, at least under certain conditions. it is worth noting that the staff members working in this project were very experienced in their respective professions. moreover, the crosssectional team worked as a relatively small, autonomous unit away from the institution of origin and well-established power relations. one could claim that, in consequence, it did not challenge institutional structures or power hierarchies. in other words, it was not dangerous and its members could be left to work together rather undisturbed. as also pointed out, the project was not continued after the project period ran out and the experiences were not used to change the treatment systems. in the course of the joint screening project successful cooperation was also established. it is a characteristic of that project that it does not challenge structural borders or the competencies of psychiatry. on the contrary, it is built on a recognition of psychiatrists’ possessing an exclusive knowledge of mental disorders that substance use treatment can only access through a psychiatrist. the services provided by the psychiatrists hired in the project are very specific and delimited. to summarize: if we do not want to change the organization of the dual diagnosis field but are only aiming for more successful cooperation, the above analyzed projects seem to point to three different models of cooperation: • autonomous units consisting of experienced professionals working out their own approach; • recognition of psychiatry as the dominant element and a concomitant adaptation of cooperation patterns to accommodate this; • continuing insistence that cooperation is possible – meanwhile providing time, resources and space for the participants to develop a fully cooperative culture. these are pragmatic suggestions and their ability to change the basic structures of the dual diagnosis field are limited. the analysis presented above indicates that one of the reasons why it seems difficult for psychiatry and substance use treatment to cooperate is that the two institutions do not enter into cooperation on equal terms and do not seem to agree on its necessity. while i was writing the first draft of this article in january 2018, the ministry of health issued a policy paper suggesting that the regions should take over responsibility from the municipalities for substance use treatment for people with dual diagnosis. the purpose of this would be to secure a better quality of treatment for these patients. at first reading this could be seen as recognition that cooperation is not the way ahead in securing the most effective treatment for people with dual diagnosis. indeed, this is a structural change rather than furk. johansen: models for cooperation and positions of power qualitative studies 5(2), pp. 125–139 ©2018 137 ther instigation of projects exploring cooperation. looking somewhat more closely at the suggestion, however, the picture – as always – becomes much more blurred. effective substance use treatment consists of both social and medical interventions. yet, as the regions only have competences within medicine, we risk a situation where social substance use treatment is marginalized in the medically dominated regions. meanwhile, cooperation between the medically dominated regions and the socially dominated municipalities still needs to take place, with the unequal power relations between the two parties now being reinforced with arguments of quality. concluding remarks this article has presented an analysis of the organizational interface between psychiatry and substance use treatment. the analysis has shown that the interface is characterized by very different perceptions of the need for cooperation and an unequal relation of power between the two parties. this means that the cooperation between the two central agents in the field of dual diagnosis is latently – and sometimes in practice – full of conflict, meaning that the treatment for dual diagnosis in the danish welfare state is not coherent. the data used in the article stem from evaluation reports from the different projects. other data were collected through my employment in the competence center for dual diagnosis. i have hereby placed myself with that tradition of organizational ethnography in which the researcher investigates her own organization. as other researchers have highlighted (alvesson, 2009; watson, 2011), in my experience this has given me a much more thorough knowledge of the dual diagnosis field, as well as access to fora (e.g. management and strategical development) to which i would not have had access as an external fieldworker. yet this approach raises two central questions that for which i have no final answers. the first is the dilemma concerning how critical one can be as researcher in relation to the organization for which one works: both in regard to how critical one can be without being met with sanctions, but also to the more emotional question of how critical one is capable of being towards an organization by which one has chosen to be employed. most people – and i include myself – will probably not choose to work for an organization that they think deserving of severe criticism. the other dilemma, already touched upon in the methods section, is about transferring the privileged position of data collection into solid data. even though one gets a much better ‘feel for the game’ (bourdieu, 1977) by actually playing it, the challenge of producing the fieldnotes that will provide the departure point for later analysis is ever present. how this may be done in practice is a continuous, but underaddressed, challenge of doing fieldwork in one’s own organization. acknowledgements i would like to thank associate professor bagga bjerge for inviting me to the workshop where the first draft of this paper was presented, and to the participants at the workshop for valuable comments. also, i would like to thank the anonymous reviewers of an earlier draft of the paper for constructive suggestions to improve the argument. endnotes 1. in this article i write about ‘psychiatry’ and ‘substance use treatment’ as if they were coherent institutional units with common practices and values. that is of course an analytical simplification (some might even say an analytical violation). psychiatry comprises many different things, substance use treatment even more. my reason for doing this, however, is that i want to focus my attention on the interface between psychiatry and substance use treatment. i want to develop an understanding of the complexity of that interface, not of the complexity of the two institutions trying to cooperate. exploration of the complexity of psychiatry and substance use treatment respectively is the province of other articles. 2. in much of this literature the focus has been on ‘continuity of care’ (ware et al., 1999). however, when dealing with the dual diagnosis field the discussion seems to focus on how we can integrate psychiatry and substance use treatment, and integrated treatment seems to be the keyword (mueser et al., 2003). 3. besides these projects focusing on dual diagnosis there exists a number of other projects focusing on creating connection between different welfare services for people with mental health problems (folker et al., 2017). 4. i have been introduced to david brown’s work by professor janne seemann from ålborg university who has used his concepts in her own work with institutions, including psychiatric institutions, in the danish welfare state (for example, christensen, 2011; 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(2009). studying everyday organizational life. in s. ybema, d. yanow, h. wels, & f. kamsteeg (eds.), organizational ethnography: studying the complexity of everyday life. london: sage publications ltd. • about the author katrine schepelern johansen is trained as a social anthropologist and has her phd on transcultural psychiatry from the department of anthropology, university of copenhagen. since 2014, katrine has been head and senior researcher at the competence centre for dual diagnosis in the mental health services of the capital region of denmark. as an anthropologist katrine has a special focus on the individual human being in the treatment system and the special challenges that vulnerable and marginalized patients pose in the organisation of the social system and of the health care system. paper 1: a qualitative gaze on how mundane public administration works introduction accomplishing public sector service: theorising interstices and imbrications from a qualitative stance contributions in this special issue a case study of casework tinkering health care professionalism without doctors: spatial surroundings and counter-identification in local health houses using ignorance as (un)conscious bureaucratic strategy: street-level practices and structural influences in the field of migration enforcement assembling advice treatment of dual diagnosis in denmark — models for cooperation and positions of power cross-pollinating discussions and contributions of the special issue acknowledgements about the authors paper 2: a case study of casework tinkering introduction empirical data casework tinkering — an analytical lens 1. probing possibilities 2. tinkering with services to fit the case 3. tinkering with individuals to fit resources negotiating discrepancies — crafting a case response concluding remarks acknowledgements about the authors paper 3: spatial surroundings and counter-identification in local health houses introduction theoretical framework: professionalization in site-specific contexts identification and counter-identification mixed methodological research design: case selection and vignette construction analytical section: observations and interviews in two distinct types of health houses the medical–clinical health house: “press if you have an appointment” health professionals in a medical–clinical health house: “we are health consultants” former cancer patient, now in rehabilitation: “i meet people facing the same struggles as myself” the community–based health house: “a flat screen promotes various events” health professional in a community-based health house: “i miss my work when i am on vacation” citizens on the edge of the city: “it's the best the municipality has ever done for its citizens” conclusion: counter-identification with hospitals and doctors acknowledgements about the author appendices paper 4: street-level practices and structural influences in the field of migration enforcement introduction theoretical framework defining structural violence in bureaucratic encounters the relation between indifference and ignorance understanding uncertainty understanding ignorance methodological framework ignorance in street-level encounters migrants' use of ignorance ignorance as inherit feature of the state conclusion — what is the cost of ignorance? acknowledgements about the author paper 5: ethnographic explorations of the changing relationship between voluntary advi… introduction research methods citizens advice: some background theoretical tools: on assemblage thinking an advice service as an assemblage: the data the use of volunteers on funding, funders and regulatory effects legal aid funding the funding mosaic: entrepreneurialism and independence fragile futures acknowledgements about the authors paper 6: models for cooperation and positions of power introduction the problems of dual diagnosis the dual diagnosis field in denmark empirical material cooperation between psychiatry and substance use treatment — organizational interfaces an under-organized interface learning points concluding remarks acknowledgements about the author meier necessary suffering.pdf qualitative studies vol. 6, no. 1, 2021, pp. 116-141 issn 1903-7031 116 necessary suffering? investigating existential suffering in youth through everyday experiences of bad conscience joachim meier1 1 department of psychology, aarhus university, bartholins allé, 11, 8000 aarhus c, denmark the purpose of this article is to develop an account of existential suffering in youth. according to recent studies, a growing amount of young westerners has come to suffer from mental disorders, stress, and a general lack of well-being. it is suggested however that the massive concern for young people's mental health might risk contributing to an increased pathologization of all kinds of suffering in youth. in continuation hereof the article aims at disclosing a suffering that is not pathological in kind but quite the contrary clings to existence. based on interviews with three danish high school students, regarding their experiences of bad conscience in their everyday lives, it is revealed how they suffer from matters conceivable as normative implications of fundamental conditions of existence such as freedom, finitude and the other. in the end, critical concerns are raised regarding the normative evaluation of existential suffering as a necessity. that is, should we not always be against suffering? keywords: existence; suffering; youth; pathologization; normativity; bad conscience introduction in his poem “if some day darkness were used up,” the danish poet søren ulrik thomsen (2011, p. 26) writes: “if winter ended forever some march day all the world’s coldness would have to be housed in our own frozen souls” i remembered these lines during a grey albeit overly hot day in february while i entered the hall of a high school to conduct interviews and was greeted by a large banner that read “joy of-life week.” i asked around and found that the week was about sparking joy in an otherwise j. meier: necessary suffering? investigating existential suffering in youth qualitative studies 6(1), pp. 116-141 ©2021 117 dark time of the year. the students arranged competitions, sessions of live music, and inspirational talks on motivation. although, these initiatives were difficult to oppose, thomsen’s poem entered into my mind. maybe it was the contrasting experience of the grey weather outside combined with the insisting demand to enjoy that was now flapping over my head. maybe i was just not in a mood for either creating or receiving joy myself. was i alone in this state? maybe. maybe i had read too much about how our time excludes negativity (e.g. critchley & cederström, 2010; ehrenreich, 2010; žižek, 2001). maybe this was in fact a very telling example hereof. maybe winter had forever ended. the joy-banner appears, however, to be in stark contrast to the large amount of recent reports regarding young people’s mental health. in a danish context, for example, 40.5% of women between 16 and 24 years old now suffer from stress1 (jensen et al., 2018). among the 19-year-olds, 36% of women and 16% of men respond that they have had a mental disorder at some point (ottosen et al., 2018). among high school students, 56% of girls experience stress on a daily or weekly basis; 36% of boys do likewise (pisinger et al., 2019) in addition, 20% of the girls and 15% of the boys have at some point considered suicide (pisinger et al., 2019). on this and further basis researchers speak of “new forms of marginalization” (görlich et al., 2019, p. 25), which do not only affect the youth of traditionally marginalized minorities but also the middle-class majorities that increasingly suffer from mental disorders, stress, and a general lack of well-being. the tendency is not restricted to denmark but widespread in the western world (eckersley, 2011a, 2011b; madsen, 2018; twenge et al., 2019; rose, 2006; rose, 2019, p. 3). hence, reviewing the mental health of youth, richard eckersley (2011a, p. 627) suggested that we ought to revise the dominating narrative of progress with a narrative that emphasizes their severely increasing problems of mental illness. the mental health of young people has thus become an object of massive worry, investigation, and intervention. although concerns spring from good intentions, we may ask if the ‘hidden curriculum’ (jackson, 1968) of many reports and interventions is that youths’ lives ought to be joyful and that it is wrong and worrying, if they are not (madsen, 2017). from a more general perspective, critics have pointed to an increasing pathologization of ordinary vicissitudes in the human condition (horwitz, 2011; horwitz & wakefield, 2005, 2007). in addition, that we, due to the dominance of the diagnostic language, are in risk of losing alternative languages of suffering (brinkmann, 2014). for instance, studies have documented 1 measured with cohen’s perceived stress scale (jensen et al., 2018). j. meier: necessary suffering? investigating existential suffering in youth qualitative studies 6(1), pp. 116-141 ©2021 118 that interpersonal and moral understandings of suffering tend to be converted into biomedical treatments (shweder et al., 1997). thus, in western cultures, where health2 has been endorsed as a “meta-value” (greco, 2004, p. 1) and where “healthism”— that is, the tendency to prioritize health and prevent illness over anything else (crawford, 1980)—has become a widespread orientation of life, we may lose sight of any discontent that accompanies, what thomas szasz (1961, p. 113) called the “problems in living”. in the current article, i add to these more general critiques of pathologization by offering and outlining an alternative account in which suffering can be understood as existential in kind. by disclosing how emotional suffering in youth can be experienced, and more fundamentally, why it necessarily clings to existence3, i aim to expand the coordinates that structure how we make sense of young people’s mental health. i use the notion of suffering in a broad sense to refer to a universal aspect of human experience that can be grouped into a variety of burdens ranging in its phenomenological intensities from milder forms of for example anxiety, guilt, sadness or unhappiness to more destructive and invalidating forms of distress (see davies, 2012, p. 6). the scope of the article is those cases that one might call “milder” and which may be in risk of being pathologized by either young people themselves or people and professionals around them.4 when speaking specifically about existential suffering, i refer to suffering understood as related to fundamental existential conditions and vulnerabilities (e.g. galvin & todres, 2013, p. 98).5 empirically, i explore suffering in youth through qualitative interviews regarding experiences of bad conscience in the everyday lives of three danish high school students. 6 to suffer from a bad or guilty conscience is a painful yet familiar experience to most people. it is characterized by a critical self-evaluative consciousness (welz, 2008, p. 54), where the self enters into conflict with itself, producing a divided experience of self as self-failure (critzley, 2007, p. 22), which is accompanied by the emotions of shame and guilt (howard, 2014). bad conscience as well as the sense of guilt are among typical symptom criteria for 2 according to the world health organization, health is “a state of complete physical, mental and social wellbeing, and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity” (aginam, 2002, p. 948). 3 existence means to “stand out,” which can be rendered as to “stand outside oneself” (joseph et al., 2011, p. 7). 4 it is essential to what has recently been called a ‘diagnostic culture’ that the diagnostic framework is no longer reserved for professionals but pervades the very ways ordinary people understand themselves and their problems (brinkmann, 2016, p. 7). 5 based on martin heidegger’s existential phenomenology, galvin and todres (2013, p. 99) develop a comprehensive and systematic account of 18 different kinds of existential suffering. my aim, however, is not to delineate different kinds of existential suffering, but to disclose how distress in youth can be understood as constituted in human existence. 6 although i do not investigate more extreme cases of emotional distress, this does not mean, that i believe these to be always pathological diseases that cannot be made sense of within an existential context (see for example aho, 2019; halling & nill, 1989). j. meier: necessary suffering? investigating existential suffering in youth qualitative studies 6(1), pp. 116-141 ©2021 119 clinical depression (e.g. bech et al., 2001), and if interpreted alone through a diagnostic lens they could be reduced to mere symptoms hereof. i, on the other hand, take my lead from an existential theoretical framework in which conscience discloses one’s fundamental existential conditions (heidegger, 2010, p. 259; bojesen & lindhardt, 1979, p. 185). thus, in the analysis to come, the phenomenon of bad conscience serves as a prism through which existential suffering is illuminated. more accurately, it is disclosed how the distressing experiences of the participants may be rendered as normative implications of existential conditions in the form of freedom, finitude and the other. i am aware that this could be interpreted as a legitimization of the increasing lack of wellbeing in youth, which it is definitely not. the ambition is not to invalidate young people’s suffering, but to show how at least some of it can be conceived of as existential in kind. if thus, as martin packer (2011, p. 5) states, qualitative research ought to have an “emancipatory” interest, the interest of the present paper consists not so much in reducing the suffering of a marginalized minority, but rather in disclosing the existential suffering of the majorities. in a culture that has made enjoyment mandatory (žižek, 2001), and where human discontent is increasingly pathologized (horwitz &wakefield, 2007, 2005), i think this ambition actually holds an emancipatory potential. by disclosing existential suffering as a necessity, the paper also raises concerns regarding the normativity of young people’s suffering. therefore, in the final section, i ask, if it is sound to define any suffering as a necessity? in response, i point to the phenomenon of approved suffering, which is elucidated from the interviews. the concept refers to a tendency among the students to find that there is distress in their lives of which they actually approve. in conclusion, i recommend that we ought to be more attentive to different kinds of suffering as well as the normativity suffering. before moving on to these arguments, i begin by outlining more thoroughly the contemporary tendency to professionalize and pathologize young people’s suffering, and how this is accompanied by an implied normativity that render suffering as something that ought to be eliminated. pathologization and its normativity of suffering according to the medical sociologists allan horwitz and jerome wakefield (2005), the explanation of the contemporary acceleration in mental diseases first and foremost “appears to lie in changes in the ways that physicians, mental-health professionals, and people themselves j. meier: necessary suffering? investigating existential suffering in youth qualitative studies 6(1), pp. 116-141 ©2021 120 characterize and diagnose their mental states” (pp. 40–41). thus, following the thesis of patologization, what has increased, is not primarily the number of people suffering from mental diseases, but rather a growing tendency to interpret emotional distress within a diagnostic and pathological framework (brinkmann, 2016). thereby, the thesis of pathologization holds, we tend to pathologize ordinary human vicissitudes such as for example sadness, shyness, and anxiety (horwitz, 2011; horwitz & wakefield, 2005, 2007; lane, 2008; orr, 2006). according to sociologist nikolas rose (2006), biomedicine has thus come to shape and dominate, how people in general make sense of their discontent. as rose (2019, p. 9) recently pointed out, nowadays half of us is diagnosable over a lifetime, and it has become almost ‘abnormal’ to live one’s life without coming into the remit of psychiatry or talking to a professional about one’s mental troubles. with specific regard to youth, a recent report documented that, in 2017, 46% of 19-yearold danish women had consulted a psychologist (ottosen et al., 2018, p. 192)7. worldwide, hundreds of school-based programs are addressing children’s and young people’s mental health (due et al., 2014, p. 154). it is common to these programs to be based on professional treatment techniques, and several are used in universal versions that address everyone in a certain age group (due et al., 2014). for example, the universal school-based prevention program ‘depression in swedish adolescents’8 was founded on cognitive behavioral techniques designed to change thoughts, provide problem-solving strategies, and promote health activities (garmy et al., 2019, p. 183). likewise, from 2020 and on, ‘life-coping’—a process whereby the student acquires knowledge, skills, and attitudes to become a healthy and competent individual—is included in the curriculum for primary and secondary education in norway (gjernes, 2020; madsen, 2018). in denmark, an official ‘stress panel’ has suggested to follow norway’s example to prevent and deal with the widespread lack of well-being among children and young people. with regard to my own research, two psychoeducational posters hanging on the walls in the hallways of the high school, where i am conducting interviews, caught my attention. the one stating: “depression is a mental illness – the symptoms can be cured with antidepressant medication” followed by detailed information on neurotransmitter reuptake. the headline of the other poster asserted: “children’s learning are affected by stress” followed by information on how long-term stress results in reorganization of the brain. these posters, i think, discloses, how pathological understandings and language of mental health are no longer 7 compared to 2009 the number was 30 % (ottosen et al., 2018). 8 depression in swedish adolescents is a modified version of the adolescent coping with stress course (garmy et al., 2019, p. 182). j. meier: necessary suffering? investigating existential suffering in youth qualitative studies 6(1), pp. 116-141 ©2021 121 delimited to psychological practices and psychiatric institutions but pervade the very ways in which young people and everyone else are stimulated to understand themselves and their distress (rose, 2006, 2019). the critical paradox seems to be, that while an increasing number of assumingly ordinary young people seek out and are offered help, their problems are increasingly approached through professionalized and pathological understandings. horwitz and wakefield (2005, 2007) have accounted for the development of pathologization through the seminal changes in the practices of diagnosis following dsm iii from 1980, in which criteria for diagnosis became descriptive instead of etiological. from dsm iii and on, diagnosing became based on observable symptoms within a given period of time, and thereby personal circumstances, experiences, and biography were no longer considered essential (horwitz & wakefield, 2007, p. 9). consequently, they argue, it has become almost impossible to separate symptoms of sadness from dysfunctional depressive disorders. for instance, one study in adolescent depression that do report the context of symptoms, finds that the single greatest trigger for presumed depression is “the breakup of a romantic relationship”, suggesting that a potentially large proportion of “disorders” are actually misclassifications of normal responses to significant life events (horwitz & wakefield, 2005, p. 51)9. on one hand, this inattention to the contextual aspects of a person’s suffering entails that the normativity of suffering is ignored. that is, any appropriate reasons for a person’s symptoms, such as a broken heart, personal losses, or a troubled economy, are not taken thoroughly into account. on the other hand, however, the diagnostic understanding of a person’s suffering implies a very strong normativity. rather than being a mere descriptive science, psychiatry is a collection of techniques and strategies used to prevent and treat mental distress (davies, 2012, p. 60; kleinman, 2008). and as argued by medical anthropologist james davies (2012, p. 59), it is by way of its clinical practices, which approach suffering as an encumbering and purposeless experience from which one should be liberated, that biopsychiatry advances its negative vision of suffering. “it is through the response, in other words, that the value of the experience is defined negatively” (davies, 2012, p. 62). when suffering is interpreted and made sense of in a diagnostic framework, it invites for specific forms of interventions that aim to reduce the suffering. as horwitz and wakefield (2005) have described, people acting upon themselves within this framework “may naturally tend to monitor themselves for such symptoms, reframe their own experiences of sadness as signs of 9 horwitz and wakefield (2005, 42) distinguished between suffering “with” and “without cause”: “without cause” means that the symptoms of depression were not associated with the sorts of environmental events that would appropriately lead to sadness”. j. meier: necessary suffering? investigating existential suffering in youth qualitative studies 6(1), pp. 116-141 ©2021 122 a mental disorder and seek professional help for their problems” (p. 57). if, for instance, i interpret my experience of distress as a clinical depression rather than sadness initiated by a broken heart, i would presumably be more prone to render it as a condition that should be treated, coped with, and preferably eliminated.10 in this section, i have accounted for tendencies to pathologize young people’s suffering and how this implies a normativity that render suffering as something that ought to be eliminated. the succeeding analysis challenges this vision. the aim is to disclose how young peoples’ experiences of emotional distress may be well reasoned in existential matters that cling to the human condition. before moving on to the analysis, the subsequent section accounts for its existential theoretical outset and methodology. toward an existential framework of suffering the analysis below is based on an existential theoretical reading of qualitative interviews with three danish high school students (names and identifying details are changed) that are part of a larger study concerning experiences of bad conscience among danish high school students. since the existential perspective does not represent a unified school of thought in neither philosophy (kaufmann, 2016) nor psychology (van deurzen et al., 2019, cooper, 2011), i specify in more detail, what i mean by an existential framework by outlining three central assumptions, from which my methodology and analytical strategy take their lead. first and foremost, counter to the increasing pathologization of human vicissitudes accounted for above, an existential perspective provides opportunity to render suffering as an inevitable, necessary, and even edifying condition (e.g., cooper, 2011, pp. 64–65; macquarrie, 1972; kierkegaard, 2013, 2014). anxiety, for instance, as it will be spelled out more thoroughly below, is not conceived of as a pathological deviation but as something edifying that “every human being has to live through” (kierkegaard, 2014, p. 187)11. secondly, from an existential perspective, one cannot diagnose solely based on the duration of symptoms. the human being is always already a being-in-the-world (heidegger, 2010, p. 10 this normativity of suffering cannot be narrowly attributed to a transformation of dsm. on a larger cultural background scale, the implied understanding of suffering within the diagnostic framework, seems closely associated with the modern imagination of the self as a rational agent that relates instrumentally to itself in a utilitarian logic of maximizing pleasures and minimizing pain (e.g., bellah et al., 1985; richardson et al., 1998; taylor, 1992). davies (2012, p. 59), for example, tracked our contemporary negative model of suffering back to the movement of enlightenment, which, he argues, implied and promulgated a model of suffering that predominantly emphasized the iniquity and purposelessness of all human discontent. 11 kierkegaard (2013) also analyzed despair as a general human condition. j. meier: necessary suffering? investigating existential suffering in youth qualitative studies 6(1), pp. 116-141 ©2021 123 113), and therefore a person’s symptoms cannot be rendered in isolation from its world. further, this world is not one inhabited by a ‘neutral self’ (taylor, 1989, p. 49), but by beings for whom the world has meaning and matters from the outset. to comprehend a person’s suffering, thus, one must understand the concrete lifeworld, relations, and contextual meaning of a person’s life. therefore an existential perspective is closely associated with a phenomenological methodology (joseph, reynolds & woodward, 2014, p. 6; joseph & reynolds, 2014), which is – quoting the phenomenologist van den berg (1972, p.76)— “obsessed with the concrete”. phenomenology thus is “the science of examples” (van manen, 2017, p. 814), because it investigates concrete lived experience and situated human activity. in the present study, a phenomenological attitude was adopted by stimulating and focusing on the participants’ situation-bounded-descriptions of their experiences of bad conscience and its relation to their suffering and discontent. third and final, within an existential framework, questions about the particular human being and its concrete experiences are, at the same time, questions about what it means to be human (fernandez, 2018, p. 41). martin heidegger distinguished between an ontic and ontological level of existence (heidegger, 2010, pp. 11–12). while the ontic level concerns the concrete experiences of a person, the ontological level regards the fundamental existential characteristics related to the concrete experiences. in these terms, the subsequent analysis is an ontic investigation of particular high school students; however, these particular beings also have a common ontological being. that implies that their experiences of bad conscience do not only refer to the students’ individual particularity, but moreover find their sources in common fundamental existentials. accordingly, my analytical strategy has been to fluctuate between the participants’ concrete descriptions (the ontic) and the level of fundamental existential characteristics (the ontological). whereas the phenomenological attitude has led my attention toward concrete and situated experiences, the existential perspective has informed a reading of these experiences as concrete embodiments of more fundamental existential sources of suffering. there is, as far as i know, no exhaustive list of human existentials (køster and fernandez, in press). however, despite different emphases, the existential perspective sensitizes an attention to overlapping existential matters such as freedom, choice, anxiety, finitude, responsibility, guilt, otherness etc. (e.g. joseph et al., 2014, pp. 3–4). these matters belong to the human being as such. however, it is in youth that they are likely to become j. meier: necessary suffering? investigating existential suffering in youth qualitative studies 6(1), pp. 116-141 ©2021 124 explicitly present for the first time.12 moreover, one could argue that young people are especially sensitive and receptive to certain existentials, such as choice, freedom and possibility by virtue of the openness that characterizes their situatedness. in this section, i have accounted for three basic existential assumptions that grounds my analytical strategy. the succeeding presentation is divided into two steps. first, idiographic descriptions of existential suffering related to bad conscience are extracted from the experiences of each of the three students. secondly, i render their experiences within an existential theoretical framework, in order to illuminate more fundamental existential conditions of suffering (see also finlay, 2009, p. 10; halling, 2008). simon: “sweat on the forehead” simon is an 18-year-old second-year high school student, who lives at home with both his parents. simon describes experiences of “feeling low” and being in a “black hole” as well as physical reactions such as a “pressuring feeling on the chest”. these experiences, however, should be captured in their right context. thus for years, simon has been playing soccer at an elite level, however, at the time i met him, he had recently chosen to quit his sport. simon’s sense of bad conscience circulates around his experiences of the omnipresent expectations from his parents and peers and his concerns of not living up to these. he feels he ought to “keep up a constant level within school” and that “you have to be active all the time and perform, but that is also a necessity.” in addition, he stresses, “i still live at home, so of course one has to do what one is told.” in particular, simon expresses how his parents’ expectations and opinion of him are of great importance: “i would also like to look good in the eyes of . . . in the eyes of my father and mother . . . where i do not appear as a complete idiot.” simon articulates a clear conception of his parents’ potential negative judgment of him in case he fails to live up to their standards and expectations. toward the end of the interview, however, there is a rupture in simon’s narrative, as he suddenly emphasized that “one cannot always just do what is expected.” i took notice of this only much later on after transcribing the interview, and i chose to contact simon again to ask him, how his statement relates to his own life. simon then told me about the defining choice he recently made to quit soccer at an elite level to gain more time in his life, even though his parents were “determined that [he] should continue.” 12 in youth, the human spirit awakens (grøn, 2008, p. 15; kierkegaard, 2014, p. 51). that is, the self is now able to relate to itself in one way but also in another. j. meier: necessary suffering? investigating existential suffering in youth qualitative studies 6(1), pp. 116-141 ©2021 125 “me: what was it like to make that choice? simon: it was a decision that i had been thinking about for a long time, so… when i finally made it, it wasn’t very hard . . . or it was. i had some sweat on the forehead . . . that is, in order to get it done and to say that you want to quit and stuff like that. me: the sweat on the forehead, what was it about? simon: it might have been nervousness that you will get a little clumsy when you describe such a goodbye message to your coach. and maybe you will let him down when you say you are leaving. me: was anything else at stake? simon: there was the sadness that i wouldn’t come to play my sport on the level, i have been used to, so that was a punch in the gut. [. . .] simon: also, i had a bad conscience toward some of my teammates with whom i had joined the club, but also toward my coach who had spent time and energy on me, so at that point, i felt guilty toward them”. although simon first tones down the difficulties, his account changes while he speaks, and he reveals that his decision was accompanied by “sweat on his forehead.” simon discloses his distressing feeling of nervousness ahead of the decision as well as the “punch in the gut” following his awareness that he will not play on his former level. elsewhere he adds that, before making his choice, he “still had the doubt: “is it now the right thing to do?”” simon also reveals a guilty conscience toward his coach and teammates. to suffer from a bad conscience, simon describes, is mostly present at night while he is lying in his bed, and it is experienced as a “black hole” and embodied through a “pressuring feeling on the chest”. simon’s choice seems marked simultaneously by the distress accompanying the uncertainty of his choice as well as a sense of guilt toward the specific people affected by it. in addition, it appears that simon experiences fear of being polarized by his peers: “because i have quit playing at an elite level, they [his classmates] do not look down on me, but they might look at me as one, who is losing his grip”. thus, simon describes that while he is “feeling low”, he senses that his classmates are performing high and “rushing” away from him. in spite of these feelings, simon’s choice was not solely permeated by distress: j. meier: necessary suffering? investigating existential suffering in youth qualitative studies 6(1), pp. 116-141 ©2021 126 “me: what is it like afterwards to have made that choice? simon: it was so very liberating. i had just started high school, i had a girlfriend and so many things running around in my head, and i was used to training 6–7 times a week. so it felt like a liberation. me: a liberation? simon: yes, but it was also a little sad because i was happy about the sport. and yes, it was a loss”. simon oscillates between descriptions of liberation and loss when describing his choice. thus, he refers to his loss in the same moment that he describes his sense of liberation. maria: “i just couldn’t do both at once” maria, a 17-year-old second-year high school student, lives at home with both her parents and her two little brothers. from her everyday life, maria describes, among other things, “stressful periods” and “vicious circles” of self-blame. these experiences are also somehow closely connected to the context of choice. however, in a quite different way than in simon’s case above. a pervasive theme in maria’s experiences is her continuous weighing of priorities required of her in everyday life. a recurrent conflict of choice is that between friends and homework: “if one day you come home from school and have a lot of homework, but you also know that some from the class are going into town [to] eat somewhere in the evening. then you have to choose one or the other, because both can be quite important, and if you make the wrong decision and think “maybe i should have done that assignment instead” and then you have a bad conscience for not doing it well enough”. maria feels bad when she judges that she has made a wrong decision and finds that she ought to have prioritized differently. however, even when she agrees with her choices, she can still suffer from a guilty conscience. thus, a while ago, she chose to stay home from her grandfather’s birthday to prepare for a larger assignment: j. meier: necessary suffering? investigating existential suffering in youth qualitative studies 6(1), pp. 116-141 ©2021 127 “on one hand, i was relieved that i had begun the assignment and had a good conscience about it. . ., so the bad conscience was that, you know, that your grandparents may not be around forever, and that they are getting old and then you just choose to stay home instead of visiting them. [. . .] it wasn’t that i regretted staying at home, but it was more that, i regretted that, i did not attend [the birthday], but i just couldn’t do both at once”. maria expressed relief about her decision to stay home to begin her assignment. however, simultaneously, she experienced an unrest. she felt bad about letting down her grandparents, who will not be around forever. thus, her guilty conscience was not due to what she actually did, but to what she did not do. maria further explained how the absence of a deed could take presence as a nagging feeling: “it may well be that you have to make a choice between two things and you end up feeling guilt about whatever you choose not to. just knowing that there is something, you have not been able to do or someone you have not seen can give you the sense of guilt that you have not really done what you should, i think. and it’s a bit uncomfortable”. the sense of guilt maria described is defined by a not. thus, her choice is accompanied by the uncomfortable sense of guilt that there is something that she ought, but is “not able to do”. maria elaborates on how this can accelerate during, what she describes as “stressful periods”: “there are periods where you think that, then i did not manage to do this, and then i did not do that either. [. . .] in stressful periods, you think ok, i have to make all these things today and a lot of things tomorrow too, and then you do not make it, and then you can get a bad conscience about it. about not getting it done”. j. meier: necessary suffering? investigating existential suffering in youth qualitative studies 6(1), pp. 116-141 ©2021 128 maria describes how these periods affects her by making her more prone to blame herself: “you go and think too much about things you did not get done and... yes, then you might get into such a vicious circle and thoughts about yourself, and what you did not do, and what you did not attain”. maria experiences inadequacy about the things she feels obligated to do but at the same time finds herself unable to do. during “stressful periods” this can turn into a “vicious circle” circulating around what she did not do and attain. jonas: the brother’s knocking jonas, an 18-year-old second-year high school student, lives at home with his mother and occasionally with his much younger little brother, who by turns lives with his father and mother. jonas describes experiences of “not being good enough”, of “boiling over inside”, and being in “a negative fog”. his parents recently went through a divorce, and when i met jonas, this event strongly afflicted his everyday life. jonas experiences of bad conscience was closely related to the situation of his little brother, who he had special concerns for because of the divorce: “often, when i am at home with my mother, and the atmosphere becomes very poor, then i might feel such a bad conscience about that my brother has to be in that poor atmosphere.” despite jonas himself is affected by the situation he feels responsible for his brother. this was especially evident when jonas described his failure to take care of him: “jonas: often if i feel, i don’t have the energy to be with my little brother, if he wants to be with me, i might have such a bad conscience about not being good enough, or feel that i am not good enough. me: okay, can we try to go into an example? do you remember a day… jonas: sometimes it utterly boils over inside my head. my parents, they are suing… i don’t know if i said that before… but about where my little brother should live, and i think they are both pretty bad at being divorced, and that affects me. therefore, some days it just boils over inside me, and i cannot manage anything. then i just sit there eating, and then when i've eaten, i go up to my room, because i cannot stand j. meier: necessary suffering? investigating existential suffering in youth qualitative studies 6(1), pp. 116-141 ©2021 129 it anymore. then i just have to be alone. [. . .] then sometimes my little brother has knocked and it’s not as if i have told him that i don't feel like being with him. but sometimes i have told him that i would like to play cards with him afterwards or something like that and then it is. . . then i have fought with my mother and afterwards i have no energy to play cards or do anything with him. then i can feel that it is all chaos and unmanageable”. when it “boils over” inside jonas, and everything appears unmanageable, jonas feels no energy to be with his little brother, and he finds himself not being good enough. this is deepened when jonas fails to live up to his promise to his brother. he describes how the bad conscience accompanying such situations affects him and throw him into, what he later describes as a “negative fog”: “i can’t concentrate at all when i have a bad conscience, or when i’m in such a situation. it is completely impossible for me to sit and do homework. the only thing i can do is to sit and watch a movie or watch youtube and then it's youtube of poor quality, something that makes me not think about it. [. . .] then i can't see at all that it is actually going ok, or that something is going ok, then it just becomes such a negative fog you get into. [. . .] it is often in the evening that it boils over, and that the fog is present… it is provoked when i do not have much energy, and then it is difficult to fall asleep”. jonas experiences his bad conscience as a negative fog of thoughts about his inadequacies in relation to the demands of his life. to work through this fog of negativity, jonas has consulted a psychologist, and he described how it helped to lessen his sense of bad conscience: “jonas: i think that is one of the things i’ve indirectly benefitted from by going to a psychologist, putting myself a little more first and thinking “it’s okay, i’m just taking a break now, i need that”. j. meier: necessary suffering? investigating existential suffering in youth qualitative studies 6(1), pp. 116-141 ©2021 130 me: so . . . maybe there is not as much conscience there, bad conscience as there has been? jonas: no, i have learned to justify a little more that, i do not . . . justify my bad conscience and then not . . . then it is not as present anymore”. jonas describes that he has learned to put himself first and justify himself and his needs in ways that have lessened his guilty conscience toward his brother. however, later on, jonas tells about a recurring experience that complicates this picture: “the thing about me, that i have become more like cold about it and say that it is actually very fair, then i also sometimes have a little bad conscience about that . . . as if the bad conscience i originally had, it returns on the other side of the justification”. despite his justification of himself, jonas experiences a return of bad conscience “on the other side of the justification.” a troubled sense of conscience keeps coming back to him. when jonas’s little brother knocks on his door, jonas experiences an obligation to be with him, even though he does not always feel able to do so. jonas expressed being divided between himself and the needs of his brother, which he cannot always meet and yet find difficult to ignore. existential suffering after voicing the participants’ experiences ideographically, i now turn to demonstrate how their concrete (ontic) experiences relate to more fundamental (ontological) characteristics. based on central themes from the interviews, three existential sources of suffering are elucidated in the form (a) freedom, (b) finitude, and (c) the other. these notions are borrowed from søren kierkegaard, martin heidegger, and emanuel levinas respectively and are accounted for more thoroughly below. the aim is to illuminate how existential suffering is a normative implication of each of these sources. freedom and anxiety the inconvenience of choice is a vital theme in both simon’s and maria’s accounts. at first hand, simon seemed to experience his life as predetermined by the omnipresent expectations of his parents and peers. however, in the choice of quitting his sport, he experienced acting j. meier: necessary suffering? investigating existential suffering in youth qualitative studies 6(1), pp. 116-141 ©2021 131 against such expectations and faced a number of painful uncertainties. would he regret his decision? could his sense of loss over time grow greater than his feeling of liberation? how would his coach and teammates react to him? what about his parents at home and his peers at school? would they judge him? would they leave him behind? simon could not know the outcome of his choice in advance. from an existential perspective, the pain of choice discloses a more fundamental difficulty in relation to freedom. choice, thus, is intimately connected to the ontological fact that human beings exist as something that is not predetermined in advance (joseph et al., 2014; macquarie, 1972). the human self is not a fixed essence but free to relate to itself with an awareness of its freedom and possibilities. however, freedom comes with a price of distress. the normative implication of not having a fixed essence is anxiety. as søren kierkegaard’s (2014) famous determination goes, anxiety, as opposed to fear, does not refer to a definite object, because its object is nothing: “anxiety is freedom’s actuality as the possibility of possibility” (p. 51). thus, anxiety discloses that humans are beings faced with a freedom or indefiniteness that they cannot escape (grøn, 2008, p. 82). therefore, anxiety is “the dizziness of freedom” (kierkegaard, 2014, p. 75). simon’s “doubt” and “sweat on the forehead” might indicate his encounter with the indefiniteness of his situation.13 thus, simon’s sweat and doubt can be interpreted as expressions of existential anxiety that discloses his freedom to actually do other than what is expected of him. freedom thus makes the ontological precondition of his concrete choice. this precondition however is at the same time the ground of anxiety. finitude and existential guilt for maria, choice is also a key issue. however, her experiences do not seem to stem from the “dizziness of freedom” but, quite on the contrary, from its constraints. maria’s troubles of choosing thus disclose how freedom is actually very limited. more accurately, maria’s experience that she “couldn’t do both at once” as well as her “vicious circles” of inadequacy might be conceived of as examples of existential guilt. that is, her experience of “not being able” can be rendered as a derived ontic expression of the primordial being guilty (heidegger, 2010, p. 272). according to martin heidegger (2010), guilt pervades all choices because in choice we are faced with the inadequacy of our existence: “freedom is only in the choice of the one, that is, in bearing the fact of not having chosen and 13 that the object of anxiety is nothing does not mean that anxiety does not relate to a specific situation, but that the situation it relates to is characterized by an indefiniteness (grøn, 2008, s. 44). j. meier: necessary suffering? investigating existential suffering in youth qualitative studies 6(1), pp. 116-141 ©2021 132 not being able also to choose the others” (p. 273). choice implies abandoning all other possible possibilities and thus mean the finitude of possibilities (ceval, 2007). when maria, for instance, prioritizes staying at home to study, she makes herself the ground of a nothingness by virtue of all that she is simultaneously unable to realize. from an existential perspective thus, the source of maria’s inadequacy is not due to her personal incapacity but more fundamentally to the finitude of existence as such. this does not only regard the finitude of possibilities, but also a temporal finitude (carel, 2007). the temporal finitude might explain, why maria is more prone to experiencing “vicious circles” of inadequacy in “stressful periods” during which she feel obligated to “do all these things”. likewise, the temporal finitude seems to worsen her bad conscience toward her grandparents in that they “may not be around forever”. thus, every concrete choice to opt out is a consequence of the finitude of existence as such, which is the ultimate nothingness that structures existence (heidegger, 2010). possibilities and time continually cease to exist, and therefore, in a very literal sense, we are “continually dying” (marx, 1992, p. 48). existential guilt can be a source of suffering. nevertheless, it is also a necessary condition for anything to be realized and for life to take shape. this became particularly evident in the case of simon in which it was disclosed that his experience of liberation was dialectical dependent on his experience of loss. to feel liberation, simon simultaneously had to “loose the possibility of himself” as an elite soccer player. therefore, his choice was either pure loss or liberation, but permeated by ambivalence. the other and responsibility for all of the three participants, a significant theme concerns responsibility and a sense of guilt toward other people. this theme is not adequately accounted for through the phenomena of existential guilt and anxiety, which predominantly concern the students’ relationships with themselves, albeit tend to forget their relationships with the concrete other. simon feels guilt toward his coach and teammates, and maria’s bad conscience concerns her grandparents, who will not be around forever. jonas’s sense of responsibility and guilty conscience toward his little brother, however, appear even more dominating, which is why i focus on his experiences. several times while talking to jonas i thought that he was experiencing a bad conscience about something of which he is not responsible, namely the well-being of his little brother. if however we are respectful of jonas’s experiences, we may elucidate from them how his relationship to his little brother places his own autonomy into question and thereby discloses j. meier: necessary suffering? investigating existential suffering in youth qualitative studies 6(1), pp. 116-141 ©2021 133 a more fundamental notion of responsibility. such notion seems similar to the moral phenomenologist emanuel levinas’s (1969) account of, how the “face of the other” puts forward a demand that precedes our own freedom: “the will is free to assume this responsibility in whatever sense it likes; it is not free to refuse this responsibility itself; it is not free to ignore the meaningful world into which the face of the other has introduced it” (pp. 218–219). to be a self signifies not being able to escape the responsibility that the face of the other introduces. in this sense, responsibility is not something we choose for ourselves. instead, it is the unwilled and unchosen condition of our very being. when jonas’s brother knocks on his door, jonas senses a responsibility even though he is not responsible in any formal meaning of the term. in these situations, responsibility seem to emerge from the particular encounter, where jonas is subject to the unwilled address of his brother. this becomes particular evident when jonas experiences a return of bad conscience even though he has “justified himself”. this indicates that jonas is not himself in autonomous mastery over his sense of obligation to his brother. thus, his obligations can suddenly intrude into his life even against his will and justification. to levinas, such experiences embody that our relation to the other is actually primary to ourselves. it is the relation to the other that constitutes our being-in-the-world14 (levinas, 1981). as judith butler (2005) has expounded levinas’s account of subjectivity: “the ‘i’ first comes into being as a ‘me’ through being acted upon by an other, and this primary impingement is already and from the start an ethical interpellation” (p. 89). a self comes into being by the address of the other, which precedes any formation of the self.15 there is not first an autonomous self that secondarily chooses its obligations. instead the “ought” of the other constitutes who one “is”. the other makes a source of jonas’ suffering. he feels unable to fulfill the demand that the face of his little brother raises, and he blames himself for “not being good enough.” jonas’s experiences seem to disclose that he is bounded to obligations that precedes his own free choice and by which he inevitably suffers. 14 levinas criticized heidegger for neglegting “the other” in that he privileges ontology over ethics. the aim here is neither to discuss nor synthetize their theoretical positions, but to apply them to analyze central sources of existential suffering, which i do not consider mutually exclusive. 15 levinas (1984) substitutes the relationship between ethics and ontology. j. meier: necessary suffering? investigating existential suffering in youth qualitative studies 6(1), pp. 116-141 ©2021 134 through the analysis, i have suggested that the participants’ experiences can be regarded as normative implications of existence. however, the ontological and ontic level of existence is connected in complex and ambiguous ways, and one cannot draw a linear relation between them. it is therefore a vital methodological challenge to identify valid and trustworthy connections between these two levels of existence. the aim of the analysis has not been to capture all complexities but to make probable that there is a relation at all, and thereby why suffering clings to existence. i believe no methodological devotion (curt, 1994; janesick, 1994, p. 215) can decide whether this have succeeded or not. the best indication might be the degree of existential resonance experienced by the reader, or what max van manen (1990, p. 27) described as the evoking of a “phenomenological nod” of recognition. the normativity of suffering it might appear evident that simon, maria, and jonas struggle with and suffer from various matters in their everyday lives. more controversial it seems to suggest that such suffering should be regarded as an existential necessity. therefore, in this final section, i put forward two critical concerns. first, i point to the risk of naturalizing young people’s suffering by framing it as a necessity. that is, should we not always be against suffering? secondly, i respond to the problem of evaluating the experiences of one’s participants. what about the participants’ own voices? by framing suffering as a necessity, there is a risk of naturalizing what is not natural. thus, what if the young people’s distress is not primary one of existential necessity but rather of social pathology, which ought to be criticized and changed for the better? if we follow such thesis, we would interpret the participants’ experiences quite differently. the distress accompanied by simon’s choice, for instance, could be contextualized with regard to the “tyranny of choice” in late capitalism (salecl, 2011) or the pervasive obligation to act as an autonomous individual (rose, 1998, p. 100). likewise, maria’s nagging feeling of “not being able” might be understood as a symptom of the omnipresent cultural injunction to realize endless possibilities, which leaves people suffering from inadequacy (e.g., baumann, 2007; ehrenberg, 2016; petersen, 2016). and jonas’s troubled sense of responsibility toward his little brother could be conceived as related to the way contemporary individualism represses the importance of social bonds and render people nondependent and self-sufficient individuals (scheff, 1994, p. 15). i think, there is much importance in such culturally sensitive j. meier: necessary suffering? investigating existential suffering in youth qualitative studies 6(1), pp. 116-141 ©2021 135 interpretations of young people’s suffering. however, these interpretations do not contradict as much as complement the existential account given through this paper. for instance, the contemporary cultural demand of realizing endless possibilities becomes a source of suffering only because humans are beings of finitude who are not able to realize everything. in addition, a cultural-critical perspective toward young people’s suffering is also valuable to go beyond a solely diagnostic and pathological understanding of suffering. however, although there is a strong critical potential in viewing suffering as a matter of societal pathologies, i believe such a clear-cut perspective is itself in danger of reducing all kinds of experienced suffering to an evil that ought to be criticized and changed. charles taylor (1989) has described his reservation against what he termed the “cardinal mistake of believing that a good must be invalid if it leads to suffering or destruction” (p. 519). to incorporate the demand of a good in one’s life, taylor argues, can be “crushing” and “the source of much suffering” (p. 81). in ways not unlike to taylor’s view, i have aimed to disclose, that there is a suffering in youth, which seems closely related to emerging existential goods such as freedom, choice, and responsibility. second, we might ask if it is reasonable from a third-person perspective to evaluate other people’s suffering as a necessity. what about the participants’ own voices and accounts? thus, according to amedeo giorgi (2006, p. 14) psychological research should be able to encompass the values of the research participants but it should not itself value the participants’ experiences. from that perspective, the analysis in this paper might at first glance appear problematic. the aim, however, has not been to evaluate the particular experiences of the participants. rather, the purpose is to demonstrate how their concrete experiences relate to fundamental conditions of existence from which suffering necessary springs. whether or not the participants’ particular distress is one of necessity remains an open issue. more profoundly, i find the paper’s overall argument in a way consistent with the participants’ own evaluations: “maria: sometimes you may think that there was a reason to have a bad conscience about it, where other times it might be a little exaggerated, where it might not have meant anything anyway”. “jonas: i think i’m trying to sort out and think about whether it’s really worth having a bad conscience about”. j. meier: necessary suffering? investigating existential suffering in youth qualitative studies 6(1), pp. 116-141 ©2021 136 maria expresses how she tries to determine whether she has a reason to suffer from a bad conscience. similarly, jonas describes his attempt to decide whether something is worth having a bad conscience about. as formulated by iris marion young (1990, p. 5) “normative reflection arises from hearing a cry of suffering or distress, or feeling distress oneself”. maria’s and jonas’s normative reflections which arise from their experiences of bad conscience seem to suggest that there is distress in their lives that they themselves tend to affirm or approve of. based on their statements what appears to be key is, whether or not they find good or worthy reasons to suffer (from a bad conscience). maria’s and jonas’s concerns thereby embody what peter goldie (2004, p. 43) has named “reason-responsiveness”. that is, they do not relate indifferently but respond differently depending on the reasons related to their suffering. this, i think, corresponds to a commonsense experience for most people. simply put, people intuitively tend to distinguish between legitimate and illegitimate forms of suffering all depending on the reasons of their suffering16. of course, this is not a straightforward business to settle, and it might be one of the most demanding life tasks to determine what is worth suffering for. however, on a more general level, the phenomenon of approved suffering suggests that there is a normativity inherent to people’s experiences of suffering. human beings do not only strive to reduce pain and maximize pleasures, but live and suffer intentionally according to significant matters of their lives. accordingly, we ought to be much more attentive to different kinds of suffering, as well as the normativity of people’s suffering. it requires varied accounts and discourses of suffering that enable us to criticize social-induced suffering, treat pathological suffering as well as encompass the suffering that inevitably clings to existential conditions and goods. 16 for instance, people in grief tend to turn down a hypothetical pill that could make their suffering go away (kofod, 2016, p. 236). j. meier: necessary suffering? 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(1989). sources of the self: the making of the modern identity. harvard university press. taylor, c. (1992). the ethics of authenticity. harvard university press. thomsen, s.u. (2011) shaken mirror: poems. gyldendal. j. meier: necessary suffering? investigating existential suffering in youth qualitative studies 6(1), pp. 116-141 ©2021 141 twenge, j. m., cooper, a. b., joiner, t. e., duffy, m. e., & binau, s. g. (2019). age, period, and cohort trends in mood disorder indicators and suicide-related outcomes in a nationally representative dataset, 2005–2017. journal of abnormal psychology, 128(3), 185. van den berg, j. h. (1972). a different existence: principles of phenomenological psychopathology. van deurzen, e., längle, a., schneider, k. j., tantam, d., & du plock, s. (2019). the wiley world handbook of existential therapy. e. craig (ed.). wiley blackwell. van manen, m. (1990). researching lived experience: human science for an action sensitive pedagogy. althouse press, ontario. van manen, m. (2017). phenomenology in its original sense. qualitative health research, 27(6), 810-825. welz, c. (2008). keeping the secret of subjectivity: kierkegaard and levinas on conscience, love and the limits of self-understanding in despite oneself: subjectivity and its secret in kierkegaard and levinas. welz, c., & verstrynge, k. (ed.). turnshare ltd.publisher. young, i. m. (1990) justice and the politics of difference. princeton: princeton university press. žižek, s. (2001). the fragile absolute: or, why is the christian legacy worth fighting for?. verso. about the author joachim meier is a ph.d.-student at aarhus university, department of psychology. his research project focuses on young people’s experiences of bad conscience in order to understand the existential concerns and normative order of their lives. he has broad theoretical interests in existential philosophy and psychology, the study of subjectivity, and morality. vol. 5, no. 2, 2018, pp. 110–124 issn 1903-7031 assembling advice: ethnographic explorations of the changing relationship between voluntary advice services and the welfare state morag mcdermont1, samuel kirwan2 1university of bristol, university of bristol law school, office #1.03, 8–10 berkeley square, bristol bs8 1hh: united kingdom 2university of bristol, the school for policy studies, 8 priory road, bristol bs8 1tz: united kingdom (1morag.mcdermont@bristol.ac.uk 2samuel.kirwan@bristol.ac.uk) • voluntary sector advice agencies play, for many citizens in the uk, a key role in accessing and understanding public services.as such, whilst fiercely ‘independent’, their relationship to the welfare state is a complex and conflicted one. presenting data from participant observation, interviews and focus groups with advisers and managers within the citizens advice service, this paper explores this relationship by focusing on two particular areas of the service; the delivery of the service by volunteers, and the different funding streams that enable service to function. the paper draws upon assemblage theory, focusing as it does upon elements of an organisation in their ongoing practices and relationships; a processual approach that allows us to reflect upon the broader implications of our ethnographic data. whilst this approach was motivated by our interest in how the citizens advice service endures, we conclude by reflecting upon the ‘fragile futures’ of advice in the context of aggressive budget cuts and the welfare reform agenda. keywords: advice agencies; assemblages; regulation; legal actors; voluntary sector; volunteers. • introduction few periods in the history of the uk welfare state have seen such rapid change as the first years of the ‘coalition’ government in the uk, roughly those between 2010 and 2013. introduced under the banner of ‘austerity’, these changes were, among others: the introduction of a more punitive welfare benefits system (universal credit) alongside a general ‘freeze’ on benefit entitlements, the (near) abolition of civil legal aid (which had enabled citizens to challenge administrative decision-making, see hynes, 2013), and far reaching cuts to the funding of local government1, leading to drastic cuts in public services at the local level. at the time of writing, in the spring of 2018, the catastrophic effects of these changes are becoming starkly apparent: spiralling homelessness (shelter, 2017), a household debt crisis (stepchange, 2017) and stark warnings of endemic child malnutrition in impoverished areas (food foundation, 2017). in such circumstances, voluntary sector advice agencies have become, for many in the uk, a vital safety net as they seek to manage the effects of these changes. they can enable access to benefits and services in a climate in which administrating agencies are guided primarily by punitive aims (wacquant, 2009) – that is, to deny, rather than facilitate, access to financial or other supports. in these difficult times, legal protections become increasingly important; advice agencies can provide advice to citizens on the legal sphere regardless of their financial resources. the line dividing advice agencies from the welfare state, in its traditional interpretation as a set of institutions mitigating the effects of market forces (fraser, 1973:1), is increasingly blurred. it was in this time of political and social turmoil that we conducted a programme of research investigating advice services, with a particular focus upon the largest advice provider in the uk, the citizens advice service.2 the 110 mailto:morag.mcdermont@bristol.ac.uk mailto:samuel.kirwan@bristol.ac.uk m. mcdermont and s. kirwan: ethnographic explorations of the changing relationship between voluntary advi… qualitative studies 5(2), pp. 110–124 ©2018 111 local citizens advice office or ‘bureau’3 is, for many, the only lifeline in dealing with multiple everyday problems and crises – from losing a job, mounting debts, threats of eviction or the demands of caring for elderly relatives or sick children. staffed primarily by volunteers, bureaux have been faced with a surplus in demand spurred by the above described ‘austerity’ measures (clarke, et al., 2015), coupled to increasingly insecure and precarious employment contracts, labour conditions and punitive immigration policies. the crisis for advice services comes from two directions: ever-more complex client problems requiring more intense and specialist support, and a resourcing crisis, as local authorities, who previously provided most funding for most bureaux, make ever-deeper budget cuts. in this paper we draw upon field notes from samuel kirwan’s participant observation as an adviser in a citizens advice bureau, as well as interviews with advisers and managers within the citizens advice service, to describe how the service has dealt with, and been transformed by, these challenges. in doing so we aim to go beyond thinking which addresses such services solely in terms of their ‘front-line’ work. here, we build upon our collective experience in working in, and researching, the voluntary and public sectors, to explore the ways in which the possibilities and limits of action rests not only upon the practice of advice, but also upon the variety of financial and regulatory pressures which shape how institutions deliver services to multiple publics. over the course of our research, as we took part in and explored advice practice, interviewed managers on funding arrangements, regulatory mechanisms, and their organising of a voluntary workforce, we were intrigued by how an organisation composed of such heterogenous elements nevertheless cohered, holding together to provide ‘advice solutions’ in deeply challenging circumstances. it was through trying to understand this coherence that we came to work with assemblagethinking as an analytical tool. this paper as such seeks to understand the changing role of advice work through the lens of the ‘advice assemblage’, using the framework of assemblage theory to understand how such organisations4 can survive and continue to meet the needs of citizens as we enter a period of further cuts and hardship. as we describe, the ‘advice assemblage’ is composed of multiple components at different temporal and geographic scales (see also jones, 2010). rather than propose an exhaustive mapping of this assemblage however, we focus on two such components that are key, we argue, to understanding the changing relationship of the advice sector to the welfare state. these are: the voluntary workforce that provides frontline advice, and the funding arrangements that enable the delivery of advice. in section 2 we first set out the research methods used to collect the data for this paper, then provide in section 3 some background to the citizens advice service, describing its positioning in the voluntary sector in the uk and with respect to the welfare state. section 4 sets out five key elements of assemblage thinking which we believe provide insights into understanding advice services. in section 5 we draw upon our ethnographic data to explore how the voluntary workforce and funding arrangements within the advice assemblage, create, maintain, and potentially destabilise, the advice assemblage. we conclude, in section 6, with our concerns for the ‘fragile futures’ of advice. research methods this paper draws upon research carried out between 2012 and 2016 as part of the ‘new sites of legal consciousness: a case study of uk advice agencies’ programme.5 the paper presents a combination of ethnographic and interview material: participant observation from a citizens advice bureau, audio diaries recorded by trainees on the advice training programme; and 32 interviews and three focus groups with advisers. the paper draws also upon interviews with managers and directors/ceos of 12 local citizens advice offices, along with three focus groups with cab managers, all carried out between 2012 and 2015 in local advice offices across the nation regions of the (not-so) united kingdom.6 while the interviews with advisers were strongly structured, addressing issues of advice practice and its relationship to law, the in112 m. mcdermont and s. kirwan: ethnographic explorations of the changing relationship between voluntary advi… qualitative studies 5(2), pp. 110–124 ©2018 terviews with the directors/ceos were semistructured, designed to develop an understanding of: the practices of the local advice offices in relation to developing resources; the relationships maintained at a local level; and the influences (internal and external) these managers perceived to be impacting on their work.7 we analysed the data collectively, identifying emerging themes, discourses and imaginings that occurred across interviews and contexts, through which we sorted and organised the data set. the combination of methods used in the project was designed to blur the boundary between insider and outsider perspectives. while we remain researchers fascinated by the role and ongoing functioning of the citizens advice service, our use of participant observation, and incorporation of author 2’s developing consciousness as an adviser in analysing and sorting the data, allows for an immanent account of this key ‘public’ service. indeed, it was an approach that allowed for an attention to the embodied, technical and procedural elements, and their role in holding this service together, that forms the basis of this paper. citizens advice: some background citizens advice bureaux have existed in the uk since 1939, set up to meet the needs of citizens dislocated by wartime turmoil (citron 1989). each local citizens advice bureau is an independent charity run by a local board of trustees, a director or chief executive officer, paid staff and volunteers. they have become part of the fabric of local life, with municipal signage providing direction to the nearest office. indeed, many people think that citizens advice is part of local government, as one adviser explains: there’s…well there’s a number that seem to think we are…the fact that we are volunteer-based and a charity is missed. a lot of people seem to think we are an office of the jobcentre. (allanah, generalist adviser in a semi-urban bureau) the strength at the local level derives in part from being placed in a national network. each local office is a member of the national umbrella organisation: citizens advice (cita) is the national organisation for england, wales and the north of ireland,8 citizens advice scotland (cas) for scottish bureaux. the national organisations provide support and resources through, for example: training programmes for volunteers; a database system that records details of all clients who access citizens advice and what action was taken; periodic audit to set and maintain standards; and social policy work that translates the everyday advice problems dealt with at a local level into proposal for social policy change (mcdermont, 2013). membership of the national organisation places certain requirements on local offices, such as operating the database system and submitting to periodic audit. due to the specific development of the citizens advice service alongside the uk postwar welfare state, there are no real functional equivalents in other european settings. in the european states we have surveyed an individual seeking, for example, benefits or employment advice would go to separate state agencies or charities for each of these areas. services providing more ‘generalist’ advice, such as awo and diakonie in germany, typically provide help only to their own members. furthermore, it is the model of this advice being provided on a voluntary basis that makes citizens advice so unusual. citizens advice, like other key actors in the voluntary sector provision of public services, has undergone immense changes over the decades. just as the politics and practices of the 1980s and 90s produced a shift in the state from ‘a regime dominated by bureauprofessionalism to one dominated by managerialism’ (clarke & newman, 1997, 140), so the voluntary sector also underwent transformation. since the 1980s successive governments have sought to use voluntary sector organisations as alternative providers of public services: in the 1980s and 90s conservative governments used the tool of contracting-out, leading to unease and concern about the ‘independence’ of voluntary organisations (lewis 2005, 121). in the first decade of the twentieth century, new labour, in part responding to these concerns, attempted to reshape relations between state sector and voluntary sector organisations through the ‘compact’ (see e.g. morrison 2000). m. mcdermont and s. kirwan: ethnographic explorations of the changing relationship between voluntary advi… qualitative studies 5(2), pp. 110–124 ©2018 113 our interviews with managers of local citizens advice bureaux would suggest they may not have experienced these shifts in the earlier periods to quite the same intensity as others in the voluntary sector. for citizens advice offices there appears to have been a degree of insulation from the managerialism of the 90s perhaps resulting from a number of vectors: their relations with local government which saw them funded through grants which provided a contribution to the running of the organisation rather than requirements for the provision of specific services under contract; their use of volunteers as ‘labour’ in delivering advice; and the tying in of the local cab with the national organisation through the brand which had long been understood as a source of advice, and a guarantee of quality. we speculate that the fourth vector insulating advice services from the pressures of state managerialism was the nature of the service cab provided: the state in the uk has never sought to provide a generalist advice service and so had less knowledge or inclination to prescribe and regulate what the voluntary sector did. however, in the period of our research the political landscape has been dominated by the politics and policies of ‘austerity’; severe reductions in public spending, particularly affecting legal aid, welfare and housing benefits and local government funding, have had profound implications for citizens advice which has seen a dramatic rise in demand for advice alongside cuts and reshaping of funding (see mcdermont, 2017). amidst these changes, the citizens advice bureau, as both a local office providing advice and information on the broad range of issues that comprise citizen-state relationship, and a complex organism composed of a variety of elements working at different scales (also see jones 2010), has remained broadly unchanged. our fieldwork with those who worked at the local level shone a light on how, in the ongoing practices of advice bureaux, particular practices, ideas and relationships held the disparate elements of the organisation together. seeking to combine our ethnographic and interview work with advisers with these observations on the changing ‘complexity’ of the service led us to the theoretical tools offered by assemblage theory. theoretical tools: on assemblage thinking it was less the external view of the advice organisation, that is, its shape and form as viewed from outside its walls, than samuel’s specific experience of training and advising and the emphasis in his diaries on the technical and procedural concerns, that led us initially to assemblage thinking. it was clear from all our fieldwork that those ‘technical’ elements that came up in our discussions and focus groups – practices of audit, the terms of funding contracts, volunteer training delivery – could not be treated as neutral. audit and auditors do not simply count and measure things; in requiring information about certain things and practices and for its presentation in prescribed formats, the process of audit changes organisations as they seek to conform and demonstrate excellence (e.g. power 1997). similarly, funders, (public, private and charitable) shape both organisational values and practices (e.g. mcdermont, 2010 on housing associations). so, in seeking to understand local citizens advice, we started out with the assumption that the various elements that go to make up advice agencies would both constrain what it was possible for advice agencies to do, and would also produce values, actions and practices. as hacking (1986, 223) notes, “counting is no mere report of developments. it elaborately, even philanthropically, creates new ways for people to be”. in considering the productive role of those fragments of the advice mosaic – the funding streams, volunteers, support systems, physical buildings, knowledges, technical procedures, and so on – and how they are intertwined with each other in the everyday practice of delivering advice, we began to think in terms of an advice assemblage. the concept of ‘assemblage’ emerged from the work of deleuze and guattari (1988), an assemblage being the dynamic functioning of heterogeneous elements as a seemingly stable whole. ‘assemblage thinking’ (li 2007) has been taken up by a range of scholars across the disciplines in recent years (see in particular delanda 2002, 2006) who seek to understand how heterogenous elements come to have an appearance – and reality – of coherence and 114 m. mcdermont and s. kirwan: ethnographic explorations of the changing relationship between voluntary advi… qualitative studies 5(2), pp. 110–124 ©2018 consistency (deleuze 2006). we would emphasise five key elements to assemblage thinking that have informed and inspired our interpretation and analysis of our research data. first, the term assemblage can be used as both noun – the cab as an assemblage – and verb – the acts or processes of assembling. as verb it focuses attention on the work or labour involved in constructing the assemblage: ‘the idea that the institutionalisation of specific projects involves work of assembling diverse elements into an apparently coherent form’ (newman & clarke, 2009, 9). second, in paying attention to the components of assemblage we must also consider the ways in which these components interact: how the relationships between components, and between components and the whole, produce regulatory effects, shaping and reshaping the conditions, possibilities and problems of the assemblage; a focus on “not just how agency produces resultant forms, but on how the agency of both the assemblage and its parts can transform both the parts and the whole” (anderson, et al., 2012,186). third, time and place matter. an assemblage involves processes of transformation and movement, requiring us to understand the components not just for what they are now and how they relate to each other now; we must also pay attention to their historical relations (e.g. randalls 2017). even as assemblages are constructed or re-constructed, some elements continue to have historic associations that may be either productive for the new configuration – or may be disruptive or difficult to integrate. fourth, in working to create an assemblage, actors are making claims on/for a territory (anderson and mcfarlane 2011, 126). here territory can refer to a geographical space or to a field of social practice where the assemblage claims ‘this is our business’. this ‘claiming’ becomes closely linked with assemblage as ethos or a particular orientation to the world. fifth, the assemblage (as opposed to its often-close relation ‘network’) carries with it the idea of movement rather than fixity, of fragility and instability as well as strength and stability (clarke, et al., 2015, 51). an assemblage might be like a lego construction, where one piece is adjoined to its neighbours by a specific fixing device; but equally, we could be looking at an assemblage where each new connection has to be thought about, invented and made stable – and might perhaps be destabilised by the adjoining of the next piece. an advice service as an assemblage: the data examining a local citizens advice office as an assemblage encourages us to look not only at the elements that go into making up the local office – the volunteers, spaces, managerial and administrative staff, and so on but at the processes which bring these heterogeneous elements together in a particular time and place. we describe two key components in a voluntary advice service, namely the volunteers and funding streams, not simply in terms of their characteristics – who volunteers are, how much a funding contract is worth – but in terms of how they form part of the ongoing functioning of the advice assemblage. in this section we present the data gathered through the new sites of legal consciousness programme. we start from the frontline volunteers who carry out much of advice delivery, addressing how managerial and audit structures shape this work, progressing to the funding streams that in turn both enable and shape the delivery of advice. we focus on these two areas for a specific reason: volunteers and money are often considered the two key ‘resources’ that keep the voluntary advice sector running. yet the concept of ‘resource’ implies neutrality; something that can be inserted and removed from an organisation at will. we emphasise how these components occupy a specific place, shaped over time and in relation to other components, within the advice assemblage, and how changing dynamics in these two areas bring to light the changing role played by the advice sector. the use of volunteers emphasising volunteer workers as a ‘component’ in the advice assemblage implies change in thinking: the volunteer workforce cannot be considered in isolation, but rather through its interactions and connections with other components as these have been shaped over time. thus we discuss here the changing relationship m. mcdermont and s. kirwan: ethnographic explorations of the changing relationship between voluntary advi… qualitative studies 5(2), pp. 110–124 ©2018 115 between voluntary and paid labour, how the voluntary provision of advice is ‘held in place’ by systems of management and audit, and finally, emphasising the fragility of this component, its changing relationship to various aspects of the welfare state. citizens advice at the local level relies heavily on the body of volunteers who make up the majority of the front-line advisers. indeed, the principle of voluntary (or peer-to-peer) provision of advice is extremely important to the identity of the service, and its claiming of territory with regard other ‘public’ services. with a few exceptions, volunteer advisers do not have formal legal training. citizens advice invests considerable time and personnel in making volunteers into experts who can deal with the wide range of problems that clients bring to the advice office, most of which have a legal element. before taking on casework ‘solo’, volunteers go through a six-month period of extensive training followed by a period of observation by experienced advisers. volunteer advisers are generally (though not always) carrying out ‘generalist’ work and are supported by salaried, specialist advisers who can take on complex casework and consult ‘generalists’ on specific issues, and by ‘duty managers’ and other managerial staff who oversee the general management of cases. as noted above, the voluntary delivery of advice was a key element of the identity of the citizens advice service as it was initially conceived. the distinctions between ‘voluntary’, specialist and managerial labour were the product of the professionalisation of the service in the 1970s and ‘80s (citron, 1989), moves that were strongly resisted by those who strongly adhered to the classical model of voluntary, peer-to-peer support. during our research it was clear that funding cuts were shifting the dynamic interplay of these components. one cab had employed a solicitor, suzanne, funded by legal aid for employment work. following cuts to legal aid they were forced to realign her role towards training and supporting volunteers to deliver employment advice. however, she identified difficulties with asking volunteers to fill the gap: i had a look at the audits, and they want a lot from these volunteers, and a lot of them i think just don’t have the capability, even in these one-off appointments, and it doesn’t necessarily look at what resources you’ve got to take things forward. in a sense it just assumes you’ve got resources to then do further work for them, and in our bureau we don’t necessarily have that. there’s been cuts all around. (suzanne; specialist adviser, urban cab) suzanne emphasises here how voluntary labour is impossible without the other components – the specialist and managerial labour and financial support that enable them. yet it highlights also that, whilst volunteers create possibilities, they come with a range of complexities. volunteers give their services voluntarily, not through any form of contract of employment. if there is a ‘contract’ it is a seemingly fragile one, based as it is upon the volunteers’ motivations for wanting to do the work. managing a volunteer workforce through externally imposed targets is a risky business. similarly, a change in the volunteer role, or in the demands placed upon them, or the way the cab is run, may not fit with the ways in which volunteers understand and make sense of their work. volunteers can face difficulties and anxieties regarding their role: i worried about the possibility of having missed something or done something wrong. the greatest shock for me in the transition from the training has been the level of support provided – the extent to which this very much depends on who is duty manager at that time. i felt on this occasion that i was very much on my own. another trainee had mentioned to me that they dreaded opening the notes book in the morning as it is here that the person checking over your case would leave their comments. (author field notes) what managers and advisers also emphasised was the importance of emotional support given the intense pressures of advising: as one trainer stated, “i think the pressure on advisers now is huge huge. … i feel that they’re under 116 m. mcdermont and s. kirwan: ethnographic explorations of the changing relationship between voluntary advi… qualitative studies 5(2), pp. 110–124 ©2018 a lot of pressures, a lot of work, there’s a lot of expectation.” (romilly, trainer in a semi-urban bureau). indeed, the process of advice giving was described as deeply distressing for advisers, as my own field notes frequently noted: the client has stayed with me, and indeed i can’t imagine going on advising. i have a week’s break now. both the manager, who i like a lot, and the benefits specialist, who had in effect told me to be more heartless with the client, i.e. don’t give false expectations, were sympathetic afterwards, which helped a lot. the client broke down several times into uncontrolled tears and took an antidepressant half way through. the implication from the benefits specialist was that the client had been through all of this before with other advisers, that there was an element of manipulation and that it wasn’t fair on me. i don’t think this is entirely true, the client was in a genuinely impossible situation, one precipitated by factors largely outside of their control. i repeatedly realised that i didn’t have the appropriate responses. (author field notes) as a result, volunteers may choose to withdraw their ‘labour’, or simply just not follow directions. as such, performance management, and quality monitoring, of a volunteer workforce is a particularly difficult task (paton 2003). in citizens advice, each bureau has its own management process where duty managers check and survey the work of advisers, with ‘behind the scenes’ or ‘upstairs’ support and management from admin and managerial staff. key to how the advice assemblage coheres, are the means through which the practice of volunteers is monitored and shaped by the auditing process. indeed, assuring a quality service is key to citizens advice claiming and maintaining their territory. during our research citizens advice was in a period of change, introducing new centralised databases which recorded all client interactions and enabled more efficient and comprehensive case management. crucially, these new databases enabled new forms of auditing. all those we spoke to were positive about new regimes and possibilities afforded by centralised case management systems, of maintaining control over cases and demonstrating the quality and value of the work, in the context of voluntary and as such non-specialist delivery of advice. yet new auditing measures had particular effects upon how cases were carried out, as one manager explains: my own viewpoint is it’s business as usual, there should be nothing an audit should find that you don’t know already and i have done auditing work in the past myself and it’s…you want to see it, whatever you’re auditing for whatever reason, you want to see them as they are and not have someone kind of false presentation of how they think they should be and i know that i probably do a bit myself, everybody rushes round trying to get ready for an audit and make sure that everything’s tidy and neat and everything’s where it should be and all the ‘i’s are dotted and the ‘t’s are crossed and everything’s fine. but you should be doing that on a daily basis, that should be normal life, we’ve got a standard to follow and we should be following that all the time. so that’s my viewpoint on it it doesn’t always work but that’s what you try to achieve. (stuart, manager in a rural bureau) the voluntary provision of advice is perhaps the most important component of the citizens advice service. how this voluntary practice continues to function, as it does up and down the country in a variety of different spaces and different atmospheres, is only understandable in relation to the knowledge developed and maintained through training practices, the emotional and technical support of managerial staff, as well as the practices of self-monitoring established by processes of audit. yet perhaps most importantly, what explains the endurance of this voluntary practice are the moral commitments of the volunteers. key to understanding this commitment is the relationship of this component to an external factor, namely the welfare state. m. mcdermont and s. kirwan: ethnographic explorations of the changing relationship between voluntary advi… qualitative studies 5(2), pp. 110–124 ©2018 117 why advisers continue to give their time and energy is tied to the experience of assisting people in difficult situations. yet what is clear from our ethnographic work is that this attachment to advice clients is tempered by the feeling that advisers are doing work that should be carried out by welfare services, and secondly, that many solutions to life problems are no longer available. the attachment to the client, based on the possibility of improving their situation, is rapidly shifting in the context of the political changes described above. the fragility of this attachment, and as such of the voluntary labour component, poses significant problems for the service. while the ‘quality’ of the work is ensured by managerial processes and audit, the attachment of advisers to their clients and process of advising appears much more uncertain in the context of broader changes to the advice climate. as clients become more desperate and their problems more intractable, advisers increasingly voiced despair and hopelessness regarding the impact of their work, naming the significant areas in which they were not able to help and the feeling that they were filling in for services that were statutory duties of the state. over time, the advice assemblage, itself developed in connection with the welfare state, has become a component of that welfare state; playing a key role in enabling individuals to access services and social protections. yet the specific ways in which the central component within the advice assemblage – its volunteers – relate to the welfare state under conditions of austerity is rendering the assemblage distinctly fragile. the difficulty of maintaining the attachment of volunteer advisers to advice practice is placing the assemblage as a whole, or moreover the everyday ways in which the service is assembled, in distinct danger. on funding, funders and regulatory effects funding of public services is, of course, a key consideration in the united kingdom in the context of widespread programme of funding cuts. most important for our purposes are the swingeing cuts enacted by central government to local government funding, which has forced local authorities to re-consider their funding of advice agencies. however, while there has been considerable focus upon cuts to budgets, less well addressed is how the nature of funding affects the services delivered. in this section we explore how changes to the ways cab are funded have fundamentally altered the nature of the advice assemblage. historically, citizens advice offices have relied almost totally on funding from local government. this situation is now dramatically changed with each local office drawing on funding from a wide range of sources, as this manager explains: our income this year is around £260,000. around £40,000 of that is from the district council and another £45,000 from the county council. so £85,000 from local authorities, direct, it was in the form of a grant, we’re not working under any contracts, they are both service level agreements at the moment, although we are looking to be going to a commissioning process with one of them next financial year. we also have a contract which originally was with the primary care trust .. at the moment that funding sits within the public health body of the county council .. to deliver welfare benefits advice .. around £45,000 a year. that’s only confirmed until march after which we are advised .. we will have to commission and we already know that there is some competition out there for that so that’s a little unsure – and that’s for specialist welfare benefits. we have a contract with the money advice service .. to deliver debt casework and that is probably at the moment our most secure funding because we have .. we’ve got three years more .. that’s it as far as our major funding. the rest of it comes from small pots of services. we deliver two outreach services, one for sure start children services – so again, through the local authority but specifically sits with children’s services. and we deliver general advice at outreach in four of the children’s centres across the district. that’s just £15,000 to do that. and i’ve 118 m. mcdermont and s. kirwan: ethnographic explorations of the changing relationship between voluntary advi… qualitative studies 5(2), pp. 110–124 ©2018 recently secured some money from the raf benevolent fund, to do outreach at three of the raf bases in the district. the rest of the money comes through donations from parish councils, town council, our own fundraising efforts and then mainly applying for small grants. (jill, manager, semi-urban cab) jill’s experience, managing an advice office located in a town also serving the surrounding rural area, is typical of those we interviewed, most particularly in the english cab. we can see that a cab’s budget can look like a mosaic, made up from a diverse range of funding sources: statutory, charitable and business. for rhea, who manages a large city-based office with an annual income of £650k, of which only 29% came from the local authority, such diversity was a deliberate strategic choice: it’s a diverse funding base and we have a principle of trying to retain as diverse a funding base as we can. survival seems to depend on that these days. we have what we glibly call core funding from [local city council] [rhea, manager in an urban bureau]. so whilst local authority funding is now a much lesser component than it had been in the past, it is nevertheless seen as vital ‘core funding’. these local authority grants were generally not directed towards delivering specific forms of advice or to specific categories of people (except certain restrictions about the extent to which out-of-area residents could be helped). rather this la funding supported general management and building costs, and enabled the provision of a generalist advice service which is so key to the citizens advice principle of providing a holistic approach to advice need. it also enabled local advice offices to meet advice needs that it was difficult to obtain specific funding for: at least one cab in our study provided specialist advice in employment through the local authority core funding. it was not just the quantity but the form that funding took that was key. jill, rhea and others emphasised the importance of the local authority funding being a grant and not a contract, a distinction that is recognised as key in the voluntary sector literature: [a] grant could ideally be defined as an arrangement which is a general contribution to an organisation, and is not intended to support an identified output of an organisation, .. by contrast, a contract is an arrangement which is made for the production/delivery of a specified output, with the magnitude of the payment determined by an agreed price to the client of this output. (osborne and waterston, 1994, 294) whilst grant funding has been the traditional form in which local government provided support to the voluntary sector, jill’s quote demonstrates how councils now look for mechanisms that enable specification of targets against which performance can be evaluated. the contract is the mechanism through which the logic of markets and the business model can be streamed into the voluntary sector. contracts bring with them a range of regulatory mechanisms that reshape the work of advice. in particular, local authorities were shifting from ‘open’ grant funding to contracts that tightly specify the service to be provided, whilst bureaux, seeing other funding restricted, had become increasingly reliant, as jill notes, upon the contract with the money advice service to provide debt advice. in this light, we approach each contract as a component in the advice assemblage; shaping it, maintaining it, and potentially destabilising it. legal aid funding civil legal aid, introduced in england and wales in the mid-twentieth century, was once considered one of the “great pillars of the post-war welfare state” (lord beeching quoted in moore and newbury (2017): 17). legal aid cuts, enacted through the legal aid, sentencing and punishment of offenders act 2012, had a dramatic impact on those who had become reliant on legal aid funding to provide services (particularly law centres, see mayo, et al., 2015). a few local citizens advice offices in our study had funded some work through legal aid. as these funding streams had ended prior to the time of m. mcdermont and s. kirwan: ethnographic explorations of the changing relationship between voluntary advi… qualitative studies 5(2), pp. 110–124 ©2018 119 our interviews, our participants’ reflections related to the impact of these cuts and their implications for the advice work at the local level. legal aid funding was tied into a contract model; it required cab to meet particular client needs for advice. one urban cab had received legal aid funding for debt, welfare benefits and employment advice which enabled advisers to represent clients at benefits appeals tribunals. loosing legal aid funding meant clients having to do more themselves: [we] used to have specialist benefits work where we could prepare and represent at appeals – that’s gone because that was funded by legal aid. (miriam: specialist adviser in an urban cab) however, whilst legal aid enabled the provision of particular types of advice, the contract imposed limitations on the possible practices of advice. local authority funding had allowed advisers to make decisions about client’s support needs that a target-driven contract pulled them away from. monitoring and performance targets placed severe burdens on advice offices to the extent that exiting from legal aid contracts was taken as a positive decision: when i was a money adviser, we were funded by the local authority. there wasn’t any legal service funding. we were just given the grant to have money advice and there were no targets, there were no times set, there were no … we were just completely client driven. (grace, focus group, urban cab) as jill notes, having ended legal aid funding on their own terms, the bureau did not have to deal with the consequences of their sudden removal: we got out of legal aid contracts before they changed because we had a situation where it became apparent that the contracts financially were not giving us anything. we were subsidising them with volunteers and paid staff. and we were fortunate enough to secure alternative funding to deliver the benefits advice that we were delivering under the legal aid contract … it was the best thing we ever did because we weren’t involved in … losing the majority of income that a lot of the cabs have just gone through. (jill, manager, semi-urban cab) legal aid cuts were only one aspect of the increasing pressure on cab resources in the first two decades of the twenty first century. pressure on local authority budgets arising from the politics and policies of austerity of the tory/liberal democrat coalition of 2010, was passed on in cuts to voluntary sector funding and a shift towards more tightly specified contracting, leading local advice offices to seek funding from a multiplicity of resources described in the opening to this section. the funding mosaic: entrepreneurialism and independence from being principally funded by local government, most citizens advice office budgets are now a mosaic of statutory, charitable and business funding. as those organisations who had become heavily reliant on legal aid had experienced, over-reliance on one source could have disastrous implications, diversity had become a virtue. in addition to the major funding from local authorities and the money advice service, some of the funding sources named in interviews were: macmillan, to deliver advice to cancer patients and their families; royal british legion, for advice to ex-servicemen and their families; local water boards, to help with the large numbers of clients with water debts; electricity companies, for debt advice but also to assist with energy use; and the national lottery, for a range of specific tasks including advice service transition funding which was meant to help the advice sector cover the gaps left by legal aid funding. as we saw above, funding acts as an enabler, providing resources to employ staff or train volunteers to deliver advice services. however, funding also regulates the organisation: funding sources that are targeted towards specific actions or goals or population groups can enable advice to be delivered in new ways or to a previously neglected client group, but at the same time require the organisation to direct resources to these tasks. in the process, the holistic approach to advice is challenged by the 120 m. mcdermont and s. kirwan: ethnographic explorations of the changing relationship between voluntary advi… qualitative studies 5(2), pp. 110–124 ©2018 need to gain funding which only comes tied to specifically identified needs. many funding opportunities are ‘project’ based rather than ‘general’; that is, they concern the delivery of a specific advice service to a pre-defined group. there was a certain amount of cynicism amongst interviewees about project-based funding: what you can get funding for is ‘dictated with what’s going on at a national level’ [eddie: focus group in an urban cab]; and, whilst you can get funding for a specific project it then becomes ‘yesterday’s issue’ [marilyn: generalist adviser in an urban cab]. identifying and successfully bidding for project-focused funding required particular skills and expertise in managers: [o]ur manager … he’s very, very good at getting funding for specific areas and advice which is why we have a housing advisor, why we have an armed forces serving veterans advisor, why we have a prison’s advisor, why we have an employment advisor, why we have a patient…and nhs complaints advisor. all of those people are on specific pots of funding for specific projects. (marilyn: generalist adviser in an urban cab) the changing nature of the funding component in the advice assemblage is not only reshaping what cab are able to do, it is also altering the skills required of those who staff the local offices. being a cab manager now requires entrepreneurial skills, the ability to spot the opportunities and expertise in managing relations and networking; directors/ceos are involved in a constant round of grant bids. this new set of skills gives more managerial attention to the external world of the organisation: scanning, liaising, building partnerships and becoming competitive with other potential providers. it also means becoming skilled at bid writing and the management of more-or-less-tightly specified project grants. these shifts in funding regimes to more target-driven approaches had implications for the perceived independence of the advice office. as one of the four ‘pillars’9 of the citizens advice service, its ‘independence’ of its advice was frequently identified by advisers and managers as a central element in their attachment to the service; the principle of independence is critical to claiming territory. the following exchange, which took place in a focus group of advisers in an urban office, relays some of the complexities of remaining ‘independent’: amelia: yes but we don’t act for… like for example you get [x building society] referral, [x building society] would pay us to see that person, but we will often act against [the same building society] for example for possession proceedings. […] joe: we might be paid by the council to give advice to people that have got council tax issues, but they’re not dependent the funding is not dependent on us making sure that we don’t write off those debts through insolvency, for example, so it’s not funding for an outcome that is specific to protect that funding. amelia: but on the other hand, we would tell them to pay their council tax. joe: oh yeah, yeah, because it’s a priority [debt], but not because the council are saying we don’t want problems with council tax. however, as another adviser expressed, targeted funding can make advisers feel in a ‘very difficult position’: fred: sometimes i’m being put in a position of some sort of proxy rent collector for the local authority and it’s very, very difficult sometimes not to get into that mind-set, particularly if the follow up from the initial appointment is the housing officer badgering me by email or telephone: ‘oh, they’ve not paid their rent this week’. and i’m thinking, that is not my job, that’s your job. i’ve advised them about what they can do. i’m implementing the strategy that we’ve agreed. if the tenant is still not choosing to pay their rent, then that is their choice and they know the consequences. ‘independence’ frequently crops up as a point of particular anxiety in the voluntary sector, most often expressed in the third sector literature as a need to be independent from the state m. mcdermont and s. kirwan: ethnographic explorations of the changing relationship between voluntary advi… qualitative studies 5(2), pp. 110–124 ©2018 121 (e.g. lewis 2005), operating in the ‘specter of state capture’ (bedford 2015, 464; also see dunn 2008; musick & wilson 2008; rochester, paine and howlett 2010) or as part of the ‘shadow state’ (wolch 1989; jones 2010). most recently, the uk government has overtly used funding contracts to restrict the ability of organisations to challenge and dissent, introducing a requirement that central government grant agreements must include a clause which prevents these funds from being used to lobby or attempt to influence parliament, local government or political parties.10 however, regulatory effects are rarely so transparent. as the exchanges above demonstrate, the (re)aligning of interests of funder and fundee, creating conditions of dependency (see e.g. clarke, et al., 2010, chap 6), are experienced and inhabited in complex and shifting ways, just as earlier we showed how the volunteer workforce also has ways of shaping what is, and is not, possible. there is a tendency to consider funding in neutral terms; as a flow of capital that determines whether a service can be delivered or not. here we have presented ‘funding’ as a more nebulous category of separate funding streams, each of which can be seen as a ‘component’ of the advice assemblage with distinct effects upon the ongoing practice of advice. the funding contracts described by our participants were characterised by precariousness, requiring continual reapplication. indeed, even local authority funding is no longer a given; some bureaux have been forced to close as a result of losing their local authority grant. we would draw attention to how this shift towards a precarious funding environment has effects upon other areas of the service, in particular inasmuch as they draw the energy and focus of managerial staff away from volunteer support. yet perhaps the most important implication of this shift towards funding ‘mosaics’ is the recognition that individual funders have their own purposes for funding advice, whether it be facilitating rent or council tax payments, or assisting a particular group, and the ways in which this has been experienced as compromising the independence of the service. that is, while enabling advice that otherwise would not be given, certain funding contracts have been experienced to affect other components and attachments that keep the advice assemblage together. fragile futures the value of the analytical tools that assemblage thinking offered became particularly clear when we began to worry about the real possibility of advice agencies falling apart under the threat of cuts in key funding. for, as newman & clarke, have observed, assemblage draws attention to the work of construction (and the difficulties of making ill-suited elements fit together as though they are coherent) … makes visible the (variable) fragility of assemblages – that which can be assembled can more or less easily come apart, or be dismantled. (newman & clarke, 2009, p. 9) in our research with citizens advice we became increasingly impressed by two factors: first, the incredible commitment on the part of all those who worked for the service, despite the multiple changes, difficulties, frustrations and anger they faced on a daily basis; but second, the fragility of this service that has been assembled over the decades, an assemblage which appears perhaps to be an iconic british institution, but which could, more or less easily, come apart. the threats are multiple, and have become ever-more acute since we finished our interviews and focus groups. the assemblage that is the local citizens advice office is interconnected with many other assemblages, particularly assemblages of local and national government, all of which are pulling in multiple directions, forcing “reordering boundaries between practices” (mellaard and van meijl 2016, 12). under the pressure to do more with less, one threat arises from the increasing emphasis on phone-based and digital advice, leading to a move away from the face-to-face, one-to-one relationship between adviser and client. the threat here is to the holistic ethos of the advice service, which was seen by almost all we interviewed as being central to the citizens advice approach. an understanding that the role of the adviser, in the first instance, was to listen to the person in front of them, a listening which 122 m. mcdermont and s. kirwan: ethnographic explorations of the changing relationship between voluntary advi… qualitative studies 5(2), pp. 110–124 ©2018 would often mean that the problem or concern that was presented as the problem by the client most frequently unravelled as one of many; that the threat of eviction arose from a history of debt which had arisen from a dismissal from work that perhaps could and should be challenged. government officers at all levels place an increasing faith in the digital as the solution – in relation to advice-giving, most advisers would advise caution. a second threat is to the social policy campaigning function of citizens advice from a government that appears to want to close down all debate and dissent; a ‘big society’ that means the only role for the charity sector is to deliver services government has decided it can no longer afford. the clause to stop third sector organisations using government grant funding for ‘lobbying’ (detailed earlier) has been condemned by charity organisations and some mps, as threatening the sort of social policy work carried out by citizens advice, “to bring real-world experience of service users and evidence-based expertise into the public policy debate”.11 as we emphasised, the social policy functions of the service are key to how advisers understand and make sense of their work; the truth telling they must engage in with clients must be balanced by a service that is able to speak the truth to power. the third threat also arises from the ideology of the present conservative government (and its predecessor coalition), in its unrelenting dismantling of local government.12 for whilst most of those we interviewed identified that local government funding was becoming less important in actual volume terms, they all identified the crucial importance of what they called ‘core’ local authority funding. this in effect supported the ‘heart’ of the organisation, paying for office space, administration, directors and other ‘backroom’ support; without this funding it would not be possible to bid for the project-driven funding from charitable, statutory and private sources because there would be no-one funded to do this entrepreneurial work, and there would be no premises from where the advisers – voluntary and paid – could deliver the services. yet perhaps more importantly, it is this funding, typically the only funding not tied to a particular problem area or client group, that guarantees that local cab can provide generalist advice. by using our ethnographic work to present two components of the advice assemblage, namely volunteer workers and funding streams, we have focused less in this paper upon these direct threats than the ways in which these combined changes are fundamentally shifting central components of the advice assemblage. we have noted how these changes have inscribed a fragility and uncertainty in this assemblage that is not always visible; indeed increasing demand for the service gives the impression of it being as stable as ever. we noted first how voluntary provision of advice is dependent upon the moral and normative commitments of advisers, in particular inasmuch as these commitments relate to the provisions of the welfare state, that is increasingly difficult to sustain in a climate of ‘austerity’. we noted also how the diversification of funding strands has further fundamentally altered the composition of the advice assemblage, rendering the entire edifice more unstable and uncertain. in addition, the general shift towards from a ‘grant’ to a ‘contract’ funding model has been experienced to affect the ‘independence’ of advice. amongst a great many who operate outside the voluntary sector there is a strange faith that the voluntary sector can survive no matter what – that voluntary sector organisations exist because of the voluntary effort. in relation to citizens advice, whilst all our research points to the central importance of the voluntary effort, it also identifies the inextricable interrelatedness of the volunteers and public funding. the assemblage that is the advice service is a fragile structure – take one key element away and the whole device could crumble, collapse or melt away. acknowledgements this work was supported by the european research council under grant no. 284152, and by the leverhulme trust under grant no. ecf-2016-518. the authors are immensely grateful to the advisers who gave their time to this project, and to professor john clarke for the constructive and tireless feedback that allowed the article to take shape. endnotes 1. in the united kingdom, local government is referred to as the local authority, the ‘local council’ or simply ‘the m. mcdermont and s. kirwan: ethnographic explorations of the changing relationship between voluntary advi… qualitative studies 5(2), pp. 110–124 ©2018 123 council’. in this paper we, and our interviewees, use the terms interchangeably. 2. https://www.citizensadvice.org.uk. 3. the word ‘bureau’, perceived by some as oldfashioned, was dropped in 2015. we use it in this paper as it continues to be used by both advisers and the public when referring to advice locations. 4. while we seek to understand the broad provision of voluntary advice, we recognise that, as our research is focused upon the citizens advice service, our references to advice work and the ‘advice assemblage’ are to some extent specific to this service. on a nationwide scale there are also specialist services also offering face-to-face advice , notably shelter and ageuk, and many local advice services in the towns and cities of the uk. 5. funded by the european research council, erc-2011-stg_20101124, project no. 284152. 6. the research received ethical approval from the university of bristol faculty of social sciences and law. 7. in sum, data was collected through participant observation and diaries of 3 trainee advisers; and 42 interviews and 5 focus groups with advisers, managers, trainers and trainees at cab in england and scotland. a further set of interviews was conducted with 10 managers of local cab. in order to maintain the anonymity of research participants all names given are pseudonyms. 8. however, the relationship in the north of ireland is somewhat different. the ni regional office runs its own national client database and have not been required to introduce gateway as mandatory. audit is carried out by cita. 9. the others being that advice is free, confidential and https://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/about-us [last visited 26/11/2015]. 10. www.gov.uk/government/news/governmentannounces-new-clause-to-be-inserted-into-grantagreements [last visited 10.04.16]. 11. www.thirdsector.co.uk/commons-motion-urgesgovernment-reconsider-anti-lobbying-clause/policyand-politics/article/1385085 [last visited 10.04.16]. 12. one ceo told us that the local authority was drawing up two lists of the services: those for which they had a statutory responsibility, and those where there was no statutory responsibility. they were considering only funding those on the first. references anderson, ben and colin mcfarlane. 2011. “assemblage and geography.” area 43(2): 124-127. anderson, ben, matthew kearnes, colin mcfarlane and dan swanton. 2012. “on assemblages and geography” dialogues in human geography 2(2): 171-189 bedford, kate d. 2015. “regulating bingo: lessons from the bingo halls.” law & social inquiry 40(2): 461-490. citizens advice bureau. 2006. ‘pro bono legal services and citizens advice bureaux’, ndt briefing. london: citizens advice. citizens advice. 2015. the value of the citizens advice service: our impact in 2014/15 [available at https://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/global/public/ impact/citizens%20advice_impact%20report_ 2015_digital.pdf]. citron, judith. 1989. the citizens advice bureaux: for the community by the community. london: pluto press. clarke, john and janet newman. 1997. the managerial state: power, politics and ideology in the remaking of social welfare. london: sage publications. clarke, john, dave bainton, noemi lendvai and paul stubbs. 2015. making policy move: towards a politics of translation and assemblage. bristol: policy press. clarke, j, mcdermont, ma & newman, j 2010. delivering choice and administering justice: contested logics of public services. in m. adler (ed.), administrative justice in context. hart, pp. 25–46. delanda, m. 2006. a new philosophy of society: assemblage theory and social complexity. london: continuum. delanda, m. 2016. assemblage theory. edinburgh: edinburgh university press. deleuze, g. and f. guattari. 1988. a thousand plateaus, london: continuum. dunn, alison. 2008. “demanding service or servicing demand? charities, regulation and the policy process.” modern law review 71(2): 247-70. food foundation 2017 “uk and global malnutriotion: the new normal” [report] [available from https://foodfoundation.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/ 2017/07/1-briefing-malnutrition_v4.pdf]. forbess, a. and james, d.. forthcoming. “inventing intervention in the time of austerity.” onati socio-legal series. fraser, d. 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(eds.) the power of geography: how territory shapes social life. london: routledge • about the authors morag mcdermont is professor of socio-legal studies at the university of bristol law school, and principal investigator on the projects »new sites of legal consciousness: a case study of uk advice agencies« and »productive margins: regulating for engagement«. her research has been shaped by 15 years’ working in local government and voluntary sector housing organisations. samuel kirwan is a leverhulme early career research fellow and lecturer in criminology and social policy at the university of bristol. his current project, »a sociology of everyday indebtedness«, focuses upon experiences of debt and debt advice. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/19460171.2016.1194766 http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/19460171.2016.1194766 http://open.justice.gov.uk/digital-strategy http://england.shelter.org.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0017/1440053/8112017_far_from_alone.pdf http://england.shelter.org.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0017/1440053/8112017_far_from_alone.pdf https://www.stepchange.org/portals/0/documents/reports/stuck-in-the-red-december-2017.pdf https://www.stepchange.org/portals/0/documents/reports/stuck-in-the-red-december-2017.pdf paper 1: a qualitative gaze on how mundane public administration works introduction accomplishing public sector service: theorising interstices and imbrications from a qualitative stance contributions in this special issue a case study of casework tinkering health care professionalism without doctors: spatial surroundings and counter-identification in local health houses using ignorance as (un)conscious bureaucratic strategy: street-level practices and structural influences in the field of migration enforcement assembling advice treatment of dual diagnosis in denmark — models for cooperation and positions of power cross-pollinating discussions and contributions of the special issue acknowledgements about the authors paper 2: a case study of casework tinkering introduction empirical data casework tinkering — an analytical lens 1. probing possibilities 2. tinkering with services to fit the case 3. tinkering with individuals to fit resources negotiating discrepancies — crafting a case response concluding remarks acknowledgements about the authors paper 3: spatial surroundings and counter-identification in local health houses introduction theoretical framework: professionalization in site-specific contexts identification and counter-identification mixed methodological research design: case selection and vignette construction analytical section: observations and interviews in two distinct types of health houses the medical–clinical health house: “press if you have an appointment” health professionals in a medical–clinical health house: “we are health consultants” former cancer patient, now in rehabilitation: “i meet people facing the same struggles as myself” the community–based health house: “a flat screen promotes various events” health professional in a community-based health house: “i miss my work when i am on vacation” citizens on the edge of the city: “it's the best the municipality has ever done for its citizens” conclusion: counter-identification with hospitals and doctors acknowledgements about the author appendices paper 4: street-level practices and structural influences in the field of migration enforcement introduction theoretical framework defining structural violence in bureaucratic encounters the relation between indifference and ignorance understanding uncertainty understanding ignorance methodological framework ignorance in street-level encounters migrants' use of ignorance ignorance as inherit feature of the state conclusion — what is the cost of ignorance? acknowledgements about the author paper 5: ethnographic explorations of the changing relationship between voluntary advi… introduction research methods citizens advice: some background theoretical tools: on assemblage thinking an advice service as an assemblage: the data the use of volunteers on funding, funders and regulatory effects legal aid funding the funding mosaic: entrepreneurialism and independence fragile futures acknowledgements about the authors paper 6: models for cooperation and positions of power introduction the problems of dual diagnosis the dual diagnosis field in denmark empirical material cooperation between psychiatry and substance use treatment — organizational interfaces an under-organized interface learning points concluding remarks acknowledgements about the author vol. 5, no. 2, 2018, pp. 57–71 issn 1903-7031 a case study of casework tinkering maj nygaard-christensen1 , bagga bjerge2 , jeppe oute3  aarhus university, department of psychology, center for alcohol and drug research, bartholins allé 10, 8000 aarhus c: denmark (1mnc.crf@psy.au.dk 2bb.crf@psy.au.dk 3jo.crf@psy.au.dk) • citizens with complex problems are often in touch with different welfare services and administrative systems in order to re-ceive the help, they need. sometimes these services overlap and sometimes they conflict. the lack of ready-made services to match the complex, multiple, and often shifting needs of citizens with complex problems presents a challenge to caseworkers in the welfare system. in this article, we zoom in on the management of a single user´s case, in order to examine in detail how caseworkers nevertheless make casework ‘work’. we employ the concept of ‘tinkering’ to highlight the ad hoc and experimental way in which caseworkers work towards adjusting services to the unique case of such citizens. tinkering has previously been used in studies of human-technology relations, among others in studies of care-work in the welfare system. in this paper, we employ the concept to capture and describe a style of working that, although not a formally recognized method, might be recognizable to many caseworkers in the welfare system. we show how tinkering involves the negotiation of three topics of concern, namely the availability of services, the potentials of services to be adjusted to the particular problems of the citizen, and finally, the potential for interpreting these problems and the citizen’s needs in a way that they match the service. we further demonstrate that casework tinkering involves both short-term and long-term negotiation of services. firstly, tinkering is involved in the continual adjustment and tailoring of services to the immediate needs of the citizen, but secondly, it also speaks to a more proactive process of working towards a more long-term goal. keywords: citizens with complex problems, casework, case studies, tinkering. • introduction caseworker 1: i can’t promise that she’ll be admitted [to psychiatric treatment], because that’s the law. if she wants to walk free, then she can walk free. caseworker 2: well, but if we don’t try… and we have to try something. and so it’s a bit like, what exists in the land of the possible? caseworker 1: right. caseworker 2: and where could we do that, in order to help her? caseworker 1: the next best step. in the danish welfare system, citizens with complex problems present a particular challenge to caseworkers. this owes to the sometimes overlapping and sometimes conflicting welfare services this group of citizens often receive, and the differing professional approaches and administrative and bureaucratic systems this implicates. a recurring example is a citizen with substance use problems who is refused in the psychiatric system because of their substance use, or, as seen in the above example, might be unwilling to go into psychiatric treatment. danish welfare policy strategies typically operate with the idea of ‘formulas’ or models that respond to people’s varied problems in order to ‘fix’ them (vohnsen 2017, bjerge et al. forthcoming). tied to this view is a perception of the employees providing these services as ‘problem-solvers’ (cf. spector & kitsuse 1977, adams 1996, bacchi 2009, møller & harrits 2013, payne 2014). according to this reasoning, welfare interventions should ideally contribute to transforming people with complex problems into people without problems, or at least to a significant reduction in the severity and complexity of their problems. many social or health problems are indeed relatively easily identified and ‘matched’ by existing services. however, assisting individuals with complex problems and multiple needs typically involves a more complex process of crafting appropriate responses. this is due both to the often shifting life situations and severity of prob57 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2370-9165 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0942-0322 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4918-511x mailto:mnc.crf@psy.au.dk mailto:bb.crf@psy.au.dk mailto:jo.crf@psy.au.dk 58 m. nygaard-christensen, b. bjerge, and j. oute: a case study of casework tinkering qualitative studies 5(2), pp. 57–71 ©2018 lems experienced by this citizen group, as well as to the different welfare administrations that they are in touch with. this article offers an ethnographic examination of how caseworkers working with this citizen group seek to make services work in everyday practice, despite these obstacles. we employ the concept of ‘tinkering’ (bloche & cournos 1990, mol et al. 2010, winance 2010, knorr 1979, grommé 2015, lydahl 2017) as a lens through which to explore the multifaceted character of casework on complex cases. so far, the concept of tinkering has mainly been employed in analyses of human-technology relations. from these studies, we take the conception of tinkering as the process by which professionals ‘meticulously explore, “quibble”, test, touch, adapt, adjust, pay attention to details and change them, until a suitable arrangement (material, emotional, relational) has been reached’ (winance 2010: 95). in this article, however, we extend the concept to describe the processual and experiential character by which welfare professionals piece together services to citizens that fall outside of formal welfare service models and/or between administrative welfare systems. as the article will show, this involves an ongoing process of probing and examining possible courses of action and adjusting these in order to tailor services to individuals, while at the same time measuring services against caseworkers’ own interpretations of the recipient’s shifting problems, needs and desires. in other words, both services and the citizen or interpretations of the citizen’s problems and needs are ‘tinkered with’ by caseworkers, in order to move cases forwards. by tinkering, we do not suggest that caseworkers operate in an unskilled or shady manner, as the popular use of the term might seem to indicate. we suggest that the form of casework tinkering explored in this article in fact requires an advanced level of skill, experience, and knowledge of the welfare system and of its potentials and limits. however, there is a degree to which tinkering at times involves or even necessitates a degree of ‘rule-bending’ or distortion of formal regulations so that welfare assistance can be made available for a citizen whose needs might otherwise not be matched by existing services. while not a formal or recognized method, tinkering might thus be required in order to make cross-sectorial casework ‘work’, as one such caseworker reflected when explaining: ‘how the systems work together, and how you … manoeuvre in those systems in order to make the best thing possible come through for the citizen, which the systems can’t manage on their own’. tinkering should therefore not be understood as opposed to formal methods, nor to the rules and regulations that caseworkers in the welfare system are normally guided by. instead, we take tinkering to describe the manner by which caseworkers work towards adjusting these in a more explorative way, in order to identify appropriate responses to the often unique composite of problems and circumstances of a particular citizen. in order to foreground these aspects of complex casework, we focus closely in on the management of a single case, that of an individual we will refer to as marianne (cf. nicolini 2009, eysenck 1976: 9, flyvbjerg 2006: 7). our empirical point of departure is data stemming from ethnographic fieldwork at the oasis, a temporary housing facility and drop-incentre in a medium-sized danish municipality, where marianne resided. on the basis of interviews, psychiatric files, and participant observation at the oasis as well as cross-sectoral municipal meetings relating to marianne, we will offer a detailed examination of how caseworkers ‘tinker’ with this particular case. on the one hand, marianne’s case represents an example of a user who was constantly presented as ‘special’ and particularly complex. on the other hand, the problems that marianne faced and the dilemmas of how to manage users with complex problems are exemplary of the cross-cutting fields of welfare services. this idea was supported by the fact that during interviews, caseworkers at the oasis repeatedly mentioned marianne’s case as illustrative of the challenges that surround casework with people with complex problems. in the paper, we aim to identify some more generally applicable lessons on how complex cases are managed in the welfare system. we do so by zooming closely in on a particular moment in the management of marianne’s case, and exploring in detail the minute practices and negotiations of caseworkers working her case, and the descriptions and m. nygaard-christensen, b. bjerge, and j. oute: a case study of casework tinkering qualitative studies 5(2), pp. 57–71 ©2018 59 interpretations offered by them as they seek to move it forwards. the aim is both to 1) identify some more generally applicable lessons on how complex cases are managed in the welfare system, as well as 2) seek to capture and define a style of working that we assume that, although not a formally recognized method, will be recognizable to most caseworkers in the welfare system. in continuation of this, we will further show how conditions of uncertainty or problems open to multiple or contesting interpretations were particularly useful tools for tinkering, as they enabled caseworkers to work towards matching citizens to services that might otherwise be off limits. in the paper, we thereby argue that 1) individuals with complex problems are not easily ‘fixed’ since there is often no available model for how to provide services to them people; 2) casework practices are therefore characterised by an immense amount of reflection, negotiation and testing of hypothetical models and tools before decisions are made; and 3) the solutions suggested by caseworkers are often rejected or resisted by their recipients, so that new initiatives have to be crafted. empirical data the case study presented in this paper is part of a large, explorative, qualitative study of welfare management of people with complex problems (christensen 2017, oute & bjerge 2017, bjerge et al. 2016). the research project focused on people simultaneously registered in drug treatment, psychiatric and employment services in danish welfare systems in three municipalities. in the overall study, we investigated how these different problems required diverse services with different administrative tools, professional approaches and different types of national and local policies. taken together, this combination of services, professional approaches and policies constituted a complex web of overlapping and potentially conflicting ways of managing cases. the present study is situated in this broader research project, but is based on day-to-day field observations conducted by jeppe oute at the oasis, on marianne’s social and psychiatric files, and interviews and more informal conversations with eight caseworkers. marianne’s complex problems meant that she received multiple welfare services, involving caseworkers with diverse professional backgrounds and institutional affiliations. to highlight this crosssectoral character of casework, we also draw on data from an extended joint meeting. six caseworkers from different sectors attended the meeting in order to exchange ideas, with the aim of crafting a response. marianne’s caseworkers had not invited her to take part in the joint meeting in which her case was discussed. they thus relied on their own interpretations of her problems, wishes and needs, constantly measuring these against their knowledge about available services. marianne accepted our presence during the fieldwork, and allowed us to access her case files, but she refused to be interviewed. understanding marianne´s perspective on the forms of casework she was subjected to would undoubtedly have provided new angles to our study. however, our primary emphasis in this article is on the professional management of her case and the multiplicity of interpretations and approaches to her problems. at the time of our research, marianne was in her thirties. according to her caseworkers, she had a long history of psychological, psychiatric and substance use problems. she grew up in a home with parents who struggled with drug and alcohol use as well as mental illness, and she had reportedly suffered from depression since childhood. in her adult life, she was diagnosed with schizophrenia. in her case record, she was further described as having problems with ocd, depressive symptoms, an eating disorder, and anxiety. she had been in an abusive relationship with the father of her child, a son who was now placed with a foster family. in addition, marianne was actively using multiple substances, and at the time of our research she lived at the oasis, a temporary housing facility for people diagnosed with psychiatric problems and drug use. recently, her situation had worsened. among others, she was tormented by the sensation that bugs were crawling on her skin. this often left her in a state of panic, and caseworkers recounted situations where she had hurt herself trying to remove the bugs. one of the problems facing caseworkers working with people complex problems, is the lack of targeted services from which to assist 60 m. nygaard-christensen, b. bjerge, and j. oute: a case study of casework tinkering qualitative studies 5(2), pp. 57–71 ©2018 people whose multiplicity of problems mean that existing service packages often do not fit their needs as understood by caseworkers. as one caseworker at the oasis noted with reference to marianne: ‘we have a woman who has lived here for a while, who is so ill; she’s not doing well at all. and there isn’t really anyone to take care of her. she doesn’t belong anywhere. the only place she can be, really, is here. and we can’t offer her anything. she has no insight into her own condition’ (interview). among marianne’s hopes for her immediate future was a wish to ‘get rid of’ her anxiety and to stop using drugs. in the longer term, she hoped to be able to live in her own apartment and to regain custody of her son. however, she refused to admit herself to psychiatric treatment as proposed by her caseworkers, and preferred to stay at the temporary housing facility until another solution could be found. in contrast, as will become evident below, her caseworkers saw psychiatric treatment as a preferred step towards stabilising her situation, so that more long-term planning might be possible. casework tinkering — an analytical lens studying the daily interactions in welfare institutions in order to understand the methods and dynamics of casework is hardly a new endeavour. for example, the minute details of talk-in-interaction and turn-taking in dialogues between professionals and homeless people have been studied by applying conversational analysis (stax 2003, rossen 2016); storytelling and staging the identities of young drug-using clients and treatment providers have been studied via narrative approaches (andersen 2015); symbolic interactionism has been used to analyse how institutional settings frame possible meaning-making processes for interactions (gubrium and holstein 2001); ‘peopleprocessing encounters’ have analysed ‘administrative allocations’ (formal and informal resources and penalties) as essential for understanding how front-line work functions (jenkins 2000, 18, lipsky 1980); and, finally, ant analysis has been applied to investigate how drugs, drug users, and interventions emerge in mutually constitutive sociomaterial assemblages (nielsen & houborg 2015). in contributing to this body of literature, we use the notion of tinkering to describe the ways in which caseworkers craft responses and interventions for people with complex problems in everyday practice. tinkering refers to this continuous process of formulating welfare responses and identifying solutions through trial and error, and underlines the processual character of managing cases of individuals with complex problems. in academic work, tinkering has been used to describe scientific practices (knorr 1979), security practices (grommé 2015), care situations (mol et al 2010, winance 2010), welfare tools in healthcare clinical practice (lydahl 2017), and design (resnick and rosenbaum 2013). these approaches have highlighted the role of humans and non-humans in experimenting with interventions (grommé 2015: 232), and the process of fine-tuning technologies in relation to users/individuals or social situations (grommé 2015, winance 2010). using the example of how a wheelchair is adjusted to its user, winance (2010: 95) describes the process by which the chair is fitted as ‘empirical tinkering’; a relational process involving both humans and non-humans: the chair itself, the user of the wheelchair, her husband who sometimes has to push her and the manager of the wheelchair test centre in charge of the technical adaption of the wheelchair. in this paper, we move away from this technological/material conception of tinkering, and instead use it to describe the character of the everyday crafting of casework in the danish welfare system. we thus contribute to the broader literature on discretion in welfare work (see e.g. lipsky 1980, brodkin 2006, durose 2011). however, whereas discretion is often used to characterise decisions taken on the basis of encounters between the individual street-level worker and the citizen, and to describe how on-the-spot decisions are made (for instance in the case of street-level police discretion), we use tinkering to denote the multidimensional, processual and productive character of casework when multiple welfare sectors are involved. such casework is multidim. nygaard-christensen, b. bjerge, and j. oute: a case study of casework tinkering qualitative studies 5(2), pp. 57–71 ©2018 61 mensional because it involves multiple services which are related to different policies and bureaucratic systems (oute & bjerge, forthcoming) and sometimes result in competing professional assessments of the individual. moreover, it is processual, because quite often no particular outcome is determined; instead, managing such cases is a continuous process in which services are tailored or ‘tinkered with’, on an ongoing basis. finally, it is productive, because in spite of the immense obstacles sometimes facing caseworkers, services are often made to work. this does not necessarily take place in the best possible way but, as this article seeks to demonstrate, although tinkering does not generally lead to a ‘solution’ or settlement of individual cases, the adjustments entailed by tinkering nevertheless serve to move cases forwards. we suggest that in everyday casework, the employees we observed constantly negotiated three main topics or ‘vectors of concern’ (vohnsen 2015), which will be explored in the remaining part of this article. these were: 1. which services are available for crafting a case response? 2. how can these be adjusted to fit the case of this particular citizen? 3. can the person be understood to fit the response or service? these do not indicate a linear process, but points of attention that caseworkers continually moved back and forth between when crafting welfare responses. this was sometimes done on an individual basis, during a caseworker’s everyday work, and at other times jointly, when caseworkers grouped up with colleagues in order to explore possible courses of action through which a particular citizen could be assisted. as argued by resnick and rosenbaum (2013), tinkering should not be understood as opposed to planning as it is sometimes perceived. instead, tinkerers may start out without a specific aim in mind, using a bottom-up approach, while at others times, they ‘have a general goal, but they aren’t quite sure how to get there’ (resnick and rosenbaum 2013). casework tinkering in the case examined in this paper focuses primarily on the latter: the aim is to get marianne ‘stabilised’ enough that a more long-term plan can be defined, perhaps through psychiatric intervention, but caseworkers are unsure how and whether this can be achieved. more generally, we suggest that casework tinkering can be said to move along two tracks. the first was a more reactive process characterised by ongoing, minute, and sometimes day-to-day adjustments and tailoring of services and responses as marianne’s problems either worsened or improved. the second can be described as a more proactive process of working towards a more long-term goal, which may require a number of short-term adjustments or tinkering with services or interpretations of the citizen’s problems and needs. 1. probing possibilities at the joint meeting, three caseworkers from the housing facility where marianne resided were present: bo, the director, and cecilie and jette, a pedagogue and social worker respectively, who were both contact persons at the oasis. in addition, the meeting was attended by petra, vice director at the centre for drug treatment and socially vulnerable people in the municipality; pernille, a nurse employed as a service coordinator in the regional psychiatric system; and lise, a social worker who held a coordinating position in the municipality’s workfare department. the meeting thus gathered together people with different professional backgrounds from different sectors of the welfare system. not everyone present at the meeting would refer to themselves as a ‘caseworker’, but to avoid confusion, we will describe them as such when we refer collectively to the professionals involved with the management of marianne’s case. the caseworkers employed at the oasis where marianne resided were concerned that her psychiatric problems had recently intensified and that her behaviour at the care home had become increasingly erratic. prompted by these concerns, the aim of the joint meeting was to allow employees at different levels of the welfare system, and with varying degrees of familiarity with marianne, to work together 62 m. nygaard-christensen, b. bjerge, and j. oute: a case study of casework tinkering qualitative studies 5(2), pp. 57–71 ©2018 towards an intervention that might prompt an improvement in her situation and thus make future casework more manageable: jette: i didn’t know marianne before this. she’s had problems, but these psychotic issues that you describe weren’t there before. they’ve only appeared recently. bo: and that’s why i say that we’re seeing that she’s getting worse, as you are probably all aware. what torments marianne right now is that she’s having hallucinations that she’s covered with bugs, all over her body. she briefly manages to pull herself together, for maybe a minute at a time. we’ve repeatedly attempted to call her own doctor … for a diagnosis, which has resulted in her admittance to the psychiatric ward, but then she’s been released the following day. while it was never directly stated as an explicit aim of the meeting, this points to the unspoken agreement that ran as an undertone of the meeting, namely that the identification of a more long-term plan for marianne would require her to be stabilised in the psychiatric system. a key aspect of tinkering with marianne’s case was therefore to explore the possibility of admitting her to the psychiatric ward despite her own resistance to this possibility: pernille: but i can’t promise that she’ll be committed, because that’s the law. if she wants to walk free, then she can walk free. lise: well, but if we don’t try… and we have to try something. and so it’s a bit like, what exists in the land of the possible? pernille: right. lise: and where could we do that, in order to help her? pernille: the next best step. as illustrated here, throughout the meeting, legislation framing the use of coercion in the psychiatric system deprived them of that possibility under the current circumstances. as already mentioned, marianne was unwilling to admit herself to a mental health facility, and her psychiatric records revealed how the specialist at the psychiatric department also rejected the idea of involuntary admission. given that marianne further lived a highly unstable life, actively used drugs and experienced psychiatric problems simultaneously, she did therefore not easily fit any existing service offers. on this background, the joint meeting attended by employees from across the relevant welfare sectors offered an opportunity for them to probe which possibilities were open – or could possibly be pried open through casework tinkering from which to craft a response. in an interview conducted after the joint meeting, lise commented, ‘sometimes we need to confirm that we’re all going in the same direction, because if we professionals can’t figure it out… i mean, it’s hard enough for citizens to understand the system’. as she further emphasised, available courses of action were not always transparent or immediately known to caseworkers: ‘sometimes even i don’t know who to call; sometimes i still call up reception, to ask who i should talk to. i do! they know a lot, they just do’. due to the limited overview an individual caseworker could be expected to have of the overall range of services, tinkering served as a way to explore what the system had to offer in relation to a particular person, and to identify ways in which a case could be moved forwards. ‘tools’ for tinkering could be comprised of networks, of ‘knowing’ the system, of being aware of the right people to talk to, of the broad range of services, rules, and exceptions to rules. further, tinkering could involve identifying ways of accessing parts of the welfare system which were otherwise perceived as inaccessible or difficult to establish functioning relationships with (cf. oute & bjerge forthcoming). a recurring example of this in the case of people with complex problems was the psychiatric system, as seen in the case of marianne, whose psychiatrist did not favour using coercion in treatment. however, the meeting offered an opportunity for them to jointly explore whether this possibility was entirely closed or could be worked around, either by exploring whether her situation was serious enough to admit her against her will, or by working with marianne’s resistance: m. nygaard-christensen, b. bjerge, and j. oute: a case study of casework tinkering qualitative studies 5(2), pp. 57–71 ©2018 63 lise: we can’t keep her there, if she doesn’t… even though we can plan an extended stay at the psychiatric hospital, she still has to want to be there herself. bo: as late as yesterday, we tried to encourage her to go to the psychiatric ward. she gets so angry, and asks if we think she’s retarded. lise: she said directly, when i sat with her, that “there i just get a room. here i have people”. so that’s her view on it. and you can’t hold it against her, if that’s her impression. cecilie: but would things be different if she was told that she would be going into outpatient drug treatment? bo: i think at least, cecilie, that then you’re meeting her halfway, in terms of what she wants. her dream is to get clean. pernille: you could do a kind of threestep-rocket… lise: you and your rockets! pernille: but i love that expression. i think it’s so good. i have such an image of it, and i think in terms of images. so if you say, if she comes to us and gets the psychotic part treated and then you say, “then you’ll go and get some peace and quiet”. it might just be a room, because it’s damn boring at the psychiatric ward, and it has to be. because it has to have limited stimulation and we need to shield her. and then, when the calm sets in… you can’t send her out, still wildly psychotic, within 24 hours. i don’t know anything about that; that’s your domain, but i imagine you don’t do that. cecilie: no, because there isn’t really anywhere… pernille: but then you could say, “marianne, to get you into outpatient treatment, we need to get you into shape first”, or whatever you say. as this illustrates, marianne’s rejection of psychiatric treatment did not automatically lead caseworkers to abandon this possibility. as will be clear below, the array of services available to assist marianne depended on how her situation and behaviour could be interpreted, and on the degree to which she collaborated with the direction proposed by caseworkers. for instance, their possibilities could narrow or widen depending on her current situation, such as whether she was actively using drugs. thus, when commenting on the scenario that marianne might stop using drugs, one of the caseworkers, lise, suggested that this would facilitate a broadening of possibilities: ‘i have to say that i’m able to offer a broader palette if she is not actively using. there’s no secret in that’. however, given marianne’s particular and particularly unstable situation, no readymade service existed from which to craft a response to her problems and needs. hence, caseworkers had to tinker with available services, in order to see if they could be made to fit this complex case. once the nature of marianne’s problems and her willingness to collaborate had been settled between caseworkers, they would again need to re-examine the availability of services. 2. tinkering with services to fit the case the complex nature of marianne’s case meant that it was not enough for caseworkers to simply identify available services. they also had to tinker with services in order to adjust them to the particular and often unstable situation of the individual. as lise rhetorically asked in a subsequent interview, ‘how can we bend this so that we can work out how to help marianne? what is it that we haven’t yet identified in our legal system that we can do in order to back her up?’ using the example of the role of technologies in care work, mol, moser & pols (2010) note how such technologies ‘do not work or fail in and of themselves. rather, they depend on care work. on people willing to adapt their tools to a specific situation while adapting the situation to the tools, on and on, endlessly tinkering’ (mol, moser & pols 2010: 14-15). likewise, legal openings and service packages were not fixed, but something that regularly had to be tinkered with to fit particular cases, both in the everyday work of caseworkers and in the context of crafting more targeted interventions and responses to complex cases such as marianne’s. with ref64 m. nygaard-christensen, b. bjerge, and j. oute: a case study of casework tinkering qualitative studies 5(2), pp. 57–71 ©2018 erence to her study of the technical crafting and adjustment of a crime prevention intervention, francisca grommé describes tinkering as the ‘hands-on work of adjustment in the face of surprises, disturbances, and frictions’ (grommé 2015: 233). she also says, ‘tinkerers do not always aim for a balanced outcome. they may tinker according to their emerging priorities’ (grommé 2015: 233). in continuation of this, we use tinkering to denote the processual character of casework, which constantly has to be adjusted to the shifting nature of cases, as new problems emerge in the lives of individuals or their existing problems intensify or improve. however, casework tinkering in the case examined in this article can be said to move along two tracks: one relating to the ongoing, minute adjustment and tailoring of services as marianne’s problems either worsened or improved, and another process of making adjustments in the short-term, but with the aim of planning towards a more long-term goal. although the housing facility where marianne stayed was intended as a short-term offer for people who would eventually move elsewhere, her caseworkers were not yet actively trying to identify another housing option for her. ‘right now it’s actually the right place’, lise commented in relation to this during an interview, ‘even though you should only stay as briefly as possible at a care home. “as possible” is right. there are just some things we need to take care of first, before we can be certain how to help her in the best possible way’. even though the care home was seen as the best possible option for marianne, they went further in their attempts to tailor the facility to her particular needs, among others by exempting her from house regulations, and by making adjustments to the resources available to her at the oasis: bo: they aren’t allowed to smoke in their rooms, and marianne has been caught smoking so many times, and of course we enforced the rules, but in the end we just had to conclude that it didn’t have any effect. she didn’t learn any lessons from it. jette: to begin with, you’re suspended for 24 hours, but then when we go in she just says, “alright, i’ll leave, i’ll leave”. nothing about “yes, i was smoking”. bo: she actually has a dispensation for that now. because she smokes 24/7 lise: you are a good person, bo. bo: what should i do? kick her out… marianne had also been allowed to sleep in the activity room instead of her own room, because she felt safer in closer proximity to the employees at the home, and because they worried what she might do if left on her own in her room. they reported incidents where she had tried to set fire to the bugs that she felt were crawling over her body; they worried that she did not eat enough, and were concerned about her anxiety and hallucinations. in this way, staff constantly tinkered with services to adjust them to marianne’s needs and shifting behaviour, although this sometimes caused conflicts with the other residents, who questioned what they saw as special treatment or the favouring of a particular resident. this suggests that everyday tinkering in one case may sometimes conflict with the management of others. tinkering could involve locating immediately available service offers. however, the complex needs of people like marianne meant that it often also involved identifying exceptions to service restrictions or finding ways — such as internal guidelines— to broaden the array of services, as suggested by lise who commented during the joint meeting: ‘maybe we should see if we can find a rule or an exception. because that’s what we’re looking for’. marianne’s resistance to psychiatric treatment did not cause them to abandon the idea of coercion. instead, they continued to revisit and explore this possibility during the joint meeting. among others, they circled around the question of whether her symptoms could be understood in a way that validated coercion, constantly weighing up the individual’s legal rights against her ‘best interest’, as interpreted by the caseworkers: lise: i think we are restricted in terms of what we would like to do, but we are in that spectre in relation to…what are the individual’s legal rights? int.: yes, try to say a bit more about that… m. nygaard-christensen, b. bjerge, and j. oute: a case study of casework tinkering qualitative studies 5(2), pp. 57–71 ©2018 65 lise: well, the individual has the right to say no to what we… what every party around this table is thinking that this person, marianne, needs…admission to the psychiatric hospital. we can’t force her, and we shouldn’t be able to. but we have the individual’s legal rights in play, and that’s a good thing, but sometimes it works against us… int.: a good thing for whom? lise: for the individual, because in 95% of cases, it’s a good thing. it’s important of course that we can’t go in and overrule a person’s autonomy. and then we have this little group of people, where we can see that they are not in a position to know what’s best for them. in addition to probing services and examining whether and how they could be tinkered with to fit marianne’s case, tinkering with casework also involved assessing her situation and the significance of her symptoms and needs. in other words, crafting a case response also involved exploring whether the individual could be understood to ‘fit’ the services available to them. 3. tinkering with individuals to fit resources at the beginning of the meeting, one of the caseworkers, bo, provided a description of marianne’s situation, summarising her career in the welfare system and her social problems and mental health/psychological issues. making decisions about which service offers to activate involved making decisions about the nature of marianne’s problems. how should they interpret her behaviour? one of the questions negotiated by caseworkers in the context of the meeting was whether her behaviour should be understood as a psychiatric condition which was either chronic and not likely to improve or open to improvement with the ‘right’ psychiatric treatment, or whether her behaviour and worsened condition primarily owed to her drug use and would thus improve if she either reduced or stopped her drug use. during the meeting, caseworkers repeatedly discussed the significance of the bugs that haunted marianne: bo: in my world she’s psychotic. pernille: she is. bo: so on that basis, we need her doctor. pernille: it’s not enough to be psychotic. bo: that’s the thing. she has to be a danger to herself or to others [in order to be committed against her will]. later in the meeting, another caseworker, petra, questioned this attempt at classifying marianne’s problems: petra: if i put on my anti-psychiatry hat, i don’t actually think that she is psychotic. i really don’t think so. i think the depression is true, maybe there’s some anxiety, because that makes sense on the basis of her history. but it’s true that in the past few years, she has lived through situations that have become more and more surreal for a person to be in. lise: if it’s not psychosis when she sees bugs, then what is it? petra: i’m just saying, i think these are expressions of what she’s going through right now. but i also think… and you can call me naïve… lise: i’m just curious. petra: i think that in a stabilising environment, this would wear off. i don’t mind losing a bet, but i really believe that. to get there is really hard, i’m aware of that. but when she responds like that to benzodiazepines; that’s not unusual for someone who’s depressive and anxious. bo: but when she responds to the benzodiazepines, we don’t see any effect. petra: okay, you don’t? bo: we don’t find that she hallucinates less or has fewer symptoms. petra: no no. lise: it just doesn’t bother her as much, perhaps. petra: fair enough. the question of whether marianne’s hallucinations should be viewed as evidence of psychosis was not determined with reference to diagnostic systems alone. instead, this probing of the significance of marianne’s symptoms linked 66 m. nygaard-christensen, b. bjerge, and j. oute: a case study of casework tinkering qualitative studies 5(2), pp. 57–71 ©2018 up with the question of service availability; of which services could be tapped into in order to craft a response to marianne’s situation. using the empirical example of crime prevention at a bus stop, grommé (2015) examines how engineers tinker with setting up a warning system aimed at reducing violence by alerting the police in the lead-up to violent events. this involved developing indicators for aggressive behaviour based on acoustic inputs. to do so, some sounds had to be foregrounded as indicators of aggression, while others noises that might be equally loud but deemed harmless were identified as background noise, and thus tuned out. in this way, aggressive behaviour could be acted upon by foregrounding certain sounds and turning them into ‘a signal for action, and therefore an object of intervention, in contrast to background noise’ (grommé, 2015: 233; also latour & woolgar 1986). in line with this, casework tinkering with an appropriate response for marianne involved the collective investigation of indicators that could support particular responses, and also included defining her in a particular way, as someone able to receive a particular intervention. in this process, some things were foregrounded while others were relegated to the background or left entirely unmentioned. a recurring issue that was foregrounded both in interviews with employees talking about marianne’s case, as well as in the joint meeting, was her intelligence, which was brought up early the meeting, during bo’s introductory summary of marianne’s history of welfare encounters: a psychological examination in october 2011 initiated by child and youth social services summarises the test results showing that this person has a significant degree of intellectual problems… she has a tested iq of 77, equivalent to being cognitively impaired. the individual therefore does not have the resources required to take care of herself in her everyday life and independently solve the problems that naturally arise. she will therefore need external assistance and support in her everyday life, especially life as a single mother of a child. during the meeting, caseworkers would return to this issue of marianne’s intelligence, as illustrated by the following exchange between jette and cecilie: jette: in the past, i’ve worked with students who are mentally disabled. i feel at home when i’m dealing with her. cecilie: you… what are you saying? jette: i used to work with mentally disabled people. and i feel at home when i’m working with… she’s taught herself a few things. she possesses some skills that perhaps not many others have. because i think she’s had to take care of herself a lot. these are coping strategies, but she can’t steer away from them. on one level, the issue of marianne’s intelligence was seen to contribute to the complexity of her case and the resulting difficulties in crafting a proper response. petra suggested that existing offers set up to respond to individuals with drug use and mental disabilities had been crafted to target those with ‘normal intelligence’. ‘with someone like marianne’, she proposed, with an ‘iq at the cognitively impaired level, we need to go back and shake things up a little’. at the same time, however, the iq test also facilitated casework tinkering. it was not directly related to the availability of appropriate services; the test did not in itself back up caseworkers in their attempt to commit marianne involuntarily to psychiatric treatment. however, foregrounding the issue of her intelligence gave weight to the possibility of a psychiatric intervention for marianne. it also added validity to caseworkers’ repeated suggestions that marianne was neither in a position to know, nor to decide, what was best for her: ‘one moment we find that she’s actually able to recognise her own situation and way of living, and then, shortly afterwards, she’s completely in denial and it’s impossible to correct her view of reality’, the manager of the oasis said. in other words, the issue of her intelligence and perceived inability to know what was best for her, supported their attempts to work towards securing psychiatric treatment for marianne, in spite of her continued resistance to this. in this way, certain aspects that worked in favour of psychiatric treatment were foregrounded at the m. nygaard-christensen, b. bjerge, and j. oute: a case study of casework tinkering qualitative studies 5(2), pp. 57–71 ©2018 67 meeting, such as the issue of marianne’s intelligence, and the significance of bugs as indicators of psychosis. although this in itself did not allow caseworkers to commit her against her will, it at least enabled them to continue exploring the possibility of coercing her into treatment. in the same process, marianne’s resources were pushed to the background, or not mentioned at all, as were discrepancies between caseworkers’ assessments of marianne. in fact, in marianne’s psychiatric file, the iq test was completely disregarded. the psychiatrist rejected the test as invalid because it had been carried out years before, in a different municipality, during a period when marianne was actively using drugs; the file also mentioned that she had not cooperated during the test. moreover, the psychiatrist emphasized that she had completed her basic education with average results, and on that basis argued that marianne could therefore not be understood to be cognitively impaired. as shown above, however, the test was first put forward in the joint meeting by the leader of the oasis, and thereafter not questioned by the other people present. instead, as seen above, several participants weighed in on the issue, both by adding their own interpretations —working with marianne was similar to working with the mentally disabled— and by emphasizing that with her low iq, she required different welfare responses and service offers than those with a ‘normal intelligence’. negotiating discrepancies — crafting a case response among the problems faced by caseworkers dealing with people with complex problems are the imbrication of services they receive and the conflicting approaches that sometimes arise as a result of these different bureaucratic and administrative systems. for instance, drug users with psychiatric problems have a record of being denied treatment in the psychiatric system because of their drug use. however, our examination of marianne’s case revealed how discrepancies between different bureaucratic or professional approaches and caseworkers’ conflicting interpretations of an individual’s problems were at other times put to the side in order to move a case forward. for instance, in interviews conducted after the meeting it became clear that some diverging understandings of marianne had simply not been put forward at the meeting. lise, from the municipality’s workfare department, told us: and then she… supposedly… has an … i haven’t looked into this for myself, but she has an iq that works against her, in relation to getting the help she might need in terms of treatment. i just want to say that this isn’t my experience of her, from what i’ve seen. at the meeting, no such disagreements or diverging understandings of marianne were put forward. the psychiatric file in which the iq test was rejected was not brought up, and petra’s suggestion that marianne’s level of intelligence required a differently crafted response did not meet with objections from any of the caseworkers. moreover, when disagreements were articulated, they were quickly settled, as illustrated above with petra’s interjection that marianne might not be psychotic. likewise, what began with the pedagogically trained leader of the oasis stating that in ‘his world’, marianne was psychotic, and was followed by petra questioning whether this was in fact the case, ended with caseworkers jointly rejecting petra’s contention and continuing to explore which options were available to best respond to marianne’s psychosis. in this way, discrepancies were withheld or written out of the joint task of crafting a case response. hence, in spite of the psychiatrist’s rejection of the iq test in her psychiatric file, and other caseworkers privately doubting its results, the test played an important part in the way caseworkers moved forwards as if they were crafting an intervention for a person with a cognitive impairment. thus, in the process of crafting a case response, conflicting professional understandings were thereby typically put to the side, sometimes intentionally, as seen in this extract from a subsequent interview with pernille, the psychiatric nurse: 68 m. nygaard-christensen, b. bjerge, and j. oute: a case study of casework tinkering qualitative studies 5(2), pp. 57–71 ©2018 we’re all different in this cross-sectoral collaboration, and we need to be. we contribute with different things. we are positioned differently in relation to the patient. the patient is here, and then i’m over there. take the example of marianne: there’s bo, who has a huge amount of knowledge of marianne. i come from out here, and so i humbly relate to what they’ve observed. it’s my job to say that they know what this is all about. i don’t question whether marianne is psychotic or not. what they say is real enough. they have the competency to assess that. so it’s fine for me to go back and refer to what they’ve observed, and that’s what we all believe, and that’s how we’ll treat it. in this way, conditions of uncertainty or situations characterised by different or contesting interpretations of the citizen’s needs or problems can be said to be enabling of casework tinkering. in an analysis of a danish municipality’s implementation of a controlled trial targeting people on sickness benefit leave, vohnsen challenged ‘conventional descriptions of streetlevel workers as a distinct group of people with distinctive concerns and attitudes to their work’ (vohnsen, 2015: 147). instead, she suggests that street-level workers are oriented by ‘vectors of concern’ which guide planning and implementation processes. she identifies these as the ’concern for the citizen, the concern for the caseworker’s ability to best manage the collective workload and the concern for the validity of the project’ (vohnsen, 2015: 152). tinkering with a case response to marianne involved a similar process of weighing up her needs against service availability and accessibility in the different welfare sectors that her case linked up with. as mentioned at the beginning of this paper, different sectors at times conflicted with each other, for example when a caseworker tried to secure psychiatric treatment for an individual who was also a drug user. however, rather than being a case of conflicting professional or sectorial interpretations of how a case should be handled, the cross-sectoral management of marianne’s case showed how decisions involved a constant process of interpreting and reinterpreting the person in relation to relevant services, which employees across all sectors were involved in. as vohnsen emphasizes: concerns do not belong to people in different parts of an organization, but rather to particular problems, and are pursued in turn by all involved. concerns, then, are not internal psychological drives but rather external and dynamic perspectives which have to be juggled and weighed against each other on an hourly basis. (vohnsen, 2015: 158) tinkering with a case response to marianne involved a continuous process of exploring psychiatric classifications, the individual’s legal rights, the caseworkers’ assessments of marianne’s problems and needs and their personal and professional networks. as vohnsen further shows, vectors of concern emphasise how ’what one person holds to be of importance in one specific situation is not necessarily what the same person might attribute importance to in a different situation’ (vohnsen, 2015: 158). for instance, attention to marianne’s legal rights was both foregrounded and pushed to the background during the meeting; it was foregrounded as a barrier to the caseworkers’ attempts to commit marianne involuntarily to psychiatric treatment. at the same time, it was pushed to the background in other ways, for instance by the decision not to include marianne in the meeting. this situation bears some resemblance to the findings of a study on patient involvement in danish psychiatry, which referred to a similar case in which the psychiatric professionals presented themselves as being in control of the patients’ rights, both to determine the relevance of their health issues and to consent to the involvement of others in these issues. in the study, oute (2018) reports how psychiatric professionals were very protective of the hierarchy between themselves and their patients, since they saw this hierarchy as the underpinnings of the system (oute, 2018: 9, oute & bjerge forthcoming). as such, concerns for a person’s rights were legitimately pushed to the background or skirted around. m. nygaard-christensen, b. bjerge, and j. oute: a case study of casework tinkering qualitative studies 5(2), pp. 57–71 ©2018 69 no clear intervention for marianne’s case was formulated on the basis of the meeting. while caseworkers explored their ability to coerce her into psychiatric treatment, concerns for her legal rights and her unwillingness to be admitted into a metal health institution prevented them, at least for the moment, from doing so. as suggested at the outset of this paper, casework tinkering worked along two tracks: one that concerned ongoing and often day-today responses to her problems and needs as they evolved during a particularly unstable period in her life, and a second that aimed at longterm planning. instead of committing marianne to psychiatric treatment, her medication was altered. in a subsequent meeting, one of the caseworkers reported that this appeared to have stabilised her situation to some degree, suggesting that the meeting and collective tinkering with her case had contributed to supporting future long-term planning of her case. concluding remarks the lack of an end point in marianne’s case is exemplary of the nature of casework in the context of welfare management of people with complex problems. unless an individual moved on to a different municipality or their situation improved radically, casework tinkering was a continuous process. by zooming in on the management of a single case and examining the multiple concerns, interpretations and ways of probing and tinkering with services to make them fit individual situations, we have underlined the processual character of casework and demonstrated how cases are made to work by tinkering around in the interstices between existing service models. marianne’s case suggests that if caseworkers and welfare institutions insist too rigorously on putting people with complex problems into narrow boxes and categories in order to provide them with services, these services are quite likely to fail. whereas citizens like marianne require person-centred and tailored services, each of the systems are organised around certain rationalities and forms of expertise. paradoxically, this leaves little room for providing accurate and timely services to such citizens. indeed, while tinkering is a required tool in everyday casework, it is rarely an acknowledged or encouraged method (see also resnick & rosenbaum 2013). in this sense, a high level of skill is essential for navigating these system and thereby making casework practice effective (winance 2010, mol et al. 2010, knorr 1979, grommé 2015, lydahl 2017). however, these findings may not sit very comfortably with the dominating public discourse that problems need to be ‘fixed’ in a specific way; an approach that has been thoroughly evaluated through randomized controlled trials and which operates with the idea of measured, predictable outcomes (vohnsen, 2017; bjerge & rowe, 2017). in this sense, our paper has shown how casework practices in complex cases is often better understood by applying a concept that captures the processrelated and experimental dimensions of casework, rather than insisting that social work is or should be evidence-based, using rcts, etc. we are not suggesting that casework should not draw on models or be evaluated and documented. instead, we argue that the debate on welfare services would gain from insights into the intricate processes of conducting casework in practice the professional, legal, economic and moral considerations and the continuing adjustments made in order to understand the nature of casework in complex cases. in addition to this, the essence of welfare services and service providers is that their role is to solve problems (cf. spector & kitsuse 1977, adams 1996, bacchi 2009, møller & harrits 2013, payne 2014). although the caseworkers in our study accept the idea that tinkering is a cornerstone of their daily practices, at times they too wish for other possibilities, such as going further yet towards coercing marianne in order to fix her problems. in that sense, the daily need for tinkering in casework related to people with complex problems is experienced as key to finding suitable solutions, despite the fact that it is experienced as hard, exhausting labour that often fails to fix people’s problems and makes fulfilling ones professional aspirations a convoluted process (cf. lipsky 1980, frank & bjerge 2011, bjerge & bjerregaard 2017). 70 m. nygaard-christensen, b. bjerge, and j. oute: a case study of casework tinkering qualitative studies 5(2), pp. 57–71 ©2018 acknowledgements research for this article was funded by independent research fund denmark. references adams, r. 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(2014) [1990]. modern social work theory. basingstoke: palgrave macmillan. resnick, m. & rosenbaum, e. (2013). designing for tinkerability. pp. 163-181 in: honey, m. & kanter, d. e. (eds.), design, make, play: growing the next generation of stem innovators. new york, ny: routledge. rossen, c. b. (2016). pakkeudredning i det danske sundhedsvæsen: en analyse af udredningsprocesser i pakkeforløb. phd thesis. odense: institut for regional sundhedsforskning, syddansk universitet. spector, m. & j. i. kitsuse (1977). constructing social problems. san francisco, ca: benjamin-cummings publishing company. stax, t.b. (2003). fordi ingen er ens – eller…? en analyse af tre hjemløse klienters strategier på et lokalcenter. pp. 164-191 in: järvinen, m. & n. mik-meyer, n. (eds.) at skabe en klient. københavn: hans reitzels forlag. vohnsen, nina holm (2015) street-level planning: the shifty nature of “local knowledge and practice”. journal of organizational ethnography, 4(2): 147-161. vohnsen, n. h. (2017). the absurdity of bureaucracy. how implementation works. manchester, uk: manchester university press. winance, m. (2010). care and disability. practices of experimenting, tinkering with, and arranging people and technical aids. pp. 93-117 in: mol, a, moser, j and pols, j (eds.). care in practice. on tinkering in clinics, homes and farms. bielefeld: transcript verlag. m. nygaard-christensen, b. bjerge, and j. oute: a case study of casework tinkering qualitative studies 5(2), pp. 57–71 ©2018 71 • about the authors maj nygaard-christensen, phd, is assistant professor at centre for alcohol and drug research, aarhus university. she holds an ma and a phd in anthropology. her research interests are ethnographically oriented studies of political and development interventions and policy implementation processes. her current research projects focus on marginalized greenlanders in denmark, poverty, and violence among socially marginalized citizens. bagga bjerge, phd, is associate professor at centre for alcohol and drug research, aarhus university. she is trained within anthropology and sociology. her research activities are mainly based on qualitative methods focusing on policies and policy implementation, bureaucracy, social work as well as social marginalization. currently, her research projects focus on poverty, drug scenes in copenhagen, marginalized greenlanders in denmark and the management of citizens with complex cases. jeppe oute, phd, is assistant professor at centre for alcohol and drug research, aarhus university. he holds an ma in educational anthropology and a phd in social studies in medicine. oute’s research interests are twofold. his research focuses on the social effects of mental health policy in psychiatric and drug treatment practices and on the societal and professionalinstitutional contingency of recovery and stigma in the mental health field. paper 1: a qualitative gaze on how mundane public administration works introduction accomplishing public sector service: theorising interstices and imbrications from a qualitative stance contributions in this special issue a case study of casework tinkering health care professionalism without doctors: spatial surroundings and counter-identification in local health houses using ignorance as (un)conscious bureaucratic strategy: street-level practices and structural influences in the field of migration enforcement assembling advice treatment of dual diagnosis in denmark — models for cooperation and positions of power cross-pollinating discussions and contributions of the special issue acknowledgements about the authors paper 2: a case study of casework tinkering introduction empirical data casework tinkering — an analytical lens 1. probing possibilities 2. tinkering with services to fit the case 3. tinkering with individuals to fit resources negotiating discrepancies — crafting a case response concluding remarks acknowledgements about the authors paper 3: spatial surroundings and counter-identification in local health houses introduction theoretical framework: professionalization in site-specific contexts identification and counter-identification mixed methodological research design: case selection and vignette construction analytical section: observations and interviews in two distinct types of health houses the medical–clinical health house: “press if you have an appointment” health professionals in a medical–clinical health house: “we are health consultants” former cancer patient, now in rehabilitation: “i meet people facing the same struggles as myself” the community–based health house: “a flat screen promotes various events” health professional in a community-based health house: “i miss my work when i am on vacation” citizens on the edge of the city: “it's the best the municipality has ever done for its citizens” conclusion: counter-identification with hospitals and doctors acknowledgements about the author appendices paper 4: street-level practices and structural influences in the field of migration enforcement introduction theoretical framework defining structural violence in bureaucratic encounters the relation between indifference and ignorance understanding uncertainty understanding ignorance methodological framework ignorance in street-level encounters migrants' use of ignorance ignorance as inherit feature of the state conclusion — what is the cost of ignorance? acknowledgements about the author paper 5: ethnographic explorations of the changing relationship between voluntary advi… introduction research methods citizens advice: some background theoretical tools: on assemblage thinking an advice service as an assemblage: the data the use of volunteers on funding, funders and regulatory effects legal aid funding the funding mosaic: entrepreneurialism and independence fragile futures acknowledgements about the authors paper 6: models for cooperation and positions of power introduction the problems of dual diagnosis the dual diagnosis field in denmark empirical material cooperation between psychiatry and substance use treatment — organizational interfaces an under-organized interface learning points concluding remarks acknowledgements about the author qualitative studies vol. 8, no. 1, 2023, pp. 279-281 issn 1903-7031 a goat track review lisa grocott1 1monash university, 900 dandenong road, caulfield vic 3045, australia what happens when the invitation to wonder off the beaten track is extended to the very act of critical peer review? this piece of performative writing is the peer review for x paper. the wandering and wondering presents a pluriversal way of peering, of being with, of relating to authors who are coming from another place, another world. keywords: reciprocity, relationality, affect, indigenous knowing as i read, i too am wandering and wondering. i wander through the contours of the paper, sensing a landscape both familiar and not my own. i wonder what it means to (un)discipline my review. the paper is curious as to how we might “subvert the primacy of the western colonial imagination.” in return the ideas in the paper grant me, the reviewer the permission to act otherwise, to not follow my disciplined conventions of reviewing academic writing. i review this therefore not as a design researcher, not as someone focused on designing learning encounters, but as an indigenous, queer, (dis)abled woman motivated to explore a new approach to reviewing wondering/wandering texts. from an indigenous perspective i am drawn to the invitation to see beyond the fleshy limits, to attune to the air, the landscape, the water. i think of my whakapapa, my māori ancestors, i sense their relationship to my iwi’s (tribe’s) awa, maunga and waka, and how that relationship to the river, the mountain and their wandering would never be peripheral, could not be forgotten. and yet, here we are. this paper, an antidote, a mediation, a call to action, offers into this colonized space…hope. the paper makes me smile, grounds my convictions and forges virtual connection. https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0009-4767 l. grocott: a goat track review qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 279-281 ©2023 280 yet still i find myself residing in my physical body as i read. the resonances of the text draw me in. whereas the designer in me is drawn to the form, i find my neurodivergent, queer self, sitting with where the words take my body and my mind. i am in conversation with my affective reflexes to the free words on the page. i sense my emotional, embodied responses and i trace the cognitive paths the metaphoric thinking illuminates. i am engaged, curious, connected. disinterested in finding the gaps, i resist a convention that normalises the reviewer as the tractor driver, running roughshod over the terrain. i instead seek to explore the role of the reviewer as following on a goat track, learning from walking closely, silently behind you. i will not read this paper looking for what is not there but looking for what is. this narrow, winding track i follow offers both a path upward and a time and place for communing with the authors. a new way of peering this has me wondering what happens if the rigour of the review process is not wedded to the reviewer performing their authority or claiming terrain they previously mapped? what if the rigour of peer review lies in the capacity to hold space for the authors ideas, to make visible that you are listening? as i imagine this pluriversal world, i wonder how this asynchronous, anonymous looping of ideas might yet be grounded in reciprocity, in a relational exchange? i am left grateful to the journal for a call for papers that asks us to break genre conventions and to the authors for seeding for me this idea that i too could adopt a different track. to follow is my liberated, (un)disciplined review. i chose this path because your paper asked more of me. in asking me to show up differently in the world i also show up more as myself. my arms are in pain from a previous life driven by a productivist agenda. it hurts to write. but that is not the only reason i turn away from paragraphs. in offering a colour-coded visualization of how i felt my way through reading the paper, i am also turning to a body that is drawn to non-verbal communication. the attached manuscript highlights the emotional and embodied spectrum of responses i experienced while listening to your words. l grocott: a goat track review qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 279-281 ©2023 281 i resist offering amendments that bring your work closer to mine. instead i share how your ideas sat alongside my lived experience. yellow is for resonance. these turns of phrase left me smiling in communion. these were the words that made me feel seen. pink is for understanding. i would choose the dropdown pink colour when i found myself nodding in agreement, concurring with your insight, affirming the position you were outlining. cyan is for paradox. specifically, i felt the bittersweet paradox of sorrow and hope. the many times that the liberatory sense of imagining a new way of being was still defined in relation to the past ways that persist in the enduring present. lime is for anticipation. these were the lines that quickened my heart. the expressions of an idea that left me wanting more, left me optimistic, left me imagining a different tomorrow. the visual kaleidoscope of reactions and responses highlights that i accept this paper as it stands. {for what it stands for} i have no need for revisions. about the author: lisa grocott is a professor of design at monash university in the emerging technologies lab. lisa’s approach to peer review is informed by her research into transformative learning, indigenous knowing and co-design practice. the invitation to resist conforming to an academic culture of critique is grounded in the generative knowing that comes with exploring what might be possible. her whakapapa are ngāti kahugnunu from the east coast of aotearoa, new zealand. vol. 5, no. 2, 2018, pp. 95–109 issn 1903-7031 using ignorance as (un)conscious bureaucratic strategy: street-level practices and structural influences in the field of migration enforcement lisa marie borrelli  university of bern, institute of sociology, fabrikstraße 8, ch–3012 bern: switzerland (lisa.borrelli@soz.unibe.ch, tel: +41 31 631 48 29, fax: +41 31 631 48 17) • street-level bureaucrats working in the field of migration enforcement have the uneasy task of finding irregularised migrantsand processing their cases – often until deportation. as the encounters are unforeseeable and characterised by tension and emotions, bureaucrats develop practices and strategies, which help them to manage the often very personal encounters. besides the frequently debated strategies summarised under the term ‘copying mechanisms’ and the problem of ‘dirty’ or many hands, ignorance as a tactic in the daily work of bureaucrats has not been studied to a sufficient extent. this work looks at how ignorance, including deliberate not-knowing or blinding out, as well as undeliberate partial-knowing or being kept ignorant, is used in public administration, through multi-sited, ethnographic fieldwork in migration offices and border police/guard offices of three schengen member states: sweden, switzerland and latvia. it distinguishes between structural and individual ignorance, which both have the ability to limit migrant’s agency. further, by analysing their intertwined relation, this article furthers our understanding of how uncertainty and a lack of accountability become results of everyday bureaucratic encounters. ignorance thus obscures state practices, subjecting migrants with precarious legal status to structural violence. keywords: bureaucracy, agntology, ignorance, migration, public administration, discretion. • introduction i am taking part in a summons regarding the deportation of a family to italy. the swiss cantonal migration officer f asks the father if they are willing to leave. he answers: ‘would i be alone, yes, but i have a family. we do not want to live like animals. it does not suffice food, portable toilets, no roof over our heads. and they are threatening us to deport us back to lebanon.’ f does not react to this answer and continues working on the forms, in front of his laptop, skipping to the next question: ‘do you have other documents than your identity cards?’ – ‘no.’ the situation is tense, the translator gets increasingly uncomfortable, one of the children is about to cry. a quick exchange on the poor mental and physical health of the family is followed by the father’s comment: ‘i am not responsible if something happens to my family. you are responsible.’ f continues filling in his forms, turns around to the translator, with a final remark and question: ‘yes, sure. you are communicating in arabic?’ (swiss cantonal migration office 2016) bureaucratic encounters, such as the one above, have often been characterised as painstaking, absurd and chiefly as a violent interaction caused by bureaucratic indifference (herzfeld 1992). also recent and former fictional depictions of bureaucracy (see loach 2016, kafka’s ‘the trial’ 1925 and gogol’s ‘the overcoat’ 1842) regularly take up the issue of a careless and user unfriendly, even hostile environment of public administration, elucidating what gupta (2012) described as individuals’ including the welfare ‘poor’ (cf. gilliom 2001) or migrants1 —experiences of structural violence in encounters of public administration. the fictional and actual study of bureaucratic behaviour (cf. lipsky 2010; fassin 2013; 95 https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8547-320x mailto:lisa.borrelli@soz.unibe.ch tel:+41316314829 fax:+41316314817 96 l. borrelli: street-level practices and structural influences in the field of migration enforcement qualitative studies 5(2), pp. 95–109 ©2018 herzfeld 1992) mutually highlight a general disinterest and incomprehension on the side of the bureaucrat towards their clients. the arbitrary position towards the applicants’ needs is especially observable in forced encounters between migrants with precarious legal status and street-level bureaucrats, discussed in this work. for this marginalised group, bureaucratic interaction usually implies a negative outcome: detention and deportation. however, the encounters are not only demarcated by indifference or disinterest, but also by ignorance. in order to understand the dynamics of these emotionally laden and contested encounters, disregarding whether the interaction happens willingly or is coerced, this work will introduce the theoretical concept of ignorance, which adds to theories on streetlevel bureaucracy. ignorance as deliberate or undeliberate lack of or gaps in knowledge (in a simplified definition), contributes to our understanding of bureaucrat’s everyday practices within the migration regime as it reveals how (non-)knowledge can be (un)consciously used by all actors involved, including bureaucrats and migrants, as well as be an inherent part of the ‘state’ and its structures. this article thus analyses the creation and use of ignorance in government agencies dealing with the enforcement of migration policies on a structural and individual level. while it postulates that ignorance is an inherent and integral part of the otherwise non-unitary state structure, it steps further and aims to analyse the street-level bureaucrats’ use of ignorance, which includes un-knowing, partial knowing or blinding out knowledge. by analysing the intertwined relation between structural and individual ignorance, this work is able to contextualise uncertainty and lacking accountability as outcomes of daily bureaucratic encounters. these include the gap of knowledge on procedures which either are not part of the daily work, or having a greater impact should be known but are ignored. on a more moral level, it encompasses bureaucratic behaviour regarding the more personal side of the encounters, where empathy might be kept hidden, because of more personal reasons and pragmatism. it is thus able to not only raise relevant concerns about how administrative and moral aspects of ignorance create intangible practices and emotionally charged encounters, but also unsound practices. the analysis, looking at strategies of ignorance used by bureaucrats, migrants and within state structures, is preceded by a theoretical conceptualisation of ignorance in relation to indifference and uncertainty. it is followed by a brief methodological description of where and how fieldwork was conducted. finally, the conclusion summarises the tactics used in the daily work of public administration. distinguishing between different individual and structural ignorance facilitates a better comprehension of how structural violence, uncertainty and diffusion of accountability are reproduced, but also under what circumstances. theoretical framework when conceptualising discretionary spaces, several strategies such as coping mechanisms (de graaf, huberts, and smulders 2014; tummers, et al. 2015) , cherry-picking or foot dragging (scott 1990; lipsky 2010; eule 2014) explain the realities of public offices. further, routinisation and attitudes of indifference to detach oneself from work practices (blau and meyer 1987; herzfeld 1992) and the diffusion of many hands (thompson 1980) underline ways of bureaucrats dealing with their everyday work, reducing their accountability. with tummers, et al. (2015) broadly conceptualise coping as ‘behavioural efforts frontline workers employ when interacting with clients, in order to master, tolerate, or reduce external and internal demands and conflicts they face on an everyday basis’ (tummers, et al. 2015, 1100; cf. borrelli and lindberg, 2018, on creative strategies), ‘coping’ presupposes a conscious action. ignorance in contrast does not only materialise in reactions to the cross pressure of policy demands, citizens’ claims and the state agencies’ organisation, or as practices reflecting personal ideas and values, which are actively pursued. instead it also encompasses more unconscious moments, where one is not aware of knowledge, or moments where one is held ignorant. ignorance thus plays a crucial role in migrantbureaucrat encounters, since it brings forwards how it can be used as coping mechanism, but also how it is structurally placed and unconl. borrelli: street-level practices and structural influences in the field of migration enforcement qualitative studies 5(2), pp. 95–109 ©2018 97 sciously imposed, while influencing the everyday practices and reflections of street-level bureaucrats (as well as migrants). ignorance can surely be found in other administrative contexts and thus applies to other bureaucrats, such as social workers or teachers. while the findings can be used in a broader context, this study however wants to highlight the particularity of the public administration studied here. within the migration apparatus (feldman 2012), bureaucrats work in a field of severe ostracism and coercive practices towards an already strongly marginalised group. in this apparatus they can either use ignorance as a tactic to enforce power-inequalities pre-established by legal frameworks, or subvert them. they are at the same time influenced and constrained by their knowledge and the gaps, created by the structural organisation of state agencies. in either way, the existence and use of ignorance, passive or active, subtle or crude, highlights the extreme situation migrants face in their everyday lives, as well as the state’s capacity to govern them. as such, the use of ignorance in context of irregularised migration highlights the reproduction of structural violence, and also reveals how ignorance that is structurally imposed on the bureaucrat supports the increasingly restrictive position of the researched countries towards migration (cf. borrelli, 2018; eule, et al., 2018). indeed, similar to herzfeld’s (1992, 1, 18f) and arendt’s (1963, 283) take on how given bureaucratic structures create and amplify indifference and a banal evil among frontline staff, their legal mandates and tasks of the interlocutors, as well as the organisational structures facilitate ignorance —something presented in the analytical section. defining structural violence in bureaucratic encounters in the following, structural violence will mainly be understood according to galtung (1969) and gupta (2012). while galtung (1969) names unequal distribution of power and unequal life chances, caused by poverty, marginalisation and exploitation (galtung 1969, 171; cf. rylkobauer and farmer 2016; garver 1973), gupta (2012, 20) adds the inability to identify a single actor responsible for a violent act to the concept of structural violence. though this concept is mostly used when studying the loss of life due to social conditions (høivik 1977; simmons and casper 2012), the depicted encounters between street-level bureaucrats and migrants with precarious legal status strongly reflect structural violence in a more banal way. especially since irregularised migrants are a marginal group with fewer rights, though often contributing with work and tax payments to societies which reject their presence (chauvin and garcésmascareñas 2014), it is they who are systematically being denied agency (jackson 2013) through the use of ignorance. thus, combing the concepts of ignorance and structural violence will not only tell us how the former supports the latter, but also how ignorance legitimises structural violence as it limits the ‘other’s’ agency, for example by consciously creating knowledge gaps and not acknowledging the other’s aspirations and thus, voice. it highlights the inequalities that shape power relations between the migrant subject and the ‘state’, represented by the bureaucrat in the european migration regime. the relation between indifference and ignorance the worst sin towards our fellow creatures is not to hate them, but to be indifferent to them: that’s the essence of inhumanity. (shaw 2015) following the oxford dictionary, indifference is described as a ‘lack of interest, concern, or sympathy’, including a notion of unimportance. connected to nair’s (1999) understanding, indifference is the ‘language of denial’, ‘achieved in institutional set-ups where bureaucratic rules end up thwarting, even damaging, every people they were meant to help’ (ibid.: 13). however, bureaucrats do not simply treat each case similarly, thus suggesting indifference can be characterised by an absence of feelings (watkin 2014, 50), but bring their attitudes into the processing of cases. this stands in contrast to indifference as absence of meaning or relationship (deleuze 1994). indifference is a disinterest towards the person, which does not motivate the bureaucrat 98 l. borrelli: street-level practices and structural influences in the field of migration enforcement qualitative studies 5(2), pp. 95–109 ©2018 to familiarise themselves with the client’s case file or history. ignorance can instead be influenced by (unconscious) knowledge gaps, personal values and an active manipulation of information. while both indifference and ignorance can help the bureaucrats to not step beyond their actual tasks, ignorance goes beyond the concept of ‘not caring’ (herzfeld 1992) and can function as moral resistance (proctor 2008). although both, ignorance and indifference often refer to denial (nair 1999) and are immanent in the space of bureaucracy, both terms have to be seen as related but not equal concepts. understanding uncertainty besides indifference being partly connected to ignorance, uncertainty also plays a crucial role in understanding how structural violence is produced and upheld. this work argues that besides the general uncertainty existing in migrants’ everyday life, it is strongly produced through ignorance during bureaucratic encounters. especially in context of deportation and detention, where power struggles and unequal forces are tangible, uncertainty is a serious outcome for the migrants, who are held in a status of ‘not knowing’ or imperfect knowledge (smithson 2010). uncertainty is linked to an outcome which lies in the future, characterised by delay and distance (cf. beck 2008), although its consequences are fairly palpable (e.g. anxiety, stress). this differentiation is crucial with regards to the outcome of ignorance. the latter is able to maintain and manipulate behaviour, knowledge transfer and information, resulting in uncertainty as a mode of being kept ignorant and manipulated (proctor 2008). thus, ignorance encompasses gaps of knowledge and forms of resistance (ibid., 8), while actively or passively producing uncertainty. understanding ignorance ignorance has been defined in various ways in scholarly literature (cf. smithson 1989; galison 2004). while individuals do not have the capacity to know everything (douglas 1986) and do not have access to all knowledge, they also have the ability to decide what to know (stel 2016; cf. beck 2008 on the conscious or unconscious inability-to-know). thus, ignorance cannot be understood as pure absence of knowledge (croissant 2014) or stupidity (gupta 2012), but as something, which can be actively upheld and maintained or also manipulated (mcgoey 2012b). by using ignorance as an active or passive strategy to cope, evade or engage with situations, individuals show varying degrees of agency remaining players ‘acting within relations of social inequality, asymmetry, and force’ (ortner 2006, 139). subjects are partially knowing (giddens 1979), underlining not only the selective vision of ignorance, but also the individuals’ ability to act on and sometimes against the structures that made them (ortner 2006, 110). consequently, ignorance is entangled in human relations and interactions. while there is a difference between conscious and unconscious ignorance, which can lead to either active or passive strategies of ignorance (one can consciously not seek for information and knowledge which is available, thus rendering oneself passive; while one can unconsciously be ignorant due to a lack of knowledge and information available), this work rather focuses on the origins of ignorance. while trying to elaborate on how (un)conscious or active/passive certain ignorance is within the following analysis, the main argument in this work is the twofold nature of ignorance. first, it is created by a structural setup of the state and its agencies, which through their rules, frameworks and hierarchies create opportunities for ignorance to arise. this institutionalised ignorance (beck 2008) is constructed, preserved and —with time— reproduces itself through the practiced (un)conscious and active or passive ignorance of street-level bureaucrats. second, personal values and opinions can create strategies of ignorance, which do not necessarily go against the structural setup, but have the potential to contest the state and policies. thus, while state structures can create gaps of knowledge and ignorance which the street-level bureaucrat may be unaware of, leading to a reproduction of structural violence through routine practices and the selected knowledge acquired by bureaucrats, bureaucrats also have the ability to consciously use ignorance to follow their own values, make work easier (see coping), or to reproduce the structural ignorance placed upon them in the first place. similarly, migrants can make use of strategies of ignorance or being l. borrelli: street-level practices and structural influences in the field of migration enforcement qualitative studies 5(2), pp. 95–109 ©2018 99 kept ignorant by the bureaucrat or the ‘state’. the key contribution of this work is that it highlights the violent outcomes of the interrelation between structural and individual ignorance, enhancing intangible practices. while ignorance embedded in public administration seems to be part of any given discretionary space, and thus still legally sound (though ultimately morally contestable), the created gap of information can force street-level bureaucrats to tinker practices which might follow the intention of policies, while at the same creating unexpected outcomes. ignorance on the individual level can contest the structural side, to the (dis)advantage of the migrant with precarious legal status. bureaucrats can resist legal guidelines and frameworks (consciously or not), including situations where bureaucrats ignore what should be known regarding their routines and legal procedures. this ‘stepping beyond their actual mandate’, thus moving in the realm of unsound practices, can lead to sanctions (job loss), but also highlights how ignorance can be morally charged and produce harm. indeed, ignorance on an emotional level can block out and neutralise (sykes and matza 1957) everyday encounters with clients defined by ‘spontaneity, perishability, emotionality, vulnerability’ (geertz 1973, 399). this production of ‘anonymisation of persons’ (ibid., 398) or distancing (eule 2014) allows encounters not to become personal, while still processing cases as expected. generally, screening or shutting out are forms of denial where the individual only sees partially (cohen 2001). finally, asking who doesn’t know and why not, can map the political geography ignorance creates. bringing structural and individual aspects of ignorance together advances and understanding of how systems of oppression aim to silence the subject (tuana 2008, 109) as the deliberate maintenance of un-knowledge and the withholding of information towards migrants incapacitates them. methodological framework this article is based on several months of ethnographic fieldwork in migration offices (switzerland, latvia), border police units (sweden) and border guard services (latvia), as well as local police units (switzerland). the selection of these three countries is based on the interest to study state agencies’ answer to irregular migration within the schengen area, as well as to the given possibilities of accessing the field. while sweden and latvia are more centrally organised and switzerland has a federal structure, further differences are found in the diverse geographical position (external and internal borders), organisational set-up, migration policies and migrant populations arriving. however, structural and individual strategies of ignorance play a crucial role in the everyday life of each group of bureaucrats, no matter how diverse their tasks and education are. thus, this work can contribute by bringing forward crucial similarities, which have a strong effect not only on the bureaucrat, but also on case outcomes, thus finally on the migrant with precarious legal status. between 2015 and 2017 dataderiving from participant observation, semi structured interviews and formal interviews or conversationswas collected. it was triangulated with the study of internal policy papers and case files (flick 2011). the observed interactions between migrants and street-level bureaucrat, including (mobile) police officers or case workers in the office, have in common that the migrant subject was always in a precarious legal status. either their asylum application was rejected and they were pushed to leave the country, they worked illegally (sometimes without knowing), or were placed in detention to await deportation. regarding the used field notes, street-level bureaucrats have been named with capital letters and gender pronouns have been avoided. the collected recounted stories are situationally produced (ewick and silbey 1995) but embedded in a larger context disclosing power relations, which are hidden in social meaning. in order to study ignorance, participant observation helped to pinpoint moments where such ignorance became more evident. at the same time the interpretation of observed scenes and recounted stories connected to written statements and reports allows for a deeper understanding of ignorance already inherent in the government structure. 100 l. borrelli: street-level practices and structural influences in the field of migration enforcement qualitative studies 5(2), pp. 95–109 ©2018 ignorance in street-level encounters the following observation was collected during fieldwork at a swiss cantonal police station 2017. depending on the size of the canton and the number of foreigners living in it, the cantonal police will have a specialised unit taking care of deportations and detentions, and also informing other police units about the current migration status of apprehended foreigners. the unit receives cases, and thus people, through the cantonal migration office. the excerpt highlights the manifold ways in which ignorance is present and how it is linked to indifference. g (a police officer of the migration police unit i am visiting) invites me to follow to the detention centre and quickly informs me about the detainee. believing the detainee is from eritrea, after briefly screening the files, g translates a couple of sentences, via an online tool, in tigrinya. i ask if g knows about the detainee’s other language skills, but g shrugs. besides, the sentences translated only cover the section on health, “the rest will be fine […], we’ll see how it works out.” no phone translator is arranged. however, when we enter the meeting room, g searches for a translation of the detention order in amharic. after looking at the case file more closely g realized that the detainee turns out to come from ethiopia. when a translation cannot be found, g does not bother and takes out an english one. i have time to screen the case file. the detainee will be sent to germany. my attention wanders off to the great amount of available languages in which the detention order is available. all other forms are only available in german and english and are brought by the officer. g remarks: “well, if the intellect is missing, he can sit here for an hour, read and not understand anything. but with this translation he at least has something in his hands.“ g also explains that the detainee should have received the deportation decision during his stay in the reception centre, and thus assumes he knows what is going to happen. when the detainee arrives, g begins the conversation in german and after not hearing what the detainee answers switches to english. g: „do you speak english?“ „small.“ g: „small, ok. my name is g. i am from the police. you know your situation?“ the detainee seems confused. g: „no asyl in switzerland. asyl is finished here.“ g hands over the detention order. „this is my order. you sign? you go back germany. you sign or not, what you want.“ after a couple of minutes of unsuccessful communication, the detainee, though explaining he does not understand what the form means, agrees to sign. g has still not enquired about the detainee’s mother tongue and continues to believe it is amharic. therefore, g hands him the next forms in english. finally, the detainee asks if there is a somali translation – he does not speak amharic after all. g looks at me and i nod. the next form informs the detainee about the entry ban to switzerland. g: „the territory of switzerland is closed for you. 3 years no switzerland. only information – migration gave it to you, just info. you sign or not?“ again the detainee mentions he does not understand but signs. g replies: „you understand? yes, you understand. the territory of switzerland is closed to you for 3 years and you can say to the problem what you want here (pointing to a line on the form). i explain you situation now. you understand.“ g points to the line where the detainee could make a statement on the entry ban. „you can say sign or not sign.“ again the detainee mentions he would sign even though he does not understand. now, g starts to get a bit insecure, decides to put ‘signature denied’ on the form and signs himself. then g looks at the detainee: „but now you know the situation in switzerland.“ (swiss cantonal police unit 2017) l. borrelli: street-level practices and structural influences in the field of migration enforcement qualitative studies 5(2), pp. 95–109 ©2018 101 the fieldnote starts out with the indifferent attitude of g towards the detainee. by not looking closely to the file, g overlooks relevant information for the encounter and acts indifferent towards the case and the detainee. however, besides the disinterest towards the client, g also does not deem the available information as relevant for the work task, thus ignoring it, keeping the file closed. the officer is confident to know enough to be prepared, which turns out to be wrong. further, the quality of the encounter is of no interest to g, reducing the level of information exchange to a minimum, as g assumes all relevant information has been given to the detainee beforehand. thus, what starts out as an indifferent attitude, discloses several strategies of structural and individual ignorance going beyond what indifference is able to explain. while the active refusal to understand can be seen as an act of agency, moments where migrants genuinely do not understand are not. the detainee is not aware of what will happen to him and voices his struggle to understand. however, he is willing to sign the forms, disregarding his lack of knowledge. he is literally depending on the knowledge of the officer, who decides how much to share, since he is detained, without access to other knowledge. as i encounter many of these interactions, it is valid to mention that power inequalities (galtung 1969) and thus structural violence are very much present at any moment, as each interaction is characterised by different amounts of information handed out, thus decapacitating the clients to various degrees. during hearings of the swedish border police regarding the prolongation of detention the officers clearly explain that no further questions will be discussed. any attempt to break this rule is met with firm refusal to answer and repetition of this rule (fieldnotes, 2017). it is they who decide how much information is shared and it is them who decide if the other has understood. while the bureaucrat is able to withhold information at any time, leaving the client in a state of un-knowledge or partial knowledge and thus uncertainty, the migrant has only limited influence. this is partly supported by the procedures of the system, in which the officer is the last one in a line of bureaucrats who processes the case, thus accepting it without much reflexivity. (s)he does what is expected of her/him. street-level bureaucrats often explain their blocking of client’s questions with their lack of responsibility. to them more knowledge given to the migrant would not make a difference (see g) as they perceive cases as closed and clients should understand that ‘this’ is the end of all procedure, that it is time to leave. b, a caseworker in a swiss cantonal migration office, explains: ’other colleagues might read through the asylum application interview, but i do not. it is of no interest to me, it is all lies anyway (laughs). i just know, this person has to go and i do it. the national migration office can take care of the rest’ (fieldnotes, 2016). like many other colleagues the caseworker simply practices the ’won’t tell, […] don’t know, and frankly […] don’t care’– attitude (bauman 2008, 70). knowledge of the case is irrelevant, as according to b one does not need to know a case in order to process it. also, all interlocutors imply that acquiring of more information might not reduce uncertainty or ignorance, but can lead to confusion where information conflicts (smithson 2010). ignorance is thus presented as a strategy to avoid complicated encounters to supposedly ‘help’ the client to understand. the decisions taken are within the given framework, and thus resemble the everyday discretionary choices bureaucrats make. refusing to get acquainted with a case more than the officers deem to be necessary is thus a ‘professional’ decision developed with experience. many times, i get a quick shrug when asking about details of the cases, added by a short: »i do not know« or »i do not care«. reducing the intake of information might facilitate the workload as it takes less time to get familiar with a case, thus only ‘relevant information’ to fulfil a task is screened. officers working with detention and deportation do not need to know the entire asylum request, the stories told and the reasons for rejection. in their everyday work, they are the ones »executing orders« (fieldnotes, 2016–2017). taking in more information than is relevant to implement their work is time consuming. while not necessarily misguiding the clients of public administration, the ignorance of personal stories and information – for whatever reason adds a 102 l. borrelli: street-level practices and structural influences in the field of migration enforcement qualitative studies 5(2), pp. 95–109 ©2018 moral value to the denial of migrants’ agency. like f in the first fieldnote, limiting the encounter to a set of simple questions asked to the detainee, keeps the conversation and discussion to a minimum. uncomfortable knowledge is kept at bay or is dismissed (rayner 2012). however, while police officers/border guards are not bound to double-check cases and screen decisions already taken by the migration office or migration courts, their work needs to be grounded on correct decisions. some information is relevant to perform well, and thus the process of deciding what to read and what not is crucial. also, by reading decisions and files, officers could have the opportunity to function as a last control mechanism, while also being emotionally and professionally responsive to their opposites. besides the active ignorance of available facts, the fieldnote elucidates g’s lack of knowledge, increasing the probability of flaws. while g does not seem to bother to get a decent translation, g is also unaware of the existing languages of the detention orders, thus acting on partial knowledge or even non-knowledge. this negligence can cause serious trouble for the processing of cases and of course for the individual who might be detained or deported. while individuals cannot and do not know everything (douglas 1986; croissant 2014), g’s attitude goes beyond simply being careless, yet remaining entirely confident, assuring me the meeting went as expected. this reduction of the migrant to a passive element denies them the same capacities and reproduces structural violence (ibid., gupta 2012). despite getting familiar with someone’s case in order to address them correctly as sign of respect (cf. smithson 1989), g also denies the detainee a proper translation, creating unsound administrative practices caused by ignorance. legally, g has to meet the client in detention, who has a right to be heard, though due to the ignorant strategies it actually loses its validity, as the client does not understand what will happen to him. street-level encounters strongly reflect the function of ignorance as reinforcement of traditional values and maintenance of privileged positions and expertise (moore and tumin 1949). obviously, there is different access to knowledge and it is the street-level bureaucrat who can choose to disclose information in order to fulfil their task or follow their own moral sentiments (or not). at the same time, it underlines the broad discretionary space they have in defining their tasks. as such, informing the detainee is highly subjective. to g the tasks are fulfilled sufficiently. where street-level bureaucrats follow readymade patterns and engage in a common idea of how the job is done, ‘the individual’s notions of right and wrong are rigidified [and] susceptibility to new knowledge and influence is minimized’ (ibid., 791). also, many bureaucrats assume that all of their clients lie (see b) or are well-informed (g), accounting for the unwillingness of streetlevel bureaucrats to repeat explanations on procedures and thus maintaining a state of ignorance among detainees. some officers preserve stereotypes, depending on narrowly defined roles, reducing information on the otherwise often personal encounters. this type of ignorance is required, ‘whenever knowledge would impair impersonal fulfilment or duties’ (moore and tumin 1949, 793). for officers, ignorance often functions as a positive and active element of operating structures, thus does not leave the structure dysfunctional (ibid., 795). in contrast, the migrant experiences a great decrease in agency. g’s rhetoric question ‘you understand?’ and own answer ‘yes you understand’ are just one example of many encounters, where bureaucrats did not listen sufficiently. the asymmetry of power structures visible in these encounter prove how quickly ignorant behaviour is produced and used in everyday encounters. for g the meeting is one of many, a practiced routine, thus so banal that the actual execution of meetings easily whitewashes structural violence (proctor 2008; slater 2012). in other situations, officers might resort to more passive ignorance, letting clients talk and ask questions, without taking the stories and concerns into account. f resumes work, filling out papers, while the client continues talking and explaining. here the client’s voice might be allowed, but not heard. it is not simply indifference but the assumption of irrelevance that lead officers to neglect knowledge and information. it is also a strategy to meet the expected outcome: filing forms, thus keeping up l. borrelli: street-level practices and structural influences in the field of migration enforcement qualitative studies 5(2), pp. 95–109 ©2018 103 productive tasks, is combined with teaching the client a lesson: no matter how much one complains, what story is told, there is nothing that can be done. ignorance becomes a productive asset to justify and evade responsibility (mcgoey 2012a; stel 2016). the stalling (stel 2016) and stonewalling (sedgwick 1990 see also f) is an intentional strategy to reduce the intake of information, thus highlighting the resistance to get involved too deeply, which functions as a coping mechanism (de graaf, huberts, and smulders 2014; blau and meyer 1987). o: ‘the back side of the job is: if you see more than the usual human being sees, your mind set changes. one is more involved and knows more.’ (field notes, swedish border police 2017) what o refers to is the struggle to leave work with a free and unbothered mind. o previously worked as border control staff at the airport, where »one hands over the case to another person. it is easier to switch off and the next day one comes back and one has something new.« instead, in the current job as a regular border police case worker o follows cases until deportation, which »is sometimes not that easy« (fieldnotes, 2016). when thinking about the caseload, o mentions having been involved in about one hundred cases since starting the job 5 months ago. ‘i should not think about it. it is nearly the same as to think about the universe.’ however, it is not only the sheer amount of information, but also the personal involvement in cases, which makes it difficult for street-level bureaucrats to ‘switch off’. efforts to blind out personal stories and values, which might interfere with their work is met with strategies to reduce involvement. while the ‘shutting out’ of daily work experiences is connected to taking a break from the ‘job’, tasks and eventually unpleasant encounters, the blocking out of personal views reduces friction regarding the execution of tasks. however, being ignorant towards ones own emotional and political viewpoints might reduce the ability of reflection. declining to reflect on ones own positions during work might disrupt the carefully maintained work free zone of private life, underlining the struggle officers might go through to be able to ignore. however, the use of ignorance can also be directed against the agency, the structure and thus the state, highlighting individual ignorance regarding bureaucrats’ own views and norms. refusing to take up orders and going against guidelines and regulations is an active decision to ignore, and to follow own hidden transcripts (scott 1990). this bears the danger of taking up more discretion than the structures grant, and results in less common, but more disruptive moments. a person from the national swiss migration agency calls the cantonal migration office – a man with an italian residence permit was apprehended, but the cantonal office decided not to take any actions because he has refugee status and an italian residence permit. the national office wonders why they did not detain, as he could still be returned to italy. u later tells me: “they just wanted to get rid of him, or put him in jail, but he had documents. if they seem valid, one has to let him go. the italians should have told the national office about his documents.” u walks over to w’s office and summarises the call. w: “everything is perfectly fine. it is not in our competence and does not interest us. and the national office can surely tell us what they think we should do, but we will do what we want to. the use of coercive measures lies in the competence of the canton. he is recognised as a refugee. we could have detained him, but why would we? for us he is a tourist and it would not make any sense to detain him. and we are not talking about a package or something, but about a human being. also, he could sue us in the end and then we would eventually have to pay him a compensation for the detention.” (field notes, swiss cantonal migration office 2016) the excerpt elucidates how ignorance can have a positive outcome for the otherwise often marginalised client. while detention as measure can be used, the decision lies in the hands of the cantonal migration office. thus, it highly depends on personal decisions and the use of 104 l. borrelli: street-level practices and structural influences in the field of migration enforcement qualitative studies 5(2), pp. 95–109 ©2018 discretionary spaces (lipsky 2010; eule 2014). here, the bureaucrat voices two reasons for refuting the national office’s suggestion. it is a will to acknowledge the impact detention has on a human being, but also the assumed costs if they fail to proof the necessity for detention in front of the court. ignoring the general routine, guided by the national office, w actively goes against their way of handling it, thus ignoring generally accepted practices to the advantage of the client and finally their own office. a second encounter between w and another dublin case elucidates what smithson (2008) calls ‘arrangement of ignorance’. the client has been deported from sweden to switzerland, as the latter is responsible for the decision on the case. however, the client was already rejected. now, by turning up again, the officer could detain him. however, w openly explains, as if talking to himself, what options could follow: »you will be detained and sent back to your home country, if you turn up again. but if you would abscond, there is nothing we can do…« (field notes swiss cantonal migration office 2016). in contrast to situations where officers keep information hidden (e.g. not telling about deportation dates), w openly shares what will happen, going against the actual rules, which w certainty is aware of. w discloses information, which should not be given, ignoring the fact that it would be counterproductive to his actual task: to implement deportation orders. instead, w openly shares knowledge and information, as if the client was not visible (smithson 2008), using ignorance as strategic ploy (proctor 2008). ignorance can thus also become knowledge (mcgoey 2012a). in yet another case, two swedish border police officers admit to have shuffled cases under their piles of documents, in order to ‘forget about them’, to either give migrants more time before a deportation or even to make dublin deportation cases a national responsibility (if timeframes are not respected). going against legal practice because of practical thinking or bureaucrats’ own ideas of right and wrong brings forward an individual set of thoughts and a morally charged work environment, where structural violence is strongly intertwined with strategies of ignorance. ignorance, acted out passively or actively, consciously or not, always ends up in a highly uncertain outcome for the migrant. looking at everyday encounters of bureaucrats and their ‘clients’ enabled me to define how far ignorance is used and produced and for which reasons. surely ignorance is used as strategy to refrain from accountability and responsibility (cf. sykes and matza 1957), avoiding emotional responses and moral assessment (smithson, 2008). what might be used as a strategy to avoid internal conflicts in organisations (smithson, 2008), such as managing heavy workload, ends up being a key demarcation for the development structural violence. migrants’ use of ignorance regularly i observed interactions between migrants and bureaucrats involving questions regarding their legal advisors. their dependence on third parties who are supposed to help them appeal the case often results in experiences of financial exploitation and partial knowledge. again, the acting upon partial knowledge, clearly underlining unequal positions and thus structural violence, impacts on the clients’ ability to claim agency and causes great uncertainty even when following legal bureaucratic avenues. though focus is put on the institutional and bureaucrats’ use and production of ignorance and the harmful outcome for migrants, it is relevant to shortly contextualise migrants’ strategies of ignorance. these often resemble streetlevel bureaucrat’s practices and the interplay of bureaucrats’ and migrants’ ignorant strategies generates unintended outcomes (smithson 2008). migrants too leave out relevant information (about their origin, age, journeys), ignore the information they receive and act upon what they deem best for themselves. stel (2016) uncovers agnotological responses of lebanon’s palestinian refugees living in unofficial camps. using the institutional ambiguity of the camps’ existence, migrants’ strategies often are closely connected to resisting the structural violence and uncertainty they face in their everyday lives. their strategies are more clearly directed against the state apparatus, regardless of their active or passive nature. often, their use of ignorance is a reaction to the uncertainty created through bureaucratic uses of ignorance. however, the very different outcome of igl. borrelli: street-level practices and structural influences in the field of migration enforcement qualitative studies 5(2), pp. 95–109 ©2018 105 norant behaviour for the migrant reflects the power structures that are at play here. not only does the client depend on the willingness of the bureaucrat to inform them, but also acting upon partial or un-knowledge can lead to severe constraints, displaying their precarious situation. should one abscond because a caseworker suggests it (see w )? is it helpful not to disclose the identity and ‘refuse’ cooperation in order to hinder deportation, while increasing the risk of being detained? even though a certain amount of agency is kept by every individual (ortner 2006), twisting the power-play to their favour often comes with a high price of remaining in precarious legal status. (un)conscious ignorance is reflected in swedish border police and migrant encounters, where many migrants are apprehended at work, because legally they are not allowed to work according to the migration office. assuming that the personal card handed out by the tax office and paying tax allowed them to find a job, many migrants are detained for their breach of law. latvian border guards mention the unwillingness of vietnamese detainees to share information; they do not tell their names and do not contact the vietnamese embassy for paperwork in order to leave. other tactics of ignoring deportation orders are handing out wrong addresses, being on the move or absconding. some bureaucrats also mention women getting pregnant, absconding until they are too advanced in their pregnancy to be deported. ignorance as inherit feature of the state street-level bureaucrats excuse their work by refusing knowledge, thus responsibility, therefore showing indifference, but also reveal their unintentional lack of knowledge. structurally created ignorance allows bureaucrats to complete their tasks, while blinding out ‘unnecessary information, deemed irrelevant to the job. it creates ‘conditions which ensure its continuance’ (frye 1983). consequently, ignorance adds a wilful side (beck 2008), which is systematically maintained (smithson 2008), thus adding an active component to the creation of structural violence experienced by migrants. while inheriting traditional values of the organisations assures the system’s continuance and hides the punitive character of the state (slater 2012), street-level bureaucrats are trained by them, learning to put trust into a system which equips them with knowledge on everyday tasks. hence, bureaucrats automatically make use of structures of ignorance inherent to the state, embedding them in their work. by engaging in their routines and not asking questions, bureaucrats maintain the state of notknowing. they do not simply create their own spaces of ignorance, which they willingly foster to either face or keep out of moral dilemmas, uneasy cases and thoughts. instead, the structure of a state agency impacts on their ignorance, shapes it and eventually maintains it in a similar way as bureaucrats manipulate and control migrants’ knowledge. thus, ignorance is co-produced by policies, laws, migrants as well as bureaucrats, but deeply embedded on a structural level. generally, the most common tasks and practices will be solved through ‘learningby-doing’, rather than through prior study. this leads to certain practices being continued, while others are not. this learning process is not monitored, and by grounding the major work processes on an experience-only and learning-by-doing structure, training programs and cooperation networks seem to deliberately accept and even institutionalise ignorance (slater 2012). while a latvian border guard explained that before the restructuring each officer was responsible for a case from the very beginning to the end (meaning deportation), the division of labour creates spaces of ignorance within the agency. officers keep working in their sometimes very narrow environment, encouraging a narrow mind-set. the dispersal of responsibilities surely supports such behaviour, as does the division of work processes. on a structural level, ignorance might be not only accepted, but even actively encouraged, because knowledge is associated with power and thus can become a danger (proctor 2008). therefore, keeping staff in doubt about possible practices might be a means to not only disperse accountability but also avoid conflicting guidelines or practices. certain information is withheld by superiors and not shared with the street-level bureaucrat. hence, the manipulation of knowledge of others can be observed 106 l. borrelli: street-level practices and structural influences in the field of migration enforcement qualitative studies 5(2), pp. 95–109 ©2018 along a line, from structural to individual level. while some officers are very keen to avoid getting too involved in a case, the system’s general structure can make it very difficult for more ‘interested’ employees to get to know a case. a latvian risk analysis specialist underlines how he had to study by himself. no support or training were available after a certain level, thus forcing him to find new sources of knowledge (field notes 2016). also, for the swiss and swedish bureaucrats it is very important to have as much information on a person before they apprehend, detain and eventually deport them. detailed information, e.g. about the health, potential aggression or physical abilities, is not only relevant to maintain their own safety, but also to guarantee the migrant’s well-being. however, knowledge in migration office differs from that available in border police units, due to different databases and information access. slow bureaucratic chains of communication (see borrelli, 2018) further contribute to bureaucrats’ acceptance that notknowing needs to be accepted in certain moments. also, the bureaucratic structure might support ignorant behaviour on side of the migrant. in 2016 the national swiss migration office decided to financially punish cantons which have not been able to process dublin returns in their given time frame. the offices have six months to process and send back the client in order to get reimbursed for the costs on national level. if they fail the costs remain a responsibility of the canton. however, if a person absconds before the six months are over, the time for a return will be extended to a total of 18 months. resorting to financial punishment on national level encourages cantonal offices to, indirectly ‘support’ absconding (see w ). while the organisation of the agency manipulates knowledge and information received by the bureaucrat (or not), the individual and personal interaction with the client is characterised by a consecutive manipulation (proctor 2008, 24). handing out partial knowledge on possible detention might tip off the migrant enough to decide to abscond. where a lack of knowledge can actually help the bureaucrat to differentiate between what is important and not in order to keep the system running, the migrant often wishes to receive as much information as possible. hence, social practices of ignorance bear the imprint of power relations and reproduce taken-for granted worlds (ewick and silbey 1995, 215; smithson 2008, 218 f). the cultivation of ignorance helps the state agency to excuse their employees that they did not know better (proctor 2008; mcgoey 2012a, 2012b; michaels 2008) and functions as social control. ‘ignorance is frequently constructed and actively preserved, and is linked to issues of cognitive authority, doubt trust, silencing, and uncertainty […] [thus] intersects with systems of oppression’ (tuana 2008, 109). power relations are embedded in an institutional order (giddens 1979) and play out in the actual social interactions on the ground. ignorance can be seen as a means of power relations, even if not used consciously. it is often deeply embedded in the structures of the agency and thus shapes the individual’s disposition (ortner 2006) and traditions. these individuals are finally guided by the embedded ignorance and often end up accepting it. however, the individual always maintains a certain range of agency (giddens 1979; scott 1990), eventually following their own ‘hidden transcripts’ (scott 1990), made possible through the structures allowing for discretion and thus opening up the potential use of ignorance against the state. conclusion — what is the cost of ignorance? this article has attempted to map how structural and individual strategies of ignorance cause state practices to become highly intangible and unreadable. it not only places ignorance as constitutive strategy of the state but highlights that ignorance and being ignorant is used as legitimate strategy in avoiding responsibility towards migrants. the bureaucrats discussed here have the particular task to detect, detain and deport migrants with precarious legal status. at times, they lack the professional knowledge to fully act, but are still expected to and at the same time ever-changing policies make it difficult for them to do so (fieldnotes, sweden 2017). while bureaucratic procedures are generally acknowledged to change at a high l. borrelli: street-level practices and structural influences in the field of migration enforcement qualitative studies 5(2), pp. 95–109 ©2018 107 pace (cf. eule, et al., 2018), the field of migration is characterised by an increasing restrictive position-both in the researched states and many other schengen member states, as well as increasing politicisation. as a concept, ignorance explains how knowledge is manipulated and how nonknowledge is produced, used, reproduced and acted upon by state agents, as well as migrants. while ignorance is an integral part of the state, as practices are based on knowledge and the lack thereof, street-level bureaucrats and migrants can partly use the structurally embedded strategies of ignorance to regain agency. while bureaucrats use ignorance to manage their tasks, they also engage in such strategies to reduce the emotional labour, as well as to follow their own ideals and values, or resisting against what they deem unfair state practices. presented data shows that bureaucratic agencies dealing with the active implementation of detention and deportation orders, which both have physical consequences, often underline their role as just ‘doing the job, implementing orders’. through this distancing between the ones responsible taking the orders and themselves, bureaucrats deny migrants the possibility to act. thus, their behaviour shapes migrants’ behaviour, but also silences them. migrants are being kept ignorant and they might base their decisions on the lack of knowledge and the manipulated information they receive. this in turn strongly impacts on their uncertain future, as people act upon knowledge but also on the un-knowledge they possess. uses of ignorance manifest at times in the pure neglect of actual procedures and practices, thus highlighting the maliciousness of the bureaucratic encounter. showing how structural and individual strategies of ignorance play out and are intertwined, highlights how structural violence is not only already embedded in the agencies’ structures, but also how it is reproduced and its effects multiplied. relating individual with structural aspects of ignorance in bureaucratic everyday work underlines how a banal, but severe reproduction of harmful effects comes into being. both sources of ignorance affect each other and thus can be influenced and manipulated. this work has tried to show that a gap between knowing and un-knowing does not simply come into being through individual decisions only. it rather manifests through the multiple ways un-knowledge is produced, maintained and reproduced. even active striving for a reduction of un-knowledge on both sides, the migrant and the bureaucrat, might not reduce their state of deprivation. instead, the state can be understood as ‘the ignorant’, producing and facilitating moments of ignorance, though not fully capable of entirely controlling its use and outcomes. ignorance is thus a constitutive part of the system. at the same time, the concept of ignorance, in contrast to indifference, brings back responsibility to the individual using it. it does not deny agency, but allows for a distinction of uses of ignorance, thus demarcating when ignorance has been used in what way to distinguish between acts of resistance and acts of neglect. acknowledgements this research was funded by the swiss national science foundation (snsf) under research grants 153225 and 172228. endnotes 1. this article wants to highlight that besides the seldomly ‘voluntary’ visit of individuals to the municipality or other state agencies, migrants are neither citizens nor ‘clients’ of welfare, and as such are not entitled to be treated as such. the encounter with bureaucrats is often forced upon these migrants with precarious legal status, on which this study focuses, and strongly impacts on migrants’ lives. throughout this work i will refer to the term ‘migrant with precarious legal status’ if generally talked about; otherwise i will refer to the respective legal status, such as detainee, dublin deportee, rejected asylum seeker, and other. references arendt, hannah. 1963. eichmann in jerusalem: a report on the banality of evil. viking press. bauman, zygmunt. 2008. the art of life. cambridge (uk); malden: polity press. beck. 2008. world at risk. oxford: polity. blau, peter michael, and marshall w. meyer. 1987. bureaucracy in modern society. mcgraw-hill. borrelli, lisa marie, 2018. ‘whisper down, up an between the lane – exclusionary policies and their limits of control in times of irregular migration’, 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overview. london; new york: rowman & littlefield international. • about the author lisa marie borrelli wrote her phd at the institute of sociology at bern university on the ambivalent laws and emotions that street-level bureaucrats face when working with irregular migration in the schengen area. she conducted ethnographic fieldwork with (border) police and migration authorities in italy, switzerland, germany, and sweden, as well as in lithuania and latvia. lisa now works as postdoctoral researcher at the hes-so valais within the nccr−→on the move–project, »governing migration and social cohesion through integration requirements«, led by christin achermann and stefanie kurt. https://www.gutenberg.org/files/3638/3638-h/3638-h.htm https://www.gutenberg.org/files/3638/3638-h/3638-h.htm paper 1: a qualitative gaze on how mundane public administration works introduction accomplishing public sector service: theorising interstices and imbrications from a qualitative stance contributions in this special issue a case study of casework tinkering health care professionalism without doctors: spatial surroundings and counter-identification in local health houses using ignorance as (un)conscious bureaucratic strategy: street-level practices and structural influences in the field of migration enforcement assembling advice treatment of dual diagnosis in denmark — models for cooperation and positions of power cross-pollinating discussions and contributions of the special issue acknowledgements about the authors paper 2: a case study of casework tinkering introduction empirical data casework tinkering — an analytical lens 1. probing possibilities 2. tinkering with services to fit the case 3. tinkering with individuals to fit resources negotiating discrepancies — crafting a case response concluding remarks acknowledgements about the authors paper 3: spatial surroundings and counter-identification in local health houses introduction theoretical framework: professionalization in site-specific contexts identification and counter-identification mixed methodological research design: case selection and vignette construction analytical section: observations and interviews in two distinct types of health houses the medical–clinical health house: “press if you have an appointment” health professionals in a medical–clinical health house: “we are health consultants” former cancer patient, now in rehabilitation: “i meet people facing the same struggles as myself” the community–based health house: “a flat screen promotes various events” health professional in a community-based health house: “i miss my work when i am on vacation” citizens on the edge of the city: “it's the best the municipality has ever done for its citizens” conclusion: counter-identification with hospitals and doctors acknowledgements about the author appendices paper 4: street-level practices and structural influences in the field of migration enforcement introduction theoretical framework defining structural violence in bureaucratic encounters the relation between indifference and ignorance understanding uncertainty understanding ignorance methodological framework ignorance in street-level encounters migrants' use of ignorance ignorance as inherit feature of the state conclusion — what is the cost of ignorance? acknowledgements about the author paper 5: ethnographic explorations of the changing relationship between voluntary advi… introduction research methods citizens advice: some background theoretical tools: on assemblage thinking an advice service as an assemblage: the data the use of volunteers on funding, funders and regulatory effects legal aid funding the funding mosaic: entrepreneurialism and independence fragile futures acknowledgements about the authors paper 6: models for cooperation and positions of power introduction the problems of dual diagnosis the dual diagnosis field in denmark empirical material cooperation between psychiatry and substance use treatment — organizational interfaces an under-organized interface learning points concluding remarks acknowledgements about the author qualitative studies vol. 6, no. 2, 2021, pp. 54-84 issn 1903-7031 54 rhythm politics in a changing brazil: a study of the musical mobilization of voters by bolsonaro and haddad in the 2018 election kjetil klette bøhler nova: norwegian social research, oslomet university, stensberggata 26, office x220, 0170 oslo, norway. this article investigates the role of music in presidential election campaigns and political movements inspired by theoretical arguments in henri lefebvre’s rhythmanalysis, john dewey´s pragmatist rethinking of aesthetics and existing scholarship on the politics of music. specifically, it explores how musical rhythms and melodies enable new forms of political awareness, participation, and critique in an increasingly polarized brazil through an ethnomusicological exploration of how left-wing and right-wing movements used music to disseminate politics during the 2018 election that culminated in the presidency of jair messias bolsonaro. three lessons can be learned. first, in brazil, music breathes life, energy, and affective engagement into politics—sung arguments and joyful rhythms enrich public events and street demonstrations in complex and dynamic ways. second, music is used by right-wing and left-wing movements in unique ways. for bolsonaro supporters and right-wing movements, jingles, produced as part of larger election campaigns, were disseminated through massive sound cars in the heart of são paulo while demonstrators sang the national anthem and waved brazilian flags. in contrast, leftist musical politics appears to be more spontaneous and bohemian. third, music has the ability to both humanize and popularize bolsonarismo movements that threaten human rights and the rights of ethnic minorities, among others, in contemporary brazil. to contest bolsonarismo, trumpism, and other forms of extreme right-wing populism, we cannot close our ears and listen only to grooves of resistance and songs of freedom performed by leftists. we must also listen to the music of the right. keywords: musicology, ethnomusicology, popular music studies, politics of music, brazil, bolsonaro, populism introduction what is the role and impact of music in presidential election campaigns and political movements? more specifically, how do musical rhythms and melodies enable new forms of political awareness, participation, and critique in an increasingly polarized brazil? this article explores these questions through an ethnomusicological exploration of the ways in which lefthttps://orcid.org/0000-0002-2926-5673 k. k. bøhler: rhythm politics in a changing brazil: a study of the musical mobilization of voters by bolsonaro and haddad in the 2018 election qualitative studies: 6(2), pp. 54-84 ©2021 55 wing and right-wing movements used music to disseminate their political values both before and during the 2018 election that culminated in the presidency of jair messias bolsonaro. through a combination of different qualitative methods (including visual, textual, ethnographic, and musical analysis) applied to ethnographic data gathered in brazil between 2016 and 2018, i show how music matters in contemporary brazilian politics. to provide a conceptual frame for the study, i develop the new concept of rhythm politics, inspired by, in turn, henri lefebvre’s social interpretation of “rhythm” in rhythmanalysis (lefebvre, 2004), john dewey’s pragmatist rethinking of aesthetics (dewey, 2005), and existing scholarship on the politics of music (born, 2010; frith, 1998; guilbault, 2007; hawkins 2017; hennion, 2015; street, 2013). the concept of rhythm politics allows me to conduct a rich contextual analysis of the ways in which musical rhythms and melodies activate other lefebvrian “rhythms” (such as psychological, biological, historical and social ones) and thereby mobilize political sentiment, values, and visions through aesthetic means. my lefebvre-inspired analysis draws attention to how different spatial and temporal dimensions interact in articulations of musical politics. this understanding of rhythm politics can be situated within a broader ‘sensory and historical turn’ in music anthropology and ethnomusicology (erlmann, 2020; feld and brenneis, 2004; finnegan, 2003, reily 2006, meyers 2015), which underscore the importance of integrating different forms of diachronic and synchronic analysis to show music matters socially, culturally and politically in complex ways. as such, it calls for new interdisciplinary dialogues between the musical and the social sciences. before i delve into the implications of rhythm politics, however, i must supply a short description of this study’s polarized brazilian context. twenty-first-century brazil: from a harmonious democracy to polarized politics after thirteen years of a labor party government that erased hunger and contributed to a collective class journey lifting millions of brazilians out of poverty and into a rapidly rising middle class (singer, 2012; singer and loureiro, 2017), the lulismo project was brought to an end with the impeachment of then president dilma rouseff in 2016. massive demonstrations filled the streets of brazil in the following months (bøhler, 2017a p. 120-121; neves 2016; snyder, 2020 36-40), as both right-wing and left-wing populism came to life. right-wing populists accused the labor party government of rampant corruption and argued that prior president luiz inácio ‘lula’ da silva [hence lula], and the labor party, had destroyed the k. k. bøhler: rhythm politics in a changing brazil: a study of the musical mobilization of voters by bolsonaro and haddad in the 2018 election qualitative studies: 6(2), pp. 54-84 © 2021 56 brazilian economy (solano, 2020; solano, 2019). left-wing populists, on the other hand, argued that the impeachment of rouseff was a disguised parliamentary coup that threatened to return brazil to authoritarianism and even military dictatorship (bøhler, 2017b). contemporary brazil remains polarized to this day, and massive demonstrations have filled brazilian cities since the largest protest in its history took place in são paulo , in june, 2013 (avritzer, 2017; saad-filho, 2013; saad-filho and boito, 2016). into all of this political agitation arrived right-wing populist candidate jair messias bolsonaro, who used a number of speeches and public events to talk extensively about the importance of reconstructing a lost fatherland that, according to him, had been destroyed by a corrupt labor party (bøhler, 2018a, 2018b, dias and fernandes 2020). bolsonaro sought increased governmental collaboration with the military and the privatization of the public sector in the interests of “freedom, liberty and prosperity” (almeida, 2019; m. g. saraiva and silva, 2019) for the brazilian people and aimed to fight what he called the ‘communist threat’ (paludo, 2020; ribeiro, lasaitis, and gurgel, 2016). in november 2018, bolsonaro was democratically elected to be brazil’s next president. bolsonaro´s argument was not new, and many brazilian right-wing politicians have historically mobilized the masses through critiques of corruption by evoking a sense of brazilian mccarthyism that demonizes the left (pereira 2005, stepan 2015, skidmore 1990, ansell 2018). while corruption is indeed a systemic problem in brazilian politics, there is, however, no evidence that suggests that leftist politicians are more corrupt than their right-wing counterparts (ames 2018, dellasoppa 2005, power and matthew 2011). this summary describes the broad historical and political context within which i carried out my fieldwork. next, i will introduce my theoretical framework and the concept of rhythm politics, especially in relation to existing scholarship on the politics of music across the musical sciences.i rhythm politics as a conceptual frame in rhythmanalysis (2004), lefebvre introduces “rhythms” as a device through which to study how everyday life operates in modern capitalist societies via specific interactions among biological, aesthetic, and social structures. lefebvre emphasizes these structures’ interplay and develops different methods of analysis to study the feedback loops among the various rhythms that make up life (lefebvre, 2004, p. 12–26)—that is, multiple spatial and temporal rhythms at different scales of abstraction that converge in specific contexts (lefebvre, 2004, p. 33–53). lefebvre compares and describes the interactions among the rhythms of, for example, a song, k. k. bøhler: rhythm politics in a changing brazil: a study of the musical mobilization of voters by bolsonaro and haddad in the 2018 election qualitative studies: 6(2), pp. 54-84 ©2021 57 a demonstration, a social movement, and a historical period in tandem with, among other things, the relevant biological and psychological rhythms as well. his arguments therefore recall those social, political, and philosophical theories that underscore the relational nature of social events, aesthetic sensations, and cultural practices across disciplinary boundaries.ii in the context of the present study, lefebvre’s arguments inform in-depth research into how musical sounds and practices (that is, musical “rhythms,” understood broadly) shape political subjectivities and build social communities. what i am calling rhythm politics involves both conscious and subconscious processes (lefebvre, 2004, p. 44–55), the former including the ways in which people sing and drum their political visions, values, and beliefs during street protests and public events, and the latter including the ways in which political parties use jingles to mobilize voters during election campaigns. in short, lefebvre’s arguments invite us to unpack, in great detail, the modulating impact of musical practices upon people’s perceptions of politics and broader social formations as he invites us to move beyond disciplinary boundaries and combine methods with different levels of synchronic and diachronic abstraction (e.g., combine musical transcriptions of melodies with ethnographic transcriptions of social events and socio-political descriptions of historical narratives). recent scholarship on how politics works musically evokes part of lefebvre´s mentioned arguments by revealing the complex links between music and politics (guilbault, 2007; manabe, 2015; negus, 1997; street, 2013; tausig, 2019).iii much of this work is inspired by theories of mediation (born 2010; born and barry, 2018; hennion, 2015; hawkins & richardson 2017; williams, 1983) that underscore the fluidity of musical meaning within social, cultural, and political dynamics. in one sense, this notion of musical mediation resembles lefebvre’s argument that his various “rhythms” are fluid and constantly in motion, spatially and temporally. the rhythm of a sung melody during a street protest may, for example, be linked with the broader rhythms of a political movement (e.g., associated with particular parts of right-wing and left-wing politics in brazil), which in turn shape, and are shaped by, the broader rhythms of brazil´s political history. more importantly, such different rhythms at the macro-level are always conditioned upon rhythmic interactions at a micro-level as biological and aesthetic rhythms feed into each other through acts of singing together while protesters partake in a musical narrative that gives life and energy to musical expressions of political critique.iv instead of studying music as an isolated aesthetic object, then, the presented arguments suggest that we should look at how music matters aesthetically and politically in context (frith, 1998; negus, 1997; street, 2013) and through practice (eyerman and jamison, k. k. bøhler: rhythm politics in a changing brazil: a study of the musical mobilization of voters by bolsonaro and haddad in the 2018 election qualitative studies: 6(2), pp. 54-84 © 2021 58 1998). importantly, such an aesthetic approach has less to do with kantian perceptions of disinterested experiences of the beautiful (kant, 2008, p. 75–84) than with john dewey’s pragmatist rethinking of works of art as rich sensory experiences grounded in everyday life (2005, p. 35–58) that are capable of carving out new ways of being-in-the-world both socially and individually.v such experiences range from the “fine arts” to popular culture, nature (e.g., beautiful scenery at a mountain), and everyday interactions. dewey’s pragmatist interpretation, that is, turns aesthetics into a prism for a broader cultural analysis that anticipates the ways in which lefebvrian rhythms are aesthetically linked through practice. these arguments suggest that we should investigate how aesthetic, social and political factors interact in musical practices as grooves and melodies matter to people in complex ways. rhythm politics, however, also differs from the aforementioned approaches in two important ways. first, while both lefebvre’s work and much existing research on the politics of music tend to privilege subaltern critiques by uncovering manipulation and/or different forms of resistance through the arts, my approach to rhythm politics is more expansive in seeking to compare musical political dynamics across the political binaries of left and right. while i am highly critical of bolsonaro’s presidency and his multiple attacks on minorities and violations of human rights (hunter and power, 2019), i believe we still need to look carefully at how he mobilized voters musically in tandem with how leftist movements used music to voice their own political visions, critiques, and general participation at the time of the 2018 election. second, while lefebvre wields quite broad categories and notes unabashedly that “this little book does not conceal its ambition. it proposes nothing less than to found a science, a new field of knowledge [savoir]: the analysis of rhythms; with practical consequences” (lefebvre, 2004: 3), my aims for rhythm politics are more measured. in short, i take inspiration from lefebvre´s ideas in order to carry out an ethnomusicological exploration of how musical practices give rise to new forms of political awareness, critique and participation among rightwing and left-wing movements in a brazil marked by increased polarization. before i apply rhythm politics to my two empirical case studies, i will first describe the methods and data sources upon which i rely here. methods and data for studying rhythm politics in brazil i arrived in brazil to do ethnomusicological fieldwork in july 2016 and spent nine months studying how leftist movements used music to articulate their political views. i documented my engagement using field notes, video recordings, sound recordings, and interviews ranging from k. k. bøhler: rhythm politics in a changing brazil: a study of the musical mobilization of voters by bolsonaro and haddad in the 2018 election qualitative studies: 6(2), pp. 54-84 ©2021 59 “informal ethnographic conversations on the spot” (spradley, 2016) to explore the link between music and politics in protests to longer, more systematic semi-structured interviews with a clearly defined guide (kvale, 1996). my engagement with cultural data as a participating observer of various dynamic social realities forced me to constantly revise my research questions and hypotheses about music and politics in brazil (barth, 1980, 1998). after a while, i realized that it was not sufficient to study music in exclusively leftist mobilizations; to understand the situation in brazil, i also needed to explore how right-wing movements used music. afterward, i decided to return to brazil to undertake two short follow-up ethnographic studies of right-wing movements for a month at the end of 2017 and during the last two weeks of the second round of the presidential elections in 2018, respectively. throughout this process, i worked closely with my good friend joão augusto neves pires, a phd student at the university of campinas interested in related issues; he provided great support to the work of gathering, analyzing, and interpreting my data.vi the present analysis zooms in on four moments of musical-political interaction that arose during my fieldwork: (1) my participant observation of how jingles worked during the 2016 municipal elections in campo grande, a working-class neighborhood on the outskirts (perifería) of campinas; (2) a political meeting organized by the right-wing organization movimento brasil livre at the university of campinas in november 2017 that featured a speech by the up-and-coming leader kim kataguiri; (3) the time when protesters sang together against the impeachment of dilma rouseff in the streets of rio de janeiro during the olympics in 2016; and (4) the musical-political mobilization of both bolsonaro and haddad (the leftist candidate) supporters on avenida paulista in são paulo during the second round of the 2018 election. at all times i conducted my ethnomusicological fieldwork and documented events through video recordings, sound recordings, fieldnotes, and interviews.vii my go-pro cameras, which i often placed on my head, and iphone camera were vital to capturing videos that allowed me to revisit events systematically afterward in dialogue with my fieldnotes. my ethnographic study adhered to national guidelines related to research ethics established by the norwegian center for research data (nsd) and brazil’s national institute of research ethics. as a result, i have used pseudonyms to protect the identity of my informants. i also asked for, and obtained, informed consent from the people and communities that i researched after explaining the purpose of this study to them. k. k. bøhler: rhythm politics in a changing brazil: a study of the musical mobilization of voters by bolsonaro and haddad in the 2018 election qualitative studies: 6(2), pp. 54-84 © 2021 60 to analyze this rich ethnographic material, i combined textual interpretation and different narrative techniques (eisenhart, 2006) with selected musical analyses of transcribed events and an in-depth study of the images i gathered during my fieldwork. these various analytical approaches allowed me to reproduce the affective force and complexity of musicalpolitical dynamics. i will begin with my study of how music and politics converged in the leftists’ critiques of the impeachment of dilma rouseff. musical critiques of a parliamentary coup according to my leftist friends, the removal of former president dilma rouseff in august 2016 was not legal, despite what the western media concluded about it. for them, it was a parliamentary coup. when i asked my informant roberto about this at a bar in são paulo, he was defiant: you know, brazilian politics is very complicated. but let me try to explain. what dilma did was basically just moving money from one bank account of the state to another bank account of the state to pay out social welfare, or something else—i don’t remember exactly what. but the point is this. let us say that she needed to have money on the “social welfare bank account” to pay out the bolsa familia [cash benefits for the poor], and then, for some reason, which may be technical, bureaucratic, or economic, or whatever, there was no money left on that bank account. then she transferred money from another bank account of the state—let’s call it the “agricultural account”—over to the empty account, so that she could pay the bolsa familia to the poor. this act is technically illegal. however, it has been common practice in brazilian politics for decades. it was what they called a “sleeping law” before. however, because of all the protests against dilma since 2013 and the corruption charges against the labor party, different right-wing parties decided to use this anti-labor party sentiment [anti-petismo] to change government. that is what they always wanted. this year they decided to attack. but you have to understand that this was not a legal impeachment. it was a very well-organized parliamentary coup, because just after michel temer was inaugurated as president, the new government changed the law. so, if temer were to do the same thing, it will be legal. there was no reason to remove dilma in the first place. but this is brazil. it is just like machiavelli. (conversation reconstructed as fieldnotes one day later, oct. 2016, são paulo) k. k. bøhler: rhythm politics in a changing brazil: a study of the musical mobilization of voters by bolsonaro and haddad in the 2018 election qualitative studies: 6(2), pp. 54-84 ©2021 61 as i learned more about the brazilian situation, i realized that the 2013 protests, which brought millions of brazilians out to the street (saad-filho, 2013), together with the massive corruption scandal known as “operation car wash” (hunter, 2019), had turned brazilian politics upside down by spurring massive antipathy toward the labor party. from there, it was not much of a leap to the so-called impeachment processes. roberto was not the only one who interpreted the removal of dilma as a coup. in fact, most of the people i met while doing fieldwork on musical activism among leftist groups between 2016 and 2017 echoed his take. this, in turn, led to numerous street protests and demonstrations against the non-elected president michel temer that usually included amateur musical performances. one performance involved five middle-aged woman whom i encountered singing the following words at the top of their voices as they walked by the metro station gloria in rio de janeiro in july 2016. portuguese english eu quero democracia não aceito golpe não i want democracy. i don’t accept the state coup! eu quero democracia não aceito golpe não i want democracy. i don’t accept the state coup! volta dilma, volta querida, pra presidência do brasil come back dilma, come back beloved, to take back the presidency of brazil. eu quero democracia não aceito golpe não i want democracy. i don’t accept the state coup! to set their political statements, they chose the melody of the chorus from beethoven’s ninth symphony, the ode to joy. this chorus supplied affective force and rhythm to their words, and more and more people joined in because it was familiar and moving. it also accompanied their march down the street, as we can see from the sonic events that animated the words: example 1: transcription of the women’s interpretation of beethoven. k. k. bøhler: rhythm politics in a changing brazil: a study of the musical mobilization of voters by bolsonaro and haddad in the 2018 election qualitative studies: 6(2), pp. 54-84 © 2021 62 the stepwise movement of the melody, combined with its clear major tonality and strident rhythm, allowed the extemporaneous performance to spread through the crowd with great speed and power. the more we repeated it, the more people gathered in the affective walking and singing community. beethoven’s melody was doing important political work in the streets of rio de janeiro almost two centuries after beethoven passed away, demonstrating the power of music (and especially singing) for these leftist protesters. in light of rhythm politics, this is a clear example of the interaction of rhythms in a lefebvrian sense. first, the melody fed into both biological and affective rhythms by setting the pace for the crowd’s progress down the street for around 300 meters, according to my fieldnotes, as illustrated in the blue line from gloria to largo da carioca in example 1: example 2: the route of the walking-singing community. k. k. bøhler: rhythm politics in a changing brazil: a study of the musical mobilization of voters by bolsonaro and haddad in the 2018 election qualitative studies: 6(2), pp. 54-84 ©2021 63 second, singing beethoven’s melody with fellow protestors made people happy, as is clear from my fieldnotes and photos from the event of people smiling and exulting while they were singing and walking together. the sentiments grew ever stronger as the biological, social, and musical rhythms interacted. one day earlier, other musical sounds joined in the fight for democracy organized by leftist groups and different musicians and artists at circo voador. the maracatu orchestra baque mulher called for temer’s removal via its polyrhythmic afro-brazilian grooves by establishing an engaging call-and-response dialogue where people where singing “fo-ra temer [out with temer]”. during the same event a performance of chico buarque’s song “ cálice“ reminded protestors to reject any potential return of the military rule that had governed brazil from 1964 to 1985.viii for many brazilians, buarque’s lyrics expressed their own deeply held commitment to democracy and critique of growing military influence upon brazilian politics. both performances mobilized historical rhythms through musical means, evoking the parliamentary coup carried out by white males that marginalized blacks and other minorities while perpetuating brazil’s colonialism and widespread racism. other musics were performed at protests and events in são paulo and rio de janeiro in the following months. in general, these performances seemed to hold together a rather fragile and quite heterogeneous fora temer [out with temer] movement consisting of different leftist groups that otherwise often fought amongst themselves. when i asked maria why she had participated in almost twenty protests in a single month, she said: for me, going to these protests is almost like a catharsis; i feel less stressed afterward. it gets rid of some of the burden. and also, i believe it is crucial to fight against this return to totalitarianism and all the dangers associated with the rise of right-wing politics here. and all the singing, and the rhythms, the shouts and the screams [which also had rhythm], the walking, the movements, everything—it makes it joyful in a strange way. i feel free. (interview with “maria”, october 2016, são paulo) i also noticed a strange surge of energy, relief, perhaps even catharsis after participating in protests and singing political chants that came to recall those performed in football stadiums. others clearly felt it too. music, sounds, movement, and rhythm gave life to the protests and k. k. bøhler: rhythm politics in a changing brazil: a study of the musical mobilization of voters by bolsonaro and haddad in the 2018 election qualitative studies: 6(2), pp. 54-84 © 2021 64 brought more people into the streets in a way that transcended the exclusively musical or political. “democracy, yes, haddad, yes”: leftist rhythm politics during the 2018 elections during the final round of the 2018 presidential elections, the carnival group agora e haddad organized a political protest on avenida paulista, são paulo’s main street. around two hundred demonstrators came out to express their sympathy for fernando haddad, who was running against bolsonaro to become brazil’s next president. the group activated a very deweyan aesthetic matrix in the sounds of its singing voices, low-pitched surdo drums, saxophones, and other afro-brazilian percussion instruments. the sounds interacted with beautiful costumes and adorned posters. altogether it lent visibility and even beauty to the candidacy of haddad, a professor at the university of são paulo who needed all the popular support he could get to counter the critiques of many situating him amongst an intellectual elite that did not represent the workers or the poor. when i asked christina, one of the event organizers, why they assembled music, costumes, and the graphic arts in support of haddad’s candidacy, she argued: sometimes the other leftists criticize us for being party leftist [esquerda festiva]. traditional leftist groups are critical of our focus on music, dance, and arts. but for us, this is important. what distinguishes us from the others is that we use drums and colors and compose a lot of songs and dances in the form of a bloco [carnival group]. we believe that this communicates very well to the young people. we believe in happiness [alegria] and that the leftist movements should not be characterized by old grumpy people. [. . .] a good song, or a good rhythm, gives visibility and presence to the candidate. it is really powerful. it inspires people. [. . .] music is a way to get our political message out there. we sing it. you also have to know that this is what characterizes us as a catholic organization, because music is one of our most important ways to communicate with god. we are a carnival group that emerged out of levante juventude, which is a catholic organization. music has always been very important to us. (interview with christina during and after the protest) k. k. bøhler: rhythm politics in a changing brazil: a study of the musical mobilization of voters by bolsonaro and haddad in the 2018 election qualitative studies: 6(2), pp. 54-84 ©2021 65 while we talked, other members were handing out flyers with song lyrics that the carnival group was about to perform. the following pictures of flyers i received my illustrate: k. k. bøhler: rhythm politics in a changing brazil: a study of the musical mobilization of voters by bolsonaro and haddad in the 2018 election qualitative studies: 6(2), pp. 54-84 © 2021 66 example 3: two phots of a flyer with the song lyrics. as illustrated by the photos, the carnival group planned to perform eight songs, but the first two were so catchy and joyful that we all spent most of the time simply repeating them. the second, “sim, sim sim” [yes, yes, yes], was particularly popular as it was based on the song “din din din” by ludmilla, which topped the charts in brazil at the time. juan kicked it off by walking around in a circle while playing a melody on his saxophone. the melody’s subdivisions and diatonic movement in a minor tonality lent it a hypnotic character and induced bodily movements and aesthetic engagement that inspired the political gathering. the melody was accompanied by a funky carioca rhythm that ornamented the musical subdivisions and quarter notes with rich syncopations and recalled other street parties in rio de k. k. bøhler: rhythm politics in a changing brazil: a study of the musical mobilization of voters by bolsonaro and haddad in the 2018 election qualitative studies: 6(2), pp. 54-84 ©2021 67 janeiro, where funk carioca was the most popular dance music at the time. the saxophone melody was short and lasted only four bars (around 5-6 seconds), then it was answered by call and response singing from the crowd. thanks to the flyers (see example 3) and the saxophone’s repetition of the melody, it was easy to sing along with the refrain: “yes, yes, yes to democracy, and yes to haddad” [sim, sim sim, democracia, haddad, sim]. these musical structures did important social and political work by giving voice to the demonstrators and part of their sonic organizations can be illustrated in the following music transcription: example 4: transcription of the musical structures that mobilized people politically at avenida paulista. the first line shows the melody, while the second line shows the accompanying funky carioca rhythm. bar 1-5 was played by the saxophone, and had a hypnotic character, while bar 5-8 was sung by the protesters. the melody is based on the refrain from “din din din”, by ludmilla feat. mc pupio and mc doguinha, which topped the charts in brazil in 2018. several musical rhythms interacted in the example. first, the melodic rhythm engaged listeners by providing a space for musical participation (e.g. singing along and in call and response dialogue). second, the percussive rhythm that accompanied it (see the six repeating strokes in the second line) brought a sense of joy, pleasure and festivity to the protest and evidenced christina´ emphasis on the political force of happiness. in one sense, these musical sounds were performing specific forms of “local musicking” (reily and brucher 2018, p. 1–4) as musical practices gave life, sentiment, dispersion and durability to politics among haddad-supporters k. k. bøhler: rhythm politics in a changing brazil: a study of the musical mobilization of voters by bolsonaro and haddad in the 2018 election qualitative studies: 6(2), pp. 54-84 © 2021 68 that day. for them, musical rhythms fed into social, political and historical rhythms, among others, as the leftists aimed towards a broader political change and used music to make that argument audible, social and affective. when i asked christina about why they decided to sing this melody, she replied: “sim, sim sim, democracia haddade sim” reminds the people that haddad is the only way back to democracy. it reminds us of the parliamentary coup against dilma rouseff and the democratic recession represented by temer’s policies when he shut down everything lula had built [e.g., the ministry of woman’s rights; the ministry of human rights]. these people [temer and bolsonaro and other right-wing politicians] have always exploited different minorities. now, lula in prison, so we have to fight against bolsonaro by supporting hadddad. that is why we sing. through the aesthetic power of a funky carioca groove with its origins in the favelas of rio de janeiro, agora e haddad created and inspired a new political community on avenida paulista that also engaged social, biological, psychological, and historical rhythms in a lefebvrian sense. the social rhythms involved the final group of roughly two hundred protesters, according to my fieldnotes, that were affectively engaged as they sang and danced together. those dance movements also activated biological and psychological rhythms in the crowd’s responses to the syncopated groove, the hypnotic melody, and their fellow dancers, which were evident in the goosebumps, smiles, and general good vibes. still, it was perhaps the convergence of the musical and certain historical rhythms that mattered most here, because the particular songs performed by the carnival group reminded the crowd that the present election was in fact part of the fight for democracy and social equality (recall roberto’s interpretation of dilma rouseff´s impeachment as a camouflaged parliamentary coup). of course, brazil remained polarized throughout this time, and it was equally moved by other social rhythms that sought different possibilities regarding the fight for the country’s political future. one such rhythm was captured by the right-wing movement movimento brasil livre (mbl). music in brazilian right-wing politics k. k. bøhler: rhythm politics in a changing brazil: a study of the musical mobilization of voters by bolsonaro and haddad in the 2018 election qualitative studies: 6(2), pp. 54-84 ©2021 69 during a large meeting at the university of campinas organized by mbl almost one year before the 2018 election, i heard the following speech by one of its upcoming leaders, kim kataguiri: we have to take the music! we have to make our own music. so that the brazilian people can hear us. to show the brazilian people why we need to change and to end the corrupt labor party government [governo petista]. to give people the freedom they deserve. all the musicians are communists and leftists. because the brazilian people love music, it is time that we make our voice heard through music. we have to make our own songs to get our message across. songs about freedom and democracy to disseminate the pride of being brazilian, which they [the labor party] have destroyed. (summary based on field notes from the event. nov. 2017.) kataguiri´s speech was not about music but politics. still, he was interested in the music´s popularity, and its ability to move people and create new communities, as that musical force could help get mbl´s message across and convince brazilians that were fed up with corrupt politics that a change was needed. as the movement write on their current facebook page, that new political community should be structured around the following values: the mbl, movimento brasil livre, is a movement without commercial interest that aims to bring citizens together in a shared fight for justice, prosperity, and freedom. we defend democracy, the [brazilian] republic, freedom of expression and a free press, and the free market, the dismantlement of the state, and the reduction of bureaucracy.ix the emphasis on justice, prosperity, and freedom—as well as importance of defending brazilian democracy against corrupt politics; the autonomy of the republic; and, above all, freeing the market through massive privatization—were key parts of kataguiri’s speech that aligned themselves to the messaging power of music. kataguiri was himself a great performer. he had obviously learned much about political communication during his studies in the united states, and all of the attendees at the meeting, including me, were readily engaged, and almost hypnotized.x through his “aura” (benjamin 1969, p. 4-7), he was bringing about a new political community to opposed the brazilian labor k. k. bøhler: rhythm politics in a changing brazil: a study of the musical mobilization of voters by bolsonaro and haddad in the 2018 election qualitative studies: 6(2), pp. 54-84 © 2021 70 party, lulismo (singer, 2012), and the various leftist movements that, according to kataguiri, threatened to create a communist dictatorship similar to venezuela’s that undermined national independence. kataguiri was considered a rising star in right-wing brazilian politics (duque and smith, 2019). young, charismatic, and japanese brazilian in his background, he was thought to be a key figure in the arrival of this new political community. most in the audience were young men—probably students at the university of campinas—but there were also some older men in their fifties and sixties. there were few women. according to my fieldnotes, there were about eighty people in all, closely grouped together in one of the bigger auditoriums at the university. additional followers listened from the corridor outside the open door. as i listened to him, i was more and more puzzled by kataguiri’s emphasis on music. after all, this meeting was about politics—promoted weeks in advance through social media to recruit participants and supporters of the mbl movement to mobilize for the election next year. yet kataguiri would not abandon his conviction that brazilian music was a political force that could be used by the movement (as it had by many famous leftist brazilian musicians already).xi then i realized that i had witnessed part of that force for the right wing as well when i was doing fieldwork on the role of jingles in the 2016 municipal election in campo grande, outside campinas. back then, thiago, a campaign manager and organizer of ‘sound cars’ (cars with massive loudspeakers that drive around in neighborhoods with jingles or commercials on repeat) related to a conservative party, had articulated the importance of jingles in election campaigns to disseminate right-wing candidates: these jingles are very powerful, you know, because they get into the people’s head [ficar na cabeza]. i think this is much more important than flyers and other forms of marketing, because when we give people flyers, we see the flyers afterward in the trash can. but good music gets into the people’s head. music kind of gets into your body, whether you like it or not. for our candidate [a right-wing politician], sertanjeo music is the best, because that is the music of our people. [. . .] and you have to remember that it is mandatory to vote in brazil—i don’t know how this is in your country, but here, people have to vote; if not, they lose social welfare benefits and other things. that is why it is so important to play the jingles here in the periferia [suburbs with working-class brazilians], because these people cannot k. k. bøhler: rhythm politics in a changing brazil: a study of the musical mobilization of voters by bolsonaro and haddad in the 2018 election qualitative studies: 6(2), pp. 54-84 ©2021 71 afford to lose these benefits, and they have low levels of education, so if a jingle can get into the people’s head, i believe it can influence their voting. when i asked him to tell me more about how jingles work in practice, he continued: after the new law, we cannot play the music on youtube or the radio anymore, because each party can only have a certain amount of time on the official media channels. but we can drive around with our sound car in the neighborhood during the forty-three days of the final round of the election from 8 am to 5 pm each day, and that is what we do. we drive our routes, playing the same jingle, which last around fifty seconds, every day from 8 to 5. that is my work. (interview carried out in campo grande, campinas, september 2016,) example 5: picture of a ‘sound car’ in campo grande) in the context of thiago’s arguments, kataguiri’s speech made more sense. poor brazilians had to vote, even if all the candidates were corrupt.xii in such conditions, an earworm could well do vital political work in helping people to pick a certain candidate on voting day. k. k. bøhler: rhythm politics in a changing brazil: a study of the musical mobilization of voters by bolsonaro and haddad in the 2018 election qualitative studies: 6(2), pp. 54-84 © 2021 72 rhythm politics of bolsonarismo during the 2018 election both thiago and kataguiri’s arguments were validated during my fieldwork at avenida paulista in são paulo in the second round of the 2018 election. the political atmosphere was polarized. jair messiah bolsonaro had just won the first round with 46 percent of the votes. he was competing against the leftist candidate fernand haddad from são paulo, who had received 26 percent. mbl had embraced bolsonaro as its candidate. to get their message across, participants in the movement, together with people from other right-wing organizations, came together on avenida paulista to sing the national anthem. i joined the group —according to my field notes, more than one hundred bolsonaro supporters were packed together on the street, many wearing the brazilian football t-shirt and some waving brazilian flags. a middle-aged woman stood on a chair and led the singing with hand movements, marking the pulse with her right hand as she recorded the event with a camera in her left. her yellow t-shirt imitated the brazilian football t-shirt but instead showed the bolsonaro campaign slogan “my party is brazil” [meu partido e o brasil] written in green letters. an older man, dressed up as a priest, sang into a microphone that was boosted through cracked loudspeakers, and another woman (with two children beside her) placed a microphone in front of the loudspeakers as well to amplify the singing further. youths were also participating in the singing, probably in their early 20s, and most were similar t-shirts. in all, the different age groups (children, adolescents and middle aged people) gave the impression of a happy singing family, brought together to share the following lyrics on avenida paulista: english portuguese intro: intro: o beloved country, worshiped. hail! hail ó pátria amada, idolatrada, salve! salve! verse verse brazil, be a symbol of eternal love brasil, de amor eterno seja símbolo the banner that you bear with stars o lábaro que ostentas estrelado, and let the green of your streamer proclaim e diga o verde-louro dessa flâmula k. k. bøhler: rhythm politics in a changing brazil: a study of the musical mobilization of voters by bolsonaro and haddad in the 2018 election qualitative studies: 6(2), pp. 54-84 ©2021 73 peace in the future and glory in the past. paz no futuro e glória no passado. variation variation but if you raise the strong gavel of justice, mas se ergues da justiça a clava forte, you will see that your son does not run away from the fight, verás que um filho teu não foge à luta, nor do they fear, those who adore you, their own death. nem teme, quem te adora, à própria morte. bridge bridge beloved land terra adorada amongst a thousand others entre outras mil it’s you, brazil, és tu, brasil, beloved homeland! pátria amada, coda coda of the children of this soil dos filhos deste solo you are a kind mother, és mãe gentil, beloved homeland, pátria amada, brazil! brasil! example 6: lyrics in portuguese and spanish. translated by the author.xiii according to my fieldnotes, they sang the anthem seventeen times in an hour and kept on singing throughout the day, as well as in the days that followed as they gathered each day at avenida paulista to make their voice heard. thanks to its particular musical nature and organization, the anthem stood out sonically from the competing sounds of political speeches coming from loudspeakers elsewhere. to all of us in this singing community, the melodic organization of the anthem carved out a musical space of political participation in the heart of são paulo that itself interacted with the banners proclaiming “bolsonaro, our president.” k. k. bøhler: rhythm politics in a changing brazil: a study of the musical mobilization of voters by bolsonaro and haddad in the 2018 election qualitative studies: 6(2), pp. 54-84 © 2021 74 as i followed the anthem’s performance, i was curious as to why the organizers of this demonstration had chosen to skip the first part and sing only the second. upon reflection, however, this part’s verse, variation, and the bridge—“peace in the future and glory in the past”; “beloved homeland”; “you are our kind mother, we the children of your soil”—clearly furthered bolsonaro’s overall political emphasis on family values, nation-building, and national pride. likewise, the final strophe of the variation captured bolsonaro’s combativeness toward what he called corrupt labor party communism: “you will see that your son does not run away from the fight, nor do they fear, those who adore you, their own death.” singing these words on the street at this time brought people together in something much bigger than an election— that is, reconstructing a lost fatherland that had been destroyed by corruption after thirteen years of labor party government. and even though bolsonaro had been a member of the congress and the senate for almost twenty years and represented various parties, most of his supporters still saw him as an outsider to the political establishment. when i asked carlos, who wore a brazilian flag around his neck and the football t-shirt of neymar to express his allegiance, why he wanted change, he said: bolsonaro is a man of the people; it was the people who brought him into this position against his will. he is just following the people. we cannot have more years with this corrupt communist labor party government. that will turn brazil into a new venezuela! (short interview with carlos at the avenida paulista demonstration) numerous lefebvrian rhythms interacted as people sang the national anthem that day. first, a powerful historical rhythm linked bolsonaro’s fight against haddad to the broader struggle for brazilian independence and numerous conflicts with different marxist movements in brazil and elsewhere. singing the anthem linked rhythms such as these together. first, the sounds were produced by and reentered into singing bodies, activating neurotransmitters that allowed joy, pleasure, and politics to converge in experience (these are biological and psychological rhythms). second, the experience of singing both amplified and consolidated the demonstration’s social fabric, recalling robert putnam’s (2000, p. 411) argument that singing together creates new communities that otherwise would not exist (these are the social rhythms). third, for many singers it was a beautiful experience to sing together, wave brazilian flags, and wear the national football t-shirt, and this sense of beauty was transferred in turn to bolsonaro’s k. k. bøhler: rhythm politics in a changing brazil: a study of the musical mobilization of voters by bolsonaro and haddad in the 2018 election qualitative studies: 6(2), pp. 54-84 ©2021 75 project (these are the aesthetic rhythms). in all, bolsonaro’s fight against corruption and neoliberal policy proposals (e.g., “liberating” the market and dismantling state institutions) were promoted and amplified by the act of singing that day. other forms of music also played a vital role. a number of street musicians performed their own pro-bolsonaro songs and invited participants to sing along to well-known football chants and popular songs with new words. often, these melodies were accompanied by samba rhythms and funky carioca grooves, among others. and there were bolsonaro jingles broadcast through massive loudspeakers adorned with brazilian flags and banners that were placed on top of trailers: example 7: massive sound cars broadcasting jingles for bolsonaro on avenida paulista, october 2018. the banners focused more on anti-labor party sentiment than on exactly what change bolsonaro would bring about (see, for example, pt nao [no to the labor party] and fora pt [out with the labor party]). the jingle “[military] captain, raise up” by el veneceo was played the most frequently. it is a pop song with a sparse and engaging beat and pronounced autotuning in the k. k. bøhler: rhythm politics in a changing brazil: a study of the musical mobilization of voters by bolsonaro and haddad in the 2018 election qualitative studies: 6(2), pp. 54-84 © 2021 76 sung melody. the refrain compares bolsonaro to a military captain who should rise to the occasion: captain, get up because the brazilian people need you captain, get up capitão levanta-te porque o povo brasileiro precisa de você example 9: refrain of capitão levanta-te by el veneceo and vhero. this jingle recalled bolsonaro’s emphasis on increased collaboration with the military and reminded potential voters that bolsonaro used to work for the military.xiv he insisted that thirtyeight years of corrupt democracy had proven that collaboration with the military was necessary to bring forth the “ordem e progreso” that was written on the brazilian flag (from 1964 to 1985, brazil had been governed by the military). a number of brazilians agreed, and this bolsonaro jingle mobilized broader social, cultural, and historical rhythms to emphasize the urgency of this political change—after all, it was about the very future of the brazilian nation. concluding discussion the aim of this article was to explore how musical sounds and practices create new forms of political awareness, participation, and critique among both right-wing and left-wing movements in a brazil marked by increasing polarization through study of ethnographic data gathered in brazil between 2016-2018. i did so inspired by henri lefebvre´s argument that different “rhythms” interact through cultural practice (e.g., musical, social, political and historical ‘rhythms’ of different kinds) and developed rhythm politics as a conceptual frame for my analysis. by studying musical-political dynamics through the prism of rhythm politics, i was able to describe how music mattered politically in context by activating and interacting with larger social, cultural, and aesthetic rhythms in a lefebvrian sense. three lessons can be learned from the present study. first, in countries like brazil, music breathes life, energy, and affective engagement into politics—sung arguments and joyful rhythms enrich public events and street demonstrations in complex and dynamic ways. this finding invites further research into how particular organizations of musical sounds afford and mediate political critique and participation in brazil and elsewhere. studying such processes through the prism of rhythm politics paraphrases recent work on “musical mediation” (born k. k. bøhler: rhythm politics in a changing brazil: a study of the musical mobilization of voters by bolsonaro and haddad in the 2018 election qualitative studies: 6(2), pp. 54-84 ©2021 77 2010, 2013, born and barry 2018, hennion 2015), which, among other things, draw attention to how “music mediates wider social relations, from the most abstract to the most intimate: music’s embodiment of stratified and hierarchical social relations, of the structures of class, race, nation, gender and sexuality […]” (born, 2010, p. 232). by using lefebvre´s concept of “rhythms” as a frame for a broader cultural analysis of musical political dynamics we can reach a deeper understanding of the multiple ways in which music shape, and are shaped by, multiple contexts as different rhythms feed into each other in practice (e.g. musical, social, historical and political “rhythms” of different kinds). second, music is used by right-wing and left-wing movements in unique ways. for bolsonaro supporters and the mbl movement, jingles, produced as part of larger election campaigns, were disseminated through massive sound cars in the heart of são paulo while demonstrators sang the national anthem and waved brazilian flags. in both cases, the events were organized in advance by leaders and campaign managers to influence voting behavior on a subconscious level—right-wing politicians and movements in brazil appear to use music strategically to enhance their political visibility, voice, and presence. in contrast, leftist musical politics appears to be more spontaneous and bohemian. while the haddad supporters had planned and rehearsed their musical-political work and reflected on the importance of bringing musical joy and arts to the political sphere, they also embraced the moment and whatever it might bring. syncopations, call-and-response singing, a carnivalesque vibe and broader sense of hedonist joy also brought a different life to musical articulations of politics among the left compared to bolsonaro supporters who seemed more up-tight and military in their performance of the brazilian national anthem. the third, and perhaps most important, lesson to be learned from this study is that music and the arts have the ability to both humanize and popularize bolsonarismo movements that in fact threaten human rights and the rights of ethnic minorities, among others, in contemporary brazil. to oppose such movements in the future, it is important to understand how they use jingles, national anthems, and other forms of music to mobilize voters. to contest bolsonarismo, trumpism, and other forms of extreme right-wing populism, we cannot close our ears and listen only to grooves of resistance and songs of freedom performed by leftists. we must also listen to the music of the right. acknowledgements: most of the research related to this article was financed by the project “the politics of music in a changing latin-america: cuba and brazil”, financed by the norwegian research council, k. k. bøhler: rhythm politics in a changing brazil: a study of the musical mobilization of voters by bolsonaro and haddad in the 2018 election qualitative studies: 6(2), pp. 54-84 © 2021 78 with project number 415017. a smaller part of the research related to this article was financed by the project “algorithmic governance and cultures of policing: comparative perspectives from norway, india, brazil, russia, and south africa (agopol)”, financed by the norwegian research council, with project number 202340. references agawu, k. 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(1983). culture and society, 1780-1950. new york: columbia university press. notes i my notion of the musical sciences is informed by kofi agawu (1997) and is a broad term that draws attention to music scholarship carried out within ethnomusicology, popular music studies, musicology, and music theory. ii such arguments have been put forward in, for example, deleuzian interpretations of arts and music (moisala, leppänen, tiainen, and väätäinen, 2017; raghuramaraju, 2018; stover, 2017, 2021), latourian studies of actants grouped together in heterogenous assemblages informed by actor-network theory (bøhler, 2021; latour, 2013; sonnenberg-schrank, 2020), karen barad’s reinterpretation of agency as relational (2003; 2007), and jacques rancière´s rethinking of a politics of aesthetics as relational processes that constantly redistribute “what is common to the community” (2013, p. 12). iii despite the relatively few references to lefebvre in the musical sciences his ideas were influential among some popular music scholars in the 1980s, see, for example, chambers (1982) and berland (1990). the last decade, music scholars have found increased inspiration in his work, see, for example, atanasovski (2015), still (2015), saffle and yang (2010), born (2013). still, lefebvre´s theoretical work has yet to have a substantial impact on the musical sciences, and the present article provides steppingstones to integrate lefebvrian theory into music research. iv based upon recent research in music and neuroscience this probably also activates more specific physical rhythms by releasing dopamine, serotonin and endorphins, as well as other neurotransmitters, however, in-depth study of such “rhythms” are beyond the scope of the present study. v some interpreters of deweyan aesthetics have described it as a precursor to phenomenological aesthetics and situated it adjacent to heidegger’s emphasis on the in-depth interpretation of different forms of being-in-theworld (heidegger, 1996) as well as merleau-ponty’s development of phenomenological thought (merleau-ponty and smith, 1962). however, this discussion is beyond the scope of the present study. vi in addition, other researchers and students at the university of campinas improved my understanding of musical political dynamics in brazil; in particular, i would like to thank josé roberto zan, suzel reily and cacá machado. i would also like to thank jaqueline da sá ribeira, felipe camargo and dr. geraldo adriano godoy de campos as well as dr. juan diego díaz, and the anonymous reviewers, for giving vital comments, suggestions and critiques related to the study. i would also like to thank prof. jocelyne guilbault for stimulus conversations about this topic that have informed my interest in studying musical political dynamics across established political binaries. vii all translations from portuguese to english in the text are by the author. however, i want to thank dr. juan diego díaz for helping me with translating parts of the national anthem. viii cálice is an iconic song in brazilian politics and a good example of the long history of musical political interaction in the country as popular music have been shaped by, and shaped, a number of social and political movements throughout the twentieth century (brune 2015, garcia 2014). for broader description of musical political interaction in brazilian history see, for example, paranhos (2015), ridenti (2016), napolitano (2002), zan (2001), machado (2017) k. k. bøhler: rhythm politics in a changing brazil: a study of the musical mobilization of voters by bolsonaro and haddad in the 2018 election qualitative studies: 6(2), pp. 54-84 © 2021 84 ix original: o mbl—movimento brasil livre—é uma entidade sem fins lucrativos que visa mobilizar cidadãos em favor de uma sociedade mais livre, justa e próspera. defendemos a democracia, a república, a liberdade de expressão e de imprensa, o livre mercado, a redução do estado, redução da burocracia (extracted april 22, 2021). see https://www.facebook.com/mblivre/. x an american fellowship enabled kataguiri to study in the united states. xi two obvious examples include chico buarque and caetano veloso, both of whom have expressed leftist sympathies and acted as what street calls “celebrity politicians” (2012) associated with the labor party several times the last decades (napolitano, 2002; ridenti, 2016, garcia 2014). xii while it is possible to vote “blank” in brazil, studies show that this is infrequent. people tend to go ahead and vote for someone, even when they dislike them all and have no faith in the political system—the clown tiririca, for example, received a massive number of votes in 2010 and was elected to the parliament despite lacking either political background or platform (aires and câmara, 2017; c. l. c. saraiva and silva, 2012). xiii i want to thank dr. juan diego diaz meneses for helping me with parts of this translation. xiv bolsonaro was kicked out of the military for failing certain tests and exams, so the initial allusion was in fact a bit more complicated. about the author dr. kjetil klette bøhler is a senior researcher at the institute of norwegian social research (nova), at oslomet university. he has published various articles and book-chapters on music and politics in international peer-reviewed journals. currently he is finishing up a book on groove politics: pleasure and participation in cuban dance music, that will be submitted for full review at oup by 2021. in addition to cuba, he has published extensively on the politics of music in brazil, as well as the broader political change that characterize brazil after the impeachment against dilma rouseff. bøhler has also published in political sociology related to one larger eu project (financed by the eu´s fp7 program) entitled making persons with disabilities full citizens (discit), withing the field of disability studies, and within one project funded by the horizon 2020 called negotiate: overcoming early job-insecurity in europe. bøhler has received a number of grants including a fulbright grant and two larger grants from the norwegian research council within the category “free projects for the humanities and the social sciences”. gripsrud mothering death .pdf qualitative studies vol. 6, no. 1, 2021, pp. 38-67 issn 1903-7031 38 mothering death: a psychosocial interpretation of breast cancer biography birgitta haga gripsrud1 1department of caring and ethics, faculty of health sciences, university of stavanger, norway in this article i take as my point of departure a puzzle presented by a woman who had an apparently ‘bizarre’ reaction to a breast cancer diagnosis. in the clinic, she had exclaimed: “i would rather die than lose the breast!”. my aim is to unpack layers in this woman’s embodied and enculturated experience, with a view towards developing a psychosocial interpretation of breast cancer biography. the single case on which the present study is based, was extracted from a larger longitudinal data set which allowed me to follow ‘ella’s’ transition from diagnosis to survivorship. i relied on five sources of data to unfold the case: two participant-generated texts (expressive writing and a breast biography), two interviews, and my own field notes. the two texts that ella wrote provided a participant-led frame for depth-hermeneutic group interpretation sessions, the first of which, synergistically, produced a scenic voicing of latent content in the sub-text of ella’s expressive writing: the fantasy of mothering death. this subsequently became a lead for my further interpretation of the case, and for methodological reflections on the value of shared thinking in qualitative data interpretation. crucially, and with some bearing on the current healthcare context, this interpretive study sheds light on what goes on beneath the surface of an apparently ‘irrational’ and ‘recalcitrant’ patient, evidenced by ella’s entry into what i call a ‘vortex of suffering’. findings point towards her suffering as an expression of a psychosocial reality, against the backdrop of hope and ideals contained within a psychosocial imaginary that revolves around biomedical cure and reparation. keywords: breast cancer biography; the breast; psychosocial studies; depth-hermeneutics; vortex of suffering; psychosocial reality “the experience of fragmentation which traumatic suffering entails resists any approach which assumes that experience can be mastered and known through rational discourse.” (levine, 2009, p. 17) introduction this article takes as its point of departure a puzzle presented by a woman who had an apparently ‘bizarre’ reaction to a breast cancer diagnosis. in order to provide an entry for engaged readership in this special issue on suffering in contemporary society, let me start with a brief vignette of how i was first introduced to this woman, whom i will call ‘ella’: while enrolling participants for research on women’s experiences of breast cancer, i received a phone call from a clinician responsible for b. gripsrud: mothering death: a psychosocial interpretation of breast cancer biography qualitative studies 6(1), pp. 38-67 ©2021 39 approaching potential participants. he told me that his colleagues had had an unusual consultation in the clinic that day with a recently diagnosed breast cancer patient, a norwegian woman in her fifties who, at one point, exclaimed to her doctor, “i would rather die than lose my breast!” the clinicians were baffled by this dramatic statement. despite their many years of accumulated professional experience, this patient’s reaction was simply unprecedented. for me, there was no doubt that this could be an important participant to enrol, but i wondered if it was right to do so if she was in a state of high distress. through off-and-on contact with her over several weeks, this question lingered on. in the end, ella agreed to participate in the study. for a long time, i kept ruminating on her statement that she would rather die than lose her breast. whereas other participants had spoken of how, in various mournful ways, they tried to come to terms with letting go of the breast in order to save their life, ella presented a mystifying reversal. my aim is to unpack layers in this woman’s embodied and enculturated experience, with a view towards developing a psychosocial interpretation of breast cancer biography. to achieve this, i have analysed meanings derived both from the manifest text and the latent sub-text (gullestad & killingmo, 2013) contained within ella’s written illness narratives. i understand the sub-text psychoanalytically, as being motivated by (partly) unconscious desires and fantasies belonging to a psychical reality – an autonomous order that exists beyond (but not separated from) material reality, entailing “everything in the psyche that takes on the force of reality for the subject” (laplanche & pontalis, 1973, p. 363). my understanding is also informed by a psychosocial studies approach that is capable of holding together “an understanding of the workings of the psyche and the social without reducing one to the other” (hollway, 2009, p. 461). in this sense, a more accurate conceptualisation of my object of inquiry would be to unpack layers in the psychosocial reality of ella’ breast cancer experience, a claim that may become more evident through what follows. b. gripsrud: mothering death: a psychosocial interpretation of breast cancer biography qualitative studies 6(1), pp. 38-67 ©2021 40 background kleinmann states that “illness idioms crystallize out of the dynamic dialectic between bodily processes and cultural categories, between experience and meaning” (1988, p. 14). this is evidently so with breast cancer, an illness that, since the 1970s, has generated a substantial field of cultural-biographical meaning-making (deshazer, 2013; gripsrud, 2008). in my previous research, i found that women’s narratives of breast cancer – somewhat paradoxically, in that they are articulations emerging from a loss of the breast – yield rich grounds for exploring meanings of the breast in embodied experience (gripsrud, 2006, 2008). this subsequently led me into practice-near and experience-near research (froggett & briggs, 2012) in two hospitals, in collaboration with breast cancer specialists who are frequently and painfully confronted with complexity in women’s breast-loss experiences (gripsrud et al., 2016; gripsrud, søiland, & lode, 2014; solbrække, søiland, lode, & gripsrud, 2017). the editors of this special issue bring our attention to the irrefutable ontological dimension of suffering. cassel (2004) has similarly underscored suffering as a salient problem in medicine, the recognition and relief of which indicate the adequacy of the care and treatment provided. having co-created data with breast cancer patients over a course of three years, i can attest to the feeling identified by rodin and zimmermann (2008, p. 182) of being “drawn into their emotional world because of the profoundly reverberating existential issues” they face due to a serious and life-threatening illness. this was, of course, related to my experience of witnessing and recognising participants’ suffering, which manifested in a range of modalities across the sample (gripsrud et al., 2016; gripsrud et al., 2014; solbrække et al., 2017) and has been identified in previous studies of women’s breast cancer experience (arman & rehnsfeldt, 2003; langellier & sullivan, 1998). b. gripsrud: mothering death: a psychosocial interpretation of breast cancer biography qualitative studies 6(1), pp. 38-67 ©2021 41 forty years ago the poet audre lorde wrote, based on her own experience, that “each woman responds to the crisis that breast cancer brings to her life out of a whole pattern, which is the design of who she is and how her life has been lived” (lorde, 1980, p.1). since then, a considerable body of research has explored women’s experiences of breast cancer from psychological, phenomenological, and constructivist perspectives (arroyo & lopez, 2011; cheng et al., 2018; de boer, van der hulst, & slatman, 2015; greco, 2015). but few studies have adequately addressed the breast cancer crisis as it relates to the “whole pattern” of a woman’s subjectivity and biography, which, in my mind, merits a psychosocial orientation. a key concern for me is how we may adequately study experience, which is also subject to a high degree of enculturation. the embodied breast is a case in point, carrying deep-rooted sociocultural meanings related to life and to death, corresponding with its role in sexuality and breastfeeding and its susceptibility to cancer (gripsrud, 2008). adding to this “meaning knot” is the aesthetic investments of many societies in the breast as a symbol par excellence of femininity (yalom, 1998), which may complicate women’s embodied experience and, indeed, even turn the breast into a “defended object” that is difficult to relate discursively (gripsrud et al., 2018). methodological approach, design and research methods a psychosocial approach to illness narratives the present study is informed by psychosocial studies, an emergent field of transdisciplinary inquiry that draws on and challenges established disciplines in order to develop new understanding of the interrelationships between sociocultural and psychological meaning. according to stenner (2014, p. 206), this is because: “questions of psychology can be very poorly posed when abstracted from their cultural, societal and historical settings, and likewise, because these settings are poorly understood in abstraction from the living, experiencing human beings whose actions make their reproduction and transformation possible. ultimately this is because no clear distinction can finally be drawn between what we all too crudely call the ‘inner world’ and the ‘outer world’”. b. gripsrud: mothering death: a psychosocial interpretation of breast cancer biography qualitative studies 6(1), pp. 38-67 ©2021 42 hence, studies of the psychosocial “take subjectivity seriously as an aspect of experience that cannot be reduced to discursive practices, even if those practices structure and pattern it” (stenner, 2014, p. 206) – and, by implication, take seriously “the wish to focus on subjectivity as the total, substantive, acting, thinking and feeling, embodied, relational being, or […] ‘the becoming of being’” (hollway, 2015: 21). according to hollway and jefferson (2001, p. 105), “understanding of meaning in context has been at the heart of the development of narrative research”, as evidenced in the many approaches scholars use to research a person’s life story. however, what characterises and sets a psychosocial approach to narrative inquiry aside is a critique of the often implicit but naïve notion of the storyteller as a “unitary rational subject” (hollway & jefferson, 2001, p. 106), “telling it like it is”. a key concept in psychosocial research is the defended subject, which refers to the psychoanalytic proposition that “anxiety is inherent in the human condition, specifically that threats to the self, create anxiety. defences against such anxiety are mobilised at a largely unconscious level [and are] a significant influence on people’s actions, lives and relations” (hollway & jefferson, 2001, p. 107). further to this, hollway (2009, pp. 461-462) emphasises how such psychoanalytically informed narrative research should “focus on the experiences of subjects who suffer […] in the particularities of the settings, past, present and anticipated future, as people engage with and make meaning out of their situations and actions”. in response to this, a nascent strand of psychosocial research on cancer narratives is emerging (see e.g. aydin, gulluoglu, & kuscu, 2012; larsen, 2017), to which the present study is a new addition. design: a single case study ella’s case is extracted from a larger longitudinal data set (for details on the larger project, see gripsrud et al., 2016; gripsrud et al., 2014). such single case studies and “thinking in cases” are foundational to psychoanalysis (forrester, 2017), and a valued mode of inquiry in cultural studies (gray, 2003) and psychosocial studies (ramvi, 2015) because they allow for the study of particularity and complexity within a bounded entity (stake, 1995). sometimes, selecting a case is not really a “choice” at all; rather, it is “a given”, as the researcher feels “obliged to take it as an object of study” – as was my experience with ella, who offered me the opportunity to develop “an intrinsic case study” (stake, 1995, pp. 3–4). in pragmatic and ethical terms, my obligation as a researcher has thus been “to understand this one case” (stake 1995), because b. gripsrud: mothering death: a psychosocial interpretation of breast cancer biography qualitative studies 6(1), pp. 38-67 ©2021 43 “cases matter in their own right” (rustin, 2019, p. 97), and offer a means to explore a typology that lies between the particular and the general (wengraf, 2001). main methods for data creation the primary material for the case is two written texts, which provide a participant-led frame for interpretation. data were collected at two time points in ella’s breast cancer trajectory: shortly after diagnosis and primary surgery (t1) and one year later (t2), as she transitioned into survivorship. at t1, she was invited to engage in a form of expressive writing (ew) (pennebaker, 1997) that encouraged free associations (lothane, 2018) on emotional aspects of breast cancer. this premised on the understanding that breast cancer involves a distressing emotional experience that may be ameliorated by being expressed and symbolised (gripsrud et al., 2016; gripsrud et al., 2014). at t2, ella was invited to write a breast biography – a new method for meaning-making on women’s embodied experiences of breast cancer, eliciting biographical narration (wengraf, 2001) of past, present, and anticipated future experience. the breast biography (bb) is my own design, presented here for the first time (see figure 1). figure 1: an invitation to write a breast biography. design: birgitta haga gripsrud b. gripsrud: mothering death: a psychosocial interpretation of breast cancer biography qualitative studies 6(1), pp. 38-67 ©2021 44 ella’s writings were followed by a semi-structured interview at t1 and a narrative interview at t2. the interviews took place after the writing and lasted in excess of 90 minutes. i did not read ella’s texts before the interviews. in addition to the interviews, the ew and bb, i have also relied on field notes to access and develop my researcher subjectivity as an instrument of knowledge (hollway, 2015) and to enrich my presentation of the case. overall, my approach to data creation in this study evokes a methods bricolage and “creating structures by means of events” (lévi-strauss, 1966, p. 22), relying on the elements at hand. for example, the emphasis on participant writing emerged from my experience as a teacher of creative writing. although the present study cannot be said to adhere to a fully metabolised psychosocial methodology (see e.g. gripsrud, ramvi, froggett, hellstrand, & manley, 2018; ramvi et al., 2019), it is my view that the bricolage generated a rich-enough material for developing “thick description and interpretation” (geertz, 1973) of the single case, which have been augmented by applying a psychosocial optic. further to this, the bricolage also offered the benefits of “technique triangulation” (hammersley & atkinson, 1983) between interviews and writings, and indeed for verification of a key finding in the interpretation, as will become apparent. b. gripsrud: mothering death: a psychosocial interpretation of breast cancer biography qualitative studies 6(1), pp. 38-67 ©2021 45 a psychosocial interpretive approach conducting research “to bring the unconscious within the domain of consciousness” has methodological implications (rustin, 2019: 269), which, in this study, are most palpable in the depth-hermeneutic approach to group interpretation of the data (gripsrud, mellon, & ramvi, 2018; hollway & volmerg, 2010) in a tradition, which draws on alfred lorenzer’s psychoanalytically informed cultural analysis. this mode of group interpretation concerns “letting the data speak to us” as researchers (hollway & froggett, 2012) – and paying attention to how “a text works on or plays with a reader’s experience (unconscious or otherwise)”, provoking emotional reactions through an autonomous level of meaning that is psychosocially constituted (bereswill, morgenroth, & redman, 2010, p. 223). in this sense, depthhermeneutics “aim[s] to go beyond the immediate level of meaning in a text by investigating its latent ‘schemes of life that have been excluded from societal consensus’” (krüger cited in gripsrud, mellon, et al., 2018, p. 641), “seeking to ‘re-integrate’ human experience as embodied, individual, unconscious, relational and social” (gripsrud, mellon, et al., 2018, p. 641). by engaging in a shared analysis of short data extracts, it is possible to bring to “the surface obscured content emerging reflexively in the group’s thoughts, feelings and fantasies about the text” (gripsrud et al., 2018), in an “‘intermediate’ area lying ‘in-between’ reality and imagination”, and ‘inner’ and ‘outer’ worlds (hollway & froggett, 2012, para 1). ella’s two texts (ew+bb) were introduced to an interpretation group of five researchers with diverse disciplinary backgrounds, nationalities, genders, and ages. in order to make the data accessible to the interpretation group, i translated ella’s texts from norwegian to english, seeking to retain her idiosyncratic linguistic expression. the texts were presented to the group unabridged. as the researcher bringing in the data, i opted not to offer a pretext, and i remained silent during the interpretation; however, i did take notes throughout the session. i kept silent in order to allow the group’s associations and “sociological imagination” (wengraf, 2001) to develop beyond the reflexive frame of my preunderstanding of the study and this particular case. as you recall, my interest was to explore the sub-text (gullestad & killingmo, 2013) and divine what lay “beneath the surface” (clarke & hoggett, 2009) of ella’s statement that she would “rather die than lose the breast”. in writing up the case, i have subsequently used interview data (t1+t2) and field notes to supplement the interpretation. following geertz (1973), applications of theory should contribute to making “thick description”, and to ‘generalising’ within the case, and this is what i will pursue in the findings and discussion. b. gripsrud: mothering death: a psychosocial interpretation of breast cancer biography qualitative studies 6(1), pp. 38-67 ©2021 46 ethics formal approval was granted by the regional committee for medical and health research ethics (rek vest 2012/926). ella was fully informed several times before consenting to take part in the study, including of her right to withdraw from the research at any time. “ella” is a fictitious name, and details have been altered to protect her anonymity. beyond formal research ethics, there exists a challenging landscape of reflexive research ethics. for one, the psychosocial proposition of the defended subject has repercussions for investigations of suffering or any other frightening, painful, or taboo issue, with breast cancer being an illness experience likely to encompass all of these. as a researcher in this field, therefore, my capacity for emotional containment (hollway, 2008) – while dealing with my own defended subjectivity and identifications (ramvi, 2015) – were preconditions for establishing a working and ethically sound alliance with ella. in this sense, the impact of intersubjectivity in studies of the psychosocial is considered not as a “pollutant” but as the constitutive fact of data creation (wengraf, 2001). during enrolment, i worried that ella may be too distressed to take part in the study. however, she stayed in touch with me for several weeks, and together we carefully negotiated her contribution to the study, ensuring she was the one setting the premises. upon meeting her at home for the first interview, i was highly sensitive to ella’s state of mind. my immediate impression was that she was in a reactive state; from my first question onwards, tears were streaming down her face. she kept a tissue pressed to her face throughout the interview, occasionally pausing to blow her nose with great vigour, as if she were expunging the mucous from the soles of her feet. towards the end, both humour and anger emerged allowing for other emotional expressions than sadness. throughout the interview, ella was intensely preoccupied with the threat of the losses she associated with cancer treatment (e.g. of breast, hair, teeth, vitality, joy). however, her state of anxiety and vulnerability seemed counter-balanced by her robust, direct, and forceful personality. a sense of trust between the two of us was established early on. to illustrate: at one point in the first interview, ella got up, pulled up her sweater, and invited me to look at her breasts. they were beautiful and full, and in their pointy youthfulness reminded me of my own breasts before i became pregnant and then a mother. did i touch her new nipple-less reconstructed breast shape? years after, i can’t recall for sure. b. gripsrud: mothering death: a psychosocial interpretation of breast cancer biography qualitative studies 6(1), pp. 38-67 ©2021 47 reminiscing, i feel the impulse to touch her breast and that by touching it i could somehow sanctify it for her and make things better. i must have stopped myself from actually doing so because it would have been transgressive of my ‘mandate’, but such was the nature of our relation that i can now easily imagine reaching my hand out to touch her strange new breast. (observation from t1 and retrospective reflection, field notes) similarly, at the t2 interview, ella invited me to feel her newly emerging post-chemo hair, which she said was “soft – like a baby’s”. ultimately, the interviews’ atmosphere, characterised by intimacy, containment, and recognition (hollway, 2008), reassured me of the ethical soundness of our co-creation. i invited ella to contact me after the interviews, should she need support; however, she never took up this offer. findings ella was an unusual breast cancer patient and a divergent research participant. to help me think about the puzzles in her case, i decided to explore her two narrative texts (ew+bb) in two depth-hermeneutic group interpretation sessions. the first session was on ella’s ew (4 pages), completed two weeks after mastectomy and immediate reconstructive surgery (t1). below are two excerpts, indicating ella’s state of mind after the diagnosis, the first of which was her opening passage: “the first thing i thought when i found a lump in my left breast as i was soaping up [in the shower] was ‘fuck, now it won’t be long before i die’. 53 years old, this was earlier than i had thought. i told my husband. the weekend i discovered that lump is the weirdest and at the same time the saddest weekend i have had in all my life. in my thoughts i found a new wife for my husband. the waiting time for answers to all x-rays and tissue samples has been a hell, very hard to gather [my] thoughts about anything other than that i will soon die or that the life that’s awaiting me will contain very little joy and happy moments” (ella, ew/t1, first paragraph). b. gripsrud: mothering death: a psychosocial interpretation of breast cancer biography qualitative studies 6(1), pp. 38-67 ©2021 48 “since i found the lump in my breast and up until now, i have thought very much about whether i want to live if i end up getting late effects from the treatment i have to undergo to get cured from breast cancer. what good does it do if i recover from breast cancer but get sick from the treatment that is offered? i can feel a sense of panic with regard to chemotherapy and radiation for that reason” (ella, ew/t1). having read the whole text aloud, the first responses in the group were that this was “heavy stuff” and “chaotic”. ella was facing “many battles at the same time”. in the strong opening passage, ella had thought “this is it”, as she found the lump in her breast. the group noted the sentences, “i found a new wife for my husband”, and “he will then not have to have a sick wife”; it was as if her life had stopped, and she was alone in dealing with her breast cancer – ella is the one who must walk the line. it was hypothesised that ella was melancholic, perhaps related to bodily changes and loss of attractiveness. could this explain her wanting to substitute herself by finding a new wife for her husband? he should continue having a good life with a new woman instead of living with her, the “damaged ella”. the group reflected that these could also be realistic thoughts, as some husbands do leave their wives when they get cancer. a counterhypothesis was raised: ella was not in a melancholic state; rather, she presented as being active and in control. at this stage, one member of the group interrupted, feeling irritated by the “unbearable interpretation”, asking why the group was not engaging with the text’s desperate sense of isolation: ella felt that she deserved to die, that she did not deserve to be loved or held by love, even in this dire situation. this was a moment of emotional friction, which fuelled further interpretation. i now move away from the first responses of the group to the first interview i did with ella 4–5 weeks after her surgery. she did indeed end up getting “sick from the treatment”, as she feared in her ew, and our first appointment was cancelled because she was ill. in total, she was admitted to hospital on five occasions during chemotherapy. in the interview, ella said that she had previously had a good life. she had been doing fine: healthy, strong, and feeling well, with few worries. she took life for granted and would make plans for years ahead – setting goals for the future. she loved her work as a helping professional. the diagnosis came as a complete shock: she found a lump in her breast, went to have it examined, and was diagnosed with pre-stage breast cancer. shortly before surgery, however, ella was told it was a more invasive cancer. with a more severe prognosis, suddenly life became very serious, even though b. gripsrud: mothering death: a psychosocial interpretation of breast cancer biography qualitative studies 6(1), pp. 38-67 ©2021 49 she still remained within the curative medical spectrum. she feared there would not be much left of her by the time she finished her oncological treatment. ella said she was “still sort of in a place where i’m ambivalent in relation to life”. both in the ew and in this interview, she stated that she had considered dying rather than enduring chemotherapy and radiation. however, ella did not mention to me the thought that she would rather die than lose the breast, and her statement in the clinic therefore remained a mystery. in the end, it was her husband who changed her mind about complying with the treatment plan – he had told her he wanted to have her around for as long as possible, thereby refuting ella’s thoughts of finding him a new wife. in the interview, ella talked about an embarrassingly increased sense of vanity, despising the fact that appearance had suddenly become so important to her. the idea that others should see her as a cancer patient, without hair, even on the oncology ward, was simply unbearable. she therefore stayed home as much as possible, and during admissions to the hospital, preferred for the door to her room to remain closed. what did ella’s intense fear of exposure concern? to try to answer this, i must take you back into the interpretation group, where her writing was still under scrutiny. below are two salient extracts: “what wrong have i done to deserve getting cancer and sequels from the cancer treatment. i myself think that i am mostly kind so i can’t quite get to grips with it” (ella, ew/t1). “i’m ashamed to have got breast cancer, therefore i don’t tell others about it, i’m afraid they’ll think ‘what wrong has she done to have got breast cancer’” (ella, ew/t1). the group was puzzled by ella’s guilt and shame, as breast cancer is in no way self-afflicted. pursuing this puzzle as far as possible in this first session, it was noted that one of ella’s battles was how she would deal with the cancer, and another was how to not be excluded from society. she was deeply concerned with other people’s views of her, and that they would judge her because of the cancer; hence, she felt that she must not tell people about it or show herself as having it. with her question, “what wrong have i done?”, she was being hard on herself, despite being in a vulnerable or at least objectively undeserved situation. the group reflected on this as a ‘societal symptom’ in that it is not easy to be sick in contemporary society and that it is b. gripsrud: mothering death: a psychosocial interpretation of breast cancer biography qualitative studies 6(1), pp. 38-67 ©2021 50 difficult to speak about death and serious illness. was ella not allowed to feel sad or identify as a victim? did she feel obliged to be tough and strong, even in such a crisis? as the first interpretation session came towards the end, a chain of dark reasoning arose, presented by one of the group members in a highly scenic mode (hollway & froggett, 2012), ‘giving voice’ to ella: “the body betrayed me when i got cancer. i took care of my body and now it has betrayed me. when you are pregnant, the body has a will of its own. but with cancer, it is not a foetus growing inside but death is growing, uncontrollably. i never became a good mother; i have to be ashamed. what i am bearing is the devil. with cancer, i can become the mother of my own death.”1 (field notes from the interpretation session, my emphasis in bold) i was astonished, feeling the hairs at the back of my neck rising. because i realised that, uncannily, this group member’s scenic voicing had articulated latent content within the subtext of ella’s first written narrative at t1 that only i knew about. recall that i had given no pretext about ella before the interpretation group engaged with her ew text; the group knew nothing about her family status. it took time for ella to be able to articulate this painful experience in writing, one year after diagnosis: “i don’t have children. when i was in my twenties, i became pregnant. at that time, i chose to have an abortion for several reasons, one being because i got pregnant by the wrong man and because i was studying at the time. when i was in chemotherapy, i thought that god punished me by letting me get breast cancer because i had had an abortion. and still i am not sure whether the reason why i got breast cancer is because 1professor inger marie lid brought to my attention that ‘mothering death’ evokes a biblical passage in jeremiah 20:17-18: “because he slew me not from the womb; or that my mother might have been my grave, and her womb to be always great with me. wherefore came i forth out of the womb to see labour and sorrow, that my days should be consumed with shame?” b. gripsrud: mothering death: a psychosocial interpretation of breast cancer biography qualitative studies 6(1), pp. 38-67 ©2021 51 i have not breastfed/used my breasts for their intended purpose” (ella, bb/t2). in the second interpretation group session, the focus was on this bb text. someone noted its stylistic aspect as a performative narrative, from which ella emerged as an athletic figure, climbing the hills, thinking ‘i am tough, i did it myself’ – projecting the image of a strong and independent woman. the group noted that ella used to be, and still is, an attractive woman and that this means a lot to her: she likes herself and her body, and is idealising natural beauty. she does not wear makeup or even a bra – she resists such modifications quite strongly. from the text, the group gathered that ella’s breasts had been seductive to her lovers, who admired their firm and youthful qualities, providing her with affirmation as a woman. but then she lost a cherished breast in an awful operation. the reconstruction conformed to a type of feminine cosmeticising that she despised before cancer. the group noted that ella must have felt breast cancer as a menace to her natural beauty, vitality, and being. however, writing one year after the diagnosis, ella revealed that she was glad to be alive. sexuality still meant a lot to her, but in new ways. at an emotional level, the group noted that the bb contained more love than ella’s ew, representing coming-to-terms with the illness. this was also recognised by the group as identity work, where ella had shifted her emotional investment from ‘classic feminine narcissism’ (self-love through the gaze of the other) to something less externalised. even so, the group continued to be puzzled by ella’s guilt and shame about having breast cancer. the four sources of data that ella contributed to have allowed me to interpret this puzzle further. in her bb, ella refers to the diagnosis as a “tremendously traumatic experience”. in the follow-up interview, ella told me that throughout the period after diagnosis, she had felt persecuted by the idea that she was to blame for the cancer, that she had done something wrong. she said she had felt “screwed up mentally” and had experienced suicidal thoughts – “just come and take me” were her words, hinting at an omnipotent god. the abortion was “a somewhat easy choice” she had previously made because circumstances were not good for having a child. but when she got diagnosed, it felt to her as if god had inflicted breast cancer on her vindictively. at t1, ella’s sense was that because she was bald from chemo, everyone could see that she had cancer because she was a bad person. over time and with the experience that things went well after all, she was able to loosen the grip of this punishing fantasy and place it within the realm of chaos triggered by her diagnosis. one year after diagnosis, ella wrote: “today i know that this [fantasy] is not true” (bb, t2). however, total absolution had not been b. gripsrud: mothering death: a psychosocial interpretation of breast cancer biography qualitative studies 6(1), pp. 38-67 ©2021 52 granted to her. in her bb, ella transformed the fantasy into a more ‘scientifically credible’ derivative: that she got breast cancer because she had never breastfed a baby. that breastfeeding protects women from developing breast cancer was something she knew about. could it be that ella’s sense of shame and culpability concerned not only the abortion, but also feelings associated with sexuality, since she so emphatically writes that she “has not used the breasts for their true purpose” (that is mothering/breastfeeding)? ella’s pride in her breasts was largely related to her lovers’ appreciation. in the interpretation group, there were speculations as to whether ella’s guilt and shame concerned a deeper experience of some unrealised potential in her life. when breast cancer invaded her strong and vibrant female body, long-forgotten concerns were re-actualised, including unpredictable fertility, and perhaps unarticulated ambivalences or even longings related to pregnancy, maternity, and breastfeeding as missed opportunities. these existential concerns may have been resonant in ella’s pull towards self-eradication after diagnosis, as well as in her intense fear of experiencing cancer-related loss (e.g., of health, self, relations, breast, hair, humour, joy, work). evidence in support of this interpretation emerged in the one-year followup interview, when ella referred to a conversation with a friend who had also had breast cancer. this friend said that she never felt that she could choose whether or not to have cancer treatment because she wanted to live. ella then told her friend, “no, but then it’s not your choice, then there are others who have chosen for you.” ella continued referring to this conversation, stating, “but she [the friend] had children. perhaps that’s different.” here, ella made an associative leap to motherhood when trying to understand her friend’s motivation for complying with treatment. it made me wonder about what ella was not saying: that a woman who is a mother has something to live for, but a woman without children can just choose to die. one year after, ella was aware that the divine punishment she imagined in relation to the abortion was absurd; she thought it was “crazy” in many ways. but nevertheless, she had also experienced it as real and painful. the breast cancer and the “poisonous” chemotherapy specifically had, as she said, triggered “old crap”. we recall the remarkable story from the clinic, where ella had said she would rather die than lose her breast. at t1, ella made no mention of it in the interview. the statement in the clinic therefore remained a mystery until one year later, at the very end of the follow-up interview, when she spontaneously recalled the situation. the prelude was that i asked her about the surgical decision-making process. ella then said she had insisted on choosing what happened to her breast, and recounted the following: b. gripsrud: mothering death: a psychosocial interpretation of breast cancer biography qualitative studies 6(1), pp. 38-67 ©2021 53 “well, i was there on a thursday, i was diagnosed on a thursday and i was told ... i got a date, a note in my hand with a date, ‘look here’, a nurse reached out and gave me a note with a date and time on, and it [the operation] was on the tuesday [the following week]. and that’s when they would take away my breast. and then i said ‘no, no’, i wasn’t interested in that note, that date. it’s crazy. […] ‘but you have to take away the breast, we must remove it,’ said the doctor. ‘but i don’t have to ... i do not have to ... [do] absolutely any... thing.’ ‘but you do have to do it, you can die if you don’t remove it.’ ‘yeah, but i could just die, then?’ ‘yeah, but you can’t do that?’ ‘yes, i could do that. it is of course i who decide that. and if that’s what i want to choose, to die.’ ‘yeah, but you can’t do that?!’ ‘yes, i can.’” what ella recounted to me was a dialogue of shock and resistance, where she and a surgeon went head-to-head in a veritable power battle between her claim to self-determination and the doctor’s wish to intervene in her body, take the breast and thereby preserve her life. reconstruction was the subsequent trade-off from this consultation, ensuring that ella did not transgress the timeline in her standardised trajectory, by continuing to be a ‘recalcitrant’ and therefore resource-demanding patient. in hindsight, ella credited two other doctors with changing her desperate outlook: a surgeon who, after her operation, reassured her that she was now cancer free, and an oncologist who supported her decision-making on chemo and radiation by saying “you can choose … you don’t have to go through this if you don’t want to”. the oncologist’s capacity to humour ella’s ‘irrational’ ideas of refusing treatment, reveals how “healing is also a mode of being present, of attending to the suffering, of letting it find its form” (levy, 2009, p. 27). this encounter may indeed have been key to resolving the situation, as it left ella assured that “i am the one who made the choice”. b. gripsrud: mothering death: a psychosocial interpretation of breast cancer biography qualitative studies 6(1), pp. 38-67 ©2021 54 i now wish to discuss some intrinsic and extrinsic aspects of ella’s case, as well as methodological implications emerging from the scenic voicing of mothering death by the interpretation group. discussion i have arrived at a point where the case’s puzzling aspects are becoming more cogent, including ella’s insistence that she would rather die than lose her breast. the interpretation group established a breakthrough on ella’s sub-text: “with cancer, i can become the mother of my own death”. in doing so, the group also gave voice to, avant coup, ella’s “crazy” punishment fantasy, in which a past experience of an aborted pregnancy became reanimated by the recent trauma of her breast cancer diagnosis. on the one hand, this elucidates how trauma can be understood to constitute a total experience, involving the threat of destruction or loss of the good object (or what klein (1997) called “the good breast”) – the good object being the function of symbolic representation of the world, including cultural meanings and values (kirshner, 1994). on the other, it corroborates the object relations understanding of conflations and relations between the inner and outer worlds represented by fantasy and reality – or what bass (2000: 174) aptly characterises as unreal reality. as per my claim in the introduction of this paper, this unreal reality relates to a psychosocial reality. as an interpretative device, mothering death first articulated the reality of ella’s body hosting a cancerous growth, an invisible and uncontrollable reproduction of cells in her body. second, it encompassed the unreal sense in which ella was both fantasising and thinking about mothering death, in the sense of ‘nurturing’ the cancerous growth to continue its lethal course by refusing treatment. third, it entailed the biographical and embodied experience of an unplanned pregnancy, and how ella – in her fantasy – causally related the abortion in her twenties to the fact that she got breast cancer in her fifties. that she never became a mother turned into a harsh causal reasoning – with loss of health, vitality and attractiveness, she would not have something to live for, and therefore she might as well choose to die. fourth, mothering death expresses a gripping existential and emotional crisis; an entry into which i have called ‘a vortex of suffering’ (see figure 2 below). b. gripsrud: mothering death: a psychosocial interpretation of breast cancer biography qualitative studies 6(1), pp. 38-67 ©2021 55 figure 2: a vortex of suffering. this model evokes a gendered version of vetlesen’s (2009, p. 69) ineluctable conditions of life: dependence, existential loneliness, the fragility of relations, and mortality. hence, “we live our lives in insurmountable vulnerability” and our feelings “bring us into contact with […] aspects of existence over which we have no control”, thereby also revealing “something uncontrollable in ourselves” (vetlesen, 2009). ambivalence about life from an object relations perspective ella’s ambivalence about life and her impulse towards death, can be accounted for psychoanalytically by classical drive theory (freud, 1920-1922) and object-relations theory (klein, 1997). whereas freud, (1920-1922) identified a basic instinctual conflict between life and death whereby the living organism seeks a return to the inanimate state – klein developed the theory, seeing “the interaction of the life and death instincts” as governing “the whole of mental life” (1997, p. 245). klein understood aggression as a powerful agent in emotional life, theorising that the ego projects the death instinct into an object, “giving rise to phantasies of an object which is destroyed and destructive” (segal, 1991, p. 21). in ella’s fantasy, the destructive object was the cancer ‘gestating’ within her body, despite her love for the body and her efforts to take care of it.2 she could destroy cancer as a bad object by refusing treatment and embracing 2 unconscious fantasy (or “phantasy”) may be a defence against painful reality but may also be a means to reality testing (whether of the ‘inner’ or ‘outer’ world) (spillius et al., 2011). confoundingly, with regards to this case, the object relations understanding is that its roots are to be found developmentally, emerging from the infant’s relation to the breast. i will not go further into a causal exploration here, except to note that the breast, as sexual and reproductive organ and psychosocial symbol, is profoundly charged with meaning (see e.g. gripsrud et al., 2018). b. gripsrud: mothering death: a psychosocial interpretation of breast cancer biography qualitative studies 6(1), pp. 38-67 ©2021 56 death, relying on death as a defence against the strong emotions evoked by loss and suffering associated with living with breast cancer. because she had never become a mother or had dependents, the self (as an object) also became susceptible to destruction. larsen (2017) explains defence against anxiety as a psychic necessity for cancer patients. in her interpretation of head and neck cancer patients’ narratives, she found evidence of both primitive (splitting, projection) and mature defences (adaptations to reality) (klein, 1997). making the shift from schizoid splitting (primitive defence) to depressive position (mature defence) involves developing “the capacity to simultaneously hold the idea of living and dying, [which] may be the most important psychological task in those who become ill, or aged, and who face the end of life” (rodin & zimmermann, 2008, p. 187). as ella’s case illustrates, this is no small endeavour. from an object relations perspective, the case also illustrates the “conflation of reality as fantasy, past and present” (segal, 1991, p. 147), characteristic of depressive anxiety. ella’s experience of the time right after diagnosis, where she felt ambivalent about life, may have been too anxiety-provoking to allow her to make out the unruly connections between past and present, and thereby adapt to the reality she was facing as a breast cancer patient. however, depressive anxiety is also what motivates a transition from part-object relations to whole-object relations – from splitting as a necessary defence against anxiety to integration, characteristic of the shift from the paranoid-schizoid to the depressive position – or “the move from fantasy to reality” (segal, 1991, p. 171). this may be evidenced in the interpretation group’s observation of ella’s emotional transition from the first time point (ambivalent about life, self-punishing and self-destructive ideas) to the second (glad and grateful to be alive) – a psychic move from the aggressive-sadistic fantasy of mothering death to ‘mothering life’, and the return to a more “libidinal engagement with reality” (segal, 1991, p. 147). the deferred action of embodied female reproduction ella felt shame about her cancer appearance, and guilt (re)emerged in relation to the abortion she had, evoking a vindictive god. in her ew these two feelings oscillated, in the way characteristic of nachträglichkeit or “deferred action” (laplanche & pontalis, 1973, p. 111) – as a long-ago embodied experience of pregnancy re-emerged, acquiring a new retrospective significance after the breast cancer diagnosis. in a study on the imaginaries of women who have experienced unwanted pregnancy loss from miscarriage or stillbirth, authors indicate that “the b. gripsrud: mothering death: a psychosocial interpretation of breast cancer biography qualitative studies 6(1), pp. 38-67 ©2021 57 idea of the ‘dead child’ brings with it the idea of the ‘dead mother”’, and that the “real and imaginary construction of motherhood that takes place throughout the pregnancy is […] interrupted, generating a sensation of loss” (visintin, inacarato, & vaisbert, 2020, p. 201). although ella elected to terminate the pregnancy in her twenties, she may have experienced a similar interruption of imaginary motherhood, which would have started at the point of becoming aware that she was pregnant. a striking idea is that the “dead child”, or foetus in ella’s case, can be symbolically and reciprocally returned to a “dead mother”, as manifested in a mother’s severe depressive reaction to a pregnancy loss. ella did not say whether she had suffered a depressive reaction after having the abortion. however, decades later, it was this experience that haunted her embodied mind, as she asked herself what wrong she had done to ‘deserve’ breast cancer and turned to death as a possible and final defence against illness-related suffering and loss. exploring the case’s psychosocial typologies so far, i have been mainly concerned with ella’s inner world, although from a psychosocial understanding this ‘inner’ world is never severed from the ‘world out there’. as rodin and simmermann (2008, p. 186) note, “subjective experience is comprised of multiple and shifting self-states and self-organizations generated in social and interpersonal fields”. the interpretation group identified ella’s “many battles” after the breast cancer diagnosis. krüger notes how “[c]onflicts arising at the subjective level might […] be subjectively suffered, but are always produced in relation with others and therefore never without a sociocultural dimension or free from the contradictions of society at large” (2017, p. 51). in order to explore the sub-text of ella’s case psychosocially, i cannot be satisfied by asking “how did this conflict arise in this individual?” but i must also inquire into a social typology, i.e., by asking “what sort of conflict is this?” (leithäuser, 2013, para 40). despite the case’s unique characteristics, some of ella’s conflicts may well be accounted for as social typologies. one such typology is of woman as object of the masculine gaze: ella was somewhat fixated on the idea that other people would look at her and that they would believe certain things about her on the basis of her appearance (for better or worse). ella did not appear as a stereotypical ‘vain woman’, but rather she idealised a natural body and made the point that her breasts had been appreciated by the men in her life. the prospect of breast-altering surgery, therefore, not only unsettled ella’s self-image, but her gendered identity as a desirable and naturally beautiful woman. b. gripsrud: mothering death: a psychosocial interpretation of breast cancer biography qualitative studies 6(1), pp. 38-67 ©2021 58 a second typology can be identified in that ella so clearly represents her society and generation: she is a free and independent woman who takes care of things herself, making autonomous decisions, whether it concerns dealing with an unwanted pregnancy or an unwanted cancerous growth. interestingly, pines (1993, p. 60) refers to a first pregnancy as: “a crisis point in the search for a female identity, for it is a point of no return, whether a baby is born at the end of term or the pregnancy ends in abortion or miscarriage. it implies the end of the woman as an independent single unit and the beginning of the unalterable and irrevocable mother-child relationship.” as we know, ella never completed this transition to motherhood, but must have been confronted with similar concerns evoked by her pregnancy in terms of how she saw herself, her relationships, and her future – indeed her thoughts and feelings about these concerns would have informed her decision to terminate the pregnancy. by the fifties, her identity as an independent woman appears firmly established. nevertheless, the relationality and dependency associated with social typologies of motherhood pops into her mind when she tries to understand why being a mother offers no choice in whether or not to comply with oncological treatment. whereas ella felt ‘agency’ and ‘empowerment’ to choose, implying that she was autonomous, she considered her friend’s destiny as locked to her dependents because her friend was a mother. in this aspect, ella’s case evokes how the psychosocially defended subject is “constituted from a combination of unique biographical events (in which unconscious dynamics are crucial in determining a person’s relation to external reality), and socially shared meanings, interactions and situations” (hollway & jefferson, 2000, p. 104). society and culture can effect intrapsychic and interpersonal changes. for example, in the united states, the pervasive pressures of neoliberalism have been accused of creating “ever more individualistic identities that repudiate the vulnerable and needy parts of the self. this, in turn, blocks awareness of the ways in which we are mutually interdependent” (layton, 2020, p. 178). layton (2020, pp. 116–117) identifies a change in the psychic structure of middle-class heterosexual american women – a “defensive autonomy”, which overlays inner conflicts between nurture and autonomy, reinforced by “the cultural dichotomization of relatedness and autonomy”, which “leaves neither pole functioning very well”. although ella is rooted in a different culture, norwegian society is not unaffected by neoliberalism (see e.g. gripsrud, b. gripsrud: mothering death: a psychosocial interpretation of breast cancer biography qualitative studies 6(1), pp. 38-67 ©2021 59 ramvi, & ribers, 2020; ramvi & gripsrud, 2017). ella’s behaviour and narratives could well be interpreted as being imbued with such a “defensive autonomy”, to the extreme extent that she fantasied about death as a means to negating vulnerabilities and dependencies activated by breast cancer. however, she had a loving husband. ella was concerned that she would drive him away, as she transitioned from being a happy, strong, and attractive woman to an unhappy, helpless, emaciated, and despairing hairless apparition.3 but when her husband pleaded with her to stay alive and stay in their relationship, the shield of defensive autonomy appears to have lost its power of protection. in the clinic, ella’s defensive autonomy allowed her to be strong and determined in situations with clinicians who wished to cure her disease by taking control over her body. in this context, her behaviour is socially aligned with the outcome of collective battles fought in norway over women’s rights and liberty, including the right to abortion (1975) and, in more recent times, to reconstruction after mastectomy (2012). but despite being enabled by such normative unconscious cultural discourses (layton, 2020) and personal resources to be a strong-willed and autonomous woman, it was not through ‘self-management’ but through relations to others (husband, siblings, friends, doctors, and therapists) that ella regained her footing in life. a third social typology relates to ella’s mode of self-presentation in her illness narratives. whereas american culture has produced breast cancer narratives (deshazer, 2013) apt to rely on a cultural script of “quest stories” (frank, 1995, p. 166) that thematise omnipotent wishes for triumph over disease and ultimately death, ella’s narratives, emerging from a norwegian cultural context, are hardly concerned with idealising victory. as such, her case can certainly be said to offer an articulation of situated “non-heroic cancer survivorship” (see solbrække et al., 2017). ella’s hero quest concerned not an omnipotent denial of death, but finding the courage to live on, even if in suffering. following on from my discussion of the case’s characteristics and typologies, i now wish to consider some aspects of the psychosocial methodology which allowed her case to be interpreted. shared thinking in a psychosocial interpretative methodology the evolution of ella’s case – her breast cancer biography – actualises the relevance of psychosocial approaches that can allow for both depth and branching out from the unconscious intersubjective movements of ideas (hollway, 2010), both inside and outside the study context. 3 she described her own cancerous gestalt as akin to gollum from lord of the rings. b. gripsrud: mothering death: a psychosocial interpretation of breast cancer biography qualitative studies 6(1), pp. 38-67 ©2021 60 such an approach has allowed me to grapple, both alone and together with other researchers, with some seemingly ‘irrational’ aspects of human experience – whether self-destructive or simply bizarre – in that we are driven by fantasy and affectivity, aspects of which are frequently (or mostly) outside of our own conscious awareness (meyers, 2015). my experience of what ensued in the first group interpretation session adheres to malterud’s claim (2001) that when different researchers work together, it allows for access to different layers of the text under investigation, and that different approaches to the same text and subject matter can result in an increased understanding of complex or strange phenomena. in the same vein, barry et al. (1999) argue that opening up the data in a group is to open up to extended reflexivity – allowing for several interpretations, feelings, fantasies, and working hypotheses to emerge – considered a sign of rigour in qualitative research. in my experience, the strength of depth-hermeneutic interpretation lies in “the group’s ability to bring the scenes of the text to life” – an emotionally-engaged way of “thinking and being together” (gripsrud et al., 2018, p. 647). such an approach raises the question: how can we understand the relationship between the unconscious of the interpretation group and ella’s unconscious? psychosocial researchers have theorised notions of a shared unconscious, including the dynamics between expressions of affect and symbolisation processes (ramvi et al., 2019), which may indeed draw on intra-psychic materials (e.g. specifically related to ella’s case) and socially shared cultural tropes (e.g. such as ‘mothering’, ‘breast’ and ‘breast cancer’). we can further account for this psychosocially, in the sense that humans are “interdividuals” and that our “‘inner world’, from before day one, is populated, as it were, by relations to others, and hence is better understood, less as a distinct and separate sphere, than as a fold within the ‘outer world’” (stenner, 2014, p. 207). wild interpretations that could potentially emerge from one researcher’s unconscious reaction are counteracted by the ability of the other group members to check any emerging hypotheses and interpretations against the data material, discarding ideas that cannot be supported by the empirical material. still, there can be no doubt that studies of unconscious phenomena constitute an empirical challenge. if the object of a psychosocial inquiry is (a partly) unconscious phenomenon, it is, according to rustin, “almost by definition” a “non-transparent” object. indeed, it may well be an object “whose recognition is resisted by their subjects, whether these be individuals, institutions, or societies” (rustin, 2019, p. 269). in ogden’s view (2008, p. 12), following bion, it therefore requires at least “two minds to think a person’s most disturbing thoughts”. for me, this is evident in the scenic voicing of mothering death as a synergistic b. gripsrud: mothering death: a psychosocial interpretation of breast cancer biography qualitative studies 6(1), pp. 38-67 ©2021 61 interpretation of ella’s t1 text. based on the accumulated collective efforts of the group, one person was able to absorb, digest and ‘ventriloquise’ ella’s “unthought known” (bollas, 1987) at the time of her ew (linking shame from breast cancer to guilt from the abortion). as the case reveals, group interpretation of data was a powerful device (hollway, 2008) because it allowed the group to imagine and articulate ella’s most “disturbing thoughts”. its aggregated capacities of human experience and identifications could ‘intuit’ otherwise untold or unthought aspects of her text “where something that has not yet been symbolised ‘presses’ into language” (hollway & froggett, 2012, para 13). it is my view that the interpretation group achieved this though the “negative capability” (bion, 1970, p. 125) to remain in the uncertainty of the puzzle “ella” and not rush prematurely for conclusions. this achievement may not have been possible, were it not for the reaction of one group member who interrupted the “unbearable interpretation”, urging the others to tune in to the strong emotional timbres of ella’s text, rather than defensively intellectualising over it. following bion (1962), we could thus say that the first group interpretation session eventually allowed for ella’s raw emotional experience at the point of diagnosis to be contained and metabolised, thereby enabling symbolisation to take place in the second session. this was in a scenic form (mothering death) that allowed the group to synthesise and think about her experience of traumatic suffering, rather than to reject it as ‘bizarre’, ‘incomprehensible’ or ‘uncompliant’ (see also e.g., hollway & froggett 2012). closing remarks “i would rather die than lose the breast”, was ella’s statement in the breast cancer clinic and my point of departure for this study. in order to investigate it, i relied on a psychosocial interpretative approach that has allowed for an unfolding of the complexities of the embodied, enculturated, and defended woman’s breast cancer biography. different conclusions may be drawn from the case, in recognition of the fact that there will always be much we do not or cannot know (gripsrud et al., 2018). at the heart of the interpretation was ella’s two written narratives, which vividly related breast cancer as a “biographical disruption” (bury, 1982). this traumatic event led her, unconsciously, to search for meaning outside her existing frame. ella lingered in a cruel and punishing fantasy of mothering death – which can be said to draw, psychosocially, from a cultural script on the self-determined childless woman as a provocation to a normative maternal femininity in which children are assigned to carry the deeper meaning in life. without children, ella could choose to die. b. gripsrud: mothering death: a psychosocial interpretation of breast cancer biography qualitative studies 6(1), pp. 38-67 ©2021 62 as a breast cancer patient in norway, ella was situated within the curative spectrum of a biomedical regime, manifested by a predictable and standardised treatment trajectory provided by the welfare state (gripsrud et al., 2020). her resistance to comply with treatment was therefore a mystery to the healthcare personnel, who perceived her as a difficult patient. however, as we have seen, ella’s apparently ‘irrational’ behaviour and ‘failure’ to respond as expected to the rationalising medical discourse she encountered at the time of diagnosis and surgery can be accounted for from an object relations perspective – in that maturity is never the attainment of a steady state, but rather is characterised by oscillation with more primitive mental modalities. crucially, and with some ethical bearing on the current healthcare context, findings point towards her entry into the vortex of suffering as an irrepressible expression of a psychosocial reality, against the backdrop of hope and ideals contained within a psychosocial imaginary that revolves around biomedical cure and reparation. acknowledgements i am grateful to ella for taking part in i am not the same, and to kirsten lode and håvard søiland, with whom i collaborated on this project. access to data is courtesy of stavanger university hospital. i wish to thank the interpretation group – my colleagues in the international research group for psycho-societal analysis. my love and gratitude to wendy hollway for her reading of an early draft, and to ellen ramvi for mothering my entry into psychosocial studies. i dedicate this paper to thomas leithäuser with much affection – a kindred spirit, 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(2017). our genes, our selves: hereditary breast cancer and biological citizenship in norway. medicine, health care and philosophy, 20(1), 89-103. doi:10.1007/s11019-016-9737-y b. gripsrud: mothering death: a psychosocial interpretation of breast cancer biography qualitative studies 6(1), pp. 38-67 ©2021 67 spillius, e.b., milton, j., garvey, p., couve, c. & steiner, d. (2011) the new dictionary of kleinian thought. london: routledge stake, r. (1995). the art of case study research. thousand oakes: sage. stenner, p. (2014). psychosocial: qu’est-ce que c’est? journal of psycho-social studies, 8(1), 205-216. vetlesen, a. j. (2009). a philosophy of pain. london: reaktion books. visintin, c., inacarato, g., & vaisbert, t. (2020). imaginaries of women who experienced a pregnancy loss. estilos da clinica, 25, 193-209. doi:10.11606/issn.1981-1624.v25i2 wengraf, t. (2001). qualitative research interviewing. london: sage. yalom, m. (1998). a history of the breast. london: pandora. about the author birgitta haga gripsrud is an associate professor in the department of caring and ethics at the university of stavanger, norway. she holds a phd in cultural studies (university of leeds, 2006). gripsrud’s research interests are in psychosocial studies of enculturated and embodied experience, and of professional relational practice, as well as ethics of care. she is concerned with a ‘re-humanisation’ of health and medicine in the face of a neoliberal performance culture, which e.g. refutes awareness of complexity and suffering as inescapable dimensions of life experience. untitled qualitative studies, 1(1) 1 editorial svend brinkmann & lene tanggaard this is the first issue of a new journal, entitled qualitative studies. we hope that this new journal will become a central forum for discussions of qualitative research in psychology, education, communication, cultural studies, health sciences and social sciences in general. qualitative studies is peer-reviewed and publishes papers in english and the scandinavian languages in any of these areas. we are interested in papers that discuss qualitative methods, their promises, problems and philosophies, and also papers that apply such methods in concrete qualitative studies. we aim to publish two issues a year, but since qualitative studies is an open access and web-based journal, we can allow ourselves some flexibility in this regard, and for example choose to publish additional special issues, if such options arise. qualitative studies is associated with the center for qualitative studies at aalborg university in denmark (www.cqs.aau.dk). but we hope that potential authors from other universities in denmark and the rest of the world will take an interest in qualitative studies as an outlet for their work. in preparing this first issue, we have received a fair amount of manuscripts, many of which are still under review, but in order to show that qualitative studies is alive as a journal, we have chosen to publish this first issue with four articles, two of which are in english and two of which are in danish. together, these articles show the scope of themes and approaches that we hope will flourish in qualitative studies. abbey and zittoun offer a semiotic analysis of interview processes, kristensen analyses power dynamics as reflected in people’s everyday lives, in casu modern traffic, klausen reports a study of parkour, an art of urban movement, and frimann & jantzen present a culturalpoetic analysis of a short interaction sequence at a gas station. all articles integrate theory and empirical material in fruitful, albeit very different, ways. we hope that this will inspire future contributors to qualitative studies. as a journal its mission is on the one hand to discuss qualitative methods, but equally important to be a forum for the publication of qualitative studies that contribute to our knowledge about the human, social and cultural world. we wish to thank the anonymous reviewers, whose generous comments have helped improve the quality of the manuscripts and also our editorial board. we look forward to seeing how qualitative studies will develop! the editors, svend brinkmann, email: svendb@hum.aau.dk lene tanggaard, email: lenet@hum.aau.dk vol. 5, no. 2, 2018, pp. 72–94 issn 1903-7031 health care professionalism without doctors: spatial surroundings and counter-identification in local health houses marie østergaard møller  aalborg university, department of political science, fibigerstræde 3, 9220 aalborg øst: denmark (mol@dps.aau.dk, +45 28 40 33 79) • the article uses the organization of health houses in denmark as a case to study the relationship between spatial surroundingsand professionalization. the question is whether these new local health houses comprise an alternative to the medical view on health or ––even in the absence of the hospital–– script the professionals to identify themselves as agents from the medical field? in this article, macro-structural theory is combined with micro-relational theory in order to identify how macro structures such as professionalization nest the way social interaction takes place in concrete spatial situations and surroundings. the argument put forward is that we need to identity this process at the level of the individual in order to qualify and anchor our understanding of professionalization as a macro phenomenon. the empirical basis is two dissimilar locations (health houses), selected from a larger qualitative data set of interviews with health professionals and citizens and observations of health houses, originally selected from a nationwide survey. the presented analysis zooms in on selected places and situations and relates analyses to the overall picture of differences and similarities identified in the larger sample. the analysis shows how entrances, receptions, information screens and coffee tables not only design houses, but also script styles of interaction between health professionals and citizens as well as they work as signs creating expectations about professional roles and how to reflect and act as a professional in a given physical and social setting. the main finding is that spatial surroundings facilitate processes of identification and counter-identification crucial to a new kind of health professionals such as the ones under study here. keywords: healthcare professionalism, spatial surroundings, counter-identification, health house service, vignettes. • introduction in recent years, there has been a policy trend for western welfare states to decentralize health responsibilities to lower levels of government. in denmark this shift occurred as a delegation of health promotion and rehabilitation activities from regionally governed hospitals to local municipalities (pedersen & rank pedersen 2014: 276; sundhedsministeriet 2010). local governments were now to focus on health activities targeting health promotion and rehabilitation, paving the way for not only new relations between health professionals and citizens, but also for a more relaxed staffing policy regarding who should deliver these health services to citizens. local health activities were no longer bound to the hospital service or to the medical field, but were defined much broader as health promotion and rehabilitation (aarestrup et. al., 2007: 1). because of this policy shift, many municipalities chose to organize health promotion and rehabilitation in health houses, employing health professionals from professional colleges instead of medical doctors from research-based universities. however, it remained politically and administratively unclear what exactly was the purpose and the content of local health responsibilities in health houses and because of this, it has not been possible to derive any clear picture of what characterizes these new encounters between health professionals and citizens without theoretically and methodologically zooming in on how concrete interactions play out in these new institutional settings. the policy shift represents an opportunity to study such interactions including a way to understand more carefully processes of professionalization. therefore, the question addressed in this article is whether these new local health houses comprise an alternative to the medical view on health or—even in the absence of the hospital— script the professionals to identify themselves as agents from the medical field? more specifically, how do these new material settings matter to health professionals working in the 72 https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9159-4630 mailto:mol@dps.aau.dk tel:+4528403379 m. møller: spatial surroundings and counter-identification in local health houses qualitative studies 5(2), pp. 72–94 ©2018 73 health houses? the article shows an example of how material settings script processes of identification and counter identification among health professionals and citizens, something that has not been largely explored so far. the article is structured as follows: first, a theoretical section that introduces the structural concept of professionalization and hybrid professionalism, the concept of counter identification as a social mechanism, and in accordance with symbolic interactionism, the idea of physical frames as inseparable from social processes of interaction. next, a methodological section describes the research design, the methodology of the study and the qualitative techniques used followed by an analysis of observations and interviews illuminating how they see themselves in two distinct physical health house settings. finally, a discussion of findings and theoretical implications is made. the article seeks to contribute on how to combine structural concepts of professionalization with micro relational theory. the empirical analysis may also have a methodological contribution on how to zoom in on few cases from a larger sample of evidence by following strict steps of data collections, case selections and data classification. these steps are described in a comprehensive appendix containing essential characteristics of the selected health house observations and interviews with health professionals and citizens in the larger empirical sample. theoretical framework: professionalization in site-specific contexts in denmark, as in many other western countries, the development of professions has been emphasized as important factors driving social change in society (turner, 2007:189). eventually, many professions, including medicine, which is important in this context, moved from being a merely practical to a scientific and a clinical discipline (navarro, 1976). during the 20th century, professions became challenged by a more well-educated population much more conscious of their role as taxpayers as well as of their rights as citizens. this development created new forms of relationships between professionals, citizens and society, where professionals’ authority as experts was re-defined (but not necessarily declined, see e.g. harrits & larsen 2016:9) along with the invention of new forms of service activities (turner 2007). theory of professionalization focuses on such historical developments in order to identify which social and political factors influence the direction and changing content of professions. a key argument is that the larger social and political context is inseparable from the development of professions, and that especially governments (state-level) and the bureaucracy of public service (organizational level) are seen as driving mechanisms for professionalization processes and the development of professions (see e.g. seehested 2006). hence, professions and societies are seen as intertwined, the increase in complex political and administrative systems influencing not only the demand-side of professional service, but also the working conditions of professionals embedded in politico-administrative bureaucracies. today, many professions, health professionals included, are also tightly coupled with the public sector. within the literature of professionalization the idea is that this intertwined relationship between the public sector and the professions has added an extra layer of organizational tasks to the assignments of many professionals (seehested 2006). professionals need to be able to treat, diagnose and reflect based on professional knowledge, but also to decide and structure interventions in accordance with political and administrative goals (abbott 1988; hill 2005: 274). to grasp this development, newer studies distinguish between ‘organizational professionalism’ and ‘occupational professionalism’ to identify effects of external frameworks such as regulation of professionalism in bureaucratic frontline work (evetts 1999; schott, van kleef et al. 2015). they describe a development where professionals at first experienced bureaucratic working conditions as a pressure, then later seeing them as enhancing their room of professional manoeuvre to act, reflect and treat. this idea of organizational and professional capacity building emphasize that professionals’ skills must include both organizational and occupational dimensions or what has been coined ‘hybrid professionalism’ (no74 m. møller: spatial surroundings and counter-identification in local health houses qualitative studies 5(2), pp. 72–94 ©2018 ordegraaf 2015; evetts 2015). in line with this, and as originally pointed out by freidson, these professionals hold the key to better accountable control of public policy service delivery (freidson 2001). in this sense, professionalism represents a ‘third logic’ capable of overcoming both consumerism and bureaucracy in legitimate and effective ways. when professionals achieve organizational competences, organizations can standardize working procedures and at the same time motivate professionals to maintain frontline responsiveness. hence, to some extent the development of ‘hybrid professionalism’ is seen as something that has the potential to include the best from the world of managerialism and the world of professionalism as a co-product of both occupational and organizational principles and values (evetts 2011). however, this stream of research is mainly macroand structural oriented and does not pay particular attention to the impact of the local institutional and physical setting of frontline work, which is something that is proposed elsewhere as significant to professionals’ identification with their profession and to the social process of professionalization (see e.g. goffman 1990). here, it is emphasized how professionals are supported, not only by the regulative framework and the organizational structure, but also by the physical setting around them. in a different study of danish health houses, the architecture and the décor of health house locations were identified as important markers for the content of social interactions between professionals and citizens (møller & elmholdt 2018). in line with this, michel foucault in his study of the importance of the medical clinic in the transformation of medicine into a scientific discipline, and freidson & lorber in their studies of medical professionals emphasize how the emergence of new professionalisms is associated with social setting and spatial surroundings (foucault 2000; freidson & lorber 2008). they argue that it is possible and even preferable to study macro structures in microcosm, or in specific locations and situations in order to point out how and why the larger social context inform (inter)action and reflection at the individual level. so, the hypothesis that spatial surroundings facilitate processes of identification is far from new, but a classic micro sociological hypothesis, first formulated by erving goffman (1963; 1990). he sees social interaction as ‘plays’ performed on scenes scripted by physical and social values. on this ‘scene’ people meet and interact drawing on (the) physically and socially available scripts. he sees the physical setting of any form of social interaction as a ‘scene’ that mirrors status roles and positions to be filled out by the ‘players’ performing on the scene. interactions take place on the ‘front stage’, the ‘scenic aspects of the front’ (the setting consists of physical décor such as furniture, decorations and accessories) constituting the room of performance (goffman, 1990:32). these signs and meanings encourage certain ways of performing while suppressing others. a scene varies in its degree of rituals, i.e. to what extent actions are performed without the need for subtle reflection or initiative. for example, there is a difference in the degree of ritualization between a surgery room in a hospital and an office waiting area. in a waiting area, people can move around more freely, yet reflective about where and how to perform (sit and wait), whereas performance in a surgery room is more or less fixed in advance by performative standards. the basic argument is that general social laws structure social encounters and that the physical and social settings have an effect on how people perform and behave towards each other (goffman, 1990). the way the material scripts inform actions is hence an important dimension for understanding individuals’ reason for why they perform and act as they do in (the) encounters with others. identification and counter-identification in addition to understanding the impact of ‘physical frames’ on how health professionals think of themselves as professionals and of citizens as users of the health house, both goffman and freidson stress identification as being an important social mechanism in identity formation both on an individual and on a group level. however, as pointed out by freidson and lorber, identification with others does not necessarily need to be positive, as also negative perceptions of others can have the same powerful impact on how individuals and groups perceive of themselves and others through markm. møller: spatial surroundings and counter-identification in local health houses qualitative studies 5(2), pp. 72–94 ©2018 75 ing their identity and values in contrast to others. they use the concept ‘counter identification’ which refers to this reverse form of identification as an aversive identification with significant others. the concept denotes a social mechanism of claiming autonomy through distance and rejection of other people’s values and actions (freidson & lorber, 2008). hence, counter-identification denotes the social process whereby the rejection of another person’s perspective works as a prerequisite for selfidentification, as, for instance, when a person dissociates himor herself from other persons considered as pejorative in order to signal how he or she is different from them. following this line of reasoning, the following analysis looks for whether health professionals use counteridentification to position themselves as different from medical doctors as a way to mark a difference. the current theoretical framework pays attention to the physical setting as it is expected to script how citizens interact as even objects tell you what is expected from you. a desk asks you to wait for your turn and a café invites you to have informal conversations and maybe to eat and drink something. the physical setting encourages certain professional routines and suppresses others such as exercise in the gym room or surgery at the hospital. also, professionals’ backgrounds are sitespecific: many health professionals are trained in hospital surroundings, but may end up working in spatial contexts outside the hospital, e.g. in a local health house that does not support standard medical routines. the same argument goes for citizens: their expectations to professionals’ agency are routed in site-specific experiences that might structure the way they acknowledge or reject these new health professionals they encounter in the health houses. therefore, citizens perspective will also be significant to include here as a window into understanding what values they associate or dissociate with the local health house. in this sense, citizens’ ‘judgment’ of the health house’s value may influence the way health professionals’ (counter)identify themselves with doctors or other professional roles. following the argument that spatial setting signals behavior and identification it is expected that these new local health care houses influence how local health care professionals and citizens perform in the absence of doctors and in the absence of the spatial surrounding of a hospital. mixed methodological research design: case selection and vignette construction in order to examine how health professionals see themselves in the health house it is important to know how and where to zoom in on these individual interactions. in order to gain this knowledge, a mixed method approach was used. first step was a telephone survey of all 98 danish municipalities asking very descriptive questions on how the new local health responsibility was handled, followed by a classification of these answers in order to advance an overall picture of the variety of types of municipality implementation of local health care responsibility. the survey results showed that many (but not all) municipalities designed health houses, but in different ways. some municipalities copied the medical clinic’s physical setting and staffed health houses primarily with nurses, whereas other municipalities created a more informal health house staffed with a larger variety of professionals. this survey knowledge was hence used to construct two small descriptions (vignettes) of health houses representing this main difference (see barter and renold 2000). one vignette described a health house accessed (straight/directly) from the street without a referral, whereas the other vignette described a more medically-clinically based health house, where you need a referral from a gp or a social worker to get access (see vignettes in appendix 1). hence, vignettes were used to construct plausible organizational differences between health houses mirroring frames from an assembly house and a medical clinic respectively. in order to further zoom in on these health houses a second step of case selection followed. based on a criterion of relevance (health houses must deliver local health services) and geographic variation 19 out of a total sample of 48 health houses were selected for observations and from them 36 health professionals and 22 citizens were interviewed (see appendix 6). interviewees were qualified for selection if they provided or received health ser76 m. møller: spatial surroundings and counter-identification in local health houses qualitative studies 5(2), pp. 72–94 ©2018 vices from one of the houses (see convenience sampling strategy in weiss 1994: 24-26). the vignettes were then integrated into the interview guide and used as a way to probe interviewees to reflect upon these different settings. in practice the two vignettes were written on small pieces of paper and given to the interviewee halfway through the interview followed by questions on what they thought about them. their answers were hence coded and classified according to their health house preference and the associations they made to professionalism and health respectively. in addition to these interviews (see interview guides in appendix 3), on-site observations were made in accordance with specific observation points, such as the physical order and structure of the place, persons present at the site and interactions at the site (see observation guide in appendix 4). the on-site observations were prepared as field notes. the interview data were transcribed, segmented and open coded to learn about the dimensions in the material (schreier, 2012; charmaz, 2006). this initial data analysis was followed by a focused coding (miles, huberman, & saldaña, 2014). based on these classifications and coding of the interviews, analysis showed that the health professionals came from a broad variety of professional occupations (see appendix 2), and that they all had a professional college degree (ba level). even though no gps were working in the selected health houses some (nurses) were familiar with logics of ‘traditional medicine’, because they were trained in hospitals. in order to be able to further zoom in on social interactions in particular settings, a detailed memo was written, synthesizing the main values and attitudes put forward by each respondent (see appendix 5). based on these memos, a third and final case selection of only two health houses was done. the purpose of zooming in on only two health houses was to explore the contextual details of how encounters occur in distinct types of health houses and how the physical frames inform how health professionals see themselves in this newly formed setting (see selected cases in appendix 6). observations and interviewees from one of each of the main types classified from the same municipality were selected to ensure a comparable local regulative setting, however with different spatial surroundings. in the following, these two health houses (m1 and m2) located in the same region and municipality (m) will be analyzed. the purpose is to illustrate interactions in the spatial surroundings in a medicalclinical-based health house and a communitybased health house respectively as well as to present how health professionals and citizens think about them. analytical section: observations and interviews in two distinct types of health houses the medical–clinical health house: “press if you have an appointment” the following description is based on on-site observation of m1. this health house is situated in a new residential area close to a major cycle path connecting the suburbs with the inner city. it is located on the ground floor of a newly built apartment block surrounded by other apartment buildings. there are parking spaces, bicycle sheds and a bus stop in front of the building. a lawn lies between the building and the cycle path. at the starting time of the observation (09:30 in the morning), there were no people in the area. there is a big sign displaying the name of the health house in front of the entrance. you have to go through two glass doors to enter. on the inner door is a sign saying that you are to announce your arrival on the flat screen placed right opposite the entrance. there is a small waiting area, called the café, just inside the entrance. here, there are three tables with chairs and a coffee maker. on the left side there is a hallway leading to training rooms on one side and meeting rooms on the other. on the right hand side, there is also a hallway leading to more meeting rooms and an office. a set of red footprints marked on the floor guides you in the direction of the large flat screen. on the screen, it says, “press if you have an appointment”, “press if you have no appointment” and “cannot remember who you have an appointment with”. when you press the button “press if you have an appointment”, pictures of all the employees appear. the walls are white, and the floor is gray linoleum. there is a large gray mat in front of the entrance. there is a m. møller: spatial surroundings and counter-identification in local health houses qualitative studies 5(2), pp. 72–94 ©2018 77 wall with a lot of brochures and pamphlets on various health services. in the café, there are a few brochures and a local newspaper. there is a painting on one of the walls. the overall impression of the surroundings of this health house is that it is a very quiet place without many people. this may be due to the time of observation, though one of the interviewees also confirmed that they have a problem of low demand. she says that people do not know that the house exists, and that people out in the “new suburbs” do not use it, because it is too far away from where they live (m1.35). although the area in which the health house is located is actually very close to the city center, it seems almost deserted (very few people were observed outside the health house and only a few cyclists on the cycle path). it is a relatively new residential area, and there are (still) only a few things there besides housing (and the health house). put differently, it is not really a place people would drop by (unless they live there, and those who do live there do not require local health activities). and if you do not know about the presence of the health house and where it is located, it is very difficult to find. to a certain extent, this deserted place with automatic lights and semantic instructions on the floor serves as an example of a physical script that nudges people into not talking or interacting in a particular manner. the organization of the waiting room scripts people to sit still and wait, and even though the café can be interpreted as an attempt to soften this, the machine and a few tables in an empty room still makes the room seem sterile and makes the interaction style highly ritualized and controlled towards a passive performance. even though the spatial surroundings are different from a hospital, the nudging of a passive interaction style resembles an authoritarian relation between a doctor and his patient, as e.g. described by parson (parsons, 1975). this is also emphasized by the ‘push-button’ reception, which the staff insists on, even in situations where there is no real need for systematic ‘people-processing’, i.e. in situations where there are no other patients waiting and only employees present in the health house. during the observation, an old lady enters the house and when she is told by an employee how to push the button to access, she comments the button like this: “this is certainly very modern”. her reaction demonstrates a small protest by highlighting a difference between common standards of interaction and, according to her, the health house’s overritualized way (“very-modern”) of welcoming her. this way of welcoming works as a disciplinary tool, teaching her that she is not more important than other citizens and that she is only one among many clients who require the service of the providing professionals. health professionals in a medical–clinical health house: “we are health consultants” the following analysis describes a health professional trained as a nurse (m1.35), who sees herself as a consultant for citizens with a focus on diet and exercise, but also as someone who motivates people to become ‘change consultants’ in their own lives. her relation to the medical field structures many of her narratives about herself as a health professional, even though she has no medically trained colleagues. in the beginning of the interview, she explains her experiences with the dominance of doctors in the health field. she explains that she perceives the doctor as the best coordinator of the health professionals’ work with citizens: ‘the doctor is a kind of coordinator between us and the hospital’. by saying this, she gives the doctor an important role in her professional work, in spite of no formal or social relationships between her and the medical profession beyond the referral. even though she distinguishes herself from a classic medical professional, she still emphasizes the monopoly of medical knowledge as a legitimate power bound to the hospital’s way of organizing intervention in relation to citizens. this distinction between the role of a hospital nurse and her own professional identity as a health consultant coupled with her faith in medical knowledge, splits her in a way that is simultaneously destructive and beneficial, and precisely what gives her a sense of professional direction in her job at the health house. to her, part of being a health consultant implies a professional dimension of coordination. in practice, this has to do with nurturing the relations with other public, private and ngo or78 m. møller: spatial surroundings and counter-identification in local health houses qualitative studies 5(2), pp. 72–94 ©2018 ganizations, which she explains as follows: i am the person who coordinates and organizes our relations with the municipality and the entire civic society, and i find out what kind of knowledge we need to share. (m1.35) she emphasizes how the intervention in the health house is not dependent on a particular diagnosis or treatment, but instead focused on the citizen’s potential for change and lifestyle improvements an area where doctors and the medical field have no monopoly or specialized expertise. in a way she refers to being sick as a state of being that also contain social aspects (turner, 2007). even in the absence of an actual medical professional, she emphasizes the doctor as the legitimate ‘organizer’ of the intervention. she appears to be normatively scripted to acknowledge the doctor as the ‘master’ and ‘natural coordinator’ of her intervention. however, during the interview it becomes clear that she is ambivalent about her status as a health professional and she swings back and forth between acknowledging doctors as the proper coordinators and making a counter-identification with them by seeing them as opponents to her professional expertise. as an example of this ambivalence, and a sign of opposition towards the medical profession, she tells a story about a doctor who called her because she did not follow his instructions to send a citizen to a smoking cessation course: a doctor once phoned me as he wanted to report me to the board of health because he had referred a citizen to a smoking cessation course, and i hadn’t done it, but instead had him participate in a different course called ‘life change’ where they did not work with smoking cessation (…). but, yes, i think if i can get a good relationship with him and make him trust me, then it may well be that, at some point, he will talk about the smoking with me. he is not stupid. he knows very well that it makes him uncomfortable and ill. yes. (m1.35). here, she not only reveals a conflict with the doctor over who has the authority to define the citizens’ problems, she also explains why she is not willing to comply with traditional medical conventions in her interventions. on a higher level, she associates health problems and rehabilitation with a relation between health professionalism, sickness and society, which is different from the notion of disease in the medical profession. this story explains why the health consultant does not accept dominance of medical professionals. she does not acknowledge the gp’s judgment as valid in this matter, because according to her the core issue is not treatment, which is the dominant approach in doctors’ health activities, but the mindset of the citizen and her relation to him. this counter-identification with traditional medically based health professionalism is found as a general perception across the interviews, though most significantly among health professionals from medically-clinically based health houses. health professionals feel provoked and intimidated by the medical profession and at the same time dependent on it. they need the medical profession to provide them status as health knowledgeable in encounters with citizens, and at the same time they need professional autonomy to be ‘real’ health consultants in the health house. the conflict is also noticeable when, during the interview, she is exposed to vignette b, showing a medical-clinical health house very similar to her own. in her response, she positions the interdisciplinary activities of the health house against the mono-disciplinary activities in the hospitals. in contrast to her expressions in the beginning of the interview, she eventually outlines quite clearly her professional identity as being different from that of an assistant role to the doctor (m1.35). it is as though the exposure of a health house that resembles her own makes her see the boundary to the medical profession in a different and more contrasting light. this, of course, may also be due to a probing effect from the vignette, since before being exposed to the vignettes her response to questions about organizational relations and cooperation with other agents was to emphasize a subordinate dependence on the hospital. when exposed to it, she changes her statements regarding her ‘medim. møller: spatial surroundings and counter-identification in local health houses qualitative studies 5(2), pp. 72–94 ©2018 79 cally subordinated role’ as a nurse, as she compares the two types of health houses described in vignette a and b respectively. she ends up, as do most of the health professionals, preferring the community-based health house described in vignette a to the medically/clinically based health house described in vignette b. her main reason is that she can fulfill a more professional role as a health professional when she meets citizens in more community-based spatial surroundings. this suggests that the physical frames introduced to her in the vignettes gives her an idea of a different way to provide health service and a different, maybe more autonomous way to meet citizens, which lead her to counter-identify with the classic doctorsubordinated role of the nurse working within the physical settings and regulations of the hospital. shortly after the interview with the health consultant, a citizen walks by and agrees to participate in an interview. this citizen is a young (early twenties) former cancer patient, who is now in rehabilitation. former cancer patient, now in rehabilitation: “i meet people facing the same struggles as myself” the woman is recovering from cancer and tells of how she is tired from fighting the disease, and pleased to come to the health house to rehabilitate, train and meet other people (m1.34). coming to the health house is new to her. she has only been here once before. she is going to start an education as an occupational therapist but is on temporary sick leave. even though she is in physical settings representing the more medically-clinically based health house, she prefers the community-based health house, described in vignette a: “it’s much better. much better socially, and it has a bit of culture too. vignette b seems way to clinic-like for my taste” (m1.34). to her, rehabilitation is related to occupational professionalism, though with a focus on exercise and ‘togetherness’. she experiences rehabilitation as being very different from the activities in the hospital, and she finds it ‘natural’ to be rehabilitated by the health professionals in the health house. in this way, she does accept this new type of health professional, even though she is very clear about her need to seek ‘more’ occupational knowledge and hence a more well-defined service, by which she means doctors at the hospital. like the health professional, this citizen distinguishes the occupational expertise and service supplied in the health house from the expertise supplied by doctors at the hospital. she emphasizes how it is the results of the health house professionals’ concrete health activity and not the hospital that is currently helping her to overcome her cancer (m1.34). therefore, this woman also sees the health house and the encounters with health professionals as highly effective in relation to her cancer rehabilitation. she meets up with 7-8 other people for training twice a week. in addition, she also sees her health house visits as a kind of local social service, because she meets others who are struggling with cancer like herself. she links the social dimension of her rehabilitation directly to recovery, and this stimulates both her engagement in the health house and her expectations to the service that she will receive in the health house. even though health house m1, as characterized above, shares some basic characteristics with a hospital, such as the passive environment around the reception, it is different from a hospital in terms of professional composition and service delivery. however, the other main type characterized as the communitybased health house is even more different from a hospital, as will be illustrated in the following description of m2. the community–based health house: “a flat screen promotes various events” the following description is based on on-site observation of m2 (field note m2). this health house is located in a large building together with a department of the municipality’s midwifery practice, a sports kindergarten, some meeting rooms and a large sports hall. the building is located in an immigrant neighborhood on the outskirts of the city and is surrounded by a lawn. there is an outdoor basketball court, a barbecue area and a playground belonging to the sports kindergarten and also an integrated part of the building. there are a lot of shouting children playing in the playground. entry is through glass doors. once you en80 m. møller: spatial surroundings and counter-identification in local health houses qualitative studies 5(2), pp. 72–94 ©2018 ter, you find yourself on a kind of balcony. to the left is a café, where you can buy food and drinks. there are tables and chairs, where you can sit and eat. next to the café, there is a coffee maker and a soda machine. the midwife practice, the bathrooms and the health house are located to the right. there is a small waiting area in the front consisting of a black leather sofa and a table with some chairs. there are also some stands with brochures and advertisements for various events, such as walking for women, football for adult men every tuesday and a playroom for children on saturdays. a hallway leads off to some offices. from the ‘balcony’, a large staircase leads down to a sports hall. the walls of the house are painted in bright colors like orange and yellow. there are plants all around, some abstract paintings in bright orange and yellow colors and arabic writing on the walls. there is a flat screen, advertising various events. it is still early in the morning when the observer arrives at the health house. a café employee, a smiling man in his mid-40s with an ethnic minority background, is making a birthday cake shaped like a racing car. another health house staff of different ethnic background walks around the house talking with colleagues from the café in a language other than danish. the house is quiet, until a large group of kindergarten children (15–20) run into the sports hall. they shout and laugh. they are followed by five adults from the kindergarten (educators or assistants)—one man (about 30 years old) and four women (20–40 years old). two of the women seem to be of danish origin. the other two appear to have a different ethnic background. the educators shout at the children and ask them to sit down on the staircase, where they are given water and food from a table on wheels. most of the children seem to be of ethnic minority background. afterwards, the children play in the hall. they run around, laughing and shouting. during the observation, a number of people come and go. they talk and drink coffee, and only some of them seek contact with the health house staff. the café represents the entrance to the health house. everyone in the building seems to know each other, and the place seems to be used a lot by the local citizens. there is a community center atmosphere in the main building, but also in the actual health house. the interactional styles appear to be much less ritualized compared to the atmosphere in the medicallyclinically based house (m1). this, however, also made it difficult for the observer to feel comfortable and ‘part of the interactions’, which was never the case during the observation in the medically-clinically based house. when on-site observations between the medical-clinical and the community-based health houses are compared, the interaction between health professionals and the citizens in the community-based house appears to be less ritualized than in the medical-clinical setting, where citizens enter, wait, receive a service and leave the health house immediately after the encounter (m1 and m2). in the community-based house, citizens are encouraged by the physical settings to stay and talk to each other and to the health professionals. they do not perform on a specific scenic front, and the actions of the staff do not seem to be as ritualized as those of the staff in the medically-clinically based health house. here, citizens sometimes enter just to have a coffee, or to promote local activities. it is in this respect that this house resembles more closely an assembly house in contrast to the medical-clinical based health house, which to a certain extent mirrors a hospitals’ physical and social setting. health professional in a communitybased health house: “i miss my work when i am on vacation” after the observation, a health consultant was interviewed. she is a woman in her mid-thirties and presents herself as a dietitian (m2.32). it is very important to her to stress that she and her colleagues are highly professional, as though someone had questioned this. she comes from iran. she teaches diet, exercise and stress management, and uses pedagogical principles to motivate citizens’ habit changes. during the interview, she says (more than once) that she loves her work and misses it when she is away on vacation. she also tells of how she occasionally cries with the citizens, because she gets very involved in some of their very difficult situations. in contrast to the health professional interviewed in the medically/clinically m. møller: spatial surroundings and counter-identification in local health houses qualitative studies 5(2), pp. 72–94 ©2018 81 based health house, who emphasized her occupational competences, she sees patience as a virtue over specialized knowledge, and she sees it as her role to strongly identify with the citizens’ terms and potential for ‘life’. to stress this she says: ‘if they [citizens who are late] don’t know the time and do not show up at the appointed time, there is no point in getting angry – then you have the wrong job’ (m2.32). to her, the health house is a public setting more that it is a medical setting, and therefore she does not see it as her task to force citizens to go there or to alter their behavior. the health professionals encounter both women and men between 30 and 70 years of age who are typically relatively disadvantaged financially. many of them come because of the free training and exercise services. they do not speak danish – those who do, have to use the medically-clinically based health house in another part of the city (m1 analyzed above). the health house provides interpreters, who are always available. in general, the citizens who come here are in a lot of pain, and they are typically on sick leave or retired. many of them are illiterate and struggling with social problems and stress. therefore, as m2.32 explains, she will have to deal with all these other issues before she can start focusing on their diet, which is her professional occupational focus. many citizens have been tortured and have lost family members. this health professional sees the purpose of the work in the health house as helping immigrants to a healthier lifestyle with copd, diabetes and cardiovascular disorders, as well as stress and chronic pain. she also prefers the community-based physical setting described in vignette a, because to her, health is not only something physical. there are many issues at stake; family, economy, housing and the physical and mental environment around people: “if you involve all aspects, you are better able to handle the problems in society than if you just focus on one little thing”, as she explains. to her, creating a safe environment where citizens can get help for whatever they are struggling with is the primary value in her job. summed up, she appears to have a professional identity which consists of strong personal, organizational and occupational dimensions (m2.32). in contrast to the health professional analyzed above, she makes no counteridentification with the medical profession. instead, she points at particular personal qualities to explain her professionalism, such as patience and responsiveness towards citizens. citizens on the edge of the city: “it’s the best the municipality has ever done for its citizens” one of the citizens interviewed in m2 (m2.30) does not understand danish very well (the interview is conducted with an interpreter), although he has lived in denmark for over 20 years. he has children, and he has been on sick leave for three years, due to his body being worn out after years of factory work. even though there is access to m2 without referral many of the citizens have been referred by their social worker or gp, as is also the case here. his caseworker referred him to m2. first, he was referred to participate in a diabetes course, and next in a pain-management course. his reaction to the vignettes is interpreted in light of him explaining a need to have someone help him get his letters from the public authorities translated into turkish. he prefers a health house which allows access without referral, and a health house that is also used by danes rather than minority groups only. the latter is a reason why he likes the medicalclinical health house, described in vignette b (m2.30). this house has a fitness center, and he believes that danes are more likely to go there than to the community-based house described in vignette a. however, very much in line with the majority of the interviewed citizens, he does not like the fact that access is through doctors only in vignette b: ‘i would like to combine the doctor from vignette b with the free access from vignette a’ (m2.30). this citizen talks about how he feels secure in his health house, and he even links social health to physical health, when he says that he is better able to live with his pain because of his engagement in the health house. here, he never feels pressured by others, as he does in almost every other corner of danish society (m2.30). to him the health house is a safe zone, where he can take a break from what he sees as a society that puts a lot of social pressure on him. he 82 m. møller: spatial surroundings and counter-identification in local health houses qualitative studies 5(2), pp. 72–94 ©2018 stresses how this is linked to the fact that he is allowed to work with himself and his health in his own language, i.e. there is not (as in virtually all other meetings with the danish community), a danish-ethnic agenda. here, he can describe his diabetes and chronic pain in his mother tongue. therefore, he sees no disadvantages in vignette a, apart from the fact that there is no fitness center. the house is more or less similar to his own health house. this citizen has experienced falling outside the municipal and regional aid systems, and he blames his doctor and caseworker for this exclusion. he sees the doctor and the caseworker as incapable of cooperating and coordinating an effort across organizational boundaries. interpreted in light of evetts idea of hybrid professionalism, his perceptions may be said to reflect what hybrid professionalism looks like from the citizen perspective. he needs a caseworker to help him not only with access to service, but also with communication to other authorities and he needs a doctor to treat him and to provide access to other health activities, but also to coordinate health promotion and physical training with other health professionals. these skills include general organizational competences, which he feels the health professionals in the health house have but not the caseworker and the doctor in his story. he also associates the value of the health house to the fact that access is not governed by certain public authorities and hereby emphasize the organizational autonomy of the health house as an advantage even for him as a patient (m2.30). he sees the health house as a place where he is able to learn to live with his illness on his own terms. like other citizens, he uses the health house to exercise frequently, something he would never do in a regular fitness studio or at the hospital. more specifically, he explains that the yield he gets from going to the health house is that he now has something to wake up to in the morning. his self-efficacy seems to have increased through his engagement in the health house and his capacity to act in relation to his suffering. he can now handle his pain to an extent that allows him to seek pleasures in life. he repeatedly emphasizes the social aspect of the health house and how gaining knowledge with others makes a positive difference in his life. to him, the health house is a real alternative to the hospital, but also a safe zone from a demanding society (m2.30). conclusion: counter-identification with hospitals and doctors the health professionals working in the health houses offered citizens a wide range of health activities. they were typically related to exercise, life-style education, social activities, rehabilitation and diet. in addition to what can be termed ‘occupational services’, such as physiotherapy or diet consultancy, they also served other organizational functions, such as communicating with different divisions in the municipality, engagement with private actors about in-house activities and ‘touring’ around gp practices to inform about the health house and what kind of local health activities they offer citizens. generally, health professionals tried to differentiate their services from what is offered in hospitals. in terms of processes of identification this means that even in the absence of doctors, medical categories influenced how they thought about themselves. some counteridentified themselves and the health house activities with medical doctors and hospitals by promoting health house activities as being more comprehensive than hospital services. one explained how the activities was invented and made possible because of the organizational setting of the health house. here, the analysis showed that the health houses’ physical frame and organizational setting of the encounters with citizens differed. the health professional working in the medicallyclinically based health house was more influenced by medical categories for describing health and by relations to the medical field compared to the health professional working in the community-based health house. the health professional working in the medicallyclinically based health house wants to be a community-based health professional, but she does not describe herself as one, precisely because she is embedded in a medically-clinically based frame. another dimension of this difference was apparent in understandings of health m. møller: spatial surroundings and counter-identification in local health houses qualitative studies 5(2), pp. 72–94 ©2018 83 activities as best coordinated by doctors, as in the medically-clinically based health house, or to resilience, as in the community-based health house. the spatial surroundings in the community-based setting made both the health professional and the citizen reflect and act differently from those situated in the medicalclinical setting. the emergence of local health houses seems to provide the organizational basis for community-based health professionalism. the analysis of spatial surroundings in the health houses shows how different forms of old and new relations between health professionals, citizens and society exist at the same time. in the analysis, relations between the health professional and the citizen in the medicallyclinically-based surrounding draw more on medical categories of treatment, whereas relations between the health professional and the citizen in the community-based surrounding indicated a more civic engaging style. for example this was expressed as “it’s the best the municipality has ever done for its citizens” (m2.30). both the citizens and the health professionals preferred a health house that is communitybased with free access to activities. however, in contrast to the health professionals, who see the community-based setting as better for positive health professional work, citizens prefer the free access because they miss health-related professional attention. to some extent, this suggests that citizens expect to meet a doctor with diagnostic skills and not the health professional that they meet in the health house. this finding speaks to existing work of contested professions with a focus on jurisdiction and managerial terrain and what ways are available to new professions trying to claim social and cultural authority (abbott 1988: 89-90). in addition to the question of what paves the way for new professions, the analysis also speaks to the study of hybrid professionalism and its dynamic relation to citizens and society. health professionals’ relations to citizens were not deduced from mindsets given by their professional backgrounds, but were shaped and interpreted in light of the options for interactions given by the spatial surroundings of the health house. not surprisingly, these spatial surroundings were supported with the overall organizational structure such as to what extent gate-keeping was a principle for how to manage citizens and to what extent rehabilitation or health promotion framed the policy of encounters with citizens in the particular health house. however, the vignette responses revealed a clear preference for a particular organization and spatial surrounding, which indicate that neither administrative scripts nor professionalisms are determinant for how health professionals view health, define problems, perceive of citizens or how they perform. the health houses can be said to express a new relationship between health professionals, citizens and society. in the health houses, health professionals encounter individuals as citizens and not as patients. citizens who visit a health house expect to meet a doctor with diagnostic skills, and the relationship between health professionals and citizens might be challenged by the fact that health professionals cannot expect citizens to respect them as health experts, because they are not medical doctors, but only ‘semi-professionals’ (etzioni, 1969). in other words, they risk losing their expert status in the encounter with citizens, who expect to meet a full-blooded medical doctor. health professionals in health houses represent a new kind of local health professionalism, and they need to define their role in relation to citizens. following theory on medical sociology, their ability to define their own room of maneuver also depends on control over a physical setting that belongs to them, just as the clinic belongs to the medical profession (foucault, 2000). even though some degree of self-selection did take place, the strict process of zooming in on two health houses representing significant differences within the large sample does ensure that the material was saturated on the dimensions analyzed here. therefore, despite the fact that this analysis does not allow for empirical generalization beyond the sample these two health houses were selected from, it may be applied analytically to other organizations with relatively low occupational gatekeeping and a relatively diverse composition of professionalism. finally, the analysis sheds light on how macro structures of organizational ideas, phys84 m. møller: spatial surroundings and counter-identification in local health houses qualitative studies 5(2), pp. 72–94 ©2018 ical settings and professionalization are visible in the microcosm of social interactions such as the ones under study here. more specifically, goffman’s claim that spatial surroundings facilitate processes of identification, that is how frontline desks, information screens and coffee tables not only design houses, but also script styles of interaction between individuals as well as they create expectations about how to reflect and act in a given physical and social setting became visible in the observations and the interviews. here, the analysis points at a rather complex condition for how the processes of identification takes place: on one hand both citizens and health professionals understand themselves and their role in the health house through an identification or counter-identification with what hospitals and doctors’ do. on the other hand this relationship between a stable and dominant frame of reference and the experience of a new professional terrain appears as interwoven with the ‘new’ spatial surroundings of the houses. acknowledgements the author would like to thank center of organization, management and administration (coma), aalborg university for careful feed back 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(2002).“how new public management reforms challenge the roles of professionals”, international journal of public administration, 25(12): 1513-1537. doi:10.1081/pad-120014259 schott, c., van kleef, d., & noordegraaf, m. (2015). confused professionals?: capacities to cope with pressures on professional work. public management review, 1-28. https:/doi.org/10.1080/14719037.2015. 1016094. schreier, m. (2012). qualitative content analysis in practice. london: sage. sundhedsministeriet (2010). sundhedsloven. lbk nr. 913 af 13/07/2010. københavn: sundhedsministeriet. turner, b., s. (2007). medical power and social knowledge (second edition ed.). london: sage publications. • doi:10.1177/0011392111402585 doi:10.1177/0011392111402585 doi: 10.1093/jpo/jov011 doi:10.1081/pad-120014259 https:/doi.org/10.1080/14719037.2015.1016094 https:/doi.org/10.1080/14719037.2015.1016094 m. møller: spatial surroundings and counter-identification in local health houses qualitative studies 5(2), pp. 72–94 ©2018 85 about the author marie østergaard møller is associate professor of political science in the department of political science, center for organization, management & administration (coma) at aalborg university, denmark. her research interests include social and political categories, categorization, street-level bureaucracy theory, and systematic qualitative methods. her work has appeared in administration and society »welfare state regimes and caseworkers’ problem explanation« (2017), profession and professionalism »she isn’t someone i associate with pension« (2016), public management review »prevention at the front line. how home nurses, pedagogues, and teachers transform public worry into decisions on special efforts« (2015), critical policy studies »constructing at-risk target groups« (2014) and in social policy and administration »disciplining disability« (2013). appendix 1: vignettes content* organizational differences a sønderslev kommune has plans to open a health house which people will be able to come to directly from the street without a referral. the health house will offer smoking cessation courses, diet counseling, rehabilitation, mental health counseling and so on. in addition, the health house will host various social events that are open to all citizens in the municipality. these events, such as joint dinners, lectures, children's playroom, concerts and a 'coffee corner', will be organized by volunteers from, for instance, the danish cancer society, “sind” and local cultural and sports associations. the municipality would like to recruit staff with different educational backgrounds, e.g. nurses, physiotherapists, occupational therapists, psychologists and dieticians. the staff will work in close cooperation with each other and with the volunteers, who will also be based in the house. it is the intention that the health house will be a place with room for exhibitions from local artists, schools and kindergartens. physical and social setting referral system b mårsgaard municipality also plans to open a health house. it will be situated next to the city gym and will consist of a number of small clinics, including a general practitioner, a rehabilitation clinic with physiotherapy, a dietary advice clinic and a psychologist practice. the health house will be a place where health promotion activities are gathered under one roof. in addition, the municipality will make a series of premises available, which citizens will be able to get involved in, e.g. a cafe, a gallery, a shelter or whatever is of interest to the public. the health house will always be open, but you will need a referral to go to the clinics, for example from a general practitioner or a municipal social worker. * the content has been translated from danish by the author. 86 m. møller: spatial surroundings and counter-identification in local health houses qualitative studies 5(2), pp. 72–94 ©2018 appendices appendix 2: occupational professionalisms in health houses community-based medical-clinical mix + spartan nurse n3.29; m3.41 n2.25; c3.3; m1.35; c1.55 z4.17; c2.6 nutrition and health n3.28 z2.10; z1.20 c2.5 physiotherapist m5.40 z1.21; n1.22; s2.48; z2.9 z3.13 midwife n2.24 dietician m2.32; m3.42 c3.4; s2.47 z3.12 social and health assistant (sosu) m2.33 occupational therapist s4.54 n1.58 16.z4 occupational therapist and acupuncturist m4.37 masseuse m4.38 chiropractor m4.39 ma in public health m3.43 home health nurse s1.45 project leader in system theory s3.49 social caseworker m5.57 s1.56 cell content: 36 health professionals * health centers and respondents are anonymous. the letters indicate the region (n = north, m = mid, s = south, c = capital and z = zealand). the first number replaces the name of the health house. the second number replaces the name of the respondent. m. møller: spatial surroundings and counter-identification in local health houses qualitative studies 5(2), pp. 72–94 ©2018 87 appendix 3: interview guides interview guide for health professionals briefing/agreements on anonymity and use of interview 1.first, i want to ask you about your professional background: a. what is your educational background? b. how many years of experience do you have? c. what do you do in the job you have now? d. how long have you been in your current job? e. please, describe your workplace. f. who are your colleagues? can you describe them? 2. can you describe a "typical" working day? (alternatively, please describe a day in the last week.) 3. how do citizens access the health house? 4. try to describe yourself as a healthcare professional. 5. now one should not generalize, but can you try to describe the area you work in. who are the people that you typically encounter? 6. when you meet a citizen for the first time, what would you like to know about him or her? (what kind of information do you use to get an impression of this citizen?) 7. can you say something about how to "spot" citizens who might need health or health promotion efforts of one kind or another? 8. how often does a visit result in something being done afterwards? i have made a description of a few health houses. they reflect the plans that many municipalities have for their future health house, but the municipalities described do not actually exist. here is the first description. would you like to read it? just take your time. vignette a: sønderslev kommunes sundhedshus sønderslev kommune has plans to open a health house, which people will be able to come to directly from the street without a referral.. the health house will offer smoking cessation courses, diet counseling, rehabilitation, mental health counseling and so on. in addition, the health house will host various social events that are open to all citizens in the municipality. these events, such as joint dinners, lectures, children's playroom, concerts and a 'coffee corner', will be organized by volunteers from, for instance, the danish cancer society, “sind” and local cultural and sports associations. the municipality would like to recruit staff with different educational backgrounds, e.g. nurses, physiotherapists, occupational therapists, psychologists and dieticians. the staff will work in close cooperation with each other and with the volunteers, who are also based in the house. it is also the intention that the health house will have room for exhibitions from local artists, schools and kindergartens. 9a. could you imagine working in a health house like the one described here? why/why not? 10a. how does the description of the health house resemble the health house we are in right now? how does it differ from it? 11a. what are the advantages of a health house like the one described here? what are the disadvantages? i also have a description of a second health house with me. would you read this too? again, you must remember that it is a fictional municipality that does not actually exist. just take your time. vignette b: mårsgaard kommunes sundhedshus mårsgaard municipality also plans to open a health house. it will be situated next to the city gym and will consist of a number of small clinics, including a general practitioner, a rehabilitation clinic with physiotherapy, a dietary advice clinic and a psychologist practice. the health house will be a place where health promotion activities are gathered under one roof. in addition, the municipality will make a series of premises available, which citizens will be able to get involved in, e.g. a cafe, a gallery, a shelter or whatever is of interest to the public. the health house will always be open, but you will need a referral to go to the clinics, for example from a general practitioner or a municipal social worker. 9b. could you imagine working in a health house like the one described here? why/why not? 10b. how does the health house described resemble the health house we are in right now? how does it differ from it? 88 m. møller: spatial surroundings and counter-identification in local health houses qualitative studies 5(2), pp. 72–94 ©2018 11b. what are the advantages of a health house like the one described here? what are the disadvantages? 12. if you now compare the two houses, how do you think they are different from each other? how/how not? 13. is there anything about the two houses that is similar? why/why not? 14. which of the two houses would you prefer to work in? why? why not the other one? 15. do you think one of the two houses is better able to accommodate the citizen's health than the other? why/why not? 16. could you imagine that one of the two health houses would be somewhere citizens would want to go? what is it about the house that makes you say/believe that? 17. how do you think your colleagues would think about these two houses? is it something they would agree on, or do you think it would generate discussion? this was all i had to ask you. did anything come to mind during the interview that you would like to address? m. møller: spatial surroundings and counter-identification in local health houses qualitative studies 5(2), pp. 72–94 ©2018 89 interview guide for citizens briefing/agreements on anonymity and use of interview 1. can you describe what kind of a place this is (the health house)? 2. can you describe in your own words what is good about coming to the health house and what is not so good? 3. can you describe in your own words what it is like to go to the health house? 4a. do you need to have a referral or can you enter "from the street"? 4b. how are their opening hours? 4c. how did you hear about the health house and their activities? 4d. who do you usually talk to in the health house? 5. now one should not generalize, but can you try to describe the area in which you live? who are the people that you typically encounter in your local area? 5a. that was about the general picture – are there also other groups or types of people here? (inquire into variation, the nuances of perception here) 5b. how does this fit in with the people you meet here in the health house? 5c. are there any types of people that you never meet here? 5d. are these the same types that you never encounter in your everyday life? 6. can you try to tell in your own words about the first time you were in contact with the health house/house/office/. start from the time you began to think, "here is something that i might need help with" to actually doing something. what happened, what did you do? 7. can you say anything about what your involvement with the health house means to you? 7a. and what you think it means to other citizens? i have made a description of a few health houses. they reflect the plans that many municipalities have for their future health houses, but the described municipalities do not actually exist. here is the first description. would you like to read it? just take your time. vignette a: sønderslev kommunes sundhedshus sønderslev kommune has plans to open a health house, which people will be able to come to directly from the street the without a referral. the health house will offer smoking cessation courses, diet counseling, rehabilitation, mental health counseling and so on. in addition, the health house will host various social events that are open to all citizens in the municipality. these events, such as joint dinners, lectures, children's playroom, concerts and a 'coffee corner', will be organized by volunteers from, for instance, the danish cancer society, “sind” and local cultural and sports associations. the municipality would like to recruit staff with different educational backgrounds, e.g. nurses, physiotherapists, occupational therapists, psychologists and dieticians. the staff will work in close cooperation with each other and with the volunteers, who are also based in the house. it is the intention that the health house will have room for exhibitions from local artists, schools and kindergartens. 8a. could you imagine going to a health house, as described here? why/why not? 9a. how does the health house described resemble the health house we are in right now? how does it differ from it? 10a. what are the advantages of a health house like the one described here? what are the disadvantages? i also have a description of another health house. would you read this too? again, you must remember that it is a fictional municipality that does not actually exist. just take your time. vignette b: mårsgaard kommunes sundhedshus mårsgaard municipality also plans to open a health house. it will be situated next to the city gym and willl consist of a number of small clinics, including a general practitioner, a rehabilitation clinic with physiotherapy, a dietary advice clinic and a psychologist practice. the health house will be a place where health promotion activities are gathered under one roof. in addition, the municipality will make a series of premises available, which citizens will be able to get involved in, e.g. a cafe, a gallery, a shelter or whatever is of interest to the public. the health house will always be open, but you will need a referral to go to the clinics, for example from a general practitioner or a municipal social worker. 8b. could you imagine going to a health house like the one described here? why/why not? 90 m. møller: spatial surroundings and counter-identification in local health houses qualitative studies 5(2), pp. 72–94 ©2018 9b. how does the health house described resemble the health house we are in right now? how does it differ from it? 10b. what are the advantages of a health house like the one described here? what are the disadvantages? 11. if you compare the two houses, how do you think they are different from each other? how/how not? 12. is there anything about the two houses that is similar? why/why not? 13. which of the two houses were you best able to see yourself in? why? why not the other one? 14. do you think one of the two houses would be better able to promote your health than the other? why/why not? 15. could you imagine that one of the two health houses would be a place you would want to go to? what is it about the house that makes you say/believe that? i would also like to hear a bit more about who you are and what your background is: 16. where do you live? 17. do you have an education and if so, what is it? 18. do you have a job now and, if yes, what is your job? 19. what do you do in your spare time/daily life? (for those who do not have a job) 20. if you got an extra day, what would you like to do with it? 21. may i ask you what your reason was for going to the health house today? this was all i had to ask you. did anything come come to mind during the interview that you would like to address? m. møller: spatial surroundings and counter-identification in local health houses qualitative studies 5(2), pp. 72–94 ©2018 91 appendix 4: observation guide time: 1: observation, 20 minutes 2: observation, 20 minutes 3: observation, 20 minutes 4: field notes are written in a form that readily allows import into qsr (nvivo) 5: contact citizens and ask if you can talk to them 6: use the interview guide to complete the interview 1. observation the site "place of spatial order/structure" 2. observation people on site "person gallery" 3. observation interactions "the life of the site" description: • sequence • density (e.g. interactions and activity) • accuracy! • remember times! • measure: "the living memory" notes notes notes reflexivity: everything that has to do with your position/interaction on site. "about how the description came into being" notes notes notes analytical comments: "all interpretations and added meanings that are beyond what you can observe directly" notes notes notes 92 m. møller: spatial surroundings and counter-identification in local health houses qualitative studies 5(2), pp. 72–94 ©2018 appendix 5: coding, memo and field note content form of data condensat ion references content number of references field note s2, z1, z2, m1, c1, n2, n1, c3 m4, s4, m5, m3, m2, n3, s1, z4, z3, s3, c2 describe 1. place of spatial order/structure, 2. person gallery and 3. interactions at sites regarding the following dimensions: sequence, density (e.g. interactions and activity, times at the site. measures "the living memory", reflexivity as everything that has to do with the observer’s position and interaction on site, reflections about how the description came into being. this also includes analytical comments, such as interpretations and added meanings that are beyond what you can observe directly. 19 memo n2.25, c3.3, m1.35, c1.55, z2.10, z1.20, z1.21, n1.22; s2.48, z2.9, n2.24, c3.4, s2.47, n1.5, n3.29, m3.41, n3.28, m5.40, m2.32, m3.42, m2.33, m4.37, m4.38, m4.39, m3.43, s4.54, m5.57, z4.17, c2.6, c2.5, z3.13, z3.12, s1.45, s3.49, 16.z4, s1.56, c1.1, z1.18, z1.19, n2.23, m1.34, s2.46, c3.2x, c32y, z2.7, z2.8, n3.26, n3.27, m2.30, m2.31, m4.36, s4.50, s4.51, s4.52, s1.44, z3.11, z4.14, z4.15 describes main points from the interview regarding the respondent’s reasoning and incentives to act and reflect in relation to the health house and its settings. this includes reasoning about the impact of organization on professionalism, as well as what kind of citizens and health professionals, respectively, the respondents would prefer to encounter in the health house. 54 code health house activity description of job function and the work place, including both organizational and occupational activities, and duties (professionals); descriptions of purpose of visits and of what is being done (citizens). 105 daily routines description of a typical work day (professionals) and a typical day (citizens). 83 professional identity contain descriptions of respondents’ descriptions of themselves as health professionals, using categories of consultancy, network, bridge building, lifestyle and change. 68 professional discourse contain linguistic use of words associated with occupation, expert, knowledge and colleagues. 285 medical discourse contain linguistic use of words associated with the medical field, such as hospitals, doctors, treatment, sickness and patients. 118 health promotion contain descriptions and definitions of health promotion, including demarcations of the difference between rehabilitation, treatment and health promotion. 81 health house preference contain evaluative descriptions of the respondent’s own health house. 78 vignette preference contain evaluative descriptions of the vignettes presented to the respondent during the interview. 527 m. møller: spatial surroundings and counter-identification in local health houses qualitative studies 5(2), pp. 72–94 ©2018 93 appendix 6: distribution of health houses and interview of persons on type of health house data source medical-clinical community-based mix tota l o bs er va tio ns health houses s2, z1, z2, m1, c1, n2, n1, c3 typically located in disused hospital buildings or municipal buildings with parking lots. as hospitals and other larger public buildings, they also have maps of the buildings at the entrance. these houses are centrally located and easier to find than community-based health houses. m4, s4, m5, m3, m2, n3 typically located close to other buildings, such as kindergartens and sports halls. many houses have outdoor facilities, such as a basketball court, a barbecue area and a large playground. in general, they are centrally located, though much more difficult to find and not part of the municipality’s ‘public map’, as the medicalclinical health houses are. some houses have a reception, but many do not even have a real assembly point. they have a café room with tables, chairs and couches. s1, z4, z3, s3, c2 19 in te rv ie w s health professionals n2.25, c3.3, m1.35, c1.55, z2.10, z1.20, z1.21, n1.22; s2.48, z2.9, n2.24, c3.4, s2.47, n1.58 tend to have a more clear line of authority compared to community-based health houses. hierarchical line of authority characterized by a transparent ‘chain of command’, e.g. visible at the entrance of the buildings. citizens are met by a classic frontline desk designed to ‘process people’ through the physical setting, doors and rooms. n3.29, m3.41, n3.28, m5.40, m2.32, m3.42, m2.33, m4.37, m4.38, m4.39, m3.43, s4.54, m5.57 tend to be organized more ‘flatly’ and in line with an assembly house and with one manager taking care of the facilities and the coordination of activities in the house. z4.17, c2.6, c2.5, z3.13, z3.12, s1.45, s3.49, 16.z4, s1.56 36 citizens c1.1, z1.18, z1.19, n2.23, m1.34, s2.46, c3.2x, c32y, z2.7, z2.8 n3.26, n3.27, m2.30, m2.31, m4.36, s4.50, s4.51, s4.52 s1.44, z3.11, z4.14, z4.15 22 cell content = observations and interview. selected health houses, health professionals and citizens in bold. * health centers and respondents are anonymous. the letters indicate the region (n = north, m = mid, s = south, c = capital and z = zealand). the first number replaces the name of the health house. the second number replaces the name of the respondent. 94 m. møller: spatial surroundings and counter-identification in local health houses qualitative studies 5(2), pp. 72–94 ©2018 paper 1: a qualitative gaze on how mundane public administration works introduction accomplishing public sector service: theorising interstices and imbrications from a qualitative stance contributions in this special issue a case study of casework tinkering health care professionalism without doctors: spatial surroundings and counter-identification in local health houses using ignorance as (un)conscious bureaucratic strategy: street-level practices and structural influences in the field of migration enforcement assembling advice treatment of dual diagnosis in denmark — models for cooperation and positions of power cross-pollinating discussions and contributions of the special issue acknowledgements about the authors paper 2: a case study of casework tinkering introduction empirical data casework tinkering — an analytical lens 1. probing possibilities 2. tinkering with services to fit the case 3. tinkering with individuals to fit resources negotiating discrepancies — crafting a case response concluding remarks acknowledgements about the authors paper 3: spatial surroundings and counter-identification in local health houses introduction theoretical framework: professionalization in site-specific contexts identification and counter-identification mixed methodological research design: case selection and vignette construction analytical section: observations and interviews in two distinct types of health houses the medical–clinical health house: “press if you have an appointment” health professionals in a medical–clinical health house: “we are health consultants” former cancer patient, now in rehabilitation: “i meet people facing the same struggles as myself” the community–based health house: “a flat screen promotes various events” health professional in a community-based health house: “i miss my work when i am on vacation” citizens on the edge of the city: “it's the best the municipality has ever done for its citizens” conclusion: counter-identification with hospitals and doctors acknowledgements about the author appendices paper 4: street-level practices and structural influences in the field of migration enforcement introduction theoretical framework defining structural violence in bureaucratic encounters the relation between indifference and ignorance understanding uncertainty understanding ignorance methodological framework ignorance in street-level encounters migrants' use of ignorance ignorance as inherit feature of the state conclusion — what is the cost of ignorance? acknowledgements about the author paper 5: ethnographic explorations of the changing relationship between voluntary advi… introduction research methods citizens advice: some background theoretical tools: on assemblage thinking an advice service as an assemblage: the data the use of volunteers on funding, funders and regulatory effects legal aid funding the funding mosaic: entrepreneurialism and independence fragile futures acknowledgements about the authors paper 6: models for cooperation and positions of power introduction the problems of dual diagnosis the dual diagnosis field in denmark empirical material cooperation between psychiatry and substance use treatment — organizational interfaces an under-organized interface learning points concluding remarks acknowledgements about the author qualitative studies vol. 8, no. 1, 2023, pp. 58-86 issn 1903-7031 poetic awakenings: (re)imagining epistemic justice and academic writing through a black aesthetic lens britton williams1 1 program in drama therapy, new york university, 35 west 4th street, new york, ny 10003 phillis wheatley, paul laurence dunbar, langston hughes, audre lorde, lucille clifton… it was when i met you through your poetry, that i found out… words can lift off the page… and lift me. my heart. my history. my spirit. my consciousness… -revelation! as an african-american woman, poetry is integral to how i see, understand, and make meaning of the world. my first teacher, my mother, taught me about the world and her/our history through poetry. by extension, my greatest teachers, the scholars to whom i often turn, are artists. incorporating poetic reflexivity into my research engages a black epistemology and challenges the rigid notion(s) of what (and who) constitutes academic/scholarly writing. in this essay, i argue that poetry – which i use expansively here allows qualitative researchers to reveal, distill, and illuminate their thoughts and findings. in the black map research project (www.thebmp.org) designed as an online historic archive of black aesthetics as healing, resistance, and liberatory practice poetry sits at the core and fills the soul of the work. my essay will draw from the archive, the assemblage, and the offerings of participants. keywords: black aesthetics, black epistemologies, (re)imagining academia, poetry, storytelling introduction have you ever heard nina simone sing i wish i knew how it would feel to be free (taylor, 1963)? if you have not, please listen to it immediately. she sings: i wish i knew how it would feel to be free b. williams: poetic awakenings qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 58-86 ©2023 59 i wish i could break all the chains holding me i wish i could say all the things that i should say say 'em loud say 'em clear for the whole round world to hear i listen to this song often, sometimes daily. i wish i knew how it would feel to be free. this song moves my spirit. to be black and american is to know chains1 that reach across generations and extend across contexts. to be black and american is to be connected to a well of creative resistance. this essay lives in the tensions of enduring black struggle and creative resistance in life, in scholarly research, and in academic writing. to be clear, this is not an essay that tells a single-story2 about black bondage and agony. to craft a single story would be to assert that this is the story of black folx. this, however, is a story – an ongoing collective story – that speaks to how black people(s) have practiced freedom3 consistently and persistently amid unfreedom [holding hands, singing songs, cocarving paths forward and together, building place over time/space/generation]. this paper argues there is an urgent need for the representation of black epistemologies, theories, and aesthetics in academic scholarship and in our writings. to make visible how black aesthetics might be/must be woven into the academic space, i draw from the black map project – my dissertation in process – to ground and highlight the themes herein. leaning into black feminist praxis, this essay is a conversation (collins, 2006). i am writing to/with/for people(s) in every moment. james baldwin (2010) said, “the poets (by which i mean all artists) are finally the only people who know the truth about us. soldiers don’t. statesmen don’t. priests don’t. union leaders don’t. only poets” (p. 51). therefore, i turn to the poets (by which i too mean all artists) 1 i use chains here to represent chains of bondage and to communicate a pattern of events 2 i use single story here informed by chimamanda adichie’s ted talk: the danger of a single story 3 i am informed here by alexis pauline gumbs (2018) who said, “freedom is not a secret. it’s a practice. it’s contagious” (p. 93). b. williams: poetic awakenings qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 58-86 ©2023 60 – who read the collective (un)spoken and offer it up; who speak to our heads and hearts – to guide this piece. i lean heavily into citing artists and do not rely solely on citations that are [traditionally] considered academic. the black map project as a doctoral student in social welfare and a drama therapist, i started out curious about gaps – where were the arts in the “mental health” literatures; why are black practices of living and thriving whited-out of “evidence based” practices? how does a literature review reproduce whiteness and facilitate the “scientific” erasure of my people/my history? furthermore, i found myself questioning – as fanon (1952) did – the extent to which the existent diagnoses and practices with/in the mental health field can [and cannot] truly attend to the pervasive ancestral | historical | compounded | persistent | structural wounds of black folx. and so, i went to the archives to learn | re/member how black people have survived, over time and continents and struggles and generations. i was concerned about racial “gaps” and “disparities” in diagnoses and access to health care, but/and i was also concerned about how academic traditions of replication, evidence, citation practices, the form(s) of our scholarship, and […], enact a slow violence of erasing what we know, as black people, about how we survive, how we build, how we find joy. the black map project is an online historic archive of black aesthetics as healing, resistance, and liberatory practice. it lifts the deep history of black music, performance, embodied and enacted practices as expression, cultural memory, resistance, freedom dreaming, and liberatory praxis and is a project shaped by black epistemologies4 and rooted in black aesthetics5. in the first phase of the project, i traced and weaved across 4 black ways of knowing 5 “black aesthetics is broadly defined as the processes and relational meaning-making of peoples racially positioned as black. it centers the breadth of black experiences within a world stratified by racial orders. while black aesthetics include a wide collection of philosophical arguments about black art and lifeworlds, contemporary scholars have delineated its trajectory as a political project within two periods (taylor, 2016). taylor (2016) noted that the first period marks a time when africans and non-africans sought to create and explore beauty and meaning within new distinctions of race, sourced from the first conceptualization of blackness juxtaposed with whiteness. the second period arose when black artists, scholars, critics, and other thinkers began to systematically approach their expressive practices from the lens of “modern race-think-ing” (taylor, 2016, p. 12). as such, black aesthetics engendered the broad b. williams: poetic awakenings qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 58-86 ©2023 61 histories and trajectories of black music and performance in conversation with the brutalities of anti-black oppression in the us. in the second phase of the project, black people(s) have been invited to submit their own representations of black creative healing to the archive. the third phase of the project entails conducting oral history dialogues6 “with artists, activists, clinicians, and scholars regarding their work, experience(s), and understanding(s) of black creative healing and liberatory praxes” (the black map project, homepage, para 4). indeed, the black map project is a relational work that is born in and through a precious black tradition: call and response. academia otherwise writing is one of the strong arms of academia and there are often assumptions and expectations attached to academic writing that exclude black modes of expression and communication (toliver, 2022). the oral tradition has been integral to black people(s) and communities in lifting and disseminating knowledge and information. yet, academe often privileges the written word, the single author, the “replicable” evidence, usually cast in “race neutral” (that is, whitestream) language. storytelling is central and foundational to many black folx and communities, though this style of expression is not [often | always] understood as academic. yet when we consider academic writing otherwise, we [perhaps] open ourselves up to new possibilities and entry points of learning, understanding, and knowledge production and creation. practice of “art, criticism, or analysis to explore the role that expressive objects and practices play in creating and maintaining black life-worlds” (taylor, 2016, p. 6). yet, blackness has been historically critiqued, maligned, fetishized, or otherwise condemned with-in dominant western aesthetic discourse (bewaji, 2012; dubois shaw, 2004; moten,2003; welsh-asante, 1994). black aesthetics is a response to the necessity of dislodging black or essentially african subjects from the white aesthetic gaze and the movement of black people from objectivity into the realm of subjectivity” (norris, williams, and gipson, 2021, p. 1-2). 6 in alignment with car method, i recognized that the word “interview” did not fully encapsulate the experience(s) i was having with people when conducting oral histories for the black map project. i reached out to the chair of my dissertation and shared that “oral history dialogues” felt more in alignment with what was happening and the relational commitments of this work. with her support, i have embraced this framing. b. williams: poetic awakenings qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 58-86 ©2023 62 i knew that i wanted to approach my dissertation – design, methods, analysis, and the final products of the work – in a way that was true to black ways of knowing. as a black mental health practitioner troubled by narratives and truths of disparities, cultural erasures, and barriers in mental health care for black folx, i wanted the black map project to lift how – not ask if – black people creatively | communally heal/hope/resist amid structural brutalities. and i wanted to lift | share | tell these stories of black creative healing and liberatory strategies with/in/through a black aesthetic lens. citing only “evidence-based practices” chilled and hollowed my project. toliver (2022) offers the term “endarkened storywork, as a new possibility for qualitative research, one that hinges on black storytelling traditions and honors alternative ways of thinking about, doing, and writing scholarship” (p. xv). she calls for a “recovering” of black storytelling in qualitative research while underscoring that academia has long dismissed “the unique storytelling traditions of black people” (p. xv). the need for incorporating black epistemologies and black aesthetics in academia and mental health cannot be expressed without speaking to the hi(stories) of erasure and dismissal. the experiences are inextricably tied. call and response as method this paper introduces and engages call and response (car) as a method of narrative elicitation and as a method of writing with/to [including you, my readers]. framing and developing call and response as a research method has been an outgrowth of the black map project. through car method, i utilize poetic reflexivity to reveal, distill, and illuminate emergent thoughts, information, connections, and findings. car method encourages the researcher to acknowledge and contend with non-traditional sources, surprises, interruptions, new framings, as well as the emergent thought(s), material(s), encounter(s), that shape and are shaped by the work. i put forth car as a method that recognizes and shares process as a core component of the research. this essay is a performance of car method throughout wherein i weave a blend of guiding quotes, b. williams: poetic awakenings qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 58-86 ©2023 63 snapshots of my biography, poetry, and [excerpts of] letters from my dissertation7. this essay is poetry, theory, and methodology. each section begins with a guiding quote from a black scholar that has had a meaningful impact on my life and/or my thinking. the quote is followed by [excerpts from] a letter that introduces elements of the black map project. additional context and information about the project follow the letters. i then offer a mix of thought in conversation with quotes [from wise guides to whom i often turn] that reflect a call and response between myself and the artists and scholars i lift herein. each section ends with a poem i have written in response to the ideas held within it. across and between the sections, i stitch together threads that may appear disparate yet are inextricably tied. part i, call and response as epistemology and method offers an overview of how and why call and response is implemented as a way of knowing in this essay and the black map project. i introduce car as method which is embedded throughout this piece. part ii, images of academe, acknowledges and contends with the ways in which black aesthetics and ways of knowing have been excluded, ignored, and erased in academia while offering a counter-narrative and approach. part iii, blacademe: (re)imagining academia, dares to (re)vision academia through a black lens. it centers black epistemologies and positions “academic” outside of institutions and with/in black communities, culture, and creative practices. part iv, critical (re)memory, offers a sampling of how the black map project seeks to presence black epistemologies and aesthetics in academia and mental health care. part v, root work, is a re/turn to my commitments as a qualitative researcher and the commitments of the black map project. it is a (re)centering of community, connectivity, and care in/through research. throughout each of these sections, poetry, prose, letter writing, and story are folded in – not as an addendum or support to the material, but rather as foundation and core to it. in this way, i allow expressions and forms of communication that have been 7 these letters serve as cartilage between the bones of my research and mark the history and trajectory of my research process. b. williams: poetic awakenings qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 58-86 ©2023 64 integral to my cultural ways of learning and knowing to presence themselves throughout unapologetically so. part i: call and response as epistemology and method for people of color have always theorized but in forms quite different from the western form of abstract logic. and i am inclined to say that our theorizing (and i intentionally use the verb rather than the noun) is often in narrative forms, in the stories we create, in riddles and proverbs, in the play with language, since dynamic rather than fixed ideas seem more to our liking. how else have we managed to survive with such spiritedness the assault on our bodies, social institutions, countries, our very humanity? (christian, 1987, p. 52) dear willie8, i sat in your office… feeling overwhelmed by my own ideas. i felt unsure how to connect what felt disconnected. you said to me, “no, it’s not disconnected… it is all connected…” …you asked me if i knew mary turner ‘s story – that she was brutally murdered and mutilated while 8 months pregnant for speaking out against the unjust lynching of her husband. you then asked me, “what does therapy look like for the descendants of mary turner?” that question has stayed with me… it has shifted and shaped the trajectory of my work. -bw after the conversation [referenced above] with dr. tolliver, i found myself coming back to his question often. “what does therapy look like for the descendants of mary turner?” 8 dr. willie tolliver, hunter college, associate professor b. williams: poetic awakenings qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 58-86 ©2023 65 the more i thought about it, the more i realized that the focus of my work needed to shift. before meeting with dr. tolliver my work was more focused on undoing racism and patterns of dominance across education, mental healthcare, medical healthcare, and prison systems. while this remains important and necessary work, it requires that the central focus be on the oppressive systems and people who hold power with/in them. speaking with dr. tolliver was an opening for me to (re)imagine care that centered black people’s emotional wellbeing through black epistemological and aesthetic lenses, which includes a whole-istic9 approach to understanding care. call and response is a central practice in black arts and culture. sales (1992) described call and response as “a basic model that depends and thrives upon audience performance and improvisation, which work together to ensure that the art will be meaningful or functional to the community” (p.41). at its core, call and response is collaboration and co-creation… it is a form of communication and a way of knowing. call and response is story making, storytelling and story (re)telling (sale, 1992). aligned with critical participatory action research (cpar) processes, the inherently collaborative nature of call and response challenges the notion of fixed | hierarchical | linear leadership and relies on collective knowledge | expertise | engagement (fine & torre, 2021). in addition to being a way of knowing, call and response is a way of doing. in other words, call and response is foundationally and centrally a practice of theory building and method. to participate in a call and response is to be in relationship… it is to contribute to the tone and trajectory of a story. i am introducing car method, which centers the [existent | emergent] relational dynamics at every stage of research – dynamics between me and the archive, ancestors, black people who read and submitted their narratives, and dynamics between me, the writer and you the reader. engaging car as a method emerged organically in the early stages of my research process. the black map project incorporates a blues epistemology which reflects how “black people make sense of the world and their place in it” (speight vaughn, 2019, p. 1094). when i first read about blues 9 i use the term “whole-istic” here to underscore the importance of taking in the whole of a person’s being and experience. who they are and what they are experiencing in conversation with their histories, ancestry, culture, intersectional identities, environment, community, and etc. b. williams: poetic awakenings qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 58-86 ©2023 66 epistemology, i spent hours immersing myself in the blues and its history. it was in/through engaging a blues epistemology and the music/poetry/art/dance/[…] of black folx, that i recognized my desire/need to engage call and response as a method. to be clear, neither a blues epistemology nor a recognition of black aesthetics asserts that black people are a monolith. rather, they recognize a cultural importance of honoring shared | interconnected histories and experiences. car method allows for contradictions and dissonance akin to the improvisations of blues and jazz artists. it does not seek linear storytelling, resolution, or reconciliation. i wanted to capture the relational riffs and responses that i was noticing with/in the work. this looks like writing poetry in response to texts, images, videos, oral history dialogues that move me in some way. this helps capture | illuminate | reveal thoughts that may live in my body but/and may not yet be fully clear to my mind. this looks like allowing relational connections to emerge in/through the oral history dialogues (which has included: full-bodied laugh out loud moments; connecting over similarities in childhood experiences and family practices; allowing the emergence of feeling to be expressed and acknowledged; unspoken/embodied communications that hold | reveal | represent cultural messages, knowledge, and information). in car method, researchers acknowledge, lift, and critically examine their relationship to every element of the project, including: the literature, histories, information, and research participants. this approach recognizes the inherent relationalities and subjectivities in re:search10 as critical knowledge and information with regard to how knowledge is cultivated, nurtured, and shared with/in community. furthermore, car method problematizes the ways in which assertions of objectivity and neutrality, expertise and the all-knowing academic (or mental health practitioner) in research elusively maintain hierarchies of knowledge. in other words, car troubles the wielding of expertise as protection | distancing | colonizing tool that asserts academics | practitioners as all-knowing and assumes students | clients | communities as receptors in need of information and intervention without recognizing them as rich holders of 10 i use re:search to articulate research as regarding or concerning search. b. williams: poetic awakenings qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 58-86 ©2023 67 intervention and information. to be clear, this is not a call to deny expertise | intervention | academic knowledge, rather, an insistence that black ways of knowing and healing [that have sustained us for centuries] not be whited-out | colonized | censored | wiped out because they do not reflect or repeat default dominant expectations. car method is embedded in this paper through my letters, biography snapshots, and poetry. i am acknowledging, in these expressions, how and where i am positioned with/in my work. i am in constant conversation with and between the work and myself through these expressions, which creates openings for discovery. the improvisational [alchemical] imperative of car is the site of co-recovery | co-discovery | co-excavation |co-re/membering wherein new | expanded | shifted | co-created understandings, directions, viewpoints, and other complexities, may take form. the ethics of car method encourages the researcher to share the history and trajectory of the research project, arguing that transparency of process is part of the production of knowledge. this includes incorporating intentional critical citation practices11 that honor how and where the researcher has come to know what they know or think what/how they think. this also entails sharing the work of research-in-process to invert process12 and illuminate the evolutions, tensions, ruptures, and emergent outgrowths along the way. honoring conversations, peer reviews, and cultural production that have shaped and formed the project are also commitments of car method. oftentimes, we only see the final product(s) of a research project and don’t get to know 11 sarah ahmed (2013) noted the ways in which the “reproduction of a discipline” can be (and often disciplines have been) framed by exclusionary citation practices (para. 4). more specifically, ahmed (2014) explained, “white men cite other white men” (para. 24). mckittrick (2020) asserted, “[…] in a world that despises blackness the bibliography – written or sung or whispered or remembered or dreamed or forgotten – ushers in, or initiates, or teaches, or affirms. this is the praxis of being black and human as struggle. this cites and sites a genre of humanness that emerged from but is not solely defined by plantocratic logics of dispossession: the works cited, what we tell each other about what we know and how to know contain how to refuse practices of dispassion” (p. 27-8). she further noted, “the works cited, all of them, when understood as in conversation with each other, demonstrate an interconnected story that resists oppression” (p. 28). plantocratic logics of dispossession may be understood as colonial logics of enslavement. 12 inverting process is language i use that means: speaking transparently about how and why specific choices have been made and/or directions have been taken. inverting process is a commitment to transparency. b. williams: poetic awakenings qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 58-86 ©2023 68 the encounters, feedback, and experiences that that have shifted | expanded | changed | informed the development of project. sharing the history of the black map project is an ethical commitment of intentional recognition of the hands that have helped to shape, mold, and (in)form this work. this history is shared openly on the black map website in the form of letters, poetic reflections, videos, and other modes of expression. call and response is an embodied process and car method privileges embodied knowing and – similar to cpar – recognizes that those most impacted by the research should be centrally included in co-weaving the process from inception to analysis (fine & torre, 2021). black body of knowledge/ embodied knowing this house of wisdom my body of knowledge… skin, bone, and blood the spine of my favorite books live in the souls and songs of my ancestors part ii: images of academe if we examine critically the traditional role of the university in the pursuit of truth and the sharing of knowledge and information, it is painfully clear that biases that uphold and maintain white supremacy, imperialism, sexism, and racism have distorted education so that it is no longer about the practice of freedom. the call for a recognition of cultural diversity, a rethinking of the ways of knowing, a deconstruction of old epistemologies, and the concomitant demand that there be a transformation in our classrooms, in b. williams: poetic awakenings qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 58-86 ©2023 69 how we teach and what we teach, has been a necessary revolution – one that seeks to restore life to a corrupt and dying academy. (hooks, 1994, p.30) dear michelle13, …i wanted to focus my work on black creative healing… turn to my ancestors… so i turned to history… lifted threads that may have appeared disparate and braided them…. across genre and generation. i began to realize that this work – tracing the evolutions of black artistic expressions against the societal landscape – was not the supportive material to my dissertation research… it was the core of it. you mentioned one day that it would be helpful to index all that i had gathered. i went to work distilling emergent themes from the assemblage. bw engaging history as method in the black map project, i traced genealogies within black cultural production against the backdrop of racial violence and oppression in the u.s. from middle passage to present. indexing the assemblage was a helpful step in clarifying and grounding the black map project. i began to group the creative pieces i had gathered informed by the conversation between the extensive histories, literatures, movements, archives, and other materials i engaged. this process of assemblage was a call and response. the bricolage of themes include: 1) expression and cultural memory 2) resistance, activism, disruption and subversion (rads) and 3) freedom dreams, radical hope, and the black radical imagination. it is not my contention that these three themes are an exhaustive or definitive list. rather, this is an emergent story from the materials i gathered at a moment in time – marked by the shadows of covid-19, swells 13 dr. michelle fine, distinguished professor of critical psychology, women’s studies, social welfare, american studies and urban education at the graduate center, cuny and founding faculty member of the public science project https://thebmp.org/ex-cult.html https://thebmp.org/resistance.html https://thebmp.org/freedom.html https://thebmp.org/freedom.html b. williams: poetic awakenings qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 58-86 ©2023 70 in the movement for black lives, demands for police accountability amid a deluge of antiblack violence and black death… and yet, still with a spirit of lucille clifton and maya angelou… everyday something has tried to kill us and has failed… and still we rise. to animate these themes, i created spoken word poems that live on the black map website. in these video pieces, i blend my poetry with background music tracks and images that lift – among other things – history, black artists/creatives, representations of black care practices, and systems. learning for me, at its most potent, is an embodied and expansive process – an experience with and alongside others. i learn from the songs i hear, the poetry i read, the art i take in, the conversations i hear and engage in. i learn from the poetry, art, and songs i create as responses. i learn in/from the doing of life. i learn from my family. i learn from my elders and my ancestors. i learn from observing the world around me. i learn from the stories that have been told | read | shared with me. champion (2003) noted that “despite the horrors of slavery, africans (now african americans) still told stories to comfort, teach, and record history in their new home” (p. 3). champion continued, “the storytelling traditions continued from slavery through jim crowism, to the civil rights movement, and on to present-day america” (p.3). toliver (2022) extended in response to this quote, […] my ancestors retained their stories, refusing to let whiteness destroy their connection to the past and to their homelands […] their stories continue to teach, to heal, to bring life; therefore, storytelling in not a luxury for black people, it is vital to our very existence (p. xv). academe is steeped in a history and trajectory of actively and elusively delegitimizing the emic14 knowledge of black people and communities and “our storied lives are often shunned in academia” (toliver, 2022, p. xv.). indeed, black folx, black aesthetics, and 14 merriam-webster (2022) defines emic as “of, relating to, or involving analysis of cultural phenomena from the perspective of one who participates in the culture being studied.” the use of this language was inspired in conversation with my chair, dr. michelle fine. b. williams: poetic awakenings qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 58-86 ©2023 71 black epistemologies have overwhelmingly been consistently and persistently erased and ignored within the institution(s) of academia. the system of white supremacy has resulted in higher ed being historically and persistently white […] enslaved peoples literally built the nation’s most elite institutions (patel, 2021, p. 5). black hands, blood, and tears built academic institutions, and yet black wisdom and ways of knowing have [largely | elusively | blatantly] been excluded from them… excluded from (re)shaping the possibilities of them… the colored girl… is not known and hence not believed in; she belongs to a race that is best designated by the term ‘problem,’ and she lives beneath the shadow of that problem which envelops and obscures her (williams, 1987, p. 150). when i acutely feel my blackness against the starkly white walls of the ivory tower15, i often feel severely (un)seen16. additionally, black folx are [overwhelmingly] expected to speak in a language17 that is not their own… a language of assimilation (fanon, 1952) to exist with/in the academy. even in spaces where black and indigenous scholars are present and/or their works | theories | practices are lifted and desired, there may be a pervasive and weighted labor and quotidian [often quiet and/or unseen/unrecognized] injury that comes with working| learning| being in spaces that were never meant to support | recognize | value you. and yet there have always been counter-voices and movements of resistance heartily challenging the colonial project (patel, 2021). and here i find myself 15 inspired by a quote from zora neale hurston: “i feel most colored when i am thrown against a sharp white background.” 16 i am calling up the narrator in ralph ellison’s (2010) the invisible man here 17 i use language expansively here b. williams: poetic awakenings qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 58-86 ©2023 72 steeped in academia, working within the ivory tower, and co-developing this work in what fred moten would call the under commons of the academy (harney & moten, 2013). i often ask my students to think about who taught them the lessons that travel with them most meaningfully. it is an invitation to unsettle the notion that [valuable | meaningfull] learning only takes place in the classroom and that “higher learning” is only achieved in universities. it is meant to be an opening to (re)imagine what is deemed academic18 and who is considered a scholar… to (re)envision academe, resuscitated through the dream it used to be19. i also often invite these reflections to be shared as poems, short stories, songs, letters, and/or other creative | expressive representations to expand assumptions and expectations of what is considered and deemed academic writing. my highest degree the school of the highest learning for me… has no walls i walk the halls between the (written) lines i move to the bells (of poets’) chimes i learn from the (deepest of) wells and as far as i can tell this has brought me to my highest degree through art(s) i have come to know history i have come to know me i have come to see the world expansively 18 academic: “of, relating to, or associated with an academy or school especially of higher learning”; “of or relating to performance in courses of study”; “based on formal study especially at an institution of higher learning” -merriam-webster (2022). 19 i am speaking to the academic dream that bell hooks (1994) references when she positions the university as a site for the practice of freedom. i am calling up langston hughes’ poem, “let america be america again,” that emphasizes (enduring) broken promises and dreams… b. williams: poetic awakenings qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 58-86 ©2023 73 i have learned to hold tensions contradictory i have come to appreciate wisdom it’s the black poets for me part iii blacademe the dialectics of blackness as an historically oppressed group, u.s. black women have produced social thoughts designed to oppose oppression. not only does the form assumed by this thought diverge from social academic theory – it can take the form of poetry, music, essays, and the like – but the purpose of black women’s collective thought is distinctly different. social theories emerging from and/or on behalf of u.s. black women and other historically oppressed groups aim to find ways to escape from, survive in, and/or oppose prevailing social and economic injustice (collins, 2000, p. 11). dear willie, you noted the narrow focus that academia asks its students to take... and you said, “that is not our epistemology.” how could it be? we have had to speak multiple languages,20 know multiple worlds, carve worlds within… something has tried to undo us at every turn and yet we remain21. black experiencing necessitates an expansive view/understanding. -bw the black map projects weaves across [social work | psychology | the creative arts therapies] disciplines and [history | social-cultural dynamics | policy | education | carceral | mental health care] contexts. bringing this expansive lens has been a necessary part of recognizing patterns across 20 i am informed and inspired here by how bell hooks speaks to and grapples with the complexities of language in teaching to transgress (chapter 11). 21 i am invoking lucille clifton’s poem here: “won’t you celebrate with me,” clifton (2020, p. 139). b. williams: poetic awakenings qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 58-86 ©2023 74 generations and systems. it has allowed me to speak within and across the multiplicity, overlaps, and gaps of/in black experiencing. w.e. b du bois (1903) noted the tension that black folx hold by merely existing… the double-consciousness22 of black folx and twoness23 of black being. black folx experience and express twoness in a myriad of ways24. paul laurence dunbar (1913) lifted this truth in his 1895 poem, “we wear the mask.” he wrote: we wear the mask that grins and lies, it hides our cheeks and shades our eyes,— this debt we pay to human guile; with torn and bleeding hearts we smile, and mouth with myriad subtleties. maya angelou offered a response to dunbar’s call, in her poem “the mask.” she said: seventy years in these folks’ world the child i work for calls me girl i say “ha! ha! ha! yes ma’am!” 22 “it is a peculiar sensation, this double-consciousness, this sense of always looking at one’s self through the eyes of others, of measuring one’s soul by the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity” (du bois, 1903, p. 215). 23 “one ever feels his two-ness,—an american, a negro; two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body, whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder” (du bois, 1903, p. 215). 24 for example, franz fanon (1952) shared, “the black man possesses two dimensions: one with his fellow blacks, the other with the whites. a black man behaves differently with a white man than he does with another black man. there is no doubt whatsoever that this fissiparousness is a direct consequence of the colonial undertaking” (p. 1). in the invisible man, ellison (2010) writes, “i am an invisible man. no, i am not a spook like those who haunted edgar allan poe; nor am i one of your hollywood-movie ectoplasms. i am a man of substance, of flesh and bone, fiber and liquids -and i might even be said to possess a mind. i am invisible, understand, simply because people refuse to see me” (p. 3). b. williams: poetic awakenings qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 58-86 ©2023 75 for workin’s sake i’m too proud to bend and too poor to break an embodied dissonant duality25 so often accompanies black living and being. soon ah will be done-a with the troubles of the world ---we shall overcome… i wish i knew how it would feel to be free ----lovely day. the contradictions of black being – across [individual | collective] contexts and experience(s) – are expressed across/through black cultural production. the arts can hold the contradictory [affective | emotive] range(s) of black experiencing… entering the liminality of the creative is to break into a space of possibility. black creative practice(s) have been a necessity to black survivance26. in the black map oral history dialogues, i typically start by asking some variation of an invitation for the person i am speaking with to share what – for them – represents or reflects black creative healing. several people have responded to that prompt by moving directly into a creative response (call and response). this has included reciting original poetry, singing songs of freedom, playing a negro spiritual on the piano, sharing artistic imagery, and more. the creative takes us somewhere that words often cannot… black as performance mouth tired from smiling to hide tears chest tight, from heart pounding fears tongue swollen from swallowing so many words that i won’t bother screaming, ‘cause i know it won’t be heard 25 ralph ellison (1995) highlighted this in the invisible man, when the narrator expresses “i am an invisible man. no, i am not a spook like those who haunted edgar allan poe; nor am i one of your hollywood-movie ectoplasms. i am a man of substance, of flesh and bone, fiber and liquids – and i might even be said to possess a mind. i am invisible, understand, simply because people refuse to see me” (p. 3). 26 gerald vizenor (2008) articulated survivance as a blend of survival and resistance. b. williams: poetic awakenings qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 58-86 ©2023 76 there is no sleep can put a dent in this fatigue of walking through a world that doesn’t want me i’ve been labeled a problem, just ask web and yet, when that music track turns on play i’m gonna sing like it’s a brand-new day get me on that dance floor and i’m gonna dance to my feet feel sore gathering time with my community i breathe deep, i practice free soon ah will be done and we shall overcome it’s a different type of twoness this double world type of life where joy can be present when the backdrop is strife part iv the black map project as critical (re)memory …black people have always used interdisciplinary methodologies to explain, explore, and story the world, because thinking and writing and imagining across a range of texts, disciplines, histories, and genres unsettles suffocating and dismal and insular racial logics. by employing interdisciplinary methodologies and living interdisciplinary worlds, black people bring together various sources and texts and narratives to challenge racism (mckittrick, 2020, p.4). b. williams: poetic awakenings qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 58-86 ©2023 77 figure 1 photo of my mom and me dear mom, i was listening to the audio tape of grandad singing gospel music… as part of the black map project, i am going to co-create an archive where black folx can write themselves in. where folx can share moments/experiences/snapshots of themselves engaging in black creative practices that support or promote healing and/or liberation. -bw having a co-created archive was/is important to me because i want this work to be formed and framed in community. i also want to honor the many minds that inform my research and allow this [co-thinking | co-creating] to be reflected publicly. it was/is also a commitment of this work that black folx outside of academia be recognized for their [valuable | meaning-full] contributions to this work [and beyond]… dis/rupting and expanding who is considered a scholar. i envision the co-created archive as a way for black folx to write themselves into a free and accessible resource that tells a story of black [creative | expressive | embodied] resistance, healing, and freedom practices. my hope is for the archive to be a site of [deep] reflection and [expansive] connection. https://thebmp.org/bmp-archive.html b. williams: poetic awakenings qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 58-86 ©2023 78 toni morrison (2019) articulated rememory as “recollecting” (para. 4). to recollect, according to merriam-webster (2022) is “to bring back to the level of conscious awareness” and/or “to remind (oneself) of something temporarily forgotten.” slavery demanded that black folx forget… our histories… our ways of knowing… ourselves. creative practices have been our containers of memory. in the black map project, i am engaging critical re/memory… as in re/membering that which has been severed (williams, 2021)… as in paying attention to the ideologies of dominance that produce and perpetuate black agony (williams, 2021)… as in re/calling the black creative resistance that has persisted. excerpts from the archive black folx who are 18 years of age or older have been invited to submit to the black map archive. the guiding prompt for submissions has been to offer a representation of healing and/or liberation through black creative practice(s) and process(es). submissions thus far have included images, video(s), songs, creative writing. each offering is accompanied by a brief reflection that speaks to how/why the submission is representative of black healing and/or liberatory practice. the piece below is a collection of quotes from the first round of submissions to the black map archive. creating this piece was a way to represent the assemblage thus far and offers a reflection of [individual | collective] thought from the submissions. where there is hope: healthy ways to thread forward where there is hope, there is life my artistic expression elevates me; gives me distance from the reality of this world and transports/transported me to a world where i am fully seen, heard, and felt in all my authentic glory, even if only for just those few performing moments. finding and accepting oneself, one shot at a time. makeup is a ministry that affords black people a therapeutic experience https://thebmp.org/bmp-archive.html https://thebmp.org/bmp-archive.html b. williams: poetic awakenings qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 58-86 ©2023 79 i am a black storyteller, a modern day griot as i continue to shape how my journey towards healing looks, i am reminded of the scores of black people who can relate to not only my story, but the work it takes to keep one’s self intact. …my craft and support system afforded me the mental strength and fortitude to persevere against the fallacies that blacks could not dance ballet on professional levels. ballet gave me the insight to my worth as an artist and stability that continues with me to this day. this track supports black emotional health by providing black folks a space to safely and fully feel the rage and heartache engendered by white supremacy, so that we all might be one step closer to liberation. researching and sharing black history is my only intellectual freedom, from the tragic past of my african and native indian ancestors. one of the prime intentions of this docu-series is to nurture black wellness and teach black communities healthy ways to thread forward. ___ the collective piece above is an example of poetic reflexivity27 as analysis. through putting the submissions in creative conversation with each other, a story is told. revealed in the collective piece are verbatim themes, reflections, and expressions of black creative practices of healing and liberation. poetic reflexivity allows for an analytic of the work without asserting it is the definitive analysis of it. re: search regarding search for my history… for the wisdom of my ancestors concerning search for our creative expression, our creative resistance, our ability to radically imagine the beauty of what could be through the harsh reality of what is 27 i use poetic expansively here. poetic reflexivity encompasses a range of creative processes and practices. b. williams: poetic awakenings qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 58-86 ©2023 80 about search for black aesthetics in academia, in social work, in the creative arts therapies, in psychology. back, searching for what was always there… ignored, erased, played over by the master track a process to take what was stolen back again and again, search for the patterns the repetitions that play on repeat lifting this work through a call and response epistemology a framework that lifts how black people make meaning of the world and how we fit in a critique of social-societal norms of the way things have always been part v: root work we have been raised to fear the yes within ourselves, our deepest cravings. but, once recognized, those which do not enhance our future lose their power and can be altered. the fear of our desires keeps them suspect and indiscriminately powerful, for to suppress any truth is to give it strength beyond endurance. the fear that we cannot grow beyond whatever distortions we may find within ourselves keeps us docile and loyal and obedient, externally defined, and leads us to accept many facets of our oppression as women. (lorde, 2007, p. 100) dear alexis28, when we were talking… i was thinking through all the possibilities… i wanted a creative way for folx to experience my dissertation research… you helped me to clarify the vision… and you offered that perhaps one of my findings would 28 dr. alexis jemal, lcsw, lcadc, ma, jd, phd, associate professor at silberman school of social work-hunter college b. williams: poetic awakenings qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 58-86 ©2023 81 be a documentary distillation that weaves everything together. i will compile, as one of my findings, a video presentation that weaves across every element of this research… a story of this work... -bw figure 2: tree in forest (public domain) trees are incredible. they survive across generations enduring the ebb and flow of seasons and the whim(s) of the elements. they send messages to each other. they know their kin; in fact, mother trees communicate messages of survival to their offspring (wohllben, 2016). trees are life sustaining. to study trees is to study care networks. during her confirmation hearing for the supreme court, ketanji brown jackson shared a memory of being in boston and feeling homesick and out of place during her first year at harvard. she was questioning if she could “make it” within the environment. she recalled a black woman passing her and seemingly knowing how she felt. that black woman looked at judge jackson and said, “persevere.” that [moment | message | nurturance] traveled with judge jackson so much so that she said she wishes to share that same message with young folx. black folx are like trees. sending care across a network, tapped into a system of knowing that is beyond measure… b. williams: poetic awakenings qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 58-86 ©2023 82 re/turn to my roots29 black love is like deep roots growing down stretching ‘cross generations like mycelial connections an unbroken network of care what you don’t have the community will spare black love is like strong roots intertwined radical interconnectivity black love is home i re/turn here and even when i’m gone the roots will still sing my song 29 i am in conversation with lucille clifton’s poem, roots. clifton (2020, p. 38). b. williams: poetic awakenings qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 58-86 ©2023 83 un/concluded i re/turn to mary turner. we are caught up in a [beautiful | cultural | multigenerational] network. my [wise | nurturing | ever present] ancestors have [with urgency | with love] guided me to this work. i co-tend to this [heart | spirit | love | cultural | academic] work with care. my heart is [broken | mended | tended to] in this work. how many [black people’s] dreams have been deferred30? is there [time | endurance | mathematics] enough to count them? how many [black lives] have been discarded? is there [ground | tears | remembrance] enough to hold them? what is the [salve | remedy | care] to tend to this unimaginable wound? what does therapy look like for the descendants of mary turner? in my history with/in academia, i have had to actively search for theories and methods that reflect black cultural traditions… or, create them with/from the acorns of ancestors in and out of the academy whose wisdom lights and guides my path… or through encounters in the archive, with my mother, through art(s), in community… the black map project is a creative work that is rooted in black creative practices. i return to mary turner. murdered for speaking out against injustice – the murder of her husband. what does therapy look like for the descendants of mary turner? how do i explore this question with the care it deserves? i return to s.r toliver. endarkened storywork. i return to nina simone. i wish i could say all the things i should say. i return to the poets (used expansively) cited throughout this essay… engaging black creative thought and multidisciplinary methods are tools for unsettling and disrupting oppression. in reflection of [response to] this piece, i am re/minded to listen to – and be led by – my ancestors… re/member their stories and strategies of survivance. i am re/minded to acknowledge the body as a critical site of knowledge. i am re/minded that the range of black experiencing deserves epistemological and aesthetic frames that can grasp and hold that range. i am re/minded to allow re:search to be heart work [work rooted in love] as much as it is head work. i am reminded to re/turn to my [black] roots. 30 i am calling up langston hughes’ poem “harlem.” b. williams: poetic awakenings qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 58-86 ©2023 84 references adichie, c. (2009), ‘the danger of a single story’, july, http://www.ted.com/ talks/chimamanda_adichie_the_danger_of_a_single_story?language=en. accessed 7 may 2022 ahmed, s., (2013, september 11). making feminist points. feminist killjoys. https://feministkilljoys.com/2013/09/11/making-feminist-points/ ahmed, s., (2014, november 4). white men. feminist killjoys. https://feministkilljoys.com/2014/11/04/white-men/ baldwin j. & kenan r. (2010). the cross of redemption : uncollected writings (1st ed.). pantheon books. bell, m. p., berry, d., leopold, j., & nkomo, s. (2021). making black lives matter in academia: a black feminist call for collective action against anti‐blackness in the academy. gender, work & organization, 28, 39–57. https://doi.org/10.1111/gwao.12555 christian, b. (1987). the race for theory. cultural critique, 6, 51–63. https://doi.org/10.2307/1354255 clifton, l. (2020). how to carry water: selected poems of lucille clifton. boa editions ltd. collins, p. h. (2000). black feminist thought: knowledge, consciousness, and the politics of empowerment. routledge. collins, p. (2006). patricia hill collins: intersecting oppressions. crawley, ashon, otherwise, ferguson (2014, october 24). interfictions online. http://interfictions.com/otherwise-fergusonashon-crawley/ social dialogue 23. (n.d.). retrieved may 26, 2022, from https://socialdialogue.online/sd23/05_article.html davis, a. (n.d.). angela davis speech: “unfinished liberation: beyond the prison industrial complex” at colorado university boulder, march 15, 1998. | https://feministkilljoys.com/2013/09/11/making-feminist-points/ https://feministkilljoys.com/2014/11/04/white-men/ b. williams: poetic awakenings qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 58-86 ©2023 85 hollis for. retrieved may 29, 2022, from https://hollisarchives.lib.harvard.edu/repositories/8/archival_objects/3099936 dunbar, p. l., & howells, w. d. (1913). the complete poems of paul laurence dunbar. ellison, r. 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(2021). some of us die: a black feminist researcher’s survival method for creatively refusing death and decay in the neoliberal academy. international journal of qualitative studies in education, 34(6), 515–533. https://doi.org/10.1080/09518398.2020.1771463 patel, l. (2021). no study without struggle: confronting settler colonialism in higher education. beacon press. sale, m. (1992). call and response as critical method: african-american oral traditions and beloved. african american review, 26(1), 41–50. https://doi.org/10.2307/3042075 speight vaughn, m. (2020). black epistemologies and blues methodology: engaging liminal ontological space in qualitative research. qualitative inquiry, 26(8–9), 1090–1101. https://doi.org/10.1177/1077800419883307 https://doi.org/10.2307/3042075 https://doi.org/10.1177/1077800419883307 b. williams: poetic awakenings qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 58-86 ©2023 86 taylor, b., tucker, b., & tate, g. (1963). i wish i knew how it would feel to be free. tower. toliver, s. r. (2021). recovering black storytelling in qualitative research: endarkened storywork. routledge. vizenor, g. (2008). survivance: narratives of native presence. u of nebraska press. wallace, e. r., adams, j. d., fullwood, c. c., horhn, e.-b., loritts, c., propst, b. s., & walker, c. r. (n.d.). the black feminist mixtape: a collective black feminist autoethnography of black women’s existence in the academy. 17. williams, f.,b., (1987) “the colored girl.” in invented lives: narratives of black women. garden city, ny. anchor. williams, b. (2021). tracks on repeat. voices: a world forum for music therapy, 21(1). https://doi.org/10.15845/voices.v21i1.3227 wohlleben, p. (2016). the hidden life of trees: what they feel, how they communicate— discoveries from a secret world. greystone books. about the author: britton williams is a black woman. drama therapist. artist. activist. storyteller. she is a multitude of hyphens, contradictions, and ands. she is a teacher and student. a thinker and dreamer. she is deeply and urgently concerned with the possibilities that live with/in radical (re)imagining and the inextricable connectedness of healing and liberation. artikel making a portrait qualitative studies vol. 8, no. 1, 2023, pp. 87-109 issn 1903-7031 writing with new journalism and portraiture: the making of a portrait marianne høyen1 1 department of educational sociology, aarhus university, tuborgvej 164, 2400 copenhagen nv, denmark to explain broader social phenomena through human perspectives, sociologists closely analyse their qualitative data. as individuals’ actions and embeddedness into society may be subject to inquiry, biographical and narrative approaches can enable access to the other’s world, its social and material contexts. yet sensitivity is seldom evident when communicating research findings. traditionally researchers address a uniform, neutral academic readership, one at odds with current reality. just as the researcher seeks to understand the interviewee, similar effort is needed to accommodate the reader. good communication needs to consider complexity and address the human experience through multi-faceted but meaningful lenses. it requires creative thinking. i suggest that new journalism and portraiture, in combination, provide a good starting point for communicating the human experience and its surrounding conditions: new journalism as it introduces devices from fiction into the field; portraiture because it encourages the writer to bring creative aspects into the text. the article explores the considerations around writing up such a text from biographical research and demonstrates how this can be done. keywords: biography, new journalism, portraiture, teacher, natural science introduction “thomas rushes. he zig-zag’s between the physical obstacles that now block his passage along what used to be a traditional school corridor, transformed into a space for learning with explicit ‘thinking hubs’. children and school bags clutter an annoying collection of pillows, provided to encourage students to lounge and reflect on their learning. it is not that he is busy, but that the corridor leading to his teaching room in physics unsettles him. he is disconcerted by the untidiness, the students that flutter around and the m. høyen: writing with new journalism and portraiture qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 87-109 ©2023 88 disappearance of the school's traditional discipline that always existed during lunch break. but the atmosphere is genuinely friendly, too, and most of the kids know him. they do not greet him overtly, and he doesn't say hello either. however, he smiles wryly and nods to the nearest children in a way that implies familiarity!” this is the beginning of a 2000-word portrait of a natural science teacher in a danish school, here called thomas1. drawing on knowledge from my research and professional experience of the ‘grand divide’ between the humanities and natural sciences (høyen & rasmusen, 2020), i wondered how to write a presentation of a physics teacher that would ‘speak to’ a possibly humanities-oriented group of readers within and beyond the university. i looked for a method to guide me in presenting thomas’s life, perspectives, and thoughts about the world, based on a biographical interview, ethnographic observations, and findings from more distant academic disciplines. in this article, i particularly describe how i work with traditional qualitative perspectives, taking inspiration from new journalism and portraiture to write up the ‘portrait’. in doing so, i suggest a way of writing differently within academia that may encourage greater take-up of the messages we as academics wish to disseminate. to illustrate how i work, i draw on excerpts from a full portrait written to illuminate an individual teacher’s perspective. i had interviewed eight teachers with similar backgrounds but here decide to focus on one, thomas, so that i could give his story the attention that the findings of an in-depth biographical interview deserve. i chose thomas’s story as he verbalizes his position and point of view very clearly explaining how, despite his scientific expertise, he ended up as a teacher in a public school. in retelling his story, i reject traditional ideas of representation but instead follow bourdieu's idea of a realist construction (1996b): crafting a portrait to communicate how the reproduction of knowledge takes place in everyday meetings between a teacher and students, where underlying social conditions are hidden influences, and where the nature of the school and the education system in general also shape the discourse. the daily work 1 the portrait is presented at length in danish, elsewhere (høyen, 2021). m. høyen: writing with new journalism and portraiture qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 87-109 ©2023 89 with students adapted alongside changes in the relative positions of the teaching profession and schooling in society. through the article, i use excerpts from the finished portrait to demonstrate and discuss the making of a portrait. initially, i introduce the aim of this specific portrait and its context. then, i reflect on how the portrait-writing draws inspiration from new journalism and portraiture, before describing how the portrait is actually made. finally, i discuss post-academic writing in relation my work and in more general terms. the portrait and its context in general, i study people’s understandings of nature, to identify views on nature at the beginning of the 21st century so as to address current challenges of environmental issues and climate change. these challenges also drive me to find ways to demonstrate how humans have different views on the relationship between humankind and nature and to provide insights into those different ways of living through a sociological lens. one strand of this work focusses on how views on nature are transmitted from one generation to the next and a central institution for this is, of course, the school. therefore, i am interested in analysing aspects of teachers and their lives, especially teachers who teach explicitly nature-related subjects such as biology, geography, physics, and maths. previously, i have examined different generations of teachers (høyen, 2016) as well as newly educated teachers (høyen & rasmusen, 2020), to establish their views on nature alongside their ideas around ‘being’ a teacher. after years of interviewing such teachers, i found that younger teachers often give up teaching nature-related subjects as they feel that they lack sufficient qualifications within the subject itself. furthermore, research identifies that attracting teachers within natural science subjects is hard (see, 2020, atv, 2014) and that many teachers leave their job within a few years (ae 2016). another question that often surfaces – in my research and in public debates, too – is teachers’ subject knowledge: what kinds of knowledge of nature do teachers hold? following an explorative path of inquiry, i decided to interview teachers in the public school who entered their job without general teaching qualifications but held a degree in an academic subject. later, as part of their teaching job and through a special programme, these teachers gained the required teaching qualifications. this is a relatively new group within compulsory education: graduates enabled to teach due to a generalised teacher shortage, m. høyen: writing with new journalism and portraiture qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 87-109 ©2023 90 especially evident within nature-related subjects. their enablement also served other aspects of the political agenda, allowing the government to provide more teachers and at the same time refute the overproduction of university-educated masters while meeting a demand to raise subject knowledge in schools. i wanted to see how subject-skilled teachers with a university background differed from teachers having general teaching qualifications. in this context, i set out to interview teachers with an ma degree in natural science, focusing on their life stories. one of these interviews was with thomas: “thomas, a male teacher, is 58 years old. he works as a schoolteacher in a medium-sized school in a larger city in the provinces. although thomas works as a teacher, if we want to draw on the connotations which follow when talking about teachers, things get complicated. he undertook no ordinary teacher training but is educated in biology at university. several years later, he completed a supplementary course in educational and didactical thinking, which qualified him as a teacher in the danish folk school (elementary and lower secondary). currently, his main subject is physics which is not seen as a subject that belongs within traditional, general education. his only interest at work is his subject and his students, not cooperating with parents or general educational matters. hence, thomas is not a typical member of the teaching profession”. in accordance with my previous research, that is informed by bourdieu, i address teaching as part of a field within the social space. i take a broad analytical approach, moving beyond the interview to include ethnographic observations, studying social as well as material roots related to teaching, and turning to the literature to further broaden an understanding of being a teacher in a specific socio-economic position (bourdieu, 1977). thomas’s story, and the rich social and material information he described provided an opportunity and scope to try another way of ‘writing up’ in place of the established life history tradition that simply sets an individual story in its broader context (goodson, 2001). communication is not simply about clarity but also a consideration of what the reader of the portrait needs to know. recognising that some contemporary readers of m. høyen: writing with new journalism and portraiture qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 87-109 ©2023 91 thomas’s portrait may take the right to an education for granted, i am careful to make it clear that this was not the case in the past: “it was not written in the stars that thomas should end up being a teacher. gaining an education was not anticipated with a family background like his back in the early 1960s. nevertheless, a mix of being the youngest child in his parents’ house and the changing times, in general, opened the possibility that something could happen. a slight economic change in his parents’ income and the idea that emerged in society that everybody should have the possibility to enter higher education contributed to thomas being the first in his family to get the upper secondary school leaving examination.” in line with a bourdieusian perspective, i also have to consider the position of thomas’s subject, natural science, in contemporary society in general and in school in particular. today in the public discourse, natural sciences, and technology, dominate other areas of knowledge. one of the arguments for this relates to the debate in western societies about how to secure the welfare states of the future. for answers, politicians look increasingly for support from the knowledge society which prioritises the oft-called ‘stem’ disciplines. consequently, both private and public funding for research and school development projects frequently favour the stem area, deeming the arts as unnecessary except for a few cultural and language related areas. in debates many claim natural science to be the ‘proper’ type of science, with qualitative research deemed ‘hopelessly subjective’ (johansson, risberg & hamberg, 2003). this point of view is of course challenged by qualitative researchers like me, but nevertheless i often hear it stated publicly and particularly by official voices. traditional perspectives are resistant to challenge! historically, schools have been a place for common education and here humanitybased subjects have dominated while subjects within science, with few exceptions, were relegated to more practical applications (larsen, 2010). it is only within the last 20 years that questions about the common educational aspects of the natural sciences have been put forward (sjøberg, 1998). increasingly, among some social groups, teachers find that parents question whether the natural sciences are necessary for today’s students. other m. høyen: writing with new journalism and portraiture qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 87-109 ©2023 92 tensions also divide teachers in the two subject groups (høyen & rasmusen, 2020). as well as the differences between the subjects themselves there are more practical issues like different physical locations in school buildings, teaching resource needs and timetabling issues. but these are trivial problems given the urgency of addressing questions relating to views on nature in the current environmental and climate crises. there is a clear need for better understanding between those in the natural sciences and their peers in the arts and humanities and i hope to contribute to this understanding by offering insights into different social positions and by offering a method of writing portraits that enables perspectives from these positions to be shared. communicating to a reader to transform a story into a life history (goodson, 2001), a common practice among biographical and narrative researchers, was not enough. i also needed to consider how the readers of the portrait would understand the underlying narrative as between the teller and listener, a divide exists – likewise between the writer and reader. from scholars on narratives, we know that the teller shapes her story with consideration to the listener whether this is an actual or imagined one (rankin, 2002) and i want to do this for my reader. the oral raconteur can be attentive to reactions from her audience and mould the content, but as a writer, i cannot do this. as soon as a story is put into words, it parts from its author, and there is no means to adjust this later to fit the preferences of the receiver as with oral storytelling (ong, 2002). i had to find the best possible way to overcome this divide. in biographical research texts the reader is rarely discussed, although some work exists (bourdieu, 1987, 1996). within disciplines where the audience plays a central part, like rhetorics and dramaturgy, considering the audience is a foundational and possibly taken-for-granted consideration (ede, 1984). in contrast, the academic tradition generally prescribes clear and credible arguments where the audience is only implicitly present and is seen to be a ‘homogeneous’ educated readership. however, academic readers differ too, and there have been recurrent heated debates about subjectivity in research and the extent to which personal experiences even count as proper research. there are those who, following lyotard (1984), argue that in postmodernity the focus should be small narratives rather than grand narratives such as science with a capital ‘s’. individual m. høyen: writing with new journalism and portraiture qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 87-109 ©2023 93 stories collected through interviews and the subsequent portraits are essentially small narratives in the literary sense expressing values and meaning within a specific social context; the portrait’s strength lies in the detail that enables the reader to see that views are not homogeneous but varied. when that is acknowledged, it potentially becomes easier to accept the unfamiliar and unknown and to recognise that our personal perspective is just that. this understanding should raise an awareness that others live differently in the world but may have something to say that is relevant to one’s own life and this, in turn, may lead to an acceptance that perspectives do differ not least according to different social positions. if from reading my portraits, even a single reader broadens his or her understanding, i will have succeeded in communicating. therefore, i write my presentations as portraits and make crafting these to engage with readers a major consideration. do i know my readers? i have not analysed who they are in depth to choose the most persuasive arguments, and they will likely be a mixed group with their own perspectives, but different from the people i write portraits about. on several occasions, however, i have met possible future readers, directly as listeners to presentations and indirectly through texts (larsen, 2005). such contact has provided insight into possible reactions and informed my search for a way of writing my portraits that ensures a receptive reader where many are neither keen on nature (christensen, 2009) or the natural sciences (de haro, 2020; rokos et al., 2013). most of the readers will have experienced schooling in their own childhood, and possibly know a contemporary school, too, should they have young children who currently attend one. so, when shaping the text, i can build on this knowledge and offer a lens to help the reader reflect upon, recognise, and accept, new ideas – and then move forward, hopefully with fewer barriers. hence, the first lines of thomas’s portrait (at the start of this article) make no mention of nature or natural science – deliberately leaving ideas that may be unpopular until later. such considerations continue throughout the text. of course, i cannot convince the reader of anything if he or she does not want that to be so. but by finding a starting point close to the readers’ world for each portrait and allowing the portraitee’s wider views to unfold at a pace that supports reader assimilation, i may encourage change. in this way, i can establish a dialogue in buber’s sense (buber, m. høyen: writing with new journalism and portraiture qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 87-109 ©2023 94 1947), shaping a text so that it opens the reader’s mind to hear – in this specific case – the point of view of a teacher in the natural sciences. wondering how to achieve this, i found a solution through a combination of two different ways of writing: new journalism (that originated from journalists working in american newspapers and magazines during the 1960s) and portraiture (that emerged from alternative academic writing and teaching practices in the 1980s). although portraiture arose within action-oriented community projects with a focus on common growth through participation, both ways of working are author-driven: it is the writer who, like the artist, composes the text and chooses which aspects should be highlighted, or not. it is, therefore, the author who should take on the additional considerations needed to write in step with the potential audience. i will now move on to describe and explain each of these non-traditional approaches to academic writing before i show, and further discuss, their actual use in the making of a portrait. new journalism being an academic within sociology i admit to having rather superficial ideas of what journalism actually is. at my university, the journalists are mainly associated with communication, presenting university matters and excerpts of research to the public. as universities are continually forced to act as quasi-commercial enterprises, they need to communicate with their customers – future students and external funding bodies. doing such work, journalists and communication departments are generally reporting the opinions of management or promoting other people’s research rather than publishing in their own right. however, i became acquainted with another form of journalism in a collection of american portraits edited by a danish journalist (nilsson, 2013). i was impressed by the level of detail, in the work of writers like guy talese and susan orlean – the accuracy, the atmospheric descriptions and insights into people’s lives their writing provided – all summed up in the book’s subtitle, about the art of describing a human. this was exactly what i was aiming to do myself: i, too, wanted to ‘describe’ a human. therefore, i saw the potential to use similar techniques when ‘writing up’ research, and how this might allow me to address a broader public than the customary academic reader. i was keen to try to present my work in a similar manner. m. høyen: writing with new journalism and portraiture qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 87-109 ©2023 95 this alternative form of journalism is known by several labels: new, literary, and sometimes narrative or immersion journalism, new journalism being the most used label. it was very visible from the 1960s to the 80s. its adherents wrote stories from parts of society hidden or alien to their readers, both geographically and socially, adopting a detailed, narrative and even dramaturgical style, to offer lengthy stories based on observations and interviews that notably built on facts and the protagonists’ perspectives. typical examples include the american race day culture (wolfe, 1965), the culture of silence around the american-italian mafia (talese, 1971), being a competitor in a sport with italian origins that only accepted immigrants having irish roots see (talese, 1951 according to lounsberry, 2003), and life as seen through the eyes of a 10-year-old american boy (orlean, 1992). i found this way of writing, merging the subjective perspective of an interviewee and observation, inspiring, especially the ambition to report on hidden parts of society or from areas that escape the dominant discourse. i wanted to explore if it is possible to transfer such ideas into an academic tradition like sociology? traditionally, sociologists seek to understand society’s underlying structure, and in doing so, create descriptions that are distanced from the subjects, aiming at generalisation. however, it is recognised that micro-actions between people profoundly impact these structures. in some ways the type of writing embodied in new journalism, resembles that of the early chicago school of sociology and uses similar methods. perhaps because one of the school’s founding fathers, robert park, in addition to studying philosophy, had also worked as a journalist for some years, and applied this approach to university studies as well as to his teaching (baker, 1973). among scholars, whether the practices of new journalism and the former chicago school are similar or not is a contested topic. comparing goffman’s work, which also dates back to the 1960s, with new journalism, sommer sees a difference, claiming that goffman is interested in the universal while the journalists value the specific (sommer, 1975). in contrast, meisenheider compares their methods and foci and sees the two as very similar, suggesting that both perspectives aim to uncover the essential elements of what they study, and neither includes much theory (meisenhelder, 1977). for my part, i find a comparison between the two less important. as in all areas, some texts are brilliant in the way they shed light on interesting sociological phenomena, some texts m. høyen: writing with new journalism and portraiture qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 87-109 ©2023 96 are less so. some pieces last, perhaps due to the author’s fame, while other almost forgotten pieces are rediscovered, and with today’s eyes, turn out to be really inspiring as they throw new light on contemporary matters. to me, anything that inspires research to gain new insight and knowledge is valuable, so both practices are important. however, i accept to some extent sommer’s claim that sociology values the universal, ideas that can be applied in other cases. what definitely differs, though, is the readers. the sociologist writes for peers, seeking to analyse and describe matters of general sociological interest such as how people meet, relate, and reproduce cultural traits, whereas the journalist writes to tell a story to a more general public. as already stated, what attracted me to new journalism is the intention to ‘describe a human’. like journalists, i have ‘hung out’ in specific places related to the interviewee’s world, observed not just the interviewee but also his surroundings, the people around him, and how they interacted. writing up the text and using a few dramaturgical strategies, i can help the reader understand new worlds by making these fit within the well-known world they already inhabit, then guiding their gaze to see through my protagonists’ eyes. the following example from thomas’s portrait borrows his words to describe a ‘hero’ figure that influenced his desire to teach natural science. in a formal account it might have been enough just to say that thomas’s desire to teach was triggered by presenters he watched on tv. this more dramaturgical approach fleshes out the description of the person who influenced him most, briefly portraying him as eccentric in both dress and behaviour but also informative, and most likely audience aware – an engaging character and a natural scientist breaking new ground, a worthy idol! “two people, in particular, were almost idols to thomas, becoming role models for his teaching. he came across both of them by watching tv in childhood. one arrived immaculately clad in a suit with a dickie bow and spectacles with inch-thick glasses. at one moment he might stand still, explaining something, and the next minute swiftly turn about and rush into the swamp behind, catching insects. he was fun to watch and what an orator he was! he communicated aspects of natural science long before anybody had considered doing so in popular terms. “i almost kneel before him, even m. høyen: writing with new journalism and portraiture qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 87-109 ©2023 97 today, if he appears on tv”. thomas smiles wryly. “actually, i carry him in my heart. my students, of course, have no knowledge of any of this”.” the excerpt shows how, in the portrait of thomas, i aim to put forward his perspective as a teacher and indirectly his relation to his students. thomas is not afraid to make fun of himself when he talks about his emotional attachment to what he sees as heroes of communication from his childhood – very aware that these two men, although immensely knowledgeable, would hardly ‘burn through’ the media today. such a paragraph is aimed at communicating thomas’s superiority within his subject which can only be understood by readers of his age group. to kneel, however – an utterance thomas actually made – is widely understood. it is worth noting that portraits are not intended to be full texts in themselves and stand alone. normally, they will be embedded within a larger, overarching and more traditional academic text, that enables the writer to add analysis, comments and references to a broader literature. the portraits serve as data, providing the perspective of a social agent who will be one of many. there is a precedent for using multiple layers of analysis within a single text in the work of other scholars, for example, bourdieu (1999). portraiture i now want to explain how i incorporate portraiture in my writing but first i discuss and set aside the concept of the pen portrait, a simpler and more commonplace element often used in qualitative research, which when used in sociology, is a brief description written to introduce an informant to the reader. however, it seems that pen portraits – although widely used especially in marketing and in health studies to provide short descriptions of people – lack a clear academic definition and, consequently, specific methodological guidance. when teaching students, i use the metaphor of the ‘maggi cube’, seeing the pen portrait as a condensed source of all that is needed to achieve an intended outcome; in research, to justify the later and more abstract, sociological analysis and discussion. pen portraits seem at first glance to be mere descriptions but writing them is far from simple. they should encapsulate the essence of the first meeting between the researcher and participant and capture the atmosphere in which this takes place but also anticipate aspects relevant to later analysis al even though these may only be identified later when m. høyen: writing with new journalism and portraiture qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 87-109 ©2023 98 studies are inductive. consequently, pen portraits start the writing process but are redone at the end, acknowledging the difference between ‘context of discovery’ and ‘context of justification’ (popper, 2002), and, drawing inspiration from phenomenological analysis, reflect on shared experiences and awareness of space and place. now, i turn to portraiture, the second aspect of writing relevant to making a portrait, and here i draw ideas from a sociologist, sara lawrence-lightfoot. inspired by a desire to incorporate creative and artistic items into her work she and a colleague, a trained artist jessica davis, developed this method. previously, lawrence-lightfoot’s work focussed on writing portraits of schools that examined the cultures in which they were embedded (lawrence-lightfoot, 2008). davis was involved in cooperative explorations in local communities. this was action-oriented and more similar to art-based research, using artistic processes to capture the subjectivity of the human experience. together they duo-authored a methodological book, the art and science of portraiture, each in turn describing how to work with portraits in academic work (lawrence-lightfoot et al., 1997). they explored the elements of writing portraits co-operatively, arguing that a portrait spans aspects of aesthetics and empiricism. for me, new journalism had sparked ideas of how to write narrative accounts of individual subjects, and trying this out, i found that learning to craft them could result in better pen portraits. but how and why became clear when i read about portraiture. lawrence-lightfoot examined her personal experiences of being painted by a skilled artist and reflected on how the finished portrait captured her essence in ways that she had not anticipated (lawrence-lightfoot et al., 1997, 2005). from this she put forward a methodology for writing detailed word portraits that is academically sound. furthermore, in her methodological exploration she questions what makes a film or literature – even works that describes specific rather than universal issues – have general relevance. for example, how can pontoppidan’s lucky per (1898-1904), a danish ‘coming of age’ novel describing a specific young man’s difficulty in adapting to cultural and religious norms, have a broader importance or appeal? it can because the novel touches on common human themes and does so through descriptions of atmosphere, background, and especially human relations that even if subjective seem to apply to all of us. just as a good painting can capture an essence, an ambience, an embedded truth, even though it portrays a single m. høyen: writing with new journalism and portraiture qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 87-109 ©2023 99 person or phenomenon, so, too, can a written portrait. therefore, it makes sense that the researcher should not only consider the larger history when interpreting a small story – one that relates to a single case – but also when writing a text to communicate their findings. as mentioned earlier, teachers in nature-related subjects are often perceived differently to those in cultural and language-based subjects. as scientists, they are representatives of a sector that holds a dominant position in society. in schools, their specialist teaching rooms are often physically separate resulting in limited contact with other colleagues. for historical reasons, they do not contribute significantly to the school’s general education making them even more isolated. thomas is aware of this, and his views are captured in the portrait: “why don’t we consider natural science to be part of general education? that is something, thomas often wonders about. it is a matter of course in school that the students learn about literature and history but nothing about natural sciences. we certainly could claim that nature is as important for the general education as culture is, but this is not the case today. for thomas this is a huge dilemma. on the one hand natural science, and technology as well, have never been so widespread and embedded in most aspects of our existence, at society level as well as in everyday life. on the other hand, most people know less and less about natural science and technology. even a simple understanding of physics and chemistry has been excluded from our lives.” it is partly because of such reflections, that i wish to address teachers’ professional lives in a broad sense. by fully considering the detail of his everyday life, i am able to redress the science teacher’s isolation by presenting thomas as one who daily considers his options about how best to practice his profession, just like every other teacher. therefore, i draw out the similarities between the science teacher and his colleagues in the cultural and language subjects making him appear part of the larger group. in this way, his story – one that is grounded in a specific social and historical context – contributes to familiarising readers with the issues that many teachers struggle with. m. høyen: writing with new journalism and portraiture qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 87-109 ©2023 100 i weave thomas’s own words into his portrait to achieve authenticity. some relate to facts; others express his reflections on significant moments in his lived experience. drawing on literature and established sources such as professional journals, i deepen the description beyond what thomas actually told me. later, based on his/her own experiences, i hope that the reader will assemble his/her own connections. my making of the portrait having described the two inspirations for how i work with portraits – new journalism and portraiture – let’s consider how i actually made thomas’s portrait. we have seen that i interviewed eight teachers. i had visited each of their schools, describing its geographical location, history and demography, and the social characteristics of the catchment. i then considered my options: which interviewee reflected in depth on being a teacher with a university degree within natural science? which interviewee best voiced considerations about the school subject itself and in relation to the role of teacher? who would best fit my purpose of expressing views on nature? these were not questions i had asked in advance but ones that arose when i viewed all my interview material. i selected thomas’s story, but i could have chosen differently. the other seven interviews were not discarded; on the contrary, insights from them provided a background for the crafting of thomas’s portrait. in many ways, thomas typified his generation, people from his social class and their educational choices, their concerns about how to educate students within the natural sciences. this was a key reason for choosing to tell his story. using the transcript of the interview with thomas, i began to ‘paint’ (verbally) the scenery around the interview. it took place in a specific location in a part of denmark with specific historical roots. on the one hand, this was a medieval town that, due to a convenient geographical location, occupied a significant position in merchant trading, home and abroad, whose specialised craft professions later developed into minor industries. on the other hand, it was a town that became central to the building of the social democratic welfare state, which certainly had its bearings on the city. these particularities did not influence thomas directly but affected the atmosphere around the school and its students through the parents, their social positions and cultural values, attitudes towards education and the possibilities in the nearby labour market. m. høyen: writing with new journalism and portraiture qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 87-109 ©2023 101 i then considered my ethnographic observations of thomas’s workplace, using them to supplement my description of the area. i had taken lots of photos that enabled me to remember and reflect on this unique place and compare it to the contexts of the other interviews. such comparison provoked me to reflect on the significance of the social backgrounds of thomas’s students’ and consider how their everyday physical surroundings, would influence the students’ and their families’ daily lives. other teachers i have interviewed worked in city schools where historic buildings made it impossible to escape the weight of society’s traditional institutions such as the church and the state. not so, this place. the school was one of the very few public institutions at the border between the town’s industrial area and the surrounding rural area. the atmosphere around thomas’s school was carefully planned to ensure traffic safety for everybody and to encourage social mobility, not for the individual but the collective. this aim was also mirrored in the school building: the school was – like others built in that period – made from solid materials crafted explicitly for young children’s needs, and later rebuilt to support new ideas of learning (see also work from mcleod & rasmussen, 2021). as with other interviews, i had spent hours in thomas’s school before actually meeting thomas. i observed empty corridors and areas during class hours, as well as how these places became populated with students between classes. i witnessed a child breaking his arm and saw how well-prepared the staff were to deal with this. i studied pictures and posters about this-and-that, saw how even the floor had an educational purpose in pictorially depicting danish history, how footprints were painted in the dining area to nudge children to remember to dispose of their waste properly, and how children were encouraged to do group work outside class … and much more. when i actually met thomas – we had agreed to meet at the school’s entrance even though i had already spent hours at the premises – we went off to his room. my observations now changed to focus on thomas and his relations to his social and physical surroundings, and we had chatted while walking to the place for the interview. a teacher’s room is rare in danish schools. it is classes that have rooms not teachers, but traditionally some natural science subjects are an exception, as safety regulations must be met. and being a physics teacher, thomas shared a room with colleagues teaching the same subject but, in many ways, he had his ‘own’ room for he was seen as ‘the boss’ in the sense of m. høyen: writing with new journalism and portraiture qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 87-109 ©2023 102 the ‘go to’ for any subject-related matter in the school’s small group of natural science teachers. i had started the interview with a broad request for thomas to tell me about his life but due to a previous written invitation to participate in my project, he already knew that i was interested particularly in his life as a natural scientist and schoolteacher. at intervals, i prompted him to describe elements from his everyday life, science as a subject, his encounters with teaching, of students and their backgrounds, his future expectations and his relationship with other teachers and the school in general. i later transcribed the interview, turning the life story into a history (after goodson, 2001), paying attention to turning points in thomas’s life (after denzin, 1995) as well as his use of language (bruner, 2004). when writing up, and inspired by new journalism and portraiture, i paid interest to both process and product considering my process to be similar to a painter’s work which, initially, puts a background on the canvas, then makes rough sketches, possibly using a palette which captures the atmosphere around the motif. the painter may make various attempts to capture the essence of the motif. these may – or may not – greatly alter, or even erase, the initial work. my process was a parallel one. the school as an institution and the protagonist’s social conditions serve as background. the ethnographic observation serves as lighter shades and my imagination provides further texture as i reflect on things i do not know precisely. for example, in relation to thomas, i found myself wondering, ‘if i opened a drawer in thomas’s teaching room, how would it be organised?’ although i never actually looked into any drawers. thinking like this enabled my thoughts to become clearer. as i have interviewed many teachers from similar backgrounds about comparable topics, i have a feel for what i need, and this familiarity provides depth to the portrait even though extraneous material will not be mentioned directly. altogether, i aim to write a full portrait which delineates a life seen from the interviewee’s perspective but, at the same time, this is written with the reader in mind: a reader who at the outset has little interest in teachers of natural science. coming to an end of the portrait, thomas reflects on his life by looking back on his earlier experiences: “thomas acknowledges that he, as the years have passed, has become a more nuanced man, and that he today has found hidden sides of himself. he even m. høyen: writing with new journalism and portraiture qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 87-109 ©2023 103 experiences having poetic and philosophical thoughts. maybe it is because he has become older, but also because he, from being a teacher – not too long ago – suddenly understood how he himself had experienced his childhood. his memories from his schooldays were that things were not always easy. the explanation was the simple one that thomas was a gifted child. it is only recently that we have started to talk about this phenomenon in the ordinary school system and acknowledge that such children are present in schools – hence thomas’s challenges were not recognized when he was at school. for thomas this was a discovery that made things fall into place and made room for new thoughts. for example, now he dares to question the idea that being interested in a natural science subject should automatically exclude one from the discussion of the aims for general education.” viewed overall, this is not a portrait constructed as an ideal type following a weber-perspective (rosenberg, 2016), a ‘fictionalisation’ (breen, 2017) or a creative ethnography (richardson, 2002). it is a carefully constructed portrait made from a biographical interview and an analysis of the interviewee’s position within his profession as a teacher. when creating the portrait, i have used thomas’s own story, the social and material structures within which the story sits, setting the story in his work context, the contemporary society, school and the teaching profession, of which he is part. all together this is a construction of a text with the aim of communicating thomas’s position and dispositions in the social space, his work as a teacher within the teaching profession itself. i will finish my description of the making of the portrait with the last words from the portrait of thomas. these sentences end the portrait but, in reality, they were never said as they appear here. they were small utterances among the biographical tellings, surfacing between my questions, thomas’s answers, and mutual reflections during the interview. i chose to end the portrait by showcasing the tension thomas faces existentially between the all-to-well-known social position of his primary family and his later professional position. a division anyone who has climbed the social ladder knows only too well. “today thomas thrives being a university educated teacher in the public school. he enjoys his subject, loves to communicate about it, and he has good m. høyen: writing with new journalism and portraiture qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 87-109 ©2023 104 colleagues he discusses things with and is happy to help if anyone ask him to. the only thing which is a bit sad has to do with his family. when, at special occasions, he meets up with his siblings – they haven’t anything to talk about anymore really …” post-academic writing? now, i want to consider how writing a portrait the way described above is an example of post-academic writing. on the one hand, it is written in ordinary rather than non-academic words and can be understood by broader audiences, as badley (2019) identifies. furthermore, a portrait, and definitely the portrait quoted in this article, is not a view from nowhere but from a specific person’s perspective. on the other hand, from a sociological perspective, understanding the social world can never claim to be neutral but positioned according to societal power structures. for thomas, this is about being a child born in a petit bourgeoise family at the brink of the breakthrough of the welfare state around 1960 with increased support for education and consequently free admission to the university with no consideration of later employability for anyone who wanted to study. this is also about his choice of profession, for his master’s in science was followed by a year-long attempt to enter daycare and public schools. for the first, he was rejected for his lack of knowledge about how to work with children, at a time when the early-years area strived to professionalise and did not welcome other or alternative perspectives. for the second, he was rejected for his lack of knowledge about teaching. both daycare pedagogues and public-school teachers have strong historical roots and a strong tradition, and fight for their exclusive right to define their field within the teaching profession. that certainly does not include anyone who has not passed the profession’s formal teacher education. nor, thirdly, were the publics schools particularly sympathetic to the natural sciences despite their status within contemporary social discourse. altogether, thomas faced a three-fold battle for the right to belong. in my view, and from a sociological perspective, it is precisely conflicts like these that post-academic writing should address. tensions within the social space need to be examined from both broad and subjective perspectives to be better understood and to enable positive change to occur. julia cameron, a teacher of creative writing, raises relevant issues in her popular book on spirituality and creativity (cameron, 1992). she reminds her readers that in order m. høyen: writing with new journalism and portraiture qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 87-109 ©2023 105 to connect with the world, people must pay attention, something that researchers, in my experience, often pass over. as academics, we consider ethical claims, analyse through theory, apply methods to get data, talk about methodology, ontology, and epistemology, etc., which is all good and right. but do we really pay attention when doing research? do we continually ask: what is important here? what does not count? what is unthinkable, and why? we should continuously pay attention to what we study, especially when humans are involved. sociological imagination (mills, 1959) or ethnographic imagination (atkinson, 1990) might help us partly achieve this, but we need to learn to pay attention in the moment where things occur, or surface, and describe these for others carefully, to convey a person’s perspective in a way that attracts readers and is therefore read. when reading “his” portrait, thomas was happy, feeling that i had managed to capture and express the spirit of his story! m. høyen: writing with new 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(1965). the last american hero. esquire. about the author: who am i? once a civil engineer, then business graduate who finally joined the humanities and sociology. steeped in bourdieu, i later embraced biographical and narrative research methods and more creative ways to introduce individuals and their lifestyles to a general audience. experimenting with ideas from journalism and the broader arts i try to communicate clearly across academic boundaries, to encourage those in other fields to pay attention to the needs and warnings of those from other disciplines or no discipline at all, so that we can learn to live sustainably. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.0022-3840.1975.0901_241.x introduction the portrait and its context “thomas, a male teacher, is 58 years old. he works as a schoolteacher in a medium-sized school in a larger city in the provinces. although thomas works as a teacher, if we want to draw on the connotations which follow when talking about teachers, thin... communicating to a reader new journalism portraiture my making of the portrait post-academic writing? now, i want to consider how writing a portrait the way described above is an example of post-academic writing. on the one hand, it is written in ordinary rather than non-academic words and can be understood by broader audiences, as badley (2019) ident... julia cameron, a teacher of creative writing, raises relevant issues in her popular book on spirituality and creativity (cameron, 1992). she reminds her readers that in order to connect with the world, people must pay attention, something that resear... when reading “his” portrait, thomas was happy, feeling that i had managed to capture and express the spirit of his story! references qualitative studies vol. 8, no. 1, 2023, pp. 314-333 issn 1903-7031 musical participation in studies of creativity dan hvidtfeldt1 1zealand academy of technologies and business, maglegaardsvej 2, 4000 roskilde, denmark this article explores new ideas towards qualitatively exploring and writing about musical creative processes within different domains. the inspiration for the theoretical points made are from the world of music and the practices of musicians, but the analysis and conclusions of the article discusses musicality as a general phenomenon. it is part of an ongoing research project within cultural psychology, seeking to understand how creative processes develop in dialog with the physical, social and cultural surroundings. using the example of the music performance and music festivals, the article specifically discusses how ephemeral, social, emergent phenomena depend on musicality in creative processes. the article describes, how both a technical, mathematical and an ambiguous, poetic language is relevant when describing and writing about musical creative processes. further, it argues how written studies of musically emergent, creative processes demands a close, dialogical relationship to the specific domain, beyond e.g. the phenomenological interview approach a relationship, enabling the researcher to speak and write freely about musicality within the studied field, actively participate and engage with the processes around the explored phenomena with intuition, engagement and, essentially, musicality. keywords: musicality, emergence, creativity, socio-materiality, qualitative methodology, academic writing introduction: writing about musical creativity this article discusses the difficulties of and ideas towards methodologically exploring and writing about the musical creative processes. the inspiration comes predominantly from my work with music, musicians and music festivals, but when i, throughout the article, write “musical”, i refer to a broader and more general definition of the term, reaching far beyond the practices of musicians. when exploring the musicality of creative processes, i refer to the processes related to socio-material interaction more generally, as we find it in creative situations related to the production of major festival events, to the restaurant managers who seek to bring people together, all the way down to the https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0103-6665 d. hvidtfeldt: musical participation in studies of creativity qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 314-333 ©2023 315 communication between people in conversations. all social situations can be more or less “musical” (hansen, 1990). the danish author (and musician) peter bastian outright defined musicality as “tonal emergence” (bastian, 1987, 2012) – an ability to make things, in his example notes, rhythm, harmonies, acoustics, material elements of the concert hall – come together in living, vibrant phenomena. along these lines, this article broadly explores the musicality of socially emergent phenomena and specifically, ideas towards methodologically exploring and writing about them. hence, in short, the purpose of the following paper is to begin the development of a language for musicality relevant for the methodological exploration of and writings about musical creative processes of emergence. vignette: a language for living, musical phenomena? but before i rush into theoretical discussions, as a backdrop to the research presented in this article, i find it relevant to begin with real world experience of musicality, as it describes the starting point of the theoretical and methodological ideas presented – the experience exemplifies the challenges of exploring, writing and even talking about musicality and “emergent phenomena”, that i wish to describe and discuss in the paper. for several years, i have been working at roskilde festival, the largest music and arts festival in northern europe1. each july, 130,000 people gather in roskilde denmark for the festival – in 2023 to celebrate the 51st edition of the major event. at the office curating the arts and music program, where i worked for four years as an industrial phdstudent, the festival “spirit” was present all year long. as a newly employed phd-student at the department of psychology, writing my dissertation on the creative processes forming the major event, i soon realized that both the character of and processes leading to the “result” – the product of the hard labor of the many participants – were hard to describe for people working in the festival organization. many of my collogues had been employed for several years and possessed central positions in the festival hierarchy – still, it seemed difficult for (even) the festival management to describe what defined the major event, vital elements of its constitution and how it specifically differentiated from other festivals. when asked, in the interviews i conducted for my research project, the obvious facts where often presented: roskilde festival was, for example, different to other 1 for more information on the history of roskilde festival, see www.roskildefestival.dk/en/about/the-festival http://www.roskilde-festival.dk/en/about/the-festival http://www.roskilde-festival.dk/en/about/the-festival d. hvidtfeldt: musical participation in studies of creativity qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 314-333 ©2023 316 festivals in denmark in terms of the number of participants. roskilde festival is created by 130,000 participants, while the other festivals in denmark are much smaller. also, the music program was described as different and highly diverse, compared to other festivals. but these arguments – as often consented by the informants – did not capture the true “nature” or “spirit” of the event, although roskilde festival was typically described as having its own “character” – a mysterious, living, social, cultural and ritual “phenomenon” (hvidtfeldt & tanggaard, 2019). also, part of my task as a researcher was to interview musicians performing at the festivals – they also found it difficult to describe the character of the event, and thereby the challenges they met, when performing in the large festival space (hvidtfeldt & tanggaard, 2018) – they talked “around” the phenomenon, but found it hard to address it directly. i began to wonder about the nature of “musical phenomena” in general. i engrossed myself in a research project, which this article is based on, seeking to understand how these types of musical phenomena develop in creative processes and in this regard, for this article, the methodologies relevant for the exploration of how we can describe and write about the creative processes leading to results that are not tangible, but fundamentally social and ephemeral (see also hvidtfeldt, 2019). research focus: how do we explore and describe the indescribable? it was difficult for both the musicians and the festival participants i interviewed to put their musicality into words and thereby describe their creative processes directly, but it is arguably important to develop qualitative methodologies that enable us to explore and understand how our world develops creatively in social communities – just like it is important to explore creative processes leading to tangible products, typically studied in the psychological literature (glăveanu, 2016b; jacucci & wagner, 2007; tanggaard, 2014). in researching creativity as musical practice – understood broadly, beyond the ones just musicians engage in – it thus becomes relevant to explore how we are able to qualitatively converse and write about musicality – the research focus of this article is therefore asking two questions: (1) what characterizes a “musical” creative language? (2) what does an analytical focus on creative processes of musically, emergent phenomena demand of the researcher empirically exploring and writing about it? experienced musicians have no trouble rationally describing what their music is about, as the world of music is a well-established language they use when communicating on d. hvidtfeldt: musical participation in studies of creativity qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 314-333 ©2023 317 notes, harmonies, metrics etc., just like the festival organizers i was working with knew exactly how to describe and work with the individual elements of the major event. but in order to explore and understand the musical and creative processes and the true character of the emerging phenomena, within various domains and from both a methodological and epistemological perspective, it became relevant to explore “languages for musicality” and their relevance for qualitative, written studies of creative, emergent processes. in an effort to theoretically position the article and link back to my previous work on the subject, the following section begins by presenting how creativity can be seen as a sociomaterial practice dependent on musicality. theoretical background: creativity seen as a musical practice psychological studies of creativity are interdisciplinary and diverse (kaufman & sternberg, 2021). typically from various theoretical perspectives, they focus on developing new understandings of creative products, persons, processes or situations in which the work takes place. the research tradition, to which this article contributes, has developed in line with a more general “material turn” in the social and human sciences (hastrup, 2011), perceiving creativity as a transactional process involving both intraand extra-psychological processes in a constant, irreversible dialog between inner “mind” and outer “world” (glǎveanu, 2010; glăveanu et al., 2014; glǎveanu & tanggaard, 2014; tanggaard, 2011, 2013, 2014). whereas some – especially in the earlier studies – emphasize personal traits, cognition and psychometric measurement as core elements of creativity, a cultural psychological socio-material perspective is underlining – inspired by for example james gibson and bruno latour – that mental processes are not limited by the skin: when we work creatively, we tap into and depend on the “knowledge” of the environment. both in the sense that we stand on the shoulders of others, and do not constantly start all over and invent from scratch, but also in the sense that the materials we engage in in creative work guide us and deliver cultural and social knowledge that afford specific actions (gibson, 1979; glăveanu, 2016a). the physical environment is therefore not passively framing, but actively shaping our way of life with all its history, materiality, potentials, barriers and qualities. we get inspired by someone or something, and sometimes we (hopefully) provide a little bit of inspiration to our surroundings. it might be a highly unconscious process, d. hvidtfeldt: musical participation in studies of creativity qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 314-333 ©2023 318 but “the new” does not appear out of the blue in isolated mental processes – it often develops, when we engage with the surroundings and take them in, no matter if it is nature, people, bodily aspects, musical instruments, social settings with specific practices or rituals. in practice, the painter engages with the painting as it unfolds on the canvas and the musician communicates in an intimate dialog with the violin when performing. the painting or the music is not developed in a finite form inside the head of the artist, but as a work of art, in a socio-material, improvised process. in the words of anthropologists tim ingold and elizabeth hallam (2007, p. 3), “the creativity of our imaginative reflections is inseparable from our performative engagements with the material that surrounds us”. the physical, material contexts of creative processes should arguably not be understood as passive frameworks for individual mental processes, but rather as substantial components of creativity in itself (tanggaard, 2013). musicality and emergence in creative processes in recent studies, i have applied and further developed the above presented socio-material take on creativity in explorations of work processes underlying musical practices (hvidtfeldt, 2018, 2019). these studies build on my work at roskilde festival, described in the “vignette” above, in exploring how creative processes sometimes do not lead to tangible, physical objects that can be held in the hand – sometimes, in the rehearsal space or on stage, creative processes lead to music as a performed, social activity (small, 1998), possessing other “material qualities” than that of – let us say – a chair. obviously, music creation is dependent on musical instrument and other physical, tangible materials, but the final result – the music we experience – is temporary and ephemeral. the chair is in a sense also temporary, in that it will disintegrate over the years and eventually collapse (hopefully, empty seated and not underneath an unfortunate dinner guest), but performed music, and other forms of “emergent phenomena”, are fundamentally social and ephemeral – they only exist in the moment and depend on the involvement of and relationship between the specific social elements involved in the process (sawyer, 2005). yet, they hold material qualities, for the creative processes that initially and continuously create them (hvidtfeldt, 2018). in our studies on creative processes, socio-materiality and musicality, lene tanggaard and i have specifically drawn on the philosophical concept of “emergence” in d. hvidtfeldt: musical participation in studies of creativity qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 314-333 ©2023 319 describing the results and material qualities of musical creative processes. in developing a theoretical description of and methodological approaches towards understanding emergent phenomenon as “materials” for creative processes, we are especially inspired by keith sawyer’s (1999, 2000, 2005) work and the late danish author and musician peter bastian’s descriptions of emergence in creative processes. sawyer describes the emergent phenomenon as: [...]not a final end product, like a creative product or a connectionist network end state; it is a constantly changing ephemeral property of the interaction, which in turn influences the emergent processes that are generating it. this results in both top-down and bottom-up processes; the emergent is ‘initially’ created with bottom-up dialogical processes, but immediately it takes on constraining, or topdown, characteristics. (sawyer, 1999, p. 465) sawyer’s conception of emergence is arguably relevant to the understanding of creative processes leading to musical phenomena, as it provides a theoretical framework describing the simultaneous and bi-directional process of emergence. creativity depends on the musical ability to make “things come together”, and that this “emergent whole” immediately has consequences for the creative processes that continuously create it (hvidtfeldt, 2018). emergence is described as an ongoing process, where the whole appears as something “other” than the sum of its parts (ferrell, 2014, p. 436). along similar lines, though from the specific perspective of the musician, peter bastian wrote: when things are not working out, you have chaos. chaos is not death; it is a potential death or a potential life. it can go either way. chaos means that there is a diversity, but disorder. the aspiration when creating music is a tremendously complex articulated unity, and that is cosmos. chaos is a great place to be. it is the border between the old and the uncreated. it can go either way towards death or towards life. as a creative person, you do everything you can to go in the d. hvidtfeldt: musical participation in studies of creativity qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 314-333 ©2023 320 direction of life. towards greater intimacy, towards a situation where things start to play together or emerge, to use a foreign word. lyhne (2011) [translated by the author] both sawyer and bastian provide articulate notions of musical creative work and what creative people, who develop socially emergent phenomena, strive to achieve. still, they leave many questions out in the open and leave no clues as to how to reach the goal: sometimes it works, sometimes it does not and sometimes music arises into something “in itself”. “something” that cannot be reduced to the sum of the parts, but that arises when “everything” falls into place and makes sense as a meaningful, musical phenomenon. therefore, to begin to experiment with the theoretical framework introducing emergence theory to a socio-material perspective on creativity, with the ultimate ambition to develop new understandings of how, when and why musically emergent phenomena appear, lene tanggaard and i began to empirically explore the creative processes of musicians – though from our perspective, musicians cannot take out a patent on “musicality”. this is both because musicality is named after the practice of performing music, probably because it is a natural outlet of the quality we write about, and also because i have been working as a musician for many years, and therefore understand the rational, technical language of the domain very well. specifically, we were interested in understanding how musicians developed their musical products in dialog with “materials” involved in the processes (hvidtfeldt & tanggaard, 2018). generally, we concluded, among other arguments, that the musicality of creative processes within the field demands fragility (see some of the narrative presented below). secondly, we began to broaden the empirical exploration, and applied the developed theoretical framework in an exploration of roskilde festival as a musical, emergent phenomenon (hvidtfeldt & tanggaard, 2019) – in both cases acknowledging that the creative product (the emergent phenomenon) is, in reality, immaterial and temporal by nature. still, we argued, despite the ephemeral, living nature of results of the creative processes – the music performed or the music festival itself – that the socio-material transaction between creative “person” and “product” was evident, in both cases, in the empirical material. musicians use the ephemeral, emergent phenomenon as a material reference, guiding the creative process d. hvidtfeldt: musical participation in studies of creativity qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 314-333 ©2023 321 forwards and the roskilde festival participant involves the festival, seen as an emergent phenomenon, as a material to the process (hvidtfeldt, 2019). in summary, the above presented explorations of both musicians, specifically, and festival participants work processes, generally, where i define creativity as dependent on musicality. inspired especially by glăveanu (2010), mason (2003) and sternberg (2006), i define creativity as ‘acting in and on the world, in new and musical ways’ (hvidtfeldt, 2020, p. 30). typically, creativity is simply defined as novelty + appropriateness (amabile, 2018; sternberg & kaufmann, 2018), where “appropriate” serves as an umbrella-term broadly relevant within different domains. here, in relation to the exploration of creative processes leading to emergent phenomena, the musical is exactly understood to be appropriate and why the term seems more accurate in the definition: creativity is therefore understood as a musical process making social situations meaningful; an process, bringing together a multitude of chaotic elements (being notes, rhythms, harmonies or other elements of musicians performances or stages, acoustics or participants involved in the creation of the music festival as a social event etc.) into a cohesive, living unity – the emergent phenomenon. creativity is here, in other words, defined as a concerted, musical effort. i the following section, i leave this introduction to the theoretical background of the study, and begin my exploration of the two research questions presented above. firstly, what characterizes the musical language used when communicating about the creation of emergent phenomena? languages of musical creativity sentences, formulated by bastian, sawyer and myself, repeating notions of “sometimes, something, phenomena, wholes, other and everything” when describing processes of emergence are vague – just like the interviews from roskilde festival on musicality and emergence presented in the introduction tended to be. these are slippery concepts (probably why they are also alluring), however, it would be conducive to studies of musical creative processes leading to emergent phenomena to take a step just a little closer in an exploration of how, when and why emergent phenomenon appear, and further, how they can be studied and written about. musical, emergent phenomena are something special and it is in a sense tempting to leave them as these mystical objects out of reach, d. hvidtfeldt: musical participation in studies of creativity qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 314-333 ©2023 322 but from a scientific point of view, we need more solid ground and established methods for the exploration of the trajectory towards these ephemeral creative results – where we cannot describe the emergent phenomenon directly, we can work on the development of methods enabling us to understand and write about prerequisites for their development. for that, we need a well-established language on musicality, useful in dialog with practitioners and other informants, as well as methods that enable us to get close to the creative, musical processes. in an effort to understand the creative processes related to the development of emergent phenomena, the following sections attempts to take the first methodological steps towards understanding the musical language inherent to the creative processes, seen as a socio-material practice, leading to musical, emergent phenomena. musicality has, over the past 100 years or so of studies on the subject (gembris, 1997), been defined in a number of ways – here, in an early attempt to begin the development of language for writing about and methodologically exploring musicality of emergent processes, two broad and opposing categories of understandings are presented. these two “languages for musicality” should be understood as overall, idealized categories of arguments pointing in the same direction, and again, i return to the world of music as a good example and my “mother tongue”, though musicality can be found in many other situations. an oxymoron: musicality as mathematical and ambiguous language in a sense, music is math. when learning how to play the drum set, when i was around 12 years old, my teacher at the local music school thought me how to understand and read the different musical symbols in the notation system: metrical rhythms written within bars, with specific time signatures, measures, pauses and note values notated on a staff – a mathematical notation system, describing how to play rhythms, using specific drums and cymbals in certain tempos. the challenge was, first and foremost, to keep the tempo and coordinate arms and legs, so that the music was played “right”. in that sense, music is a mathematical, rational challenge that – as the student gradually progress and learns to master the instrument and read the sheets – can be “figured out” and played “correctly”. musicality – understood as an ability of musicians to produce music – was originally studied using these terms. one of the first attempts to define musicality was developed by seashore (1919, 1967), with the ambition to measure people’s abilities to work with d. hvidtfeldt: musical participation in studies of creativity qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 314-333 ©2023 323 and understand music. if, for a second, we turn to a general understanding of musicality, festival producers have rational, technical abilities and knowledge relevant for the production of major events, such as knowledge on sound systems, crowd safety and logistics. just like the restaurant manager, who seeks to develop the musical experiences for their costumers, they have technical rational understandings of for example how to prepare food, arrange the dining room and provide good service at the tables. but let us return to the world of music, as it is such a good example of musicality. in another sense, music is abstruse and ambiguous: a “poetic” language, communicating emotions, touching our feelings, like nothing else. music is, in this sense, not about what is right or wrong – it is communicating sounds, harmonies, dynamics, but it is not evaluated in a distinct, numeric sense – but from this understanding a “mathematically bad” performance, with bad pitch, inconsistent tempo or bad interplay between the musicians in the group, can still be the best – and most musical! performance profoundly engaging the audience (see e.g. bonde, 2011). peter bastian writes about this distinction between mathematical and poetic language: the sentence: ‘she is neither beautiful nor ugly, and still she is the most beautiful creature i have ever seen’, is immediately understandable; we know what the author is talking about and recognize the emotional state. if we had unambiguously defined the meaning of the word beautiful, the sentence would become meaningless and of the type: ‘the book costs neither five nor ten euro, and still it costs ten euro. so, we see that by refraining from unambiguity in the parts, we can achieve an astoundingly comprehensive and precise whole. bastian (1987, p. 18)2 [translated by the author] 2 original quote: ”sætningen: “hun er hverken smuk eller grim, og alligevel er hun det smukkeste væsen jeg nogensinde har set”, er umiddelbart forståelig; vi ved godt hvad forfatteren taler om og genkender følelsestilstanden. – havde vi nu lagt os entydigt fast på hvad ordet smuk betyder, ville sætningen være meningsløs og af typen: “bogen koster hverken fem eller ti kr., og alligevel koster den ti kr”. så vi kan se, at vi ved at afstå fra entydigheden i delene, kan opnå en forbløffende omfattende og præcis helhed’. ” d. hvidtfeldt: musical participation in studies of creativity qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 314-333 ©2023 324 scholars like adorno (adorno, 1984) were among the first to criticize the positivist, mathematical perspective on musicality, seeking to measure musical abilities, in arguing that the meaning of music is left out. sloboda defines musicality as the ‘ability to make sense of music.’ (1993, p. 106), whereas stefani argues that musical competence is the “ability to produce sense through music’ (1987, p. 7). using similar terms, blacking describes musical intelligence as the ‘cognitive and affective equipment of the brain with which people make musical sense of the world’ (1990, p. 72). hence, musicality arguably demands other qualities than the “right ones” – as pointed out in the below quote, computers in the world by far outshine humans in terms of musical qualities, if the opposite was the case: ”computers with appropriate software could do better than most humans on tests of pitch, melody, and rhythm included in music aptitude measures, but they certainly are not more musical than humans.” (gembris, 1997, p. 20) along similar lines, one could wander about the consequences for the musical experiences of other types of emergent phenomena, if merely relying on the rational, technical abilities of the concept. the festival organizers, who i encountered in the organization, found it hard to find a language for their creative process but arguably had some collective ability to work with the ambiguities of the event in a manner that most participants – based on the 50 years of success of the event – would agree is highly musical. although the presentation of musicality as a technical, mathematical ability that can be measured seems static (and perhaps antiquated), when we talk about musicality in the creative processes leading to emergent phenomena, we are arguably in need of both the rational and ambiguous categories. namely because the emergent phenomenon is irreducible; it cannot be understood based on a partial, reductionist analysis or descriptions – the parts can be described individually, but the emergent phenomenon is “out of reach”, so to speak, which is why the gathering of empirical material, analysis and synthesis seems limited, if primarily relying on one or the other language. d. hvidtfeldt: musical participation in studies of creativity qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 314-333 ©2023 325 examples from the world of music how are these two overall categories of languages present in methodological explorations of musical creative processes of emergence? in the following, i begin in the world of music and describe how i see them as relevant for studying the practices of musicians and, from there, develop a more general argument on what kinds of writings this methodology allows for. math – the rational, distinct language – is a core component of music. it should be part of the research frame and vocabulary, if researching the musicality of musicians in their creative processes. also, the ambiguous language is present, all the time, when interviewing musicians. to give a concrete example from a recent paper, where lene tanggaard and i (2018) explored musicians’ involvement of digital “zeroes and ones” in musical processes on stage, a key point made was that the musical way to involve computers on stage is to “crack the code”. whereas the challenge in the analogue era was to “make things come together”, the challenge in the digital age is to make things “fall apart”. some of the main arguments of the article are that emergence depends on “fragility”, “taking risks” and “imperilling the situation”. here are some examples of how the musicians describe their approach towards musicality in processes of emergence: “one should have the experience, that the music comes alive (app. d:43); ‘you need some chaos, you need a ’margin of error’ before the music can live’ (app. f:95); ‘one could say, that the reason why we bring “real”, or analogue instruments, with us on stage – it is exactly to make the concert more vivacious’ (app. c:33): ‘in reality, it is actually just a matter of having something at stake. it is extremely important. i’m not a guitarist, but i play. i really do my best. i’m really into it. really. i have to play the music to feel that i am passing it on to someone.’ (app. i:162); ‘even though you do actually know that of course bruce willis will not die, the mood of ‘will he make it?’ makes the situation exciting. reaching that d. hvidtfeldt: musical participation in studies of creativity qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 314-333 ©2023 326 point in a performance is just great. and that goes for all genres, all ages. i’m absolutely sure about that.’ (app. f:105) (hvidtfeldt, 2019, appendix b-i) the informants use both their mathematical and technical terms as well as an abstract, metaphoric language in their description of their creative practice. in the above quotes, the dialog is woven back and forth between the two, with technical, “grammatic”, symbolic and metaphorical nuances. their creative process could not be expressed using only one or the other – it evolved in a living, open, inspired transactional dialog. my work, as an interviewer and researcher, would not be possible with an understanding of, or language for, only one or the other. both abstract and technical conversations on how emergent phenomena serve as material for ongoing musical creative processes sets high lingual and domain-specific knowledge demands for both interviewer and interviewee. bilingual engagement with the creative process in this section, i will approach the broader, general understanding of musicality in creative processes of emergence and methodological challenges related to exploring and writing about them. in my research practice, related to both the development of my dissertation (hvidtfeldt, 2019) and ongoing work on creativity and musicality (see e.g. hvidtfeldt, 2018; hvidtfeldt & tanggaard, 2019, 2021), much of my empirical material has been developed in close dialog with a field i have been engaged with as a practitioner. i have, as a musician, interviewed and observed other musicians, as we were working together on recordings. also, i have written about creative processes at the roskilde festival where i have been a guest, volunteer and phd candidate employed in the organization. i have taken part in the production process, on equal terms with the other musicians and festival participants; a special position which has given me a place and opportunity to explore creative processes up-close. i needed to get close to and explore how creative processes unfold, as processes with the informants are often unpredictable and fragile. hence, the methodological argument for exploring musicians at this close range was to approach the creative process with specific knowledge of both technical and abstract dimensions of the domain and, arguably, the “musicality”. it is difficult – in retrospect – to explain how d. hvidtfeldt: musical participation in studies of creativity qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 314-333 ©2023 327 music was created using written or spoken terms, and fundamentally put “music into words”. what i needed to gain access to was the lifeworlds of the “musical experts” – especially inspired by kvale and brinkmann (kvale & brinkmann, 2015) and tanggaard and brinkmann (tanggaard & brinkmann, 2015), to perceive in the interviews using phenomenological lenses, emphasizing, for example, the importance of putting “brackets” around the interviewer and openly asking the informants about their experiences with the musical practice. the challenge for me, as the interviewer, was to gain access to the “essence” of the explored phenomenon, without challenging the perspectives presented by the informants and without bias, to explore what is understood is intersubjectively valid (jacobsen et al., 2015), seen as the “truth” about the given subject. i did so, knowing that my informants would challenge me and knowing that i would challenge them, as i had epistemic ambitions of exploring and developing a specific theoretical position. the interviews relevant for exploring musical creative processes of emergence will often be characterized as “elitist interviews” (harvey, 2011), with informants in a relatively strong position, holding substantial domain relevant knowledge. therefore, it is arguably relevant, as a contrast, to leave behind the phenomenological principles and push the informants a little bit and challenge their position. access to the required material – the musical lifeworlds – is arguably only possible if engaging in a dialog using both the mathematical and the ambiguous languages of the domain; of speaking fluently both of (as the unit of analyses) and with musicality within the domain. this is a methodological position that enables the interviewer to challenge positions in a trustworthy and confidence-inspiring manner. the languages of different domains are obviously not the same – the interviewer needs to build an intuitive, technical and ambiguous understanding of the field, be it service industries, theatre, music or other social processes, and this is why research skills on musical creativity are not easily transferred. further, it is paramount, from an ethical perspective (brinkmann, 2012), to build trust with the informant who too puts something at risk. it is a challenging, fragile situation, and trust needs to be built, and while general social skills are naturally relevant, a “feel” for the domain specific bilingual engagement is key to the exploration d. hvidtfeldt: musical participation in studies of creativity qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 314-333 ©2023 328 of creative practices, as it allows a conversation where both interviewee and interviewer can read between the lines, and new knowledge on musical engagement can develop. if perceiving the qualitative studies of musical, creative practice in themselves, it demands having something at stake. the phenomenological approach seeks more passive engagements, putting brackets around the interviewer, enabling a “essential” understanding of the studied phenomenon. but if the studied creative process is the musical phenomenon, i would argue the interviewer needs to have something at stake too – something that cracks the interview situation and mathematical language around music, so that the interview-situation develops as a creative, musical process in itself. writing about the indescribable? what consequences does this have for writing about various kinds of musical practices and emergent phenomena? how is it possible to write about a lived practice and its knowledge that flow between practitioners and hardly can be put into words? it cannot – obviously – be described in any direct manner, but with the above presented argument for a “lived”, musical methodological approach, i will argue that the mediation of creative practices in written form demands some of the same skills – the quality of a representation of musicality depends on the ability of the writer to translate in a musical manner, synthesizing the analyzed empirical material into a musical and coherent unity, irreducible to the sum of the individual linguistic parts. musicians learn how to play music in apprenticeships and it takes years to develop a profound musical language, as the music teacher cannot directly tell a student how to perform with musicality – it is arguably a major challenge for the researcher to gain access to musical domains, as the dialog in the interviews depends on an intuitive, musical feel only mastered through practice – one needs to be able to “read between the lines“ when exploring the musical. from this perspective, the writing process on creative processes starts early: when forming an intuitive understanding of both the mathematical and the poetic languages of the domain. not to conclude anything specific of the format of academic texts and how certain writing styles are more or less musical – the main argument presented here, is that, for the researcher to formulate anything at all, which is meaningful about musicality of creative processes within any domain, and how emergent phenomena move from “chaos to cosmos”, they need a solid understanding of specific language of the domain. the d. hvidtfeldt: musical participation in studies of creativity qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 314-333 ©2023 329 findings of these studies could obviously be presented in a number of in themselves more or less creative, musical ways, but the packaging is irrelevant, if the present is empty; if the content, the empirical data, is not profoundly saturated with musical meaning. therefore, the first task, when writing about musical creative phenomena, is to get confident as a researcher, with the domain studied, as the interview situation will become superficial and written representation of the findings inexpressive, if all involved actors do not speak the domains specific language of musicality fluently. there is potentially a language barrier between the musical, living domain and the written texts mediating knowledge in the scientific literature, but it can arguably be broken down, if the researcher – building on domain specific experience – interviews, observes and writes, using both the mathematical and ambiguous languages of musicality, about the temporal, fleeting musical material of the emergent phenomenon. conclusions a music journalist once wrote that it is much easier to review a really bad album, than a really good one. it is somehow more difficult to describe why music works, compared to describing why it does not. along similar lines, i have learned, both musicians and the organizers of musical concerts have a really difficult time describing the character of musical phenomena. in further developing a socio-material perspective on creative processes currently developing within cultural psychology, this article seeks to present methodology exploring and describing musical, creative processes leading to emergent phenomena. it finds that the qualitative description of creative processes of emergence demands musical engagement in itself. the implicit, embodied language used by informants, and in the written texts, presenting prerequisites for processes of emergence, relies on a technical, mathematic and an ambiguously abstruse language – it is therefore a complex, musical task of the interviewer or observer to engage in an improvised, informal and equal conversation, challenging positions and intuitively reading between the lines. i would not have had the chance to interview the musicians for my articles without having an intuitive access to their lifeworlds, based on my previous experiences as a musician and festival organizer. rather than putting “brackets” around one’s self, as is d. hvidtfeldt: musical participation in studies of creativity qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 314-333 ©2023 330 typical in phenomenological interviews, the situation must rather be equal, so that all participants have something “at stake”, to make the situation musical in and of itself. academic studies of creative processes, typically communicated in a written language and often based on data from interviews inspired by the phenomenological tradition, are not necessarily capable of capturing and communicating the meanings of music, musicality or creative processes. epistemological ambitions of exploring and writing about the lifeworlds of musical experts – within the various domains where they are found – is a complex, demanding task of the researcher. the arguments presented in this article suggest that studies of and writing about musical creativity demands a bilingual understanding of the specific domain. the researcher needs to translate from a technical and ambiguous musical language, to a written, formal and scientific language, without losing the essential meaning of the lifeworlds presented, which is exactly the temporal, emergent phenomenon. hence, the language barriers between the musical and the written texts mediating knowledge in the scientific literature can be broken down, if the interviewer – building on domain specific knowledge – is able to speak and write freely – having both the mathematical and ambiguous languages of musicality as their 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(2013). the sociomateriality of creativity in everyday life. culture and psychology, 19(1), 20–32. https://doi.org/10.1177/1354067x12464987 tanggaard, l. (2014). the socio-materiality of creativity: a case study of the creative processes in design work (v. p. glăveanu, a. gillespie, & j. valsiner, eds.). routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315866949 tanggaard, l., & brinkmann, s. (2015). interviewet – samtalen som forskningsmetode [the interview – the conversation as research method]. in s. brinkmann & l. tanggaard (eds.), kvalitative metoder – en grundbog [qualitative methods: a textbook] (2nd edition, pp. 29–55). hans reitzels forlag. about the author my background as a musician has shaped my research practice. to me, writing academic texts has become a musical activity, why i generally try to participate, listen, improvise and write based on craftmanship and trust in intuition. in my upcoming work, i explore emergent phenomena within other domains than my stomping ground, the music industry. musical participation in studies of creativity introduction: writing about musical creativity vignette: a language for living, musical phenomena? research focus: how do we explore and describe the indescribable? theoretical background: creativity seen as a musical practice musicality and emergence in creative processes languages of musical creativity an oxymoron: musicality as mathematical and ambiguous language examples from the world of music bilingual engagement with the creative process writing about the indescribable? conclusions references about the author qualitative studies vol. 8, no. 1, 2023, pp. 388-410 issn 1903-7031 banksy’s street art: a catalyst for doctoral criticality and creativity farrah jabeen1 & susan carter2 1school of critical studies in higher education, faculty of education and social work, 74 epsom avenue, epsom, auckland, new zealand 2school of critical studies in higher education, faculty of education and social work, university of auckland, n block. epsom bldg 6en, epsom campus 74 epsom ave, epsom, auckland, 1023, new zealand internationalization of doctoral study means more doctoral writers working across language and cultural borderlands. how can their access to a self-reliant understanding of english language be enabled? how can they acquire the confidence to find their textual voice? how can academics supporting these writers help them to adapt to western cultures of thinking, learning, and communicating? behind this article sits an extensive investigation into how to support international doctoral candidates to make such crossings pleasurably: eight doctoral candidates from across disciplines at the university of auckland, aotearoa new zealand, collectively close-read literary items, and banksy’s street art. the purpose was to deepen understanding of argumentation, critical analysis, rhetoric that persuades, voice and creative positioning. two interactive classroom sessions used banksy’s street art to promote creative thinking about powerful communication. here, we explain how banksy’s graffiti gave a good foundation for the development of analytical skill, socio-political confidence, and cultural learning—and doctoral participants found the courage to be more creative thinkers and thesis writers. keywords: doctoral writing; doctoral identity transition; banksy analysis; creativity; critical analysis how does meaning get into the image? where does it end? and if it ends, what is there beyond? (barthes 1964, p. 152) f. jabeen & s. carter: bansky’s street art qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 388-410 ©2023 389 what do we want? how can we get it? doctoral writers are usually critically analytical in their thinking but often have trouble with textual demonstration of this amongst the nuancing of english language. international candidates whose first language is not english often find it particularly hard to fulfil the academic expectations of text, at the same time crossing the cultural divide between their own language and english (robinson-pant, 2010). culture matters in multiple ways. a definition of culture in this study would need to span linguistic, national, discipline and academic cultures—an entangled mesh of values and habits that inflect doctoral writing. the textual performance required of a phd is complex—text must demonstrate critical analysis, voice, discipline savvy and genre awareness. while creativity can be defined in many ways, our focus is in terms of creativity in doctoral learning and writing. brodin (2018, pp. 656-657), discussing kaufman and beghetto’s (2009) analysis of creativity in relation to the doctoral thesis, concludes that ‘within the context of doctoral education, it can also be added that the concept of independence is frequently associated with doctoral students’ creative process’ (brodin 2016; frick 2011; gardner 2008; lovitts 2008). this creativity-based independence must be accepted by a discourse community with a circular economy where doctoral success depends on examiners, and publication depends on reviewers: as helgerson (1992, p.13) notes ‘texts, nations, individual authors, particular discursive communities—all are both produced and productive, productive of that by which they are produced’. international doctoral candidates who cross cultures and languages must understand the demands of their discourse community as they produce writing—establishing voice, and taking and defending a position are acts of creativity in this context. this article provides empirical evidence of how using banksy’s graffiti to teach critical analysis to a group of international doctoral candidates reinforced their confidence with creative positioning and cultural literacy in their research writing. banksy began political protest street art in the united kingdom in the 1990’s and is well-known around the world for his daring, tenacity, and playful delivery of serious critique shown in stylishly stencilled graphics (banksy, 2001—see too banksy’s existencillism, 2002). the roland barthes epigraph above signals to our use of banksy images for close-reading exercises to elicit meaning-making from the international doctoral participants of the study. f. jabeen & s. carter: bansky’s street art qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 388-410 ©2023 390 the larger study behind this article was led by farrah, who facilitated nine twohour sessions with eight international doctoral candidates from different disciplines at a large research-focused university in aotearoa new zealand. the goal was to support not just literacy but also identity development in international doctoral writers. farrah has always sought for her teaching to prompt transformational learning; this study is one such attempt. doctoral candidates in their second year were selected as target participants because first year candidates at our institution must pass a rigorous first year review so are time pressed, and candidates in their third year have submission as another time pressure. results from these participants proved strong in that at the mid-phase doctoral level of study they brought different discipline perspectives to close-reading and development of critical analysis. most of the sessions included participants’ discussion about cultural artefacts followed by writing exercises that demanded both critique and creativity. however, the first and last sessions focussed on banksy’s street art, which we recognise as ‘heavily cultural’ to use barthes term (1964, p. 154). data were gathered from in-class guided discussions, in-class writing tasks, two focus group discussions and 14 interviews. our article is based on a thematic analysis and in this article we present findings relating to the banksy sessions. in what follows, direct quotes from interviews will appear in italics and without quotation marks. purposeful risk: entry into saying what you think making learning interesting is one of core components of our teaching philosophy— farrah was careful to apply this here. for the first session, a crucial one where the culture of the research sessions would be established, we wanted something that would break the ice, truly engage participants, amuse, and challenge them and push them into talking about their own perspectives. discussion of banksy’s street art seemed likely to do all of this. the course of nine classes was enfolded by banksy, whose ‘writing on the wall’ leaps further; it encompasses ‘… the influence of social, political and cultural events, together with personal ones, and the element of risk involved in executing the deed’ (lynn and lea, 2005, p. 43). as banksy puts it, ‘graffiti has been used to start revolutions, stop wars, and generally is the voice of people who aren't listened to. graffiti is one of those few tools you have if you have almost nothing’ (banksy, 2001). banksy’s graffiti was our tool of choice for enabling strangers from different epistemologies to cross literacy and f. jabeen & s. carter: bansky’s street art qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 388-410 ©2023 391 cultural barriers and step comfortably into critical analysis. only later did we see that banksy’s inherently risky method of grabbing public space for voice was brought into the class talk about doctoral writing practice. doctoral writers face what feels risky when they claim a space in their discourse community. we want to suggest that for many doctoral writers, saying what they think is an act of risky self-creation and banksy can help show how to get there. the model to follow: we are human! banksy’s street art is powerful in part because of its informality and serious playfulness. branscome (2011, p.116) has defined banksy as the pioneer of ‘high-street irony’. street art portrays the ‘messy and necessary business of being human’ (sammond and creadick, 2014, pp. 152-153)—often novice research writers need to be assured that they should bring their human values and voice to their writing and banksy models this. sammond and creadick (2014, p. 151) argue that graffiti could be ‘revolutionary, reactionary, aggressive and hostile’ and therefore could initiate dialogue. the socio-political-cultural dynamics of banksy’s graffiti art resonated with our study’s focus—giving participants confidence in their own perspectives, values, arguments and voice. the session was not intending to rely on the theory of meaning, for example as spelt out in terms of the literal and the symbolic or the denotive and connotative (barthes, 1964, p. 158 & p. 153), although arguably the participants’ close-reading critical responses demonstrated theory. using graffiti to prompt writers across cultural and literacy borderlands is novel. despite its potential for generating critical analysis and creative expressions, graffiti does not appear much in literacy classrooms at any level. calvin (2005, p.527) pointed out how language teachers generally choose pictures of famous places and everyday life for discussion, avoiding the messages underlying graffiti that could lead to a more profound provocation–and that provocation was what we wanted at doctoral level. f. jabeen & s. carter: bansky’s street art qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 388-410 ©2023 392 is this the way of the world? first session questioning expressing authentic opinions can be daunting for students in any first class. we purposefully selected a number of banksy’s striking, thought-provoking slogan artworks for the study’s first session, with an open-ended question— is this the way of the world? banksy (2006); banksy (2010); banksy (2018) the first stage of discussion included two general prompts: 1) what does the painter want to portray in these images? and 2) what is the underlying message? the artwork intrigued the participants and they offered various interpretations. in the first image discussed, the heart-shaped balloon flying away and the ambiguity of whether the little girl had deliberately let it go or was trying to reach the string prompted participants’ comments about losing childhood innocence, and loss of happiness and positive aspects of life. the balloon was defined as a symbol of optimism and love that are flying away from human beings. however, the balloon was also a positive trigger for reminiscing childhood memories. meaning floated freely with that balloon. the message in the second image discussed, 'i remember when this was trees,’ in red and with a boy holding a tagger’s tin of red paint and brush, grimly shows the disappearance of nature to make space for rapid urban expansion so that city children grow up in a deforested environment where tagging is one way to protest. participants effortlessly focused on climate issues and listed ecology as one of the ways of the modern world today. they weighed the reality of peoples’ choice for migrating to a city in search f. jabeen & s. carter: bansky’s street art qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 388-410 ©2023 393 of better living opportunities and industries’ demand for cheap labour as contributing factors for growing need for housing to accommodate people. discussion concluded that banksy probably wanted to draw a comparison between the life before and after urbanization in different parts of the world. caring about meaning-making for the first half of the two-hour session, farrah as facilitator avoided extensively guiding the participants as their spontaneity was key to establishing the class culture: informal, friendly, and good-humoured with no specific close-reading guidelines. then, the class moved to take that further with the legend i want change. in the second half of the first class, participants close read with some guidance, a short exercise where ideas were presented creatively, and from there the class finished with talk about life as candidates within the ways of the academic world. reading keep your coins i want change: careful viewing, discussion, and writing exercise for close reading of ‘keep your coins i want change’ that informal, engaged talk was steered slightly more formally: farrah adapted first look (literal description), second look (interpretation of meaning) and the third look connection of critique to their own lives (eisenberg, 2014). the third critique brought out talk about what change participants wanted as international doctoral candidates at a western university. discussion shifted from close reading of banksy’s meaning-making to talk that made meaning of participants’ own experiences of social change. f. jabeen & s. carter: bansky’s street art qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 388-410 ©2023 394 banksy (2010) the slogan i want change underpinned the main intention of the larger research project: to capture evidence of transformation through the doctoral experience. we were aware of the difficult changes participants had to make as they came into a western institution. at the same time, participants were aspirational: they intended doctoral success to radically improve their lives. we were also establishing that, as part of that overarching transformation of successful doctoral writing, close-reading that led to talk and to writing would be expected throughout these classes. reader-response entails close reading of a text taking efferent and aesthetic stances and prompting readers to make meaning in response to a particular text (rosenblatt, 2005, p. 10). in taking an efferent stance, a reader aims for information and stays within the text, with their comments based on their first look. the second look requires readers to be attentive to ‘the qualities of the feelings, ideas, situations, scenes, personalities, and emotions’ and, with a third look, to participate ‘in the tensions, conflicts, and resolutions of the images, ideas, and scenes as they unfold’ (rosenblatt, 2005, p.11). the second and third stages are where creativity of thought and text might be teased out in terms of meaning. f. jabeen & s. carter: bansky’s street art qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 388-410 ©2023 395 in each stage of response to the following three prompts, critical analysis of ideas was involved, and banksy’s artwork prompted thinking, interpreting, and voicing individual opinions: 1) what do you see in the artwork? 2) what could be the possible changes this art is indicating? 3) can you relate this art with any global issue or personal interest? each prompt was a summary of the questions mentioned in eisenberg’s (2014) different stages of artwork analysis. how hard is this?: doctoral learning or poor and homeless? the responses to i want change for the first prompt described the man as homeless and poor, with some literal description— man holding a piece of paper containing a message, with a bucket on the floor. participants noted that in the streets of big cities, it is common to come across a homeless person asking for money—a sign of socioeconomic struggle. different perspectives: double vision participants recognised ‘double meaning’ although one participant initially proposed that the phrase keep your coins was a mistake from the artist. colour was read for its symbolism, in two cases with personal interpretations. red is often seen as symbolising either danger or the imperative to stop, but for one participant those caveat meanings were taken further to where red heightened significance. black and white is often a metaphor for polarisation of issues into just good or bad with no middle ground, but here this participant saw it as signalling a dreary world. f. jabeen & s. carter: bansky’s street art qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 388-410 ©2023 396 this banksy artwork is provocative because begging is often stigmatized, but an individual might have valid reasons for begging. poor and homeless asking for change as coins is a common scenario in expensive cities, so participants would be aware of the context of this protest. a satirical play on the ambiguity of the word ‘change’ enables a demand for significant social change not small change. paradox is an essential part of banksy’s street art. we suggest that appreciating paradox and being able to work with it is relevant to doctoral experience. banksy gave the opportunity to talk about this. sometimes doctoral writers need to give their views on research paradoxes bringing that critique into their thesis writing—that can seem as challenging as any other act of creativity. moral meaning: connection with real life the close reading of the street art picked up on moral implications. one participant wrote i feel this graffiti advocates the sense of respect towards those who need help. i know in some cultures the behaviour of giving coins to others is disrespectful. so maybe that’s true for the writer of this graffiti and he was trying to express through the perspective of the homeless that although the poors [sic] need your help, that doesn’t mean they don’t care about dignity and decency. so the genuine kindness is called for, kindness without pride, pity or superiority. it is possible that idea of self-esteem was triggered by the slogan keep your coins— temporary financial gain is not the solution if there was no real change in people’s mindset towards those who are socially and economically deprived. the idea of change stretched beyond gaining financial assistance and highlighted the dignity that economically disadvantaged individuals lack and need. i feel… and i know… illustrate the participant’s personal connection with the artwork’s message. f. jabeen & s. carter: bansky’s street art qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 388-410 ©2023 397 political, social, and economic issues: do we care? the group understood that i want change was a plea for a sustained social change, not temporary monetary assistance. one participant wrote tersely protesting against system. the class design was based on the assumption that banksy’s socio-political nudges should connect with participants’ personal experience and attitudes, leading into critical analysis on issues that mattered—this artwork did just that. participants moved from the literal into deeper level interpretation during the first question analysis. change: we want it! the analysis based on the second question (what could be the possible changes this art is indicating?) prompted further deep level interpretation—participants talked about how only providing small change will not empower a homeless person or change their deprivation. one strong personalized stance took the analysis further i feel the graffiti is trying to convey the meaning of dissatisfaction of how people from low social rankings are treated and introduced social ranking–something that still exists in most social contexts, including academia. the word change was applied to real-life experience. participants’ interpretation included changes in education, politics, laws. each written text produced was creative in the sense that each showed different subjective analysis. an interesting evaluation depicted the change as real change, not a tiny solution which are [sic] going to solve what i am going to eat now, but not tomorrow, expressing the idea of a change in circumstance with the concrete image of eating or going hungry. the interpretations mainly depicted that change that was needed, demanded, but not ensured. as we hoped, the punning word-play and strong images engaged international doctoral participants in unpacking satirical undertones and practicing critical analysis while being aware of the force of creativity banksy shows in getting his message across. relating global issues to self responses to the final writing prompt (can you relate this art with any global issue or personal interest?) included politicised expressions showing compassion and charity. one participant reflected, we tend to think that only giving away a few coins (mere tangible f. jabeen & s. carter: bansky’s street art qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 388-410 ©2023 398 support) will change the poverty with we tend to think showing self-critique. another more cynically located the complex hypocrisy of political marketing, questioning whether charities and politicians really want the major changes that would end poverty. the use of mocks here locates banksy’s satirical perspective towards politicians— recognition that real empowerment would change the political dynamics of power in a way that those in power would not countenance. ferrell (1993, p. 197) considers novel and artistic features of graffiti works as a ‘stylish counterpunch to the belly of authority.’ socio-political analysis of banksy’s street art led participants to express their thoughts with reasoning—an important skill in doctoral writing. one of the interpretations offered a different response to the artwork, pointing out that some people accept their situation and do not demand political change. that participant wrote that younge [sic] people are not interested in political problems. their opinion did not give further detail but perhaps gave evidence of how personal experience within a particular socio-cultural context (perhaps here the privilege of doctoral education) shaped the response. farrah was surprised since in bangladesh, her own background, youth in the past led two significant revolutions—the language movement in 1952 and a fight for independence in 1971. back then, strong socio-political and cultural values were connected with the youth-led movements. however, she had sought individual perspective and got it. another participant’s interpretation suggested the experience of international candidates. they focused on loneliness: change was interpreted as a plea for change from isolation, lack of sympathy and discrimination that plagued life in big cities: f. jabeen & s. carter: bansky’s street art qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 388-410 ©2023 399 the man in the i want change artwork was defined as representing the need of love in huge cities — a possible criticism of urban life. individual inference also included i can relate this art to particularly the inequality between rich and the poor. another participant told a story from his own experience. he began by being critical of liars who beg for money when they can work, and recounted i met a man in the train station and he told me he loss [sic] all the money. he asked me if i can give some him money to buy a train ticket. i believed him and give him the money. however, he proved to be a liar. throwing a real-life experience into the discussion allowed for talk about how moral stances were influenced by previous experiences. connecting with real life engaged the participants in thinking about how their own social, cultural, and political experiences contributed to shaping their close-reading and analysis. they showed the personalised critical analysis that might strengthen doctoral writing. in practice, various ideas emerged from creative thinking prompted by focus on banksy’s creative communication. closing the study with banksy: let me speak the other classes of the course focused on review of literary extracts and writing, but the final class returned to banksy for closure. the image was of a masked man in the physical stance of hurling a bomb but holding a bunch of flowers in his hand rather than a grenade: f. jabeen & s. carter: bansky’s street art qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 388-410 ©2023 400 banksy (2003) the graffiti was banksy’s response to and protest against the construction of west bank wall to separate the minority palestinian population from the jews within israel. building the wall was defended by the israeli authority as meeting ‘safety concerns’ but denounced by critics as ‘frighteningly apartheid-like’ (brenner, 2019, p. 35). the strong political artwork attracted a global audience. we noticed that the graffiti questions the intention of the powerful nations’ euphemistic term ‘safety concerns’ and instead showcases the missed potential for good cross-cultural relations. the participants did not know about the specific background and issues involving the creation of this work but were aware that banksy’s graffiti gave eloquent voice to protest. the scope for multiple readings was the justification to use this banksy in the last session. the final in-class analytical exercise was to write a slogan for a banksy artwork. precision in terms of choice of words and syntax is integral for academic writing—this final task f. jabeen & s. carter: bansky’s street art qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 388-410 ©2023 401 using graffiti was designed to make the participants aware of the importance of accuracy in selecting words to illustrate ideas. obviously, the participants were mindful of their subject-specific use of language for doctoral writing; the task using the street art was an added learning experience because being within a different genre meant being able to notice the process of choosing a lexicon that would speak strongly yet succinctly. one slogan opted for irony, with the striking slogan i use these nuclear bombs to destroy my enemies, demanding the thought ‘but he’s throwing flowers’ to unpack the message— kindness has power to resolve antagonism. the bouquet of flowers, replacing the bomb, directed the response of the close reading—throwing a bomb will breed destruction and hurling flowers will breed concord. the slogan is a political critique of military threat to world peace. a similar but more simply-worded slogan advised show love not hatred. f. jabeen & s. carter: bansky’s street art qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 388-410 ©2023 402 another slogan, happy wedding, suggested that the personal over-trumps the political. each slogan was different—a capitalized slogan don’t judge me by my look, but my actions picks up the way that individuals are being judged, sometimes unreasonably, by their appearances, in this case as a radical enemy, rather than based on characteristics, values and practices that are unexpectedly benign. a relatively long and somewhat cryptic slogan seemed to relate to doctoral study, a topic that ran through the sessions—to be better, you must forget all of your previous ‘‘flowers’’ and achievement. start form [sic] beginning again! indeed. we had intended the banksy classes to foster critical analysis and confidence in argumentation; in the final session there was evidence that the exercises can be seen as creative for novice researchers who are unused to them. one slogan demanded freedom to speak—a democratic practice that is not allowed in many parts of the world including where some participants were from. the catchphrase can relate to individuals’ experience—constitution allows freedom of speech; politicians boast about it, but the general population are dubious about their freedom as anti-authority remarks are sometimes punished. the slogan also can stand for the doctoral writer’s acceptance of the power of finding their voice and joining their discourse community. f. jabeen & s. carter: bansky’s street art qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 388-410 ©2023 403 for some of these participants, western assumptions about democracy’s freedom of speech could be seen as a metaphor for the expectations of doctoral writing that opinions will be clearly articulated. and as these participants left the nine-week research project’s course, they needed to speak through their doctoral writing—to express authentic views accurately and to own their positions and defend them. in the first session, we’d talked about the possible applications of i want change. this opened up depth-of field discussion—the change international doctoral students experienced in a western higher education context, and what they might want to change, or want institutional systems to change. graffiti, critical analysis, nuanced meaning, argumentation lyn and lea (2005, p.43) argue that a graffiti work stretches beyond the graphic presentation and involves ‘… the influence of social, political, cultural, political events’ along with the personal views. bakhtin (1981, mentioned in lynn and lea, 2005, p. 43) has theorised that all utterances are ‘heteroglot’, that is, different voices carry different world views into every discourse. this theory resonated for us when considering f. jabeen & s. carter: bansky’s street art qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 388-410 ©2023 404 participants’ close reading and analysis of banksy’s street art. participants’ heteroglot interpretations of the graffiti works brought together their different perspectives (lynn and lea, 2005, p. 43) and the experience of talking through difference showed them that differing analysis was fine and what mattered was being able to justify your own viewpoint. each individual participant assigned a newly nuanced meaning. we found that dynamic analysis of banksy’s graffiti works was a strong initial approach to cross-cultural development for international doctoral students from different disciplines. our suggestion with this article is that those supporting doctoral writing could try using banksy’s work to encourage talk that leads to critical analysis, to taking a position and to gaining understanding of democratic western cultures. data signalled how this worked in our study. edward, an education and social work faculty student from china, linked the talk about graffiti directly to writing in english: i find for the graffiti it is not helping me directly, but it is helping me in terms of how, the way the other people are describing the graffiti their structure it’s quite different from the way how something is introduced or described, in a chinese way. because in chinese culture the most important idea is put at the very end of the story because you need to be humble, you need to be covered, you cannot be too straightforward that’s some principles of chinese culture. but in the graffiti it is describing in a way that it feels like people need to put their argument at the very beginning of the description so that that makes me aware of the different mindset when describing things. he also found it insightful to see that he sometimes had different interpretations about the meaning of the banksy works than others, and applied this, almost like a parable, to doctoral work, where there is a need to respect others’ ideas, but also use one’s own interpretations of what research means: for me the graffiti one was also helpful. i was thinking about the balloon flying away from the little girl. i remember i had a different perception about the content in that graffiti. for me it feels like something like happy saying hallo to the balloon f. jabeen & s. carter: bansky’s street art qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 388-410 ©2023 405 flying near to her. but then for some other group members, it feels like farewell to the, like, carefree childhood and something else. so the idea of how we use our own interpretations in our own research is really helpful. and to cherish the multiple perspectives and interpretations. abeer, a business faculty doctoral student who was from bangladesh, felt that stimulating imagination by talking about banksy’s graffiti was helpful for developing critical thinking (which was one of the intentions of this course) … the way like you have done it … so, you can give them a, like, picture and tell them like you know… so what its gonna do, it will help them to improve their imagination … because different people will interpret the same thing differently, right? we always tend to create our own social reality based on our understandings … i can see there is a relationship between the… you know these images and critical thinking. it can boost your efficiency lucas, an engineering candidate who was from brazil, felt more comfortable about questioning everything, and looking at details as part of critical analysis: i think i agree with the point of critical analysis, graffiti analysis that it is a photograph…some variety, you need to give some more feedback in something … if you actually seeing some book or something, … i think be aware of you can critically analyze the small things… like questions everything. it makes easy to analyze everything in more details… i think it helps you a lot. farhaan, a business faculty student who was from bangladesh spelt out that the course had resulted in him seeing the benefit of being creative, something that is often overlooked in sessions that support doctoral writing: one thing i really valued was creativity, i think that is something doing this classes because through this literary items, that was there i think. i think these items that f. jabeen & s. carter: bansky’s street art qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 388-410 ©2023 406 you have used, i think can facilitate some levels of creativity to researchers … it’s good to be creative as a researcher… this article has reported on the banksy sessions that book-ended the whole course, the first and last sessions that together established the value of a creative approach to serious messages. might banksy analysis empower doctoral candidates to take creative ownership of their research and of their expression of their views? conclusion: ‘but if it ends, what is there beyond?’ (barthes, 1964, p. 152) others who support international doctoral writers might try stimulating talk about meaning-making by beginning with banksy’s street art. this research project was successful in trialling a course of sessions designed to take international doctoral candidates within a western academy to a deeper level of understanding the research writing expected by their discourse communities. goals included inspiring confidence to express own opinions, appreciation of the benefit of multi-perspectives on a topic, and recognition of style as part of the message. these were lofty aims. in terms of basic pedagogy, talking about banksy’s graffiti work established an open class culture where participants were intrigued enough to stay the distance of the course. the graffiti sessions also established that the course was somewhere where participants could safely say what they thought about doctoral experience in a western institution and about the large amount of writing in english that they needed to produce. banksy’s skilfully constructed street art are ironic elaborations of social and political aspects or life in general; his presentation involves mystery and invites readers to solve the puzzle (deturk, 2015, p. 22). that intrigue took our participants through selfconsciousness to where they were willing to try to be as critically analytical as possible, and to express their ideas as accurately as possible. they had seen how powerful messages could be delivered playfully, stylishly, and succinctly. chung (2009, p. 32) strongly suggests ‘banksy’s street art, in particular, can guide students …to reflect upon the immediate, if not unjust, world in which they live, to transform that world, and to possibly initiate change.’ appreciation of transformation was the purpose of the two sessions where banksy’s provocative art led towards creativity of thinking and perhaps fresh f. jabeen & s. carter: bansky’s street art qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 388-410 ©2023 407 approaches to research writing. banksy’s work proved a catalyst for the development of authorial identity that we believe will continue into future careers. f. jabeen & s. carter: bansky’s street art qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 388-410 ©2023 408 references 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(2022) doctoral writing as an assemblage in time and space. journal of further and higher education, 46(5), 605-619. acknowledgements we thank our anonymous reviewers for helpful comments that have enabled us to considerably strengthen this article. about the authors: motivated by her academic lineage, farrah jabeen is a passionate teacher (jabeen, 2014)—the larger study emerged from her certainty about the learning design she wanted to trial in striving for transformational doctoral-level teaching and learning. farrah has also been engrossed in english literature studies and in this research project she has brought her interests together into another area of expertise: international doctoral experience. associate professor susan carter has honorary status in the school of critical studies in higher education, university of auckland, aotearoa new zealand. after a doctorate in english literature studies from the university of toronto (passmore & carter, 2007), she coordinated a doctoral programme for candidates from all disciplines (carter & laurs, 2014), learning a lot about doctoral learning (carter, smith & harrison, 2021). she then took up academic development in the centre for learning and research in higher education, retaining interest in academic and doctoral writing (carter & laurs, 2018; carter, aitchison & guerin, 2020). http://web.b.ebscohost.com.ezproxy.auckland.ac.nz/ehost/detail/detail?vid=0&sid=89d794d3-4610-4fe2-9b1a-%20c3eb7aaaf9f8%40sessionmgr102&bdata=jnnpdgu9zwhvc3qtbgl2zszzy29wzt1zaxrl#an=51989952&db=i3h http://web.b.ebscohost.com.ezproxy.auckland.ac.nz/ehost/detail/detail?vid=0&sid=89d794d3-4610-4fe2-9b1a-%20c3eb7aaaf9f8%40sessionmgr102&bdata=jnnpdgu9zwhvc3qtbgl2zszzy29wzt1zaxrl#an=51989952&db=i3h qualitative studies vol. 8, no. 1, 2023, pp. 250-278 issn 1903-7031 there, not there: (un)disciplining study off the writing tracks/tracts cee carter1 , mariam rashid2 , benjamin d. scherrer3 & korina m. jocson4 1university of vermont, college of education and social services, department of education, waterman building, 85 south prospect street, burlington, vt, 05405 2vassar college, international studies program, 124 raymond avenue, box 270, poughkeepsie, new york, 12604 3university of massachusetts amherst, college of education 813 north pleasant st. amherst, ma 01003 4york university, faculty of education, winters college, 4700 keele street, toronto, on m3j1p3 for us, “writing off the beaten track” has been propelled by collaborative study of ontoepistemological contributions that break the constraints of western knowledge-making. black studies and women of color feminisms prompt us to pause long enough to breathe … to interrogate the ellipsis … to sit in the space between words or the dangling punctuation. what’s there (or not there) creatively points to ideas, questions, and methods that subvert the primacy of the western colonial imagination. our collective writing has often come to us by being worked and reworked, fused and refused in an iterative process, this time with fahima ife’s maroon choreography. from homonyms to a wordplay on tracks/tracts, we discuss a writing praxis that has been contoured by radical study and scholarship “actively straying from” disciplined/disciplining conventions. there is always more to knowing and articulating subjects, contexts, and the pursuit of justice. . keywords: radical study, writing praxis, poetic fragments, breaks/fractures, anachoreography, global ecologies https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1067-7774 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0354-5992 https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3001-4609 https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1863-9876 c. carter, m. rashid, b. scherrer & k. m. jocson: there, not there qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 250-278 ©2023 251 there, not there: (un)disciplining study off the writing tracks/tracts the word is free but we are not fahima ife, maroon choreography as part contribution to the special issue, we offer wonderings, wanderings, and provocations to illustrate how we study and write off the beaten track of disciplinarity in education. our inquiry is guided by engagements with radical thinkers and ideas as well as aesthetic practices that support us to embolden our writing. on this occasion for sharing creative expressions and experiments in our study, we invoke fahima ife’s (2021) maroon choreography, with “poems, poetic fragments, and lyrical essay …” which “presuppose a way out (of captivity, indebtedness, ecological ruin) by way of minimalist errantry, by way of refusal” (p. ix). as our writing praxis unfolds, we lay bare notes, readings, questions, pauses, stories, and moments that are called up, poured out, and sometimes linger through us as we unsettle the temporal and spatial borders of the western subject’s colonial imagination in our study. we engage ife’s black method and practice of anachoreography, or “opening up to, stammering, and moving again inside our quiet, entangled, pneumatic intimacies” (p. xi). we are enlivened by the wayward possibilities.1 it is perhaps there where the word is free, even if we are not, as ife writes in we communicate together in a language that does not speak (p. 63). 1see maroon choreography: “anachoreography is the feral spirit of study, waywardness, tarrying, ritual, practice, rehearsal, shoal, ceremony, series, rematriation, wake, duration, intimacy, pause, and refusal—given to us in the poiesis of black studies, ecological studies, performance studies, affect studies, and indigenous studies. if dance is the city’s mother tongue, as fred moten says, then what secret lives inside the city, in us, before the city, as us, before the clearing, inside air?” (ife, 2021, p. ix) see the undercommons “but blackness still has work to do: to discover the re-routing encoded in the work of art: in the anachoreographic reset of a shoulder, in the quiet extremities that animate a range of social chromaticisms and, especially, in the mutations that drive mute, labored, musicked speech as it moves between an incapacity for reasoned or meaningful self-generated utterance that is, on the one hand, supposed and, on the other hand, imposed, and a critical predisposition to steal (away)” (harney & moten, 2013, p. 50). c. carter, m. rashid, b. scherrer & k. m. jocson: there, not there qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 250-278 ©2023 252 our communal writing approach suggests being moved and moving ourselves in contemplation of radical ideas that extend beyond our “fleshly limits.” where authors’ words on a page felt intimate and inciting, almost as if you were sitting beside them. where our togetherness altered something and is left lingering in our praxis, in our way of knowing. where we began to follow an (im)material nudge, or spirit, or haunting, or rememory, whose presence was there. or not there. not there in the sense of a defined form. it is perhaps our intimacy with air, pausing to breathe, breath that animates generational storying with beloved kin. it is perhaps synergy and entanglement that can spark writing or pause writing just as we begin tracing the tracks/tracts set out for us in documenting the facts of captivity, indebtedness, and ecological ruin. so a question that guides our “minimalist errantry” (ife, 2021, p. ix) is: how do we (continue to) undiscipline study and play with our writing praxis? in this experimental endeavor, we present connective threads amongst our scholarly inquiries, which meet up with ife’s anachoreography of presupposing a way out of captivity, indebtedness, and ecological ruin by refusing “the choreographed apparatuses of coloniality, its methodologies, its origin stories” (2021, p. ix). following ife’s invitation, we open ourselves up to creative expressions and inquiries beyond the colonial and plantation imagination, writing in “haltingly staccato undulation” (ife, 2021, p. 87) that is preoccupied with breaking and fracturing the ease with which colonial and plantation logics/capillaries sustain educational studies. it is a staccato that guides the rhythm in our thinking, a staccato that appears in dialogue and blends (in) fragments on the page. it is a staccato that invites the reader to pause, to ponder “where is this going?,” because the fragments may not make sense right in the moment. instead, the staccato clings to the dangling punctuation … until the next one … only to offer a respite in the form of questions, because there is never a clean ending, only undisciplining, unlearning, unsettling. our vignettes are informed by improvisational lived moments of quietness and stillness, written with the fragments of our delimited grounds. we offer poetic lines, living curiosities, and unanswered questions (mckittrick, 2021) to stammer through a writing praxis that is elevated by pausing, being still, getting stuck, being with air, breathing, and sharing on a continuous loop. as we share and move again inside our “pneumatic intimacies,” (ife, 2021, p. xi) we document connections and practices that oxygenate our ontoepistemological refusals in educational studies. c. carter, m. rashid, b. scherrer & k. m. jocson: there, not there qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 250-278 ©2023 253 mode of study: presupposing a way out { what } { i knew } { was pointless } { there on the river } { of some edge } -fahima ife (2021, p. 70) in a poem titled thirst is a way of knowing, not knowing, ife invites us to a moment with the river. opening up to a longing. a way of knowing. of being. the same poem denoted by { } guides us throughout. what if what we know can become pointless (without meaning, without effectiveness, without particular direction, without confinement) when meeting up with the river, as the poet suggests above? a lesson that might be missed as feet and flesh habituate a beaten track. our study has been sparked by collectively meeting up with radical ideas and writing practices that unsettle what we know and what we are taught to know. across our scholarly interests, we rethink educational equity’s policies and practices (cee), trace how refugee resettlement policy facilitates dispossession (mariam), disrupt disciplined climate change education (ben), and illuminate critical pedagogical possibilities (korina). our interests draw on interdisciplinary scholarship, which inspires our collective study and, slowly, our experiments with (un)disciplinarity. { whose name } { i cannot speak } … { how i became } { an outpouring } { for everyone } -fahima ife (2021, p. 70) for us, wandering beyond the beaten track is prompted by collective engagements that unsettle knowledge, methods, analysis, and ideas shaped by the western canon in the neoliberal academy (rashid et al., forthcoming). it is also, perhaps, under a global pandemic, active wars, the ever-present threat of state-sanctioned and vigilante violence, climate catastrophe, and forced displacement that we insist on curiosity and yearn for ways of knowing that presuppose a break from captivity, indebtedness, and ecological ruin. such a historic complexity prompts us to do more than archiving ourselves as categories and objects c. carter, m. rashid, b. scherrer & k. m. jocson: there, not there qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 250-278 ©2023 254 that are answerable to the coloniality of time, place, and labor (carter & jocson, 2022b; hartman, 2008; patel, 2016). thus, we work toward fractures and disruptions through knowledge-making and collective sharing. those fractures have come in our study of scholars who break with/from the reproduction of academic writing. for example, katherine mckittrick (2021) weaves a series of stories that unsettle a deference to coloniality and urges us to venture off the beaten track: i share dear science [...] as a study of how we come to know black life through asymmetrically connected knowledge systems. science is present— it is tied to the curiosities noted above – but it is restless and uncomfortably situated and multifarious rather than definitive and downward-pressing. this is a book about black livingness and ways of knowing. this shift—from studying science to studying ways of knowing—has allowed me to work out where and how black thinkers imagine and practice liberation… (p. 3) toward freeing blackness from a captive position, as always already biocentrically abject and dispossessed of the proper tools for thought and civil sociality (judy, 2020), the stories in dear science fracture an academic deference to descriptively rehearsing colonial knowledge. the “asymmetrically connected knowledge systems” through which black people come to know ourselves/themselves, as well as expressive black life, are illustrated through her engagements with a radical lineage of black thinkers, multiple black creative texts (including images and music playlists), abundant footnotes, poetic looping of key points, and so much more. her words and writing approach are aesthetically inviting as they make plain how conventions of knowing have been and can be subverted to tell expansive stories of blackness that exceed (yet are always navigating) captivity. mckittrick’s aesthetic practice has prompted our thinking with music and sound, poetry, and words that elide mere description and binary opposition. { was the alchemy } { of our existence }… { how i became } { an outpouring } { for everyone } -fahima ife (2021, p. 70) c. carter, m. rashid, b. scherrer & k. m. jocson: there, not there qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 250-278 ©2023 255 in addition to ife’s (2021) invitation to consider the possibilities of presupposing a way out of indebtedness, we have turned to thought experiments and lessons from scholars such as denise ferreira da silva, fred moten, and stefano harney. in contemplation of black lives matter, “a movement and call to respond to everyday events of racial violence (the killing of unarmed black persons by police)” (para. 2), silva (2017) discusses the notion of value as stipulated by philosophers of modern reason, exposing the beaten track of dialectics. that is, the routine practice of resolving to one side or the opposite of an argument or concept. she also illustrates a thought experiment, which claims “a radical praxis of refusal to contain blackness in the dialectical form” (para. 43). at the heart of her experiment and her work in toward a global idea of race (2007) is an effort to expose limits of deploying “blackness as a category of difference” for our emancipatory projects. in doing so, one is loyal to a hegelian philosophic project that depends on racial knowledge for the determining and adjudicating of the proper minds and social configurations. yet silva’s analytical groundwork provides an opening for moving beyond indebtedness, or seeking what’s owed as a form of justice. she asserts: for the work of blackness as a category of difference fits the hegelian movement but has no emancipatory power because it functions as a signifier of violence which, when deployed successfully, justifies the otherwise unacceptable, such as the deaths of black persons due to state violence (in the us and in europe) and capitalist expropriation (in africa).” (silva, 2017, para. 43) silva releases the tools of the subject (post-enlightenment concepts of self-determination, dialectical analysis, philosophic traditions, categories of difference) as a way of presupposing our way out of indebtedness, and activates “blackness’s disruptive force,” (para. 3) to fracture the imposition of modernity and its meaning-making systems. stefano harney and fred moten (2013) make similar moves in proposing a fugitive planning and black study praxis that upends credit and debt as bases for seeking justice. their counter expressions in study are guided by an “unpayable debt,” (p. 150) or the idea that the c. carter, m. rashid, b. scherrer & k. m. jocson: there, not there qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 250-278 ©2023 256 continued atrocities, which allow plantocratic logics to thrive, can never be repaid. unpayable debt prompts us to be engaged in study and justice praxes that allow debt to become a “principle of elaboration,” where owing is lost and “more generative” (p. 150) ways of being in relation to one another are explored outside the credit-debt dichotomy. silva, moten, and harney’s fractures in the colonially imposed notion of indebtedness inform the ways in which our study praxis has explored how to experiment in writing, searching for ways to express ourselves beyond arguments (ife, 2021) as well as beyond financial and moral obligation. a praxis that also lends itself to presupposing a way out of ecological ruin. [w]hat unregulated qualities of air flourish in our global ecologies? what otherwise porous ecosystems emerge, or do we have access to, by way of deep listening? (ife, 2021, pp. xi-xii) in maroon choreography, ife asks a series of unanswered questions on air and movement. these questions move us to ponder how tracts of land, plots and demarcated geometric forms make ecological relatedness illegible. at the same time, ife gestures towards a method of deep listening that considers air, land, and water. what is still there, identifiable but in demarcation, maybe always will be there (or not there) in time and space, in but beyond binary. ife hints at a more fluid ungraspable relation. rivers, tidewaters, and wetlands seep and flow through ife’s poetics. in sharp contrast, the steamy in-between ecosystems have been written through white anxieties as dangerous, dark, and haunted. architect of modern settler landscape, frederick law olmsted, authored a 1856 account a journal in the seaboard slave states describing swamps as dangerous spaces “where social order loses its power and the lowest of creatures determine the fates of their masters” (p. 17), places where ordered landscape entangles with the mental and juridical models and distinct form of relation that conquest and extraction depend. in wetlands, paths cannot be traced and tracks dissolve in the thick waters in a ghostly temporality resisting reclamation. mixtures of watery earth defy western ideas of purity, related distinctions in terraqueous space that are unfit for cultivation but suited instead for fugitive shelter. fugitive rebellion denaturalizes the c. carter, m. rashid, b. scherrer & k. m. jocson: there, not there qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 250-278 ©2023 257 colonizing qualities of whiteness that measure all other forms of life against itself (scherrer, 2022; wynter, 2003). in tracts that dissolve colonizing possibility, the maroon is animated, attending to forms of mixing, where fugitives and castaways vanish, without a noticeable track, what is there but not there strikes fear, contesting regulated form. tracts that resist reclamation are the places of worldmaking, of marronage. in ecological (un)knowability, the composition of water and air in relation to the flows of sedimented land, nothing is ever still, always humming and vibrating, (in)visible currents and waves break from one medium into another. breaking from straightjacketed arteries as capital, unknowable relations in between. presupposing a way out of ecological ruin. c. carter, m. rashid, b. scherrer & k. m. jocson: there, not there qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 250-278 ©2023 258 fragments, vignettes, and storying tracks/tracts we turn now to undisciplining study, to show experiments in our writing. through play, we “write rebelliously”2 (lopez, 2022). in the writing fragments that follow, we offer our living curiosities, unanswered questions, and poetic lines. we draw on notes. we revisit previous writings. we grapple with what can be said or not said. we contemplate what happens when we write and get stuck. we welcome air that pushes us off the beaten track. we allow the dangling lines to cross pollinate (ife, 2021). we show a writing praxis that is humbled by our attempts at undisciplining study. the fragments make explicit our staccato writing rhythm. they offer up connections between us (social and geographic locations, languages, pasts-presents-futures). the staccato animates. lines meet up, hang, exchange. they go back and forth with one another. the nodes come together to communicate in a language that does not speak. a method in process. a methodological approach in an unfolding present. coming together in itself, not by itself, not by ourselves. to create potential openings, breaks, and fractures if we allow the coming together, if we allow ourselves to be open, to stay open (ife, 2021). we learn from that which is not spoken while communing (and communicating) together, to accentuate lessons from our experimental writing. the lessons we take with us teach us about fracturing as a way of knowing. *** brick by brick. we build ideas. we lay down words. sometimes, we pause long enough to breathe … to interrogate the ellipsis … to sit in the space between words, to wonder about the dangling punctuation. we close our eyes and take a deeper breath to see what else might 2 in curriculum inquiry’s writing fellowship and writers’ retreat, licho lopez lopez’s workshop on “writing rebelliously” centers play as a “form of rebellion” and shares inspiration about “writing and writing otherwise.” highlights from the workshop were generously made available on social media (#ciwf22). c. carter, m. rashid, b. scherrer & k. m. jocson: there, not there qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 250-278 ©2023 259 come. but nothing comes. what does one do? when the pen refuses to touch paper, or when the cursor stops dancing on the page, what does one do in the moment? stuck. every writer has been here. it is a familiar place of growth, of learning. or of struggle. of coercion. of collusion with academic productivity. though we do not know if we can get away from it as academic writers, we seek something other than productivity in our study. for us, we have looked to each other. we have asked off-the-cuff questions, even devised thinking prompts to get (back) into a flow. again. we have turned to poetry, music, and visual art to spark our cognitive synapses in new ways. we have adjusted the volume and jammed to sonic rhythms. we have enlivened our walks, to add a strut, a beat to each step, to go in directions never been. unafraid of what various terrains might bring. on concrete. on dirt trails. on grasslands. on the sand. that moment arrives and we find ourselves open to possibilities. unstuck. we explore where the possibilities have taken us. brick by brick. the path forms. the tracks come into view. there is something there, not there. we pause. again. this time to interrogate what is beneath the tracks that seem to be repeating in pattern. legacies of colonial logics. like railroads of manifest destiny. we are conditioned to do just that. and we are exhausted. c. carter, m. rashid, b. scherrer & k. m. jocson: there, not there qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 250-278 ©2023 260 how do we break from everyday tracks, plantation tracts, routines for colonial thinking, to reimagine everyday practice? how do we undo the violence from hierarchy, racialization, and imperialism? how do we live through the violence, and still (re)make the world? we write. we undiscipline study. we cultivate writing off the beaten path, the everyday tracks and plantation tracts of/in our lives. *** part of our collective aim is to invite a conversation about naming stories and the entangled messiness in digital storytelling. mckittrick’s (2006) discussion of black women’s geographies is integral to ‘thinking about the production of space as unfinished, a poetics of questioning’ (p. xxiii). with this thinking exercise comes many possibilities for critical discussions with space, place, and landscape as a way to open up analysis of our own geographies, the locations we share, where we are always entangled, where we depart, and where we meet again. (jocson et al., 2022, p. 147) *** track (noun) 1. a footprint whether recent or fossil 2. a. detectable evidence (such as the wake of a ship, a line of footprints, or a wheel rut) that something has passed b. a path made by or as if by repeated footfalls; trail c. a course laid out especially for racing d. the parallel rails of a railroad track (verb) 1. a. to follow the tracks or traces of b. to search for by following evidence until found c. carter, m. rashid, b. scherrer & k. m. jocson: there, not there qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 250-278 ©2023 261 2. a. to follow by vestiges b. to observe or plot the moving path of 3. a. to carry mud (or other material) on the feet and deposit b. to make tracks upon (from merriam-webster) imperial tracks. geographies. entanglements. migrations. movements. iron snake ===/=== train tracks ===/=== ghost towns: a vignette c. carter, m. rashid, b. scherrer & k. m. jocson: there, not there qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 250-278 ©2023 262 figure 1: uganda railways, theodore roosevelt3 in rememory, we partly turn to folklores gifted to us about railroads and train tracks folklores passed from generation to generation about prophetic visions of mekatilili wa menza samoei arap koitalel and mugo wa kibiru to explore how colonial and imperial tracks animate and reproduce different tracks that re-emerge, mutate, and take on different formations and configurations4 3president theodore roosevelt and traveling companions (1909) mount the observation platform in kenya on the uganda railway at the start of a game hunt. retrieved from: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/file:uganda_railways_-_theodore_roosevelt.jpg 4the prophecy of the iron snake in imperial british east africa emerged from stories, oral histories, and folklore gathered and passed on to different generations. these forms of knowledge can be argued are relational to and are embedded within the black radical tradition. mekatilili wa menza, a freedom fighter https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/file:uganda_railways_-_theodore_roosevelt.jpg c. carter, m. rashid, b. scherrer & k. m. jocson: there, not there qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 250-278 ©2023 263 tracks that spewed violence, caused harm and damage as shown in the ghostly white silhouettes of the photograph in 1909 u.s. president roosevelt paid a visit to east africa guest of the british east africa company, front row seat to the project of opening up tracts in the so-called hinterland we interrogate these recurring patterns patterns that play out in classrooms, study writing, knowledge construction etcetera our memories, our lives take us (back) to those moments moments we sat under trees listening to folklores from wise folks in community stories and narrations about a vicious metal snake and foreigner /\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\:> a snake that would eat and eat and eat and eat a snake whose belly would never know enough /\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\:> in the hills, as narration goes, lived a famous nandi prophet koitale arap samoei samoei prophesied the coming of a vicious snake, a metal snake that would make its way across the savanna, the hills, the rivers the mountains, and head towards the big lake and prophetess from the agiriama community resisted the british and prophesied the coming of the iron snake. similar prophecies were made by koitalel arap samoei of nandi community, and mugo wa kibiru of the agikuyu. c. carter, m. rashid, b. scherrer & k. m. jocson: there, not there qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 250-278 ©2023 264 this vicious snake would devour and destroy anything it came across both human and more than human people, wildlife, water, land, name it accompanying this vicious snake a ghost never seen before it would take over and rule the land, the water, the people and everything else as we put pen to paper, we remember this folklore and many others gifted to us folklores that give us possibilities to point out the ghosts that linger in our minds and social realities waiting for us to follow the tracks derailed with our own curiosities, we move away /\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\:> more colonial tracks. taking land and water. a(nother) taking through language. because language is a colonizing tool. <:/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\ unquestioned phrases in daily conversations. we push back (and take back) the power of language. in multilingual multigenerational households, it is not uncommon to hear the elongated rolling of rs and double diphthongs sliding out to greet each day. c. carter, m. rashid, b. scherrer & k. m. jocson: there, not there qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 250-278 ©2023 265 magandang umaga (good morning), kain na tayo (let’s eat), tayo na (let’s go), buenas noches (good night), sueños dulces (sweet dreams), and cierran los ojos (close your eyes) have been part of purposeful engagements. by association, sueños and ojos have given rise to “me despierto…me elevo” (i wake up…i rise) in rhyming occasions with books like maya christina gonzalez 's (2014) call me tree / llámame arbol. gradually, over time, we have talked more and read more together to underscore the relationship between land/islands, languages, and cultures in the philippines through a series of books that features folk songs musically edited by felicidad prudente (2019) such as ed-eddoy (ifugao). pakitong-kitong (cebuano), and kaisa-isa niyan (maguindanon). each story tells of regional customs and traditions in the philippines. each story also extends a popular book, bahay kubo, meaning nipa hut, which is based on a song of the same name. the song version in filipino/tagalog has been hummed in our household many times… today, my daughter knows the song in its entirety and can identify many of the vegetables named in the bahay kubo lyrics. (jocson, 2021, p. 358) c. carter, m. rashid, b. scherrer & k. m. jocson: there, not there qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 250-278 ©2023 266 a lesson of care. living together. using language to see and be in the world. *** realms: a vignette thirst is a way of knowing, not knowing { what } { i knew } { was pointless } { there on the river } { of some edge } { whose name } { i cannot speak } { was the alchemy } { of our existence } { inside our body } { a hollowness } { an aloofness } { so devout } { i began to call it } { holy } { how i glistened } { for no one } { other than myself } { how i became } { an outpouring } { for everyone } { a cool drink of sorrow } { laced with gold } -fahima ife (2021, p. 70) *** pausing long enough, we/they commune beyond fleshly limits. we/they see one another. a moment of pausing with. in the middle. before. respite. a moment that arrives through stillness, through contemplation, through letting go and being mutually dispossessed of knowing and knowledge that contains, that archives debt and ruin. c. carter, m. rashid, b. scherrer & k. m. jocson: there, not there qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 250-278 ©2023 267 the word is free is it a portal to writing, running, walking off the beaten track? choosing to be at odds with the world5 as we commune with air? getting lost in the possibility of another world? the word is free but we are not feeling stuck in the limits of “locations and languages” (nagar, 2019, p. 7)? pause in consideration, in contemplation of word choice, in contemplation of saying the oft unsayable yet thinkable. sit. question the use of terms that work for the verifiable, the fixed, the housed, the positioned (harney & moten, 2013). that respite … undisciplines study. being with each other. still. being with sound. enraptured. being with words. tongue tied. being with sorrow. lost. being with air. wild. pointless. flowing. reanimates straying. tapping into those who carry the message, “inequitable systems of knowledge can be, and are, breached by creative human aesthetics” (mckittrick, 2021, p. 153). heard and read and practiced in various iterations. the word is free but we are not thirst as a way of knowing. not quenchable. thirsting for what provokes and lingers— announcing its possibility. find yourself meandering to engage with what is difficult to put into words. stammering as to not repeat the harms. stammering to unstick. communing with what is beyond here or there. live and breathe outside of linear time and formalized space. let virtuality guide the imagination of our existence (silva, 2014; silva, 2016). searching for a way out by communing with airy movements. 5 see stefano harney and fred moten: "felicity street" (on tom dent, fahima ife, and new orleans) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bswqi-sg4du https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bswqi-sg4du https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bswqi-sg4du https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bswqi-sg4du c. carter, m. rashid, b. scherrer & k. m. jocson: there, not there qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 250-278 ©2023 268 the word is free black study confronts knowing. it does not dare to know as kant (badley, 2021). refusing post-enlightenment words, logics, antics, self-assuredness. it opens up multiple ways of knowing. revisiting and tending to pulsing words. singing words that provoke and create anew. daring to undiscipline freedom as we know it (walcott, 2021). welcoming another existence. stepping into another realm. a persistent reminder: the word is free but we are not *** s t a c c a t o. fragments. a rhythm in writing. breaks/fractures, in thought, in writing. we rebel. we write rebelliously. why not? c. carter, m. rashid, b. scherrer & k. m. jocson: there, not there qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 250-278 ©2023 269 breaks/fractures ====/\/\/\/\====/\/\/\/\==== break to disrupt the order or compactness of to make ineffective as a binding force to stop or bring to an end suddenly (from merriam-webster) fracture to damage or destroy as if by rupturing to cause great disorder in to break up to go beyond the limits of (something, such as a rule) (from merriam-webster) we look back on our own writing tracks. digital storytelling. pláticas. kuwentos. relational poetics. sonic engagements. we have experimented with writing and are (still) inclined to experiment some more. what do we notice when looking back at our own writing tracks? there are traces of methodological openings. to push boundaries here and there. the crevices lead us to deeper curiosities and enter unfamiliar terrains where disciplines collide or diffuse into new(er) inquiries. altered ways of knowing. sometimes, the break is in the conversation before writing touches the page. in between the lines. in between the spaces between lines. in the revisions. the many revisions. the changes upon changes within revisions. fracturing western episteme and letting the tongue-pen go c. carter, m. rashid, b. scherrer & k. m. jocson: there, not there qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 250-278 ©2023 270 wildly. remembering. rememory. because colonization and colonial histories haunt us. so, we remember and prepare for another story. writing a poem has become for me, at least in part, an attempt to find out some things and to try to work through some things intellectually, emotionally, and musically… that process is a struggle toward language that tries to struggle toward things; it is movement in preparation. (fred moten in an interview with charles henry rowell, 2004, p. 956) elsewhere, we have shown how we write between and across poetic lines. what is (not) said lingers on the page, from left to right, lines-becoming-arms stretching out toward one another. *** my mother tongue what is my mother tongue? kinubi? luo? kiswahili? which one is mine? *** *** the hair down my back used to shine dance in the easterly breeze but now it hides twisted in a bun *** (rashid & jocson, 2021, p. 406) at that moment, we asked, why us, why now? we noted what came to us: c. carter, m. rashid, b. scherrer & k. m. jocson: there, not there qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 250-278 ©2023 271 there is something in rememory. that something may not be readily visible, but it is felt. as rhee (2021) notes, rememory is in space and time, a place we have known even through the lens of others. the haunting is an everpresent reminder seeping through the cultural memories of living in and out of colonial and postcolonial worlds, across various spaces and times…the disruption in our lives – along with dislocation and disconnection from place, from home – simply cannot be explained away. (rashid & jocson, 2021, p. 406) still, questions insisted on untameability as illuminated by another past exchange. to unleash a domesticated practice and surge with “a wild tongue” (anzaldúa, 1987, p. 53). speaker1: what is an untameable tongue? something that has been captured or attempted to be captured but finds itself beyond capture? when we release our tongues from being tamed, what are we (or our tongues) attempting to do? what are we escaping from? freeing ourselves from? becoming? unbecoming? perhaps we find each other beyond the colonial, neoliberal expressions of the university. we find each other in writing, in becoming, in readings, in questions. perhaps untameability signals the nonlinear, signals a space of coming togetherness without formal determinacy as also echoed by stefano harney and fred moten. even if only briefly, in moments where we connect beyond what is set out for us. untameability presses against the institution and its scientific, economic, racial exploits. it holds sense-making in contention, welcoming the refusal. speaker2: what else can happen when we release our imagination from complicity and form? what else might be said when we untame our tongues? (carter & jocson, 2022a, p. 236) the questions persisted, only to be embraced in our current practice. c. carter, m. rashid, b. scherrer & k. m. jocson: there, not there qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 250-278 ©2023 272 what creates or shapes a beaten track? what is left by the wayside or simply discarded in making space for the track to be beaten? what are other forms of pressure in the weathered terrain? what frictions and tensions erode the tracks? what of fire, wind and ice? what of tracks and space where one cannot follow? the unknowable. we wander/wonder … and go where the air flows. tracks as in sky as in constellations. tracks without light. tracks with sound as in music as in trees rustling in the night. tracks as in paths as in roads, far far away. tracks as in water as in wakes as in swamps as in wetlands. tracks as in sand as in the bottomless sea. multiple tracks … ttrraacckkkss that form fractals and traces that remain (or don’t remain). how do we desire new ones? or disrupt the patterns to set off (more) new ones? to create breaks and unleash the potential of connections. what breaks and fractures will it require to think and write off the beaten track? what forms will conversations take? what will untameable tongues bring about when we think beyond tracks, old tracks, colonial tracks, plantation tracts? c. carter, m. rashid, b. scherrer & k. m. jocson: there, not there qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 250-278 ©2023 273 for us as educators, the implications are many. we want to break free from tracking in schools, the carceral tracks that do nothing but undermine creative and playful expression. *** … we have been inspired to enter conversations about schooling inequities where we come together to explore the geographies already contoured by our journeys, what these geographies indicate about k-20 education, and the ways we have contemplated the possibilities and limits of our ongoing work in this seemingly concrete, yet unfinished, educational system. furthermore, it is this opportunity to consider where we are, or what mckittrick (2006) and glissant (1997) suggest as our ‘place,’ in a relational poetics of questioning. (jocson et al., 2022, p. 147) *** our writing praxis makes plausible questions and connections. returning to stories from our youth, communicating together in a language that does not speak. revisiting what has been said or not said. reminiscing to unravel ghostlines and hauntings, joys and pleasures. unsettling requires constant un/doing. (un)tracking our minds. the word track—tract—is layered with history. we cannot help but think of track/tract in relation to the colonial logics of/in transportation. intercontinental. roads. railways. indentured labor. servitude. the oregon trail. the gold rush. immigration. zoning. redlining. covenants. highways. noise. excavation. commemoration. c. carter, m. rashid, b. scherrer & k. m. jocson: there, not there qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 250-278 ©2023 274 what more is there on the page6? what else resonates? 6 living curiosities, (un)answered questions today. a daily routine. a ride on the bus, metro, subway, tube, train. track as in (race)track. old money. plantation money. track and field. competition. domination. racialization. track as in music tracks. industry. entertainment. production. copyright. old money. new money. track as in ability tracking. schools. factories. prisons. reproduction. segregation. desegregation. corporatization. track as in tracking footprints. indigeneity. lineage. generations. track as in fracking. pipelines. resources. dispossession. desecration. track as in tract in relation to plantation logics. tractors. traction. extraction. land. water. wetlands. landmarks. parklands. attraction(s). present day amusement. there are many others. at this juncture, what is expanded when we break tracks? or when we think relationally about tracts? what happens when a detonation of ideas seizes the moment? where are the lines of flights? to pick up speed away from tracks of western modernity. what happens when there isn’t a lot of friction to keep steady? what happens when there is too much friction? velocity. viscosity. what new(er) lines of flight and inquiries are created? waveforms. wavelengths. what happens in schools? what does this look like inside schools? in everyday life? to shape how we think and study and write. c. carter, m. rashid, b. scherrer & k. m. jocson: there, not there qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 250-278 ©2023 275 references anzaldúa, g., 1987. borderlands/la frontera: the new mestiza. san francisco: aunt lute books. badley, g. f. (2021). we must write dangerously. qualitative inquiry, 27(6), 716-722. https://doi.org/10.1177%2f1077800420933306 carter, c. & jocson, k.m. (2022a). untaming/untameable tongues: methodological openings and critical strategies for tracing raciality. international journal of research & method in education, 45(3), 232-245. https://doi.org/10.1080/1743727x.2022.2043843 carter, c. & jocson, k.m. (2022b). where the repetition fades: black feminist lessons and (sonic) critiques beyond critical whiteness studies. international journal of qualitative studies in education, 1-11. https://doi.org/10.1080/09518398.2022.2061729 harney, s. & moten, f. (2013). the undercommons: fugitive planning and black study. new york: minor compositions. hartman, s. v. (2008). venus in two acts. small axe, 26(12), 1-14. https://muse.jhu.edu/article/241115 ife, f. (2021). maroon choreography. duke university press. jocson, k.m., carter, c., correa, o., mcintee, k., rashid, m., scherrer, b. d. & smith jean-denis, a. (2022). plateaus, puzzles, and phds: un/making knowledge differently through digital storytelling. educational studies, 58(2), 141-162. https://doi.org/10.1080/00131946.2021.2010081 jocson, k.m. (2021). mama, let’s read!: critical race perspectives and the centrality of language in everyday literacies. journal of adolescent and adult literacy, 65(4), 355-359. https://doi.org/10.1002/jaal.1209 judy, r. a. (2020). restless flying, a black study of revolutionary humanism. boundary 2, 47(2), 91-118. https://doi.org/10.1215/01903659-8193257 lopez, l. l. curriculum inquiry [@ci_editors]. (2022, june 16). opening her "writing rebelliously" workshop this afternoon, @licholopezlopez invites #ciwf22 to play, which she notes is a form of rebellion [tweet]. twitter. https://doi.org/10.1177%2f1077800420933306 https://doi.org/10.1080/1743727x.2022.2043843 https://doi.org/10.1080/09518398.2022.2061729 https://muse.jhu.edu/article/241115 https://doi.org/10.1080/00131946.2021.2010081 https://doi.org/10.1002/jaal.1209 https://doi.org/10.1002/jaal.1209 https://doi.org/10.1215/01903659-8193257 https://twitter.com/licholopezlopez https://twitter.com/licholopezlopez https://twitter.com/hashtag/ciwf22?src=hashtag_click https://twitter.com/hashtag/ciwf22?src=hashtag_click c. carter, m. rashid, b. scherrer & k. m. jocson: there, not there qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 250-278 ©2023 276 https://twitter.com/ci_editors/status/1537494639791448064 mckittrick, k. (2021). dear science and other stories. durham: duke university press. merriam-webster. (n.d.). break. in merriam-webster.com dictionary. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/break merriam-webster. (n.d.). fracture. in merriam-webster.com dictionary. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/fracture merriam-webster. (n.d.). track. in merriam-webster.com dictionary. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/track nagar, r. (2019). hungry translations: the world through radical vulnerability. antipode, 51(1), 3-24. https://doi.org/10.1111/anti.12399 olmsted, f. l. (1856). journey in the seaboard slave states, with remarks on their economy. mason. patel, l. (2016). decolonizing educational research: from ownership to answerability. routledge. rashid, m., & jocson, k. m. (2021). postcolonial m/othering: poetics of remembering and writing as an invitation to rememory. cultural studies↔ critical methodologies, 21(5), 401-409. https://doi.org/10.1177/15327086211028675 rashid, m., scherrer, b. d., carter, c., mcintee, k., jean-denis, a., correa, o., & jocson, k. m. (forthcoming). praxis of the undercommons: rupturing university conviviality and coded formations of diversity. globalization, societies and education. rhee, j. (2021). decolonial feminist research: haunting, rememory and mothers. routledge. rowell, c. h., & moten, f. (2004). words don’t go there: an interview with fred moten. callaloo, 27(4), 955–966. http://www.jstor.org/stable/3300986 scherrer, b. d. (2022). “like you can tell a river where to go”: floods, ecological formations, and storied pedagogies of place. curriculum inquiry, 52(2), 187-204. https://doi.org/10.1080/03626784.2022.2041977 silva, d.f.d. (2007). toward a global idea of race. university of minnesota press. silva, d.f.d. (2014). toward a black feminist poethics: the quest(ion) of blackness https://twitter.com/ci_editors/status/1537494639791448064 https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/break https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/fracture https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/track https://doi.org/10.1111/anti.12399 https://doi.org/10.1177%2f15327086211028675 http://www.jstor.org/stable/3300986 https://doi.org/ https://doi.org/10.1080/03626784.2022.2041977 c. carter, m. rashid, b. scherrer & k. m. jocson: there, not there qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 250-278 ©2023 277 toward the end of the world. the black scholar: journal of black studies and research, 44(2), 81-97. https://doi.org/10.1080/00064246.2014.11413690 silva, d.f.d. (2016). “on difference without separability.” in d. ferreira da silva and a. neuman, 4 waters: deep implicancy [accompanying reading]. 4 waters: deep implicancy art exhibition, toronto, on, canada. april 18. https://canadianart.ca/reviews/denise-ferreira-da-silva-and-arjuna-neuman/ silva, d.f.d. (2017). 1 (life) ÷ 0 (blackness) = ∞-∞ or ∞/∞: on matter beyond the equation of value. e-flux, 79. https://www.e-flux.com/journal/79/94686/1-life-0-blackness-or-on-matter-beyondthe-equation-of-value/ thelabsf. (2022, may 5). stefano harney and fred moten: "felicity street" (on tom dent, fahima ife, and new orleans) [video]. youtube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bswqi-sg4du walcott, r. (2021). the long emancipation: moving toward black freedom. duke university press. wynter, s. (2003). unsettling the coloniality of being/power/truth/freedom: toward the human, after man, its overrepresentation – an argument. cr: the new centennial review, 3(3), 257 – 337. https://doi.org/10.1353/ncr.2004.0015. acknowledgments we are grateful to uc2 for generating foresight, support, and intellectual practice in relational ways. this writing is dedicated to unlearning, and doing so through a space sustained by care. we are especially grateful to reviewers and editors of the special issue for their thoughtful engagement. https://doi.org/10.1080/00064246.2014.11413690 https://canadianart.ca/reviews/denise-ferreira-da-silva-and-arjuna-neuman/ https://www.e-flux.com/journal/79/94686/1-life-0-blackness-or-on-matter-beyond-the-equation-of-value/ https://www.e-flux.com/journal/79/94686/1-life-0-blackness-or-on-matter-beyond-the-equation-of-value/ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bswqi-sg4du https://doi.org/10.1353/ncr.2004.0015 c. carter, m. rashid, b. scherrer & k. m. jocson: there, not there qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 250-278 ©2023 278 about the authors: cee carter applies black feminist methodologies to trace the limits of educational equity in law and policy. as a queer black feminist scholar, gardener, educator, and music lover, cee’s work draws on an array of creative texts to inform liberatory shifts in teaching, learning, and inquiry. cee enjoys writing as the quiet night dances into early morning … after thoughts have had a chance to rest. once resting thoughts enliven through songs, quotes, pens, fingers, pauses, and more, cee’s writing becomes a space for learning, unlearning, relearning, and revising. mariam rashid is a postdoctoral fellow at vassar college. her research interests are in global refugee resettlement policies and practices, coloniality of displacement, and issues of statelessness within minority peoples in east africa. mariam’s current research draws on black studies, black feminist thought, and forms of diasporic feminism to explore racialized, gendered, and colonial policies informing refugee resettlement in the us. mariam’s writing is animated by quotidian knowledge-making praxis of black women in the diaspora. she enjoys engaging with poetics and storying. benjamin d. scherrer is a phd candidate in education and w.e.b. du bois fellow at the university of massachusetts amherst. his work draws from black studies, river and wetland ecologies, and critical cartographic practices. through archival study, his current project works towards disrupting disciplined climate change education by deciphering colonial flooding and catastrophe. he is interested in practices located materially outside or outdoors, in aesthetic engagement with affective elements that enliven what is put on the page. korina m. jocson is an associate professor of education at york university. her scholarship draws on the humanistic social sciences to help illuminate theoretical and pedagogical possibilities through forms of writing, including poetic and visual texts. she embraces moments of respite and the stillness in random walks. she is the author of award-winning youth media matters: participatory cultures and literacies in education, and a forthcoming book on race, gender, and technology at the school-work nexus. qualitative studies vol. 8, no. 1, 2023, pp. 227-249 issn 1903-7031 crafting future memories: reflections on a female carpentry training project in lagos bukola aluko-kpotie1 1 bakpotie@gmail.com myths of gendered labour and specifically the masculinisation of certain forms of artisanship are both steeped in victorian colonial ideals of female respectability that serve to exclude unemployed, educated women from market-relevant, lucrative jobs in carpentry trades, in the city of lagos, west africa. these historically situated dynamics of social exclusion expose an increasing number of educated women to poverty in one of africa's primary economic hubs. utilising the linguistic devices of rich descriptions and first-person accounts in this reflective paper, and drawing data from culturally-grounded ethnographic research on a female carpentry training project in the city, i examine how the communities which emerged from the project negotiate socio-economic, familial, and historical constraints in an effort to build new, inclusive training pathways and craft alternative future narratives of gendered labour practices in lagos. keywords: gendered practices; cultural memory; lived experience; everyday performance; lagos. i: re-imagining a carpenter’s shed the shed was our most critical experiment at designs for life (dfl), the furniture company and social enterprise i established in 2013 to provide free carpentry training to educated yet unemployed women, preparing them for lucrative blue-collar jobs in the port city of lagos, nigeria. visitors to the shed would have encountered a modest structure: a purpose-built, bamboo-screened, outdoor carpenter’s workshop buzzing with the sound of tools and machines acting on wood. but a visitor was also bound to encounter an unlikely sonic counterpoint: the chatter and laughter of women constructing furniture. this aural aspect of the shed was important because the space was also dfl’s quintessential laboratory for community engagement. here, we experimented with the b. aluko-kpotie: creating future memories qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 227-249 ©2023 228 gendered underpinnings of the social norms of artisanship, their limits, and possibilities. it was also in the shed that we put to test the ostensible paradox of “women carpenters” and the importance of new forms of habituation in subverting assumptions about specific forms of female artisanship. as a lifelong lagosian and a scholar of gender, everyday performance and yorùbá cultural heritage, i viewed dfl as the culmination of a set of political and academic interventions. devising and leading the dfl project created opportunities for developing everyday performance strategies that opened up alternative pathways out of poverty for a growing number of unemployed, educated women in my home city, where gendered poverty has remained endemic1. the shed, therefore, was like a rehearsal space, both a practice workshop (conceived expansively) and a site for actualising gendered activism. the relatively controlled environment of the shed became my preferred space to question a long-standing myth associated with artisanship in the city: that educated lagosian women should not train as carpenters. this deeply rooted, highly consequential narrative has sustained itself not only through male hostility but also through the rhetoric of female respectability that permeates everyday nigerian discourse. the presumed timelessness of cultural practice is emphasised by lively banter and perceptions that women’s formal education constitutes a barrier to interactions with uneducated male artisans. unquestioned truths, such as this one, are further reinforced through a culture of segregated formal and vocational education, as well as through all-male carpenters’ workshops scattered across the city. everyday life practices, problematic assumptions, and the visual markers of carpentry reinforce one another to normalise a gendered labour practice, which, this essay shows, is entangled in historical and cultural omissions; in silences that render invisible this society’s involvement with conventions of modern labour practices and its complex web of exclusion. it is in this sense that the dfl shed also becomes as much a rehearsal space for new gendered practices, as much as a space for remembering and for inclusion. the shed intervenes by shaping in the present new 1in an effort to address the socio-economic challenges posed by feminisation of poverty in the city, the lagos state government in 2001 created a fully-fledged cabinet office dedicated to women s affairs and poverty alleviation. b. aluko-kpotie: creating future memories qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 227-249 ©2023 229 possibilities for the future. in this way, the shed functions as a repository of living memories, and a space to craft future memories. figure 1: a trainee at the dfl shed (image courtesy dfl foundation archive) ii: beyond the text a yorùbá philosophy is summarised in the proverb: a kì í sọ pé ọjà-á nígbà; bó bá nígbà, kíníṣe tí wọ́n tún ńná a?2, which loosely translates as ‘we do not say there is a (fixed) time for transactions (market); if fixed, why then do we renegotiate terms?’ the saying invokes a pressing need to review seemingly ageless traditions in light of new developments. older generations of yorùbá market women would cite the proverb in critical arguments for urgent re-evaluation of trading contracts that are no longer fit for purpose, particularly where said contracts compromise profits and create unnecessary hardship for involved parties. the proverb offers a prompt to all stakeholders to keep future transactions viable by considering prevailing economic conditions in adapting the terms of previous contracts. the proverb is also a meaning-making paradigm that privileges dialogue, performance and reciprocity in renegotiating conventions and social 2 note that owomoyela (yorùbá proverbs: 198) provides a literal translation when he writes: one does not say there is a time for the market; if it were so, why would people continuously patronise it?” b. aluko-kpotie: creating future memories qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 227-249 ©2023 230 behaviours. my decision to curate a carpentry training project for a growing community of unemployed educated women in lagos is grounded squarely in this yorùbá worldview. to frame this work in the theories and registers legitimised by the research community means not only acknowledging other modes of knowing and doing; it also offers a way to recalibrate my method of analysis. as a female academic gathering data on educated women in a ‘field’ that is also home, i was both a witness and co-performer with research subjects on this social change project. my lived experience, the participants’ embodied knowledge, and the opportunities and challenges we created or navigated together were inevitable sources of data. to interpret and share insights from these everyday performances in the neutral, (supposedly) objective, distant tone of conservative academic writing seems inadequate. when i write in the jargon-laden, obscure language that is an homage to the academy, what assumptions do i make of the imagined reader? if this imagined reader were a lagosian woman in a carpentry shed, what sentences, words, imageries, theories and citation practices, might i mobilise to engage them? it is both ethical and appropriate to write about this research through first person narrative: in a style that comes as close as possible to the manner of speech and articulation of the community who made the project possible. the resulting in-depth account weaves across historical, social-societal and interpersonal contexts, providing readers beyond the research community with tools to imaginatively experience the world described. in the specific context of this special issue, it is an example of how to write qualitatively about gendered labour practices in a west african city. iii. hidden figures qualitative research in cultural studies boasts a long interdisciplinary history of investigating the processes by which societies transmit cultural memories about labour practices. yet academic interventions on the challenges faced by africa’s overwhelming unemployed youth population, and the increasingly gendered nature of this reality, has remained largely confined to the fields of politics, economics and development studies. b. aluko-kpotie: creating future memories qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 227-249 ©2023 231 it is from these classic social science fields that one finds some illuminating research data on the urgency of the dfl community engagement project. to illustrate, the year before dfl opened its doors to its first cohort of students, i found a report published by an agglomerate of international development agencies in 2012 which shows that about six million young people enter nigeria’s labour market yearly but only 10% secure a job in the country’s formal sector and a mere third of these are women (gender in nigeria, 2012). put differently, every year, a surplus of almost three million unemployed educated women confront the unenviable challenge of creating a livelihood in the country’s unpredictable and extremely volatile informal job sector, where a beneficial business forecast is near impossible due to minimal infrastructural support, inadequate policy regulations, and a dearth of data on markets. enfield (2019), identifying underinvestment in women as an important barrier restricting women’s entry into the country’s labour market, argues that beyond the complex challenges of nigeria’s informal sector, misogyny and patriarchal interpretations of culture compound the country’s gendered inequalities. myths of gendered labour practices and, more specifically, the masculinisation of certain forms of artisanship are good examples of cultural norms that preemptively exclude women from access to market-relevant vocational training required for well-paid jobs in the country’s vibrant trade sector. the impact of this exclusion is perhaps more visible in lagos, nigeria’s commercial capital with an estimated population of over 20 million people. lagos is a federal state – as well as a port city – with the country’s most dynamic trade sector and persistently high rates of youth unemployment3. its population size reflects the presence of a robust market, but the simple economics of a high number of people competing for extremely limited resources makes it near impossible for most to create viable livelihoods in the precarious informal sector. this is a city where growing numbers of unemployed and underemployed educated women are made vulnerable to poverty daily in ways that diminish their capacity to participate in, contribute to and develop meaningful connections with society at large. 3 for more details, see nigerian national bureau of statistics (nbs) labour force survey, second quarter 2020. b. aluko-kpotie: creating future memories qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 227-249 ©2023 232 lagos suffers from a shortage of skilled artisans, carpenters inclusive, even though the city’s construction sector has thrived in the wake of public investment in extensive statewide projects that also gentrify poor communities. privately funded residential building projects have also bolstered public investment in construction, with skilled migrant workers recruited from neighbouring countries like benin and togo and further afield in china to match labour demand4. although most unemployed graduates in the city acquire some vocational training over the course of their formal education, women tend to oversubscribe to training in female-dominated trades such as tailoring, catering, hairdressing, and in recent times, photography. they are thus disproportionately disadvantaged in the opportunities presented by nigeria’s labour shortage in the construction sector. casting the problem of gender inequality or poverty in purely economic or policy terms often elides the powerful cultural ideologies that undergird access to sectors in demonstrable need of female talent. a segregation of vocational practice along gender and sometimes class lines takes root in nigerians’ notions of female respectability, but economic frameworks are ill-equipped to show how myths are underpinned by everyday cultural practices or through the material conditions of their production and re-enactment. figure 2: up skilling at the shed (image courtesy dfl foundation archive) 4 see for example ezea, 2017. growing concern as expatriates take over artisan jobs in nigeria” b. aluko-kpotie: creating future memories qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 227-249 ©2023 233 iv: building a space for ‘wayward girls’ the early years of dfl’s female training initiative were marked by scepticism on many fronts. dfl administrative staff, whose primary responsibility was to provide logistical support to trainees, quietly expressed concerns about the viability of the project. professional carpenters commissioned to conduct training sessions were pessimistic about the women’s long-term commitment or readiness to learn carpentry. there were also unsolicited comments from members of the public who considered our effort to reverse gendered labour practices audacious. phone enquiries to dfl’s administrative office often ended with expressions of disappointment at the fact that we were only interested in working with unemployed educated women. my most memorable conversation on this matter was with a potential client who visited the dfl furniture company to commission some sofas and dining room sets while the dfl project training shed was under construction. the mother of two unemployed educated daughters, she was intrigued by our proposed community engagement project but expressed doubt about trainee recruitment and retention. convinced we were on the wrong path and determined to put my colleagues and i right, she was unequivocally clear that her daughters would not be seen learning a trade with “local male carpenters in public!” and, if we insisted on running the project we could only hope for success by enrolling “society’s wayward girls”. implied in the client’s comment, and in the broader public scepticism, is a class and sexual subtext: the assumption that training with ostensibly lower-class male carpenters would also entail sexual relationships with the trainees. on another level, this client’s classification of waywardness signals the naturalisation of contemporary patriarchy that straddles zones of contested citizenship rights and gender inequality across africa5. the discursive context in which the client’s sentiments were raised is, however, not unconnected to the success of another women-focused vocational training project in lagos: the female mechanic initiative (fmi). founded by sandra aguebor, fmi provides automobile mechanic training to marginalised women with little 5 see pailey’s women, equality, and citizenship in contemporary africa” for an excellent analysis. b. aluko-kpotie: creating future memories qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 227-249 ©2023 234 or no formal education. aguebor’s visionary efforts with fmi, particularly in reintegrating sex workers into society as productive, dignified citizens, has been celebrated by local and international media, including the america’s cable news network (cnn). as it happens, the fmi’s chosen demographic, young women at the start of their productive lives labelled ‘wayward’, for their presumed compromised moral standards by a society fast embracing patriarchy as its dominant culture, is precisely the challenge for sceptics of the dfl project. the rationale here is that if there are women who could and should work in a predominately male space, sandra’s female mechanics were the ideal type. they exist as the antithesis of the respectable (read: educated) woman. it would matter little, then, if we revealed to the proponents of this narrative that when dfl initiated a city-wide campaign for its first cohort of female trainees, it received no single application from the so-called ‘wayward type’. it would also not matter if we informed them that only two applicants – of the over 50 applicants shortlisted for the initially available five training positions at dfl – were secondary school graduates. the overwhelming majority had at least one degree and most had been unemployed or underemployed for a minimum of two years post-graduation. perhaps dfl sceptics would have been less cynical were they aware that their concept of a respectable woman is in fact a product of past british colonial domestication policy on the african continent. akyeampong and fofack (2013), for example, argue that in the face of long-standing traditions of female industry and entrepreneurship, women across the continent were secluded in the domestic domain under the christian discourse of respectability. in the case of nigeria, the british domestication project was a carefully crafted, complex social process that involved the colonial state, the church, and their schools. the stakeholders in these institutions united around the belief that the creation of ‘civilised’ monogamous christian households required the re-education of african women alongside policing the intimacies of african family life. ejikeme (2011) documents how the nigerian colonial government supported irish nuns in the creation of an elite class of respectable women in calabar, onitsha and kaduna by championing the domestic sciences as the best education for african girls. the situation was further complicated in lagos where the ‘natives’ were just as vested in advancing the b. aluko-kpotie: creating future memories qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 227-249 ©2023 235 domestication project as the colonial authorities6. the project, largely successful because it was integrated into existing cultural, religious and political institutions, became recast over time as authentic, traditional cultural practice. once reengineered as ‘tradition’ the notion of the respectable woman successfully transformed from a victorian colonial ideal into part of indigenous, christian and islamic african culture, shifting existing gender dynamics in ways that rendered women more vulnerable to poverty and oppression than was previously the case. arguments to exclusively train the ‘wayward type’ in lucrative, male-dominated trades ignore these historical facts. they also fail to connect how resulting outdated social and cultural constraints contribute to the lived realities of a growing population of unemployed, educated women who are unable to create sustainable livelihoods in lagos. v: the shed: recoding gender although questions about respectability and the respectable woman persisted in the planning phase of the dfl project, the historical picture and how it continues to shape the socio-economic realities of women in lagos was not my pressing concern. i was preoccupied more with addressing what i identified as the two salient factors that played a defining role in excluding educated women from carpenter’s workshops across the city: the duration of apprenticeship and the unregulated structure of the pursuit. taken at face value, both factors appear to be gender-neutral constraints; in practice, however, they contribute immensely to the reproduction of gender (dis)advantage in the workshop. at many of the workshops i visited while conducting project reconnaissance, i observed that although apprentices learnt through practice, instruction on elements of carpentry was based solely on available customer-commissioned work7. and because neither the type nor availability of work could be guaranteed, trainees tend to spend extended periods in the day, of between four to six years (sometimes longer), shadowing master artisans. the sporadic work completed during this period allows the apprentice to accumulate a required minimum number of hours of practice on different aspects of the trade, but the 6see, for example, the story of charlotte olajumoke obasa-blaize in george’s making of modern girls. 7 it is important to underline that gender bias manifests at the commission stage, specifically in the misguided conflation of masculinity with superior expertise. b. aluko-kpotie: creating future memories qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 227-249 ©2023 236 informal mode of teaching could prove especially challenging to anyone accustomed to formal educational practices. similarly, the flexibility and open-endedness of the carpentry apprenticeship provide the critical skills to succeed in a trade marked by unpredictable demand, but this open-endedness also presents a potential problem. there is a high potential for abuse in an unregulated system where trainees not only provide free labour, but also might be asked to perform tasks wholly unrelated to honing carpentry skills. this dynamic could readily produce disempowering gendered consequences for young women learning the ropes in a male-dominated industry. the ambience and condition of the workspaces themselves constitute a source of gendered exclusion8. eighteen of the twenty carpenter’s workshops i visited across lagos were badly lit and in need of better ventilation. fourteen of these workshops were located on dusty, un-tarred roads with heavy traffic, with the remaining six located within open markets dedicated to the carpentry trade. only one of the 20 had a toilet that provided any privacy for men or women. these workshops, however, shared a striking denominator: they all housed an array of sweaty, shirtless men crammed together in small, overcrowded, dusty workspaces. they shared these spaces with their tools, personal belongings, and furniture built for sale. whatever one thought of the ‘respectable woman’ or how she came to be, these workshops were certainly no place for her, or indeed for any kind of woman, or man, for that matter. the carpentry shed, across lagos, is not only extremely uncomfortable, but also a potentially hostile environment to visit for even a short period. it is patently unconducive to structured learning over a prolonged time, especially for women. these challenges moulded our imagination of what would be the shed. creating a safe and inclusive space for female carpenters demanded more than inviting them into sheds as they were, and hoping that they would somehow thrive. dfl needed to reimagine the work environment if it were to stand any chance of attracting its chosen demographic: educated women. therefore, armed with a humble budget and a lot of support from family 8see massey’s (1994) still topical argument that space is not empty but produced culturally by social relations. b. aluko-kpotie: creating future memories qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 227-249 ©2023 237 and friends, some with architectural and construction skills, i converted a derelict tool house on the same premises as the dfl furniture company into a suitable workshop for female carpenters. we elevated the roof and ceiling of the building for improved lighting and ventilation and constructed a side wall of bamboo slates to provide some privacy from suppliers and clients visiting the furniture company. a couple of carpenter’s benches found in the old tool house were repurposed; we installed a chalkboard for instructors; and ensured access to reliable electricity for power tools. the shed was completed with essential indoor and outdoor storage areas, toilets, a shower, and a changing room. because dfl was equally invested in bridging the theory-practice nexus of carpentry, we had to consider how the newly designed architecture could foster for students a continuous reflection of the principles that undergirded the craft of carpentry. we achieved this by creating an indoor air-conditioned classroom where a tutor on contract from the city’s foremost technical college prepared our trainees for relevant national certification examinations by teaching the theoretical aspects of carpentry with entrepreneurial skills. to secure these training spaces as well as to improve the overall ambience, we fenced and gated the carpenter’s workshop off from street traffic. the administrative offices of the existing dfl furniture company provide logistics and material procurement support. the task of envisioning inclusive infrastructure became a critical basis for the work ahead. consistent with our goal of intentional design for equity, we also needed to reimagine the curriculum. working with dfl’s technical college tutor, i devised a carpentry training programme that provided trainees with the technical skills required to acquire carpentry competence within two years. we structured the programme based on four six-monthlong, hands-on modules that started with a required introductory carpentry course. while we encouraged trainees to complete all four modules, we designed the first two to provide enough general carpentry knowledge to enable trainees to undertake a variety of tasks within the trade. these tasks ranged from cultivating communication skills with clients and colleagues, through drafting, to learning and applying a variety of wood joinery techniques. by providing four short courses imparting incremental levels of technical competence, we allowed dfl trainees constrained by care or other domestic b. aluko-kpotie: creating future memories qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 227-249 ©2023 238 responsibilities the flexibility to determine both the duration of training and the degree of technical skill that they could pursue given their circumstances9. vi: building alliances the shed could not exist in a cultural bubble. for it to survive, we needed to secure the buy-in of powerful social actors, from individuals with direct authority over our trainees and those who police and benefit from patriarchy to those who shape narratives of gendered labour practices in nigeria. these included mothers, neighbours, husbands, fathers, pastors and imams. the success of the dfl carpentry project hinged not only on eliciting as little possible resistance from these constituents but also on securing, where possible, their enthusiastic support. we adopted two main strategies in articulating dfl’s benefit to these stakeholders. one was to highlight to them the dfl project as an entrepreneurship course where women acquired essential carpentry skills and trained as business owners. this was an outcome that would benefit not only the women but, theoretically, the stakeholders who currently possess decision-making power over their lives. another strategy was to acknowledge and attend to the balance between the women’s carpentry training commitments and the existing demands on their everyday lives. dfl classes officially ran from ten o’clock in the mornings to two o’clock in the afternoons, four days a week, to accommodate childcare and other domestic responsibilities which we recognised as highly gendered. it was for this precise reason that the carpenter’s shed opened from eight o’clock in the morning and closed at six o’clock in the evening every day of the week, ensuring that trainees gained flexible access based on their own schedules beyond official opening hours. in addition, we encourage trainees to build furniture pieces required in their own homes for their individual and group projects. for example, one of our trainees built a full set of kitchen cabinets to update her home. this ostensibly simple idea helped to transform family members and even religious institutions into allies. otherwise resistant male family members encouraged their unemployed or underemployed female relatives to enrol, with most of 9dfl project was nominated as a positive and profitable business innovation by students of the lagos business school in 2015. our work and story lives on to the un global goals inspired aim2flourish: business as an agent of world benefit programme’s platform. b. aluko-kpotie: creating future memories qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 227-249 ©2023 239 our trainees accompanied on their first visits by a male relative. there was also an unexpectedly high number of applications for the first cohort from members of the redeemed christian churches of god (rccg), a prominent pentecostal christian organisation in nigeria which has a notable footprint around the globe. a leading female pastor within the organisation had heard of the dfl project, made a general announcement about the project at a regional rccg women’s conference, encouraging members to apply to the programme. word spread in this community even though no member of the dfl team was associated with the church or its affiliated organisations at the time. reflecting on this period and their subsequent achievements on the carpentry project a year later10, one trainee stated: i can’t believe i am now paid by my neighbours to build furniture pieces. these were the same neighbours who laughed at me when i started this training. they told my husband that he is encouraging me to grow “unwomanly” muscles, which surely makes me less pretty. the funny thing is i feel prettier with these muscles… i have earned their [the neighbours’] respect and [i] bring home money to my family. a second trainee highlighted the project’s flexible time arrangement as the main deciding factor for her family. in her words: my husband’s major concern in supporting my decision was the extra cost of childcare on the family budget…although i explained how i planned to structure my training around our child’s school schedule, he was initially reluctant…these days my carpentry skills are on display in different areas of the house, and he is always the first to call a guest's attention to a table i built or a chair i fixed. 10 both quotations are excerpted from a dfl video diary recorded in 2014. b. aluko-kpotie: creating future memories qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 227-249 ©2023 240 figure 3: professional male carpenters became important allies on this project support emerged from unlikely sources and convincing clergy and family members turned out to be the easier part. the greater challenge was in persuading male artisans to join our project. they simply refused to work with women, or, should i say, they harboured reservations about working with the stereotypical ‘educated type', their main objection being that these women were either too lazy or too weak to engage in the intense labour required to produce good furniture.. this was a gendered trope not totally unconnected from nigerian notions of female respectability: that physical labour stands at odds with the prevailing ideas of respectable womanhood. knowledge transfer from male artisans to female apprentices was core to the dfl model. therefore, a different strategy became necessary to cross this critical hurdle. as dfl is also a furniture company, we invited several experienced artisans to partner on commissioned work on the condition that all furniture pieces must be built at the dfl centre. once on location, the invited carpenters observed as our trainees built basic furniture pieces while following instructions from their technical school tutor, who b. aluko-kpotie: creating future memories qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 227-249 ©2023 241 also happened to be a skilled carpenter. in time, a carpenter who had worked with us in building the dfl shed agreed to instruct our trainees. many months later, another seasoned male artisan who specialises in upholstery decided to join us. it was a small win converting three conservative (sceptical) carpenters to our cause, but it was a win made possible by first curating a different gaze of craft and female embodiment. witnessing young women applying themselves to carpentry enabled these men to discover a new way of thinking about labour, artisanship, and the female body. this became a subtle but important intervention in the broader mission of re-coding gender in the carpentry workshop. although the women did not need to, their daily work thoroughly debunked the myth of the educated woman as lazy and weak. their hard work, passion and commitment to learning carpentry produced results beyond our expectations. by the end of their first year of training, alongside working on individual projects, these previously unemployed educated women, who had never considered retraining as carpenters, were assisting their teachers and other dfl carpenters on small and large projects. one of the most symbolic tasks that culminated their growth was the full refurbishment of an executive lounge at the nigerian international airport in lagos. interestingly, almost all dfl applicants indicated an aspiration to migrate outside of nigeria on their application forms. however, dfl’s data on the first cohort show that only 20% migrated after receiving training, while 80% now work within different areas of carpentry in nigeria, often collaborating on commissioned projects with dfl former instructors. even as the women are cultivating their skills to be able to compete in the lucrative construction sector, their participation is certainly helping to fill a critical gap in the equally labour-deficient furniture industry. not only have they gained the respect and admiration of their instructors, but they are also now earning a decent living inside the city’s formal sector. the women’s higher levels of formal education and their social network complement their carpentry skills in the business world, where they are better able to generate profitable business leads in comparison to their competitors. there is so much about the trajectory of the apprentices that inspires pride, thus offering real encouragement about the prospect of broader social change. b. aluko-kpotie: creating future memories qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 227-249 ©2023 242 one testimonial by an outstanding dfl trainee stood out for me. she is paying forward her free carpentry training by providing other unemployed and underemployed women with similar opportunities at her very own carpenter’s shed in abuja, nigeria’s federal capital, where she and her family currently reside. her words are worth citing in full here: i found my voice at dfl. i became a professional with skills that gave me choices i never imagined existed. after the initial two years of carpentry training, dfl assisted in connecting me with a successful female entrepreneur for a six-month business management internship. i got my first job as a carpenter-upholsterer afterwards, where i worked for two more years before setting up my very own workshop as a social enterprise as well… i had to give back! i am living proof of what happens when an educated woman is empowered as a carpenter. all i am doing now is sharing what i know with other women.11 having women crafting beautiful furniture in the masculine-coded space of a carpenter’s shed is dfl’s most important intervention into everyday behaviour, and insights on the project’s real-world impact are best deduced from participants’ individual experiences and stories. these human stories demonstrate how an innovative research project drives social change from within. they show that it is possible to challenge and reshape deeply entrenched myths of gendered labour practices, with life-changing results. 11 in dfl correspondence with her for testimonials in 2019 b. aluko-kpotie: creating future memories qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 227-249 ©2023 243 vii: crafting future memories from the shed to classrooms across lagos figure. 4: lagos state government secondary school girls at a dfl introduction to carpentry workshop. (image courtesy dfl foundation archive) the success of the shed inspired a desire to scale up the project. the experience gained with dfl female trainees had proven the efficacy of everyday actions in shifting perspectives on social norms, but it also signalled the urgent need for early intervention in secondary schools, well before students make crucial career choices. this is an urgency further heightened for educated teenage girls in economically deprived and marginalised communities in lagos, where scarce financial resources threaten academic and life aspirations. the decision to extend elements of dfl’s training programme from the shed to a younger socio-economic group was informed in part by feedback from our first cohort of trainees. their conversations while at work in the shed offered crucial insights about the nigerian education system and the myriad ways it socialises women into gendered occupations. current lagos state education policy, across all levels of education, and specifically from primary to secondary, mirrors a broader nigerian system that segregates vocational education from mainstream academic curriculum – and often along gender b. aluko-kpotie: creating future memories qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 227-249 ©2023 244 lines. this gendering of vocational training in lagos is an enduring legacy of the historical role educational institutions played in normalising notions of victorian female respectability. it has persisted as an education system that excludes educated girls from acquiring market-relevant skills with the potential of creating sustainable income streams. extending dfl training from a small carpenter’s shed to classrooms across lagos furthered the project’s core mission of revising everyday gendered labour practices in lagos. scaling up, however, required a strategic allocation of scarce resources as well as a reenergised capacity to engage with lagos state government officials with their penchant for bureaucracy. from this perspective, scaling up became an opportunity to develop a network of community allies – as important social capital – within the lagos state school system and a strategy to motivate community participation for sustainable cultural change. to facilitate this scale-up process as well as to establish the dfl project as an initiative of a non-governmental and a not-for-profit legal entity, i registered designs for life foundation in nigeria in 2015. a year later, i launched the foundation’s pilot project to provide free, hands-on, traditional upholstery training to girls in public secondary schools across lagos. dfl’s small-scale furniture company funded this initiative with pre-tax profits spread over two financial years. this was a modest grant but it covered the cost of tuition, training materials, and refreshments for four weeks of training at each participating school. it was particularly important that we allocated some money for refreshments on the project’s budget because our beneficiaries were from communities where children sometimes attend school without breakfast or an allowance for lunch. by providing a drink and a light snack before training commenced, my team and i ensured that none of the girls we worked with sat through lengthy training sessions hungry. the sad reality was that there were many more who required access to both the training and refreshments than we could cater for, and we often increased the number of beneficiaries at those schools where the need was particularly high. in three academic years, and in spite of these challenges, dfl provided free introductory training to over 1000 girls b. aluko-kpotie: creating future memories qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 227-249 ©2023 245 across lagos, at 48 different secondary schools managed by lagos state government’s yaba and ikoyi district education boards (edbs). it is critical to not lose sight of the conditions that necessitated the dfl project to begin with. gender disparities in economic opportunities and access to good jobs remain an immediate existential challenge for educated women in lagos. for this reason, we only recruited either unemployed or underemployed educated women as dfl instructors on the schools’ project. our exceptional team consists of ten instructors, one project coordinator, and a logistics and support administrator. the administrator role is officebased while the instructors are mobile, teaching in teams of two on a pre-scheduled duty rotation basis at different locations across the city. the project coordinator, who supervises these five teams of instructors and the administrator, visits all participating schools and organises monthly team meetings at the dfl shed for evaluation, feedback, and socialising. all members of the team were employed on part-time contracts of five days’ commitment per month. four days were dedicated to conducting training workshops at participating schools and one day was for evaluation and feedback at the dfl carpenter’s shed. structured part-time work of this nature is rare in lagos, where there is also a vibrant university community of undergraduate and research students. this made the dfl instructor’s post a very attractive work option for those within and outside of the university of lagos community. that dfl paid a competitive daily wage and provided free basic-level upholstery-carpentry training made it an especially compelling project to join. the staffing approach at dfl was, like everything else, geared toward fostering effective collaboration, opportunity, and a sense of community among women. in june 2019, the summer before the global covid-19 pandemic kept students out of lagos state government schools for almost a full academic year, we paused the dfl schools project marking the event with a free, two-day carpentry training workshop. one hundred beneficiaries from the top ten of our 48 schools participated, improving their traditional upholstery skills while learning new carpentry techniques. also in attendance were teachers and representatives from ikoyi and yaba edbs, as were local and international mainstream media including the yorùbá service of the british b. aluko-kpotie: creating future memories qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 227-249 ©2023 246 broadcasting corporation (bbc). a festive atmosphere marked with food and drinks was heightened by the excited voices of a hundred girls learning new skills as they engaged in friendly competition for accolades and prices. when the bbc correspondent asked one of the girls why train as a carpenter? she looked straight into the camera and confidently responded in yorùbá: ati mò wìpè ikan tì okùnrin lè se obìrin lè se jùbeelo… isé kafínta yii le je kí awon obìrin ti o wa ni adugbo ni ita mò pè àwa obìrin naa ti n gbáradí pe nnkan tí okùnrin lè se obìrin lè se jùbeelo nínú isé kafínta. (we already know that what a man can do a woman can do better… our carpentry training/work is particularly helpful for women in this community to understand that we (as girls) are preparing to out-perform our male colleagues in carpentry.)12 indeed, there was a lot to celebrate and a lot to be optimistic about for the future. collectively, we had demonstrated the possibilities of renegotiating the terms of existing gendered labour practices in the field of carpentry and created a project that provides a real pathway out of poverty for an increasing number of educated women and girls in my home city of lagos. the project also showed what could be achieved by a committed few to affect even modest social change of an inequitable order. the lessons from the shed and dfl classrooms are instructive of the possibility of creating more just circumstances for women. on a personal note, i had worked with an exceptional team of women and men and found incredible allies along the way to build a simple, scalable, replicable project that engaged members of my community in the work of social change. viii: “writing off the beaten track” the dfl project, like the continuous negotiations of outdated contracts in market spaces earlier described, is a process of remaking cultural memories: an effort to create what could be from what was. it is a collaborative, qualitative research project designed to produce new cultural narratives of gendered vocational practices in lagos. the objective 12 interview provided to bbc yorùbá language service in 2019. b. aluko-kpotie: creating future memories qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 227-249 ©2023 247 was not to tear down ‘traditions’ but to use them to understand how to build healthier and more equitable realities that are context specific. a similar ethic of intentional revision informed my approach to write a reflective essay on the research in vivid, personal narratives that are based on first-hand experience and witness accounts. writing in the first-person meant i could deeply reflect on my experience conceptualising and implementing an innovative project that produced a culturally sensitive, demonstrable impact. i could also examine the critical role played by my research community in our attempts at normalising the image of educated women in a carpenter’s shed. in addition, this genre of writing offers opportunities to explore how the participants and i navigated complex socio-historical, economic, and political constraints to demonstrate change through everyday performances. in contrast, the formal tone of conventional academic language with its requisite organising arguments and supporting citations resist this human engagement. in this textual paradigm, “knowledge means rising above intimacy” (conquergood, 2013: 48). but the luxury of emotional distance or detachment is hardly available to those who bear the brunt of gendered exclusions and inequalities in employment placements. the resulting economic hardship neatly documented in statistics and colourful graphs are in themselves a critique of the absence of emotional depth in conventional academic work based on lived experience. academic writing does not need to be boring or unengaging, when it could well flourish through insightful, first person accounts and performative narratives. this post-academic writing is for and about the dfl research community: it is for the women and men whose commitment in time and resources made this social change project a success. b. aluko-kpotie: creating future memories qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 227-249 ©2023 248 references akyeampong, e. and hippolyte, f. (2012). the contribution of african women to economic growth and development: historical perspectives and policy implications, part i, the pre-colonial and colonial periods. policy research working paper; no. 6051. world bank, washington, dc. https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/handle/10986/6056 dfl trainees, (2014). reflections one year on. dfl video diaries. ejikeme, a. (2011). from traders to teachers: a history of elite women in onitsha, nigeria, 1928-1940. journal of asian and african studies 46, no. 3: 221–36. https://doi.org/10.1177/0021909610396157. enfield s (2019). gender roles and inequalities in the nigerian labour market,” k4d helpdesk report. brighton, uk: institute of development studies. https://opendocs.ids.ac.uk/opendocs/handle/20.500.12413/14727 ezea, s. (2017). growing concern as expatriates take over artisan jobs in nigeria. the guardian. 26 august 2017. https://guardian.ng/saturday-magazine/growing-concern-asexpatriates-take-over-artisan-jobs-in-nigeria/ george, a. a. (2014). making modern girls: a history of girlhood, labor, and social development in colonial lagos. athens oh: ohio university press. johnson, e.p., & conquergood, d. (2013). cultural struggles: performance, ethnography, praxis. ann arbor: university of michigan press. massey, d. (1994). space, place, and gender. cambridge: polity press nigerian national bureau of statistics (nbs) labour force survey. (2020). q2. https://nigerianstat.gov.ng owomoyela, o. (2005). yorùbá proverbs. lincoln and london: university of nebraska press. oyedapo, y. (2019). “eyin obirin, e lo kó ise kafinta tori o lówó lori ju ise…”. bbc yoruba service. 14 august 2019. https://www.bbc.com/yoruba/afrika-49341252 pailey, rn. (2020). women, equality, and citizenship in contemporary africa. oxford encyclopedia of african politics: 1834-1856, https://doi.org:10.1093/acrefore/9780190228637.013.852 https://guardian.ng/saturday-magazine/growinghttps://nigerianstat.gov.ng/ https://www.bbc.com/yoruba/afrika https://doi.org:10.1093/acrefore/9780190228637.013.852 b. aluko-kpotie: creating future memories qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 227-249 ©2023 249 acknowledgement i thank the dfl team and project coordinators for their dedication and outstanding work ethics on this social change project. my gratitude also goes to the leadership at the lagos state education districts in ikoyi and yaba, including the heads of schools, for facilitating dfl’s access to work with their students from 2015 to 2019. about the author: bukola aluko-kpotie is an independent scholar and qualitative researcher with combined experience in community engagement work and academia. she has worked on a range of public sector projects and now brings in her expertise as a social researcher in consulting. prior to this she was the convener for the masters in african studies programme at soas, university of london, where she taught postgraduate as well as undergraduate courses. bukola holds an msc. from oxford university, and a phd from the performance as public practice program at the university of texas, austin. untitled qualitative studies, 1(2) 115 ”generalizability” as recognition: reflections on a foundational problem in qualitative research charlotte delmar abstract: the aim of the article is to develop what counts as “generalizability” in qualitative research. by taking an ontological and epistemic stance in relation to the four foundational problems: 1)knowledge and its various forms. 2) properties of reality and the doubleness of the situation. 3) how is understanding possible? 4) the researcher’s role: what are the fundamental questions that the researcher must ask himself before a study is designed? we are able to approach the exploration of ”generalizability” in qualitative research. methodological theorists agree that the question of applicability is essential in the discussion of “generalizability” in qualitative research. if the quantitative tradition’s requirement for replicability also has to be met, the pressing question during the article is what counts as replicability and applicability in qualitative research. in the exploration of what is involved in “generalizability” in qualitative research a combination of gadamer and flyvbjerg´s thinking are important sources for a reflection on the ontological and epistemic questions related to the four foundational problems. the ontological question of what establishes a situation is an essential interpretation for the finding. a situation is characterised by its quality of doubleness: it is unique and typical at the same time. people with each their unique story and life world constitute the uniqueness of the situation. and a situation is typical in the sense that fundamental experiences can be found in every situation. the typical is what we as people have in common. there will be typical traits and recogizable patterns in every situation. the finding show us that “generalizability” in qualitative research builds on recognisability and a challenge to practice as a practical reasoning. keywords: generalizability, recognisability, replicability, applicability, qualitative research, situation please cite this article as: delmar, c. (2010). ”generalizability” as recognition: reflections on a foundational problem in qualitative research. qualitative studies, 1(2): 115-128. introduction the aim of the article is to illuminate ontological and epistemic questions encircling the answer of what counts as “generalizability” in qualitative research. for researchers concerned with the meaningfulness and significance of life in the form of people’s deliberations, experiences, decisions and actions, this should be particularly important since the conceptual context in which their research is executed is typically a practice context with different changeable factors. replicability is paramount as generalizability in quantitative research but repetition with changeable factors in a practice context seems not to be the answer in qualitative research. by discussing the following four foundational problems, the article will reflect on the question of replicability and practical application in qualitative research. • knowledge and its various forms qualitative studies, 1(2) 116 • properties of reality and the doubleness of the situation • how is understanding possible? • the researcher’s role: what are the fundamental questions that the researcher must ask himself before a study is designed? the stimulus for writing this article comes from working in a health profession in which a number of different paradigms are at play. which paradigm is deemed to be relevant for a specific research project will depend on whether the object of study concerns prognosis, diagnosis, treatment or nursing. the complexity of health scientific research is seen by the fact that it employs both tried and tested biomedical and epidemiological research methods, a large variety of qualitative methods, and methods that are still being developed, such as mixed methods (wheeldon 2010, creswell 2003). research projects that focus on meaningfulness and significance of life in its various forms expressed in people’s experiences require qualitative approaches and procedures. if, on the other hand, the research interest focuses on causal regularities based on the biological aspects of human nature, quantitative approaches and procedures are required. irrespective of the type of research project it always requires approaches and procedures that 1) respect the studied phenomena and are 2) capable of producing new, research-founded knowledge. the first condition for producing valid research is thus that the methodology is adapted to the specific object of examination. this is a self-evident and increasingly trivial statement, but why is it then that problems continue to arise in the generation of new knowledge? there may be a multitude of reasons for this, and at every point in the research process, poor choices may cast doubt on the value and validity of the knowledge generated. the concept of ”generalizability” in qualitative research is beset by indistinctness. in my experience of assessing nursing professional projects for financial support, the concept seems to have become increasingly indistinct and ill-defined in these types of projects, which stems from the pursuit of a form of generalizability that properly belongs to the natural sciences at the expense of the quality and validity of qualitative research. so there is cause for concern. let me give a few experienced examples from my financial work concerning the projects combining quantitative and qualitative methods: • the number of interviews undertaken in qualitative research studies has shown a steady, but unmotivated, growth. • concepts belonging to the natural sciences, such as effect, generalizability, bias, etc., are being used in qualitative research. • rather insufficient descriptions of the very complicated issue of qualitative research are seen, e.g. when only 10-15 lines out of a 5-page project description concern this aspect. • the research irrespective of its distinct objects of knowledge is judged according to the same epistemic scientific criteria belonging to the natural sciences, such as generalizability. one of qualitative studies, 1(2) 117 the problems is that qualitative research may be deemed less evident, or, even worse, unscientific. this article therefore aims to guide the qualitative researcher by asking questions that may also stimulate an exploration of the question of ”generalizability” in qualitative research. while this is by no means an exhaustive discussion but an attempt at a systematic identification of criteria for ”generalizability” in qualitative research, the exploration takes an ontological and epistemic approach by asking questions that so to speak come before the logic inherent to the research. in doing so, it discusses the four foundational problems mentioned above. background there seems to be a common perception among researchers in the qualitative tradition that generalizability in qualitative research is neither important, attainable nor relevant in relation to the objectives of research (schoefield 2002, kitto et al. 2008). as opposed to quantitative research, in which the principle of replicability is paramount, the sheer number of individual and conceptual components in qualitative studies is so large that a piecemeal repetition of each appears to be a hopeless task (schoefield 2002). we find work by stake (1978), guba & lincoln (1981, 1982) and goetz & lecompte (1982) among the first important contributions to the discussion of generalizability in qualitative research. it was stake’s position that it is not feasible to apply a single case and generalize its results to a larger population, even when that case constitutes a subset of the population. he introduced the concept of ”naturalistic generalizability”, which enables the transfer of results from one study for the interpretation of similar situations. to achieve this, it is necessary to apply not only explicit comparisons between situations but also ”tacit knowledge” based on personal experience. generalizability will thus be based on the way things are and will lead to ”expectability” rather than the predictability that characterizes quantitative research (stake 1978, schoefield 2002). guba & lincoln (1981, 1982) posited that as human activity is determined by context and time, we should rather talk about ”fittingness”, which is to say that the analysis attempts to establish the extent to which the studied situation matches other situations or problems which we want to study. goetz & lecompte (1982) took a similar position. they argued that the results of qualitative studies can be used as a basis for comparison with other situations through what they termed ”comparability” and ”translatability”. the former reflects how well-described and well-defined the components of a study are. these components include e.g. the unit of analysis, the concept development, the characteristics of the studied object and the framework in which the research is conducted. for a study to be ”translatable”, it must give a clear description of its theoretical position and the techniques or methods applied in research. in other words, the reporting of the research should be sufficiently detailed to enable the reader to assess whether the results are applicable to similar settings (mays & pope 2000). in line with goetz & lecompte (1982), morse (1999) and horsborough (2003) find that situational rather than demographic representativeness is demanded – or in other words whether the developed theory may be ”exported” to comparable situations. in the same vein, kitto et al. (2008) describe conceptual generalizability and the transformation (the ”export”) to other health care contexts. this form of generalizability is not concerned with the collection of representative data, qualitative studies, 1(2) 118 but rather with the researcher’s analysis and interpretation of contexts in order to be able to predicate a theoretical understanding of the examined situation and field (yin 1994). for the psychologist amedeo giorgi, this is a typification, which he chooses to call a general structure (giorgi 1997). a chair, for instance, is a part of the furniture, while ”furniture” typifies or indicates a general structure. concurring with guba & lincoln (1981, 1982), britten et al. (1995) indicated that similarities and differences must be identified before the relevance of an already studied setting can be assessed for other settings of interest. meta-synthesis represents another kind of generalization, but some researchers maintain that every part of a qualitative study is a unique representation of many realities, situations and truths. however, a number of methodological questions remain, such as whether it is possible to combine studies based on distinct qualitative methodologies (flemming 2007). the conclusion is that the mentioned methodological theorists agree that the question of research applicability is essential. they understand this to concern whether the results of the qualitative research can be matched, transformed or ”exported” to comparable situations. this would require that we know what establishes a situation. it would also require an identification and clear description of similarities and differences between the various settings and – not least – of the multitude of individual and conceptual components of the entire research process, including the theoretical position, in particular if the quantitative tradition’s requirement for replicability has to be met. but the pressing question would then be whether replicability as an important principle takes sufficient account of the differences in foundational problems that characterize the various paradigms. within the paradigm of qualitative research, allowing its strengths on its own terms, this article will illuminate ontological and epistemic questions encircling the answer to what establishes a situation and what counts as “generalizability” in qualitative research, or, in other words, what counts as replicability and applicability in qualitative research. philosophical/theoretical sources in the exploration of what is involved in ”generalizability” in qualitative research, i turn to two important sources, which each in their own way discuss ontological and epistemic questions about humans, society and science: hans-georg gadamer’s wahrheit und methode ((1960) 2004) and bent flyvbjerg’s making social science matter (2001). gadamer was a philosopher and the latter’s work focuses on the study of humans and society. apart from representing two different eras, their experiences are different with respect to the validity of research and the repositories of power in the scientific world. it could be said that gadamer’s philosophical interest is mainly the life world, while flyvbjerg’s predominant concern is with the development of methodology in the study of humans and society. although flyvbjerg refers favourably to gadamer’s wahrheit und methode as an authoritative work, he points out the absence of a treatment of power. some kind of knowledge translates into power, but we should make no mistake that power is also knowledge, as he repeatedly insists (flyvbjerg 2001, p. 3), a point with which i concur. it is the powerful in society and in the different professional qualitative studies, 1(2) 119 systems who identify what knowledge we need and thereby create the demand. a phenomenon that can be called king’s evidence (eriksson & nordman, 2004, p. 17). a combination of some of gadamer and flyvbjerg’s thinking seems to offer help with the exploration of the ”generalizability” concept. in his chapter on ”the power of example” flyvbjerg summarizes (2001, ch. 6) five misconceptions, or oversimplifications, of the significance of the study of ”single examples”. he points out that although the study of single examples is often used for hypothesis generation in the preliminary phase of studies, it would be misleading to consider this type of study as a pilot study exclusively as a preparation for the real study, with its large-scale tests, systematic hypothesis testing and theory development (ibid.). the whole point of his book is thus to rebut on ontological as well as epistemic grounds what he sees as a scientific misconception. from his position in science, flyvbjerg’s approach is to mediate between science and philosophy. in contrast gadamer saw his own attempt as a mediation between philosophy and science ((1960) 2004, p. 484) from a position in philosophy. in his ”preface to the second edition, 1965”, he pointed out that the methodical spirit of science makes its mark everywhere – and to that extent, gadamer recognized the necessity of methodical work in both what he calls the humanities and the established natural sciences (ibid., pp. 474-483). this hardly concerns contradictions between methods, but it concerns epistemic objectives (ibid., p. 475); that is the question of what we want to know something about, which comes before the research logic. in other words, hermeneutics understood as understanding and interpretation of the life world is relevant to the theory of science insofar as it uncovers what count as true knowledge, which does not lie in but before the research logic (ibid., p. 485). in gadamer’s eloquent phrasing, the methodology battle conceals and misjudges what comes before science and research (ibid., p. 475). we see that both gadamer and flyvbjerg are concerned with ontological and epistemic problems. by thus applying and to some degree extending their discussion, we are able to approach the exploration of ”generalizability” in qualitative research by taking an ontological and epistemic stance in relation to the four foundational problems, mentioned in the introduction. the first foundational problem leads to the other three foundational problems. in the following part the concept science is synonymous with what gadamer called the established natural sciences. knowledge and its various forms epistemology is the philosophy of how knowledge is acquired. while this is not meant as a new contribution to that discussion, it is recommended that researchers reflect on the following questions in preparation for the execution of a study: 1) what is the object/subject for the study? in addressing the question the researcher has to ask himself two basically different questions: what is the object of knowledge? is it a study of physical objects; for example a study of biomechanical pain, the physiological development of headaches or the genetics of cancer cells? what is the subject of knowledge? is it a study of humans and society; for example a study of life world phenomena expressed by the individual’s deliberations, experiences, decisions and actions? these questions take their point of departure in a difference between science and the study of humans and society. in science the body of knowledge is deep-rooted in an object. in the study of qualitative studies, 1(2) 120 humans and society the body of knowledge is deep-rooted in a subject. a subject is changeable and connected to the life world and in relation to a context (gadamer (1960) 2004, flyvbjerg 2001). therefore the ideal of predictability in science and in the study of humans and society is challenged. 2) is predictability the ideal? keeping in mind the difficulty of controlling for confounding factors, the science ideal of predictability cannot even be found in the sciences – and thus, generalizability has its limits. while the study of biomechanical pain, the genetics of the cancer cell, etc., should be considered as scientific studies with predictability as a primary aim – being always what they are, the scientist must throughout strive to eliminate bias and attempt to keep other factors constant. the situation is different when researchers study phenomena expressed through humans and society. in such cases, researchers must accept that they have no way of knowing what determines what counts as experiences and actions. flyvbjerg states that this will depend on the context (2001, p. 42). this is an important point; the meaning of context has concerned our culture since our western way of being human was first defined in ancient greece. a generation after plato and socrates , aristotle suspected that something crucial had been let out of the plato-socrates model of knowledge with predictability as an ideal (aristotle 1936, dreyfus & dreyfus 1996). we also find detailed studies of human learning that indicate the meaning of context (dreyfus & dreyfus 1986, benner 1984). the aristotelian concept phronesis with its context-dependent knowledge is introduced below. 3) does the research unfold a practice context with changeable factors? the study of humans and society carries a humanistic legacy that changes with time, space, power and the context and relations in which they are studied. no researcher is therefore able to study humans and society without taking into consideration these factors, including the wider society and culture. human deliberations, experiences, decisions and actions are changeable and particulars that will vary with time, space, relations, power. thus the complexity of the studied context should not be eliminated or kept as constant factors; indeed, this would not be possible because the substance of the subject of knowledge (here understood as the changeable) is of a different nature than the object of knowledge in science (being as it always is). where context plays a role in research, we are forced to be clear about the context and determine whether it is a practice context for a case-study or a qualitative empirical study involving individuals in a certain institutional context, or whether it is a historical or theoretical context. just how wide or narrow is the context? 4) with a focus on epistemology knowledge in its various forms and with a reading of gadamer’s ”the topicality of aristotelian hermeneutics” (2004, pp. 297-308) and flyvbjerg’s ”values in social and political inquiry” and “empowering aristotle” (2001, ch. 5, ch. 8) as contributions to our discussion, the following questions must also be asked: what are the constituents of knowledge and theory? what form of epistemic theory is best suited to elucidate human deliberations, experiences, decisions, actions? epistemic theory derives from what aristotle understood as episteme. with the aristotelian concept (intellectual virtue), episteme is generally understood as science with its generalizable qualitative studies, 1(2) 121 knowledge that holds true in all places and at all times and is invariable in time and space. the aristotelian concept techne is thus art, a productive state that operates in the sphere of the variable. phronesis as value-based knowledge has its sphere in particular circumstances, it is variable and depends on context (aristotle 1936). it is not my purpose to unfold the considerations further. but there is no escape from the language of the hellenic inheritance. episteme corresponds to the scientific ideal and epistemology as an expression of how any kind of knowledge is acquired. phronesis does not exist in our language, so the intention here is to guide the qualitative researcher by asking the question: are we trapped in the classical legacy, with the concept of episteme? for a researcher interested in the meaningfulness and significance of life in the form of human deliberations, experiences, decisions and actions, etc., valid research must be closely connected with phronesis (delmar & johns 2008). we have to make clear the different intellectual virtues and expressions of different forms of human activity and epistemic interest. if epistemology is an expression of how any kind of knowledge is acquired, it explains the difficulty of liberating ourselves from the idea that there is no true knowledge if it is not replicable in all places and at all times. we need to accept that also context-dependent knowledge, with its different mode of expression, can offer us true understanding, but in another form of expression in its replicability and applicability. properties of reality and the doubleness of the situation this foundational problem concerns the question of what establishes a situation. in line with gadamer, we consider the question of truth conditions to come before the research logic. so rather than seeing the ”generalizability” of qualitative studies as a methodological checking mechanism, we should perhaps see it as a property of reality and the doubleness of the situation as being both typical and unique. a question i already posed in my phd dissertation (delmar 1999). the philosophy of our university hospital is described by the words “the individual is like no others, like some others and like all others”. this formulation may help towards understanding the following interpretation of the doubleness of a situation, in particular where context and situation are considered to play a role in the study of phenomena as they are expressed by the person’s deliberations, experiences, decisions, and actions – in other words, research that regards people, context and situation as interconnected factors. my discussion of this foundational problem draws on løgstrup (løgstrup 1986, 1997) although it also goes beyond him. løgstrup gave a description of what characterizes a situation. but because i see people and situation as closely connected, i integrate the people in the situation; the people and the relations constitute the situation. incidentally, this is compatible with løgstrup’s fundamental ideas (ibid.). a situation is characterised by its quality of doubleness; it is unique and typical at the same time. the situation is unique and exceptional because time is irreversible – the same situation will never occur again (ibid), and people with their unique stories and life world also constitute the uniqueness of the situation. but a situation is typical also in the sense that fundamental experiences can be found in every situation, according to løgstrup (ibid.), and typical phenomena can be found in every human being included in the situation. such typical traits could for example be life phenomena such as hope, life courage, loneliness, the fear of death. it is thus in a person’s life world qualitative studies, 1(2) 122 phenomena that suffering is expressed (delmar 2006, delmar 1999). the typical is what we as people have in common. the human being is like all others and like some others as written in the philosophy of our university hospital. this is why typical traits and patterns can be identified in every situation; typical traits are always to be found in the people and the relations that make up the situation. for example when i read a story from donald duck for my 11-year-old son, he will enjoy it more if i name one of the characters after him. there are typical traits, something recognizable in every story with which he can identify. the human being is like all others and like some others. but because people are different, it is not only the irreversibility of time that makes the situation unique and exceptional. the typical traits in people and relations are expressed differently. the typical (and the universal) appears differently and in a variety of forms, among other things because people’s life experiences are unique. a particular point of the uniqueness is the degree of depth. in an analysis of trust løgstrup shows how a child’s life may be permanently determined by the manner in which adults behave toward the child. joy in living, the courage to be, insecurity can create experiences in the child that determine the uniqueness and actions of the individual (løgstrup 1986, 1997) to give an example of the doubleness; a study of the everyday lives of chronic sufferers found that the fear of death (a typical life phenomena in the study) is expressed in a variety of ways, even for persons who have suffered a blood clot in the heart. for the 40-year-old working father who collapsed in front of his three children, the experience is different than for the 70-year-old housewife whose responsibilities allow her to rest when the fear and tiredness comes back (delmar et al. 2006, 2005). while acknowledging that the study of phenomena expressed through people’s deliberations, experiences, decisions and actions are contingent on time, space, relations, power and context (including society and culture), there will be typical traits and recognizable patterns – it is the experience from a similar situation that gives meaning. it is this recognisability that contributes to the “generalizability” of qualitative studies. please note that the formulation was “contributes to” generalizability. this is because recognisability in itself is not enough. it is only when the recipient of the new knowledge gives form to the recognizable and the typical by a practical transformation of the situation that recognisability has been accomplished. it is so to speak the relationship between the typical and the unique in the concrete situation in practice that must be brought into play. that is why we need to look at recognisability as a challenge to practice. the general is thus what can be recognized across cases (i.e. communalities, similarities, differences in human beings/situations) and which thus becomes a challenge to practice (practical reasoning). a researcher should therefore ask questions throughout the entire analysis and interpretation process, such as: what is typical? how does it appear in this specific case? is this recognizable? is it meaningful for and in practice? how is understanding possible? recognisability and the ability to understand the relevance for one’s own practice is closely connected with the third foundational problem: understanding – how is it possible? as with the qualitative studies, 1(2) 123 question of knowledge and its forms, this is another of the great ongoing debates in philosophy. the intention is likewise that the researcher must become more conscious about the ontological and epistemic stance from and in which he works. understanding begins when something is speaking to us. it is in the very nature of human existence that humans and actions live their own lives and is not reduced to simplified objects. in its basic sense trust and respect are essential to any attempt to understand. usually we trust one another with great reservation but if we really want to understand then openness for what we see and what we hear is required. (løgstrup 1986, 1997) there may be recognizable elements in the understanding but the essentially new and ”strange” phenomenon has only been understood when it has entered into a relation with one’s own practice – when, in other words, it is being applied. this is to say that the recognizable is seen in a new, unexpected and explanatory light. in her article “the surgical nurse and the vulnerable patient”, kari martinsen discusses the process of allowing memory to give its contribution when we are reminded of something; when one thing reminds us of another thing. i believe that this understanding of recollection fits our purposes here. let me excerpt briefly: ”a connection is made when we are reminded of something else under the impression of one thing while something occurs to us, something we had not thought of before at all … memory ... let us become co-producers and creative … earlier sensory impressions make our memory recall knowledge that we already possess. by this recollection something may occur to us, and this is created by the recollection in the new situation” (martinsen 2009, pp. 41-43). understanding begins with openness and goes on with recognisability created by the new situation. in a research context this requires reflection and interaction between open, creative and systematic reflection – which is no mean feat. it furthermore requires a confrontation with one’s own prejudices so that the researcher actually brings his own preconceptions into question. this is something that many research projects could make more explicit. in a confrontation with one’s own prejudices, the time distance is significant (gadamer 2004, pp. 283-284). time distance is considered as a positive characteristic, when it enables us to distinguish among prejudices. the prejudices that make us too prejudiced and the prejudices where we realize (that they are) prejudices of a binding nature, where new knowledge makes sense to us and prepares us for changing current practices. but full recognisability is possible only if we are courageous and ready to change practice. it is very much a question of power and whether our research produces the knowledge that the repositories of power demand. if the researcher does not produce the kind of knowledge that the powerful want to hear, will he be convincing and persistent enough to stand by his original ambition of changing or developing practice? furthermore, the question is also how far the validity of an interpretation is accepted by practitioners (in their work), where interpretation is the explicit form of understanding. any acceptance will typically appear in a contest with other interpretations, commitments and viewpoints (flyvbjerg 2001, p. 139). qualitative studies, 1(2) 124 achieving understanding is thus possible only if the researcher allows himself to explicitly confront his own prejudices, a situation which makes the identified and recognizable (elements) appear in a new, unexpected but explanatory light. furthermore, understanding is possible only if the validity of the interpretation is accepted by the practitioners or by the professional community in and of practice. journal clubs have thus offered an appropriate forum for (the development of) a meaningful dialogue between the researcher, the newly developed knowledge and the professional practitioners, who will apply and accept the research in practice. power must be handed back to practice. this presents a big challenge for future researchers and will demand work on several fronts in close, daily contact with the practitioners who want to contribute to the development and application of high-quality research findings. the researcher’s role: what are the fundamental questions that the researcher must ask before a study is designed? the three previously discussed foundational problems prepare the ground for the fourth, which subsumes the other three in its concern with the researcher’s understanding of his own role. this foundational problem is one that flyvbjerg in particular emphasizes: “today’s researchers seldom make explicit which one of these three roles (episteme, phronesis, techne) they are practicing. the whole enterprise is simply called “science”, even though we are dealing with quite different activities” (flyvbjerg 2001, p. 61). so the first precondition for valid research is that the methodology and the method are adapted to the matter under examination, a researcher thus needs to be open to deliberate on the following questions, summarizing the three previously foundational problems: 1. what is the object/subject of knowledge that i want to study? 2. within what knowledge understanding do i place myself – episteme, techne, phronesis? 3. how do i view the connection between philosophy, science and the study of humans and society? philosophy can help us understand the phenomena and the life world, the study of humans and society can help us to develop the context-depended knowledge and science can explain and approximately predict the physical objects. 4. in my research, do i work on the basis of premises dictated by reality and science rather than on the study’s own premises? 5. what is my understanding of reality and the concrete situation? 6. how is my power, the repositories of power and the dialogue with practice? it may be asked why it should be necessary to pose and reflect on ontological and epistemic questions and why it should be necessary at all to thematize ”generalizability” in qualitative research? the answer is that as a credible and serious research worker, one has to be clear about the importance of this comprehensive reflection for one’s own research work, and thus for the qualitative studies, 1(2) 125 community of researchers: what is knowledge and in what knowledge context do i place myself – what kind of interest drives this study, what kind of human activity do i want to explore? it is paramount that the researcher is very conscious about his ontological and epistemological position that he carries with him into the research endeavour. this also involves further questions such as: in what research tradition was i trained? would i be able and ready to let go of parts of this tradition should it not fit with the intellectual interest i want to pursue in my research? if other intellectual interests dominate where i work, would i be ready to maintain my stand? or would i rather accept poor research work and hope that my colleagues will never find out? it is clear that it will be discovered only if one’s fellow researchers ask the kind of questions that come before the research logic. with respect to the researchers who are concerned with the study of causal regularities, do the qualitative researchers develop methodological guidelines for the study of humans and society? do we actually ask those questions that come before the research logic? discussion for a researcher who is interested in the meaningfulness and significance of life in the study of humans and society, it is particularly important that qualitative research is allowed to develop on its own terms. on the basis of my discussion of four foundational problems, the intention here has been to guide the qualitative researcher by asking questions that may lead to an exploration of criteria for ”generalizability” in qualitative research. i will leave it to the researcher community to decide if the standard of replicability upheld by the quantitative tradition should be totally discarded in the qualitative tradition. if the community chooses to maintain replicability as a standard, this article’s answer to the question of what counts as replicability and applicability will be that ”generalizability” in qualitative research builds on recognisability (i.e. communalities, similarities and differences in situations and human beings) and challenges to practice as practical reasoning. on the basis of gadamer’s and flyvbjerg’s requirements for a clear description of the entire research process, our discussion of the foundational problems enables us to deduce that time, space, relations, power and context determine a situation and that they therefore play a special role in qualitative studies. as any situation can be said to be typical and unique at the same time, recognisability appears by looking for communalities, similarities and differences. these aspects were also indicated to be important factors by earlier methodological workers (guba & lincoln 1981, 1982; bitten et al. 1995). but this can only form part of the ”generalizability” of a finding; knowledge should be recognized and confirmed by others – e.g. through their acceptance of it as a useful solution or a practical way of reasoning. only when the recipient of new knowledge is able to handle the relationship between the recognizable or typical, and the unique, and relate it to his qualitative studies, 1(2) 126 own practice, only then does it make sense to him, and the road is clear for understanding and practical application of the new knowledge. as mentioned in the background section’s discussion of methodology, the issue of research applicability is a shared and essential concern among methodological theorists. this article has attempted to view the question of replicability and practical application as a foundational problem and to discuss how understanding is possible along with the readiness to change. it is the close dialogue with the practice field and its participants that poses the big challenge of the future. conclusion we have found that ”generalizability” in qualitative research builds on recognisability and a challenge to practice. the present deliberations, not least with their emphasis on the dialogue with practice and the making explicit of the researcher role, should be brought to bear on future project descriptions. in the endeavour to further qualify research that aims to study people’s deliberations, experiences, decisions and 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usefulness of evaluation results through responsive and naturalistic approaches. san francisco, ca: jossey-bass, 1981. guba eg, lincoln ys. epistemological and methodological bases of naturalistic inquiry. educational communication and technology journal, 1982; 30 (4): 233-252. horsburgh d. evaluation of qualitative research. journal of clinical nursing, 2003; 12: 307-312. kitto sc, chesters j, grbich c. quality in qualitative research. criteria for authors and assessors in the submission and assesment of qualitative research articles for the medical journal of australia. mja, 2008; 188 (4): 243-246. lecompte md, goetz jp. problems of reliability and validity in ethnographic research, review of educational research, 1982; 52: 31-60. løgstrup ke. den etiske fordring 11th ed. copenhagen: gyldendal, (1956) 1986 translated into english as the ethical demand by hans fink & alasdair macintyre. london: university of notre dame press, 1997. martinsen k. operasjonssykepleien og den sårbare pasienten. kropp, sansning og urørlighetssone [the surgical nurse and the vulnerable patient. body, sensory perception and the untouchability qualitative studies, 1(2) 128 zone]. in: davøy gm, eide ph, hansen i. operasjonssykepleie, oslo: gyldendal akademisk, 2009, pp. 32-48. mays n, pope c. qualitative research in health care. assessing quality in qualitative research. bmj, 2000; 320: 50-52. morse j. qualitative generalizability. qual health res, 1999; 9: 5-6. schoefield jw. increasing the generalizability of qualitative research. in: huberman, am, miles mb (eds.) the qualitative researcher´s companion. california, sage publications inc., 2002: 171-205. stake re. the case study method in social inquiry. educational researcher, 1978; 7(2), 5-8. wheeldon j. mapping mixed methods research: methods, measures, and meaning. journal of mixed methods research 2010; 4: 87 – 102. yin r.k. case study research. thousand oaks, ca: sage, 1994 author charlotte delmar, phd, cand. cur. is director of the research unit for clinical nursing at aarhus university hospital, aalborg. email: c.delmar@rn.dk qualitative studies vol. 8, no. 1, 2023, pp. 23-57 issn 1903-7031 writing and flamenco: phenomenological investigations bo kampmann walther1 1 department for the study of culture university of southern denmark, campusvej 55, 5320 odense m, denmark this article asks how the art of music may contribute to the understanding of writing as a phenomenological act. more specifically, i will introduce parts of the vocabulary, theory, and practice of flamenco to investigate the musicality and notably rhythmic qualities of the handwritten, personal signature. the aim is to demonstrate how the introduction of flamenco per se to the qualitative field of writing studies may open a way of thinking of writing as an expressed as well as expressive musical practice. besides analyzing in detail the flamenco traits of the personal signature the article also scrutinizes the signature-asmusic through the phenomenological philosophies of merleau-ponty and derrida. ultimately the article demonstrates how writing can itself be theorized off the beaten track, following the untraditional clue of guitar play in the flamenco tradition. the portrait that the article paints of writing is thus itself to be considered off the beaten track qua unconventional, unorthodox and, perhaps for some, controversial. keywords: writing, phenomenology, signature, flamenco, rhythm, tonality introduction building from maurice merleau-ponty’s claim that language and music as equally creative forms of expression evolve around notions, or practices, of “style”, “gesture”, and “flesh”, this article asks how the art of music may contribute to the understanding of writing as a phenomenological act. more specifically, i will introduce parts of the vocabulary, theory, and practice of flamenco, the kind of (guitar) music commonly associated with the roma (gitanos) of andalusia, southern spain (biddle et al., 2007), as a lens through which the amalgamation of continuity and eruption in writing as an embodied form can be comprehended. however, rather than using the ‘language’ of flamenco as merely a metaphor for the pre-reflexive production of meaning in writing as such, i will exploit specific skills and features of flamenco in a much more direct and bodily fashion and this way critically discuss how certain combinations of motor actions (fingers and hands) and operative knowledge (mastery of palos, genres and modes, scales, https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0600-1779 b. k. walther: writing and flamenco qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 23-57 ©2023 24 cadences, etc.) resonate in writing as a praxis-form. central to this claim, i.e., that the rhythmic and sonoric faculties of flamenco might shed light on vital aspects of writing’s phenomenology, is the kind of interaction that constantly transpires in flamenco music, namely that between eruption and continuity, which is to say bursts vis-à-vis more fluent play. i believe this to be a guiding principle of not only flamenco, but also writing; the necessity of bursts or emissions on top of a calm and smooth permanency, so to say. in flamenco we see this in scales (runs or picada); in harmonic progression (e.g., the diatonic phrygian tetrachord); in the intermingling of arpeggios and ligados (broken, sequential chords vs. hammer-ons and pull-offs); and in the punctuated accents of rasgueado (strumming), apoyando (rest stroke), and other modes and practices of fret work. using the author’s handwritten, personal signature and identifiable elements of it such as puncture, pause, descend, and syncope as a recurrent case, the aim is to show how the introduction of flamenco per se (and not just ‘flamencoisation’, aflamencamiento) to the qualitative field of writing studies paves the way for a thinking of writing as an embodied, expressed as well as expressive, rhythmic and musical practice. finally, such enquiry into the lived and experiential mode of writing, rather than borrowing themes and metaphors from e.g., music and then writing about writing, hopefully help steer understandings of the nature of writing, as an instantiation of language proper, away from abstract conceptualization and much closer to the energetic duende – style, gesture, and flesh – of flamenco’s inimitable phenotype. the reader may ask: why flamenco? and how does a rhythmanalysis of the personal signature specifically inform academic writing off the beaten track? jazz improvisation with its three basic modes, melodic, harmonic, and motivic, would have been a noteworthy reservoir in which to situate and experiment with the sonorous and rhythmic facets of the written signature. i reckon the same would apply to improvisational indian music with its usage of micro and quarter tones, the twang of a principal tone (the vadi) of the raga, and most certainly the drone-like, ephemeral, and ‘wooded’ timbre that prevails there. however, i stick to flamenco for three reasons: 1) it is the musical form that i know best, performatively (being an avid musician myself) and theoretically. 2) because flamenco, to my knowledge, is a breed of music that in a profound manner builds self-expression into its language, notably the burst, but also, as we shall see later on, the ligados, the picada, etc. 3) and, finally, there is an articulacy, a poignancy and b. k. walther: writing and flamenco qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 23-57 ©2023 25 soulfulness that reverberate in flamenco and is part and parcel of its ethnicity – even politics – and the way in which it phenomenologically ‘lives’ and delivers its message.1 resent calls for multiplicity in academic writing, such as ‘writing differently’ (gilmore, harding, helin & pullen, 2019) or ‘post-academic writing’ (badley, 2021; 2020; 2019), clearly benefit from a musical vocabulary, as they push and expand the field of qualitative research on writing’s performativity and affects. however, in order to come into contact with a practice in which music (flamenco) allows for writing the lived experience, rather than just writing about it (meier & wegener, 2017), i calculatingly assume a position stubbornly squared off from ‘metaphorical’ understandings of music (antovic, 2015). 2 that is to say, rather than situating my research and the case study that i propose in music as language (which obviously premeditates music as a figurative instrument to unlock ‘diegetic’ or expressive elements in verbal language), i insist on treating writing, specifically the handwritten signature, as music. it sounds almost like a recipe of a philosophical tipping point where the axiom ‘writing is music’ perilously upsets the relation between epistemology, that which we know and can articulate about musicwriting, and ontology, i.e., music-writing’s being. my axiomatic bogus, then, is to spuriously jump from ‘my personal, handwritten signature almost feels as if it were music’ to ‘it is indeed music’. it is from this locus of tiptoeing away from attempts at a metaphorization of writing’s relocated musical relevance, from within this tensioned nook of music-writing’s knowing and being, that the following phenomenological (some would say deadpan) flamenco examination of the handwritten, personal signature takes off. ultimately, the article demonstrates how writing can itself be theorized off the beaten track, following the untraditional clue of guitar play in the flamenco tradition. the portrait that the article paints of writing is thus itself to be considered off the beaten track qua unconventional, unorthodox and, perhaps for some, controversial. 1 contrary to classical and jazz theory flamenco is first and foremost a hereditary and generational knowledge, which only affirms its lived and epistemic inner core. instead of etudes and excercises, it has falsetas or variations of palo; instead of the cadential chord progression ii-v-i in jazz, the succession of chords whose roots descend in fifths from the second (supertonic) to the fifth degree (dominant), and finally to the tonic, the archetypical schematic of flamenco is (variations of) the andalusian cadence. 2 it thus seems very consensual that music has a hierarchically connected structure of smaller elements linked together in various higher and lower order configurations enabling the extraction of musical meaning as it unfolds over time. moreover, that such a meaning can result from conceptual assignments that can be (and are expressed in) cross-domain: we hear music as something (schaerlaeken et al., 2022). b. k. walther: writing and flamenco qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 23-57 ©2023 26 the article consists of three sections. the first half of the first section briefly tells the story of the evolution of flamenco as an artform. the second part of the first section introduces the personal signature – my own – and subsequently breaks it down into its pulse, time, tempo, and rhythmical pattern. what follows is an analysis of the soleá, a distinct palo form or genre, as the base schematics of the signature and its ‘felt’ – or, in our case, annotated – rhythm and the sonic-motoric virtues it carries with it. the analysis also alludes to the tradition of classical music and compares the soleá to the sectional sonata form with its five stages including rhythmic shaping that can be explained by the terms of the phases arsis, thesis, and stasis. section two scrutinizes the idea of writing, or more specifically the handwritten signature, as a nominal factor of how the bodily gesture arises at the most rudimentary level of biological behavior and yet still transmits meaning. finally, section three discusses the phenomenology of writing from the viewpoint of musical interpretation vis-à-vis merleau-ponty’s philosophy of the ‘flesh’ and derrida’s deconstructivist vocabulary of the signature as aporia. the article concludes with a brief summary of key findings along with a self-critique of potential biases and flawed methodology. and before we begin: things are about to get geeky! i: the flamencoisation of the personal signature i.1. the evolution of flamenco as an artform the early days of flamencology argued that flamenco derived from an ancient and secluded tradition which the gypsies brought with them when they migrated from india six or more centuries ago (manuel, 2002, p. 13). it now seems clear, however, that flamenco gradually emerged in the late eighteenth century, notably from a diverse and eclective body of andalusian music. this very region has a long both rich and distressed history of syncretizing various legacies of different ethnic groups. arabs, berbers, jews, christians, and gypsies coexisted for centuries under the moorish rule, and with the financial and cultural rise of important port towns such as seville and cádiz the vast populations and communities of especially black african and latin american influences founded a strong presence in the local musical culture (leblon, 2003). historically, ‘flamenco’ is rooted in the andalusian folksong style with reminiscences of afro-latin rhythms and the expressiveness and flamboyance of italian b. k. walther: writing and flamenco qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 23-57 ©2023 27 opera. however, flamenco evolved mainly as a product of a gypsy-centered subculture comprised not only of roma gitanos but also of bohemians, travelers, and payo (nongypsy) performers often referred to in the flamenco catalogue as senoritos, ‘playboys’. from the 1830s and onwards flamenco developed two distinct song-types, one being the selections of fandango, the other inspired by local vernaculars labeled even today cante jondo (‘deep song’), as incarnated by the late camarón de la isla (mitchell, 1994). from this point in history flamenco segregated into the amateurism of private party music and sing (and clap) alongs and entertainment presented by professional musicians (gamboa, 2004). however, even in the professional realm of flamenco, almost no one were able to read (sheet) music and were thus extremely reliant on maestro learning3 and knowledge carried down through generations. before the first half of the nineteenth century flamenco was not performed using a guitar but was instead monophonic in character accompanied only by hand clapping (palmas) or striking the knuckles (or feet!) on a table. however, earlier styles of the guitar, in accompanying folk songs and dances, and counting the fandango variants of the ‘aristocratic’ (classical) repertoire, already existed in rudimentary form. these would include the four-finger and very fast version of strumming known as rasgueado, arpeggiated passages derived from the lute and the harp, and falsetas (stylized ‘solos’) performed between sung passages. according to manuel (2002), the landmark figure in the refinement of the modern flamenco guitar style was ramón montoya (1880-1949) who was also one of the first professional artists to perform on recordings. montoya supplemented the generational wisdom of gitanos flamenco with features from classical music, most notably the style and methods of francisco tárrega and miguel llobet. among other, montoya 3 a personal, anthropological note: i once took a month long class at an advanced school of flamenco in seville, spain. there the usage of ’maestro’ turned out to be extremely hierarchical and specialised – and local, at the same time. the school in seville would thus refer to its own breed of maestra (specified in the art of ligado; the techniques of picado, and so on) who in turn referred to the town’s chief maestro. he would then refer to established, spanish ’demi-god’ maestra (vicente amigo, el tomatito, antonio rey, et al., again divided into branches of gitanos and payo players), all of whom would collectively refer to the true ’god’ of flamenco, paco de lucia. furthermore, there was a strong sense of history and the exact line of genealogy in any reference to those who would master the technique that the students struggled with: as for the ligado, my maestro would mention first rey (the ”young one”), then vicente (”the commercial, pretty guy”), then tomatito (the ”true gitano”), then paco (god himself), and perhaps even sabicas or montoya. i guess this was a way of saying that not only was this technique goddamn hard; it also carried the whole weight of proud history. b. k. walther: writing and flamenco qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 23-57 ©2023 28 transformed modern flamenco by pioneering intricate arpeggios, wide-ranging and very fast picada, or single-note runs, the four-fingered tremolo known from tárrega’s “recuerdos de la alhambra” (1899), a varied repertoire of cantes in alternate tunings, and much more. finally, flamenco became truly flamenco nuevo around 19704 (steingress, 2005) with the appearance of paco de lucia (1947-2014), a payo from algeciras, south spain, who besides having an unsurpassed technical brilliance applied complex harmonization to the genre (from his ventures into jazz and world music in the seventies and eighties), extremely difficult left-hand slides, bent and ‘mute’ notes, righthand complimentary (off-scale) chords, known from jazz, and much, much more (pérez, 2005).5 although the jump from montoya’s and paco’s flamenco moderno to the handwritten, personal signature may seem preposterous and farcical at first glance, i hope to show in the following that there’s indeed deep flamenco, even duende, in writing and in the signature. i.2. the personal signature: musical analysis the personal signature is extensively grappled with in graphology and forensic analysis, as well as in contemporary digital cryptography. according to michaela fiserova (2018), in a reading of derrida’s margins of philosophy (1982), the personal, handwritten signature counts as an intimate signifier of three metaphysical traits: (i) the natural, or naturalized, iconography of the author’s name (in our case, “bo kampmann walther”); (ii) the materialized proof of physical contact between a signed document and the writing instrument (or ‘vehicle’) held by the author’s hand; and (iii) the capability of the signature to count as an eternal and perpetual manual reproduction. the latter trait, the personal logo or convention, is exactly what is taken to be a guarantee of the author’s legal identity – i am who i am because of my unique signature. there’s a certain mode of conventional or even parochial realism in the actualization of the personal signature due to its sign 4 the new attitudes toward flamenco inscribed in the nuevo movement further coincided with the advent of a new power structure in spain where democracy replaced the dictatorship of general franco (banzi, 2007). 5 also, paco de lucia forged a manner of positioning the guitar that was very controversial to begin with, but has since been embraced by traditional and neo-flamenco guitarists alike. the positioning, resting the guitar almost horisontally on the left crossed leg, allows for much more fluent and faster runs across the entirety of the board. b. k. walther: writing and flamenco qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 23-57 ©2023 29 character and to the randomized nature which it opens to interpretation (semiosis) while still carrying meaning as a singular representation of the author’s identity. i will return to derrida’s analysis in the third section of the article. in short: the personal signature is repeatable, retractable, and, most importantly, replayable. fig. 1. the author’s personal, handwritten signature above, in fig. 1, is a picture of my personal signature, bo kampmann walther. before we dive deeper into the inherently musical and especially rhythmical features of the handwritten signature, i wish to raise two axiomatic points: first, that music is most clearly an object that contains gestural meaning and signification. and second, that music is an objective sound and/or rhythmical stimulus that acts as the control object for experience.6 what this means in proto-phenomenological terms is that prior to the subsequent analysis i blocked out instinctual reactions to the signature-as-stimulus and, 6 this is not to say that the control object, i.e., the objective sound, holds an ontological or logical primacy of our concrete, practice-based experience with an aesthetic phenomenon (lewis, 2019). that would imply a reification of the musical phenomenon, which would in turn vaporize the vibrant intermediary space between the (phenomenologically speaking) intentum and intentio of music. again, this is another way of insisting upon music’s gestalt or holistic quality as perceived existence (which means that other facets or characteristics of experiencing music apart from ‘music’ alone may come into play); whereas the above, the musical object-stimulus, is necessary in order to enquire analytically into its both performed and perceived elements: from an experientially-objectified view, it is simply a (crude) method to sort out ‘music’ from that which is ‘not music’. see also the paragraph on subjectivism in the coda to this article. for a (historical) music philosophical take on what counts as music i would refer to arnold schoenberg’s theory of harmony (2010; orig. 1911). b. k. walther: writing and flamenco qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 23-57 ©2023 30 rather, responded to it by ‘listening’ to the stimulus as being indeed ‘music’. the type of music, the spanish flamenco, that i believe resonates in the handwritten signature, and which i was eager to explore, is in itself, when compared to european, classical composition music, displaced, raw, off the beaten track. furthermore, my analysis that followed is also, one could easily insist, ‘off’, as it purposefully obliterates the thin railing between a phenomenon that is ontologically what it is and a phenomenon that is epistemologically what it is perceived and felt as. and, finally, i took the liberty of writing about this ‘beaten’ language-as-music in a manner slightly, if not alarmingly, off the traditional academic vernacular. thus, the signature-as-music upholds a fundamental discursive meaning, which is the object-meaning of music. such an object can be understood as a carrier of symbolic signification, readying itself for musical and rhythmical analysis, and as a gestural force which may only be fathomed in a holistic fashion, i.e., as a gestalt. i shall come back to this notion of the music-object’s gestalt by alluding to mark johnson and his the body in the mind, in section two. i also wish to flesh out my methodology for the musical analysis of the personal signature. the design involved the following six steps (which can be repeated for verification or possible falsification), see fig. 2 below: fig. 2. methodology steps in analyzing the personal signature as ‘flamenco’ b. k. walther: writing and flamenco qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 23-57 ©2023 31 1) first, i wrote my name using a black pen on a piece of paper (which i then took a photo of to include in the article). 2) then i recorded the actual performance of me writing my own personal signature (using the video recorder in my iphone with a mounter). 3) next, i played back the recording and toyed with various pitches (shifts in tempo)7 followed by 4) handclapping (palmas) along with the recording (which i also tried to ‘listen’ to). 5) finally, i strummed on the guitar (a hermanos camps concierto blanca, for the nerds), using the method of rasgueado that in turn 6) slowly evolved into ‘duplicating’ the handwritten sequence, in the recording, by playing arpeggios and picada, to see if any of them ‘fitted’ into the pattern – which they did! more on that, and the technical details, in a little while. now, in order to accurately probe the handwritten signature as a musical phenomenon we need to establish a base: the signature must comprise a recognizable formal unit and consequently hold a selection and organization of rhythmic properties in sonorous motion. the signature signifies a musical object; it has an event or action character; it instantiates itself in both space (expressed through the medium of the pen and the paper) and time (due to the longitude of the sonorous direction). let us zero in on the music-object as a unit of the patterned stimulus known as rhythm.8 generally speaking rhythm refers to the patterned and temporal qualities surrounded by a cyclic flow of distinctive phases of accumulation. these phases of accumulation are bodily felt and primordial as they originate in our sensitivity to how we perceive and explore the world around us, as well as within us. they are related to prereflexive, kinaesthetic sensations of excitement, tension, arousal, effort, and fatigue; and they connect directly to the throb of our heartbeat and the pleasure-seeking and gratification of desires, as noted by withrow in the natural philosophy of time (1981). 7 such experimentation allowed me to approximately convey the metronome beat (mb) of the recorded/played signature, that is, the number of beats per minute. however, because of the conceptual universality i insist on in reproducing the signature as a played, musical event, and because of the various slowing down and speeding up in the process, i’ve refrained from marking the exact mb. 8 it would probably also be feasible to investigate the sound of the signature-stimulus, i.e., those vibrary motions which are caused by energy being imparted to an elastic material and transmitted as longitudinal wave motion. as stated above, i did record my handwriting and were thus able to detect a certain mass of tone, amplitude, frequency, and wave pressure. the sheer sound of my pen scratching the paper surface adds dimension of mass or size, such as pitch and loudness, and could be considered as part of the analysis (although i was not able to detect the specific pitch class; notably the ’e-ness’ in the flamenco tradition). however, notwithstanding all the interesting and promising features of a sonoric interpreation like this, i decided to stick with the rhythmical qualities solely. b. k. walther: writing and flamenco qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 23-57 ©2023 32 according to eduard hanslick, rhythm is the “main artery of the musical organism” (hanslick, 1986). a stable of any musical interpretation is that rhythm creates form in organizing sound and thus is wholly essential to congeneric musical meaning (cooper & meyer, 1960). abstractly speaking rhythm, as a schematic with which to organize sonoric motion or direction, divides into three phases that are felt rather than being ritualized (and annotated) in the much more reflexive pulse and tempo of musical objects. consequently, one could argue that the signature is a ‘quasi-composed’ piece of music; it is a trained randomness that nevertheless becomes a systematic execution over time. rhythm makes us experience accumulation, discharge, and relaxation of energy. the accumulation phase is known as the arsis phase as it is an excitation bringing forth mounting tension or strain. the thesis phase of rhythm is full of dynamic stress as it forces emphatic releases of energy. and, finally, the stasis phase is a loosening of tension that stands for relaxation, a recovery of strength, and a build-up to the next cyclical round of tension. building on these discrete phases in the rhythmic cycle we recognize implicitly dominant characteristics, such as the ability to discern (or ‘feel’) values of ‘more than’ and ‘less than’; the order of strong and weak beats or pulses (note for instance the instantly recognizable difference between, say, rock and reggae, with strong beats on respectively two and three); repetition of long and short values; the ‘faster than’ and ‘slower than’ in the tempo of events, and much more. “natural life abound with instances of rhythmic activity for us to observe”, wilson coker writes in music and meaning (coker, 1972, p. 40). an extension of this view upon rhythm can be seen in henri lefebvre’s “rhythmanalysis” (lefbvre, 2004; also awad, 2021) and also in merleau-ponty’s idea of the subject-body that ‘receives’ the world by way of ‘coping’ with recurrent, rhythmical skill patterns, to which we will return. as for the chicken or egg conundrum, philosophers of music seem to agree that rhythm must have existed prior to time. the latter is a measure of duration since it involves the specific structuralization of length in relation to a defined beat unit and how this beat can be multiplied and subdivided. thus, according to coker time is the “rationalized form of rhythm” (ibid. p. 42). springing from time as an ordering principle of the transcendental nature of rhythm we have the meter serving as a purely conceptual construct with which to measure (and dictate) rhythmical species and various melodic b. k. walther: writing and flamenco qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 23-57 ©2023 33 motion. the metrical foot denotes the organization and measurement of the number of pulses (or tactus) within the recurring rhythmic unit. one may speculate that the phenomenological ‘feltness’ of rhythm, the transcendental, cyclical rush of energy, has a special quality to it that purports to signify our spatial being in the world. furthermore, we could say that the meter acts as a kind of temporal cultification or rationalization. taken together, space and time, rhythm and meter, point to music and rhythm as delicate matter in motion having also a longitudinal direction and meaning, or indeed purposefulness. fig. 3. approximated rhythmical notation of the personal signature, including the soleá form. i introduce rhythm, time, and meter because they speak of the principal elements of the music-object, and because they lay out the base of my analysis of the handwritten signature (see fig. 1). let us therefore look closer into how a distinct mode of flamenco music (or rather rhythm) may enable us to dissect the phenomenology of the signature in a precise and elusive manner. as i mentioned in the introduction flamenco music can be arranged into different distinct palos, roughly corresponding to genres in traditional musicology. these palos also signify, both historically and in contemporary flamenco nuevo, metric shapes that b. k. walther: writing and flamenco qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 23-57 ©2023 34 are discernible from one another. i made a video recording of myself ‘performing’ the act or event of writing the signature, which in turn enabled me to slow it down, speed it up, and otherwise ‘cut it up’ using very basic post-editing tools. thus, i was able to uncover not only the (approximated) metrical arrangement of the signature-as-music, in this case three over four, as well as the tempo; but further to determine the accentuated ‘heavy’ beats signifying the thesis of the rhythmic cycle that corresponded with the soleá form (see fig. 3 above). the soleá consists of a cycle of 12 beats or pulses, four times bars9 of three, and is next to buleria considered the most basic form or palo of flamenco music (díaz-bánez, 2017).10 it originated among the romani of cádiz and seville in andalusia (bethencourt et al., 2011) and is usually played por arriba, that is, in e major, phrygian mode, or less frequently (though a contemporary artist like vicente amigo performs it often) as por medio, in a minor.11 much flamenco harmony is in the form of what is generally called phrygian tonality, particularly in its traditional, historic shape (montoya, 9 as the danish musician and musical philosopher peter bastian explained, the pulse in itself is empty and devoid of information, but when it characterizes (or vitalizes) the movements within a superior structure laid on top of it, it is reproducible and open for systematic interpretation. the bar thus contains three rhythmical archetypes, the alla breve in the 2/4 measure, the triangle in ¾, and the cross in 4 over 4 measure. however, identical bar measures, such as the 3/4 , may be felt very differently: the menuet emphasizes all three beats in ¾, while the trio is perceived as alla breve with two accents in one unit and only one beat per bar, making the latter a kind of 2 over 6. (cf. bastian, 2013). 10 together soleás, bulerias, and siguiriyas are called the gypsy toques. 11 the modal interchange (from minor to major, or the reverse) is more frequent in jazz than in flamenco. interesting comparisons, however, could be made between the jazz and impressionist inspired pianist lyle mays (1953-2020) who was famous for playing fifths in his arrangements, and contemporary flamenco guitarist antonio rey. an example of a modal interchange from mays would be the chordal progression bm11 to bbmaj7#11, thus moving down one semitone to resolve further into the ‘natural’ sounding a minor (6). in a similar vein i’ve noticed rey play the modal interchange bm7 to bmaj11. the fourth scaletone (11th) of the b major, the e, is then easily resolved in the root of the e major subdominant tonic (i.e., the phrygian mode). in any case experiments are made by mixing arriba and medio. another interesting thing in rey’s harmonic range is his substitution of the ‘normal’ emajor #9 (sharp f) for an eminor sus 2 (b9) but with a f# in the bass. then the f# can slide up one semitone to g, so that the chord contains the sus 2 (f#), the flattened 9th (f), and the minor third (g), and thus we would call the chord esus2 add b9 over g. with this multi-colored chord (i.e., by having the f, the f#, and the g in there) the tonality may drift into, for instance, am6, melodic minor scale (the sixth note being the added f#), f#m7, or a sharp (a being the minor third of f#m7). basically, what all this means is that in contemporary flamenco there’s not only room for modal interchange but also an urge to find new ways of ‘coloring’ the traditional subdominant (and at times very harsh) tonica, i.e., the transitions back and forth between e major, e minor, and e sus(2) chords. to my ears, this brings the traditional, spanish flamenco closer to a slightly more ‘european’ type of composition music (debussy, ravel, satie), and interestingly also to ‘american’ stage music, like aaron copland. see for instance antonio rey’s “desde mi cocina” (‘from my kitchen’), from the album flamenco sin fronteras (2020). b. k. walther: writing and flamenco qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 23-57 ©2023 35 nino ricardo, sabicas12, etc.; see katz, 2001), in that it roughly coheres with the e-mode, the open sixth string of the guitar in normal e-a-d-g-b-e tuning. the common chord progression known as the andalusian cadence is thus am-g-f-e or variations thereof where the e major harmony (e-g#-b) however functions not as the dominant (v) of the tonic a minor (i) but as the altered phrygian tonic. from the perspective of classical music theory there is already an element of thesis, tension and arousal, in the e-mode of the phrygian scale (tymoczko, 2011). following from this the role of the dominant (v) is played by the supertonic (the f chord), or the sub-tonic (in classical notation, the vi = d minor). the crucial exception, though, is that the e chord is usually played as an e major flat nine (e/b9), the raised third degree being the g sharp with an added f – which along with the andalusian cadence gives the phrygian e-mode its distinguishable thesis flavor. add to this the inclusion of non-triadic tones in rapid succession, played on open strings, and all of us instinctively hear, or ‘feel’, “flamenco”. in the spanish flamenco, the cante is any ‘singable’ tune, melody, or rhythmic arrangement that uses a meter, known as the compás, in which the accentuated beats are distributed in a specific pattern through a short sequence that repeats at regular intervals.13 in our case, the handwritten, personal signature, with its four over three bars, repetition does not exist. however, i would argue that a certain ‘interiorization’ of the rhythmical periodicity acts as a kind of restriction to the musical measure, that is, to the performance of writing the signature which also adheres to its reproduction in music and repetitious playback potential: it almost feels as if it, the signature-as-music, should be executed (played) over and over again. thus, the compás lays out the pattern of accents, which is the sequence of handclaps (palmas) or taps that is repeated throughout the whole cante. one could say that the ‘playing’ of the signature is a combination of freedom and restriction: the freedom of the timing over the base – accents and syncopes, pauses and runs – laid down by the strict meter or compás. flamenco rhythms corresponding with different palos usually have three types of measures or distributions of accents: (i) binary, which is a strong accent every 2 or 4 beats, distinctive of the seguiriya; (ii) ternary, that 12 behind the stage name ’sabicas’ was augustín castellón campos (1912-1990). he mostly lived in the us where he also met a very young and shy paco de lucia whom he later claimed to be his most accomplished ”student”. sabicas played mostly in a classical manner using semi-upright positioning, lots of free-strokes (tirando), and tremolo (cf. sevilla, 1995). 13 in the 6/8 or 3/4 compás family soleás are usually played in e phrygian, bulerias in a phrygian, and siguiriyas in a phrygian or e major (ionian). b. k. walther: writing and flamenco qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 23-57 ©2023 36 is every 3 beats, like the soleá (at least in the opening two bars of three); and (iii) amalgamated 12 beats. to be precise, the soleá encompasses both the binary and the ternary scheme, thus: 1-2-3 / -4-5-6 /-7-8 / -9-10 /-11-12 this means that the soleá could potentially be annotated as two bars of three followed by three bars of two – and, as a consequence, the soleá may be interpreted both as regular four-beat and three-beat configuration: {3/4} {3/4} + {2/4} {2/4} {2/4}14 normally, in the soleá there is an absence of accent of the first beat (as opposed to central european composition music and the waltz). in the personal signature (“bo kampmann walther”) the opposite seems to be the case. however, although one might conceive of the capital letters (b / k / w) having a strong accent that further projects the rhythm forward, the first accentuation – the b, roughly on the 1-beat – is to be thought of more as a pseudo anacrusis, i.e., a suspended, ‘strong’ beginning of the cycle. since the ‘b’ is suspended – rather than having no presence as a strong beat at all, as in the anacrusis – it serves as a marker, i would suggest, of the relative durations between the subsequent beats in the cycle. there is a certain ‘space’ for rubato tempo here.15 finally, the ‘b’ 14 because of the flexible configuration of the soleá that can be subdivided into 4/4 and 3/4 (or 3/8) alike, many jazz musicians treat the 12-beat accents as syncopated triplets, i.e., by playing the heavy beats as hammered ’ghost’ notes. this is, however, very non-flamenco (although taken up by vicente amigo, among others), as flamenco has eight or sixteenth notes, and not triplets, or three over two, as its natural base. if one wants to compare the two, the jazz variant and the flamenco proper, try listening to the distinct playing styles of chick corea (triplets on the piano) and paco de lucia (even notes on the guitar). one of the clear contributions of paco to the flamenco nuevo was his introduction of ’hanging’ or ’lacking behind’ only to burst ’back’ into the even eights (depending of tempo) of the song or melody. this technique he probably adopted from john mclaughlin who did not (as opposed to paco) play the rapid scale runs ’cleanly’ and thus purported to ghost notes, triplet slides, and pull-offs as a kind of ’rescue’. towards the end of a concert in berlin, 1987, with mclaughlin and paco, there is a telling moment where mclaughlin looks in utter awe at paco while he plays perfectly even, extremely fast and smooth runs, seemingly effortless and upright. see further valdo, 1999; clemente, 2010; and zagalaz, 2012. check out: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7tfqvvligta. 15 tempo rubato is italian and stands for ’free in the presentation’ (literarilly ’stolen time’). it is a musical term referring to expressive and rhythmic freedom often involving a slight speeding up and subsequent slowing down of the tempo of a piece. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7tfqvvligta b. k. walther: writing and flamenco qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 23-57 ©2023 37 initiates the crucial pair of tension-and-relief and the overall rhythmic faculty of arsis, thesis, and stasis to be repeated as characteristic of the signature-unit as such. what constitutes this tension-and-relief scheme? in the figure below (fig. 4), i’ve juxtaposed the duration of the signature with three distinct ‘blocks’ each entailing a distinctive flamenco trait: the arpeggio and the picado. let’s analyse these in more detail: (1) an arpeggio is a chord (e.g., e-g#-b = e major)16 broken into a sequence of notes; in flamenco usually in rapid succession, using index, middle, and ring finger: i-m-a. in fig. 2 we see that the ‘b’ serves as a syncopated exposition to the following two sets of sixteenth notes – roughly ‘b-o’ carried over into ‘k-a-m-p-[…]“, i.e., the first part of the middle name. both capital letters here, the ‘b’ and the ‘k’, serve as a mixture of accentuated beats in the soleá compás, and as the suspended anacrusis i mentioned above. since the arpeggio is most often easier to play, more relaxed and stasis minded, it may very well serve as a precursor or framing of the ensuing picada. this is illustrated in fig. 4 below. (2) next, we have two sets of picada (singular: picado). notably, paco de lucia was famed for his virtuosity in this respect; yet it was montoya followed by sabicas who elevated the picada to fame and perfected their technique. picada are single-line scale passages performed by playing successively with the index and middle fingers [i-m] (although paco also occasionally used three fingers) while supporting the other fingers on the string immediately above. this is known in the flamenco technique as apyoendo (‘rest stroke’, as opposed to the ‘free stroke’, tirando, in classical music). when using all strings (e-a-d-g-b-e) the thumb may rest on the 16 since the renaissance, triadic harmony chords have been one of the fundamental building blocks of western music. every pitch has a specific harmony consisting of as series of overtones that enable us to distinguish between triadic patterns all of which, however, come from the octave, the fifth, and the third. the trick is then, as first shown by jean-philippe rameau in his treatise on harmony (1722), to break down these triads into smaller intervals, major, minor, diminished, and augmented thirds. the basic quality of a triad/a chord is determined by the relationship of the thirds used to contruct it (major, minor, raised, flattened). this is known as the ‘vertical’ (or ‘stacked’) view of harmony and has been used for centuries in (classical) music theory. b. k. walther: writing and flamenco qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 23-57 ©2023 38 sixth string causing it to bend heavily (which a contemporary musician like antonio rey does frequently). alternate methods include using the thumb rapidly on adjacent strings, known as pulgar, as well as using the thumb and index finger alternately (especially when arriving from jazz), or combining all three methods in a single passage. in the illustration below, fig. 4, the picada comprise ’[...] m-a-n-n [...]’ (i.e., the second part of ’kampmann’) and the entirety of ’[...] w-a-l-t-h-e-r [...], so that each syllable corresponds approximately to one sixteenth note in the fast picado. as is also often the case in ’real’ flamenco guitar music, the picada cover notes that sit within the ’spaces’ between proper melody (falseta) notes – such as the ’slides’ (ligados) up to the first and strong note in a melodic line.17 this also pertains to the signature-as-music. (3) as one can see in fig. 3 and 4, the picada executed in the personal signature consist of sixteenth notes, the first one fluent and legato, the second broken and staccato. yet, there’s more to it, and this is perhaps the most ’flamenco’ of the whole unit: the bursts (torres, 2005).18 introduced notably by paco de lucia, carried forth by a player like paco pena and witnessed in contemporaries like antonio rey and luciano ghosn, the burst is almost impossible to transcribe to sheet music, as it covers those initial legato phrases that are intended to ’spring load’ one’s fingers for picado bursts. the burst is an eruption of force; it is an explosion not only of the fingers’ movements across the board but probably also of the mind – it is impossible to ’think’ that fast! one way of visualizing the semantics of the burst is by sets of sixteenths snappishly flowing over into thirtysecond notes. and still, this is only a (classical) approximation. using the 17 using ligado build-ups to strong first melody notes, listen to the middle part of the cante ”un sueno contigo alma”, on the album flamenco sin fronteras (’flamenco without borders’, 2020) by antonio rey. russian virtuoso guitarist grisha goryachev has described the technique of fast picado in the ligado style as bascially treating an array – or explosion – of notes as ”one note”. i can’t think of a more complex and beautifully orchestrated use of ligado woven into the falseta and finally to be resolved in the main (sung) melody towards the end of the cante than vicente amigo’s ”plaza de las sirenas”, from the album memoria de los sentidos (’memory of the senses’, 2017). sometimes ligados are referred to as “slurs”; however, this is mostly when one is coming from jazz where lots of mute and/or ghost notes are used. 18 see also note above. b. k. walther: writing and flamenco qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 23-57 ©2023 39 guitar as an example (which i performed on top of my own playback of the recorded signature) ’bursting’ would be those frenziedly hurried, ’firing’ notes played on the first and second strings successively.19 the bursts inscribed in the picada tally the very strong and blatantly stressed thesis in the rhythm schematics, as we discussed before: tension-releasetension. fig. 4. flamencoisation of the personal signature: arpeggio, picado, and bursts. as a last point in the analysis, i would like to pay attention to the signature being a musical example of the sectional sonata form. i’ve already covered areas such as the shift between tension and release, picada and arpeggio, the suspended accentuation in the beginning (the ‘b’), the heavy beats along the time of the rhythmic pattern constituting the soleá form (the ‘k’, the ‘m’ [-a-n-n], and the ‘w’), and the inbuilt bursts following the two ensuing picada runs. the sonata may be taken as the class representative of (european) musical form. the sonata literarily means ‘a piece played’, as opposed to ‘a piece sung’, like the cantata (or the cante, in flamenco), as it rose to prominence in the classical era between 1730 and 1820. the sonata can be divided analytically into five parts, as 19 for the second part of [‘k-a-m-p-m-a-n-n’] and [‘w-a-l-t-h-e-r’] i played the light part of the phrygian mode in the v and vi position while ascending and accelerating and thus extending the pinky into, respectively, the d on the first string and the g# on the second string. b. k. walther: writing and flamenco qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 23-57 ©2023 40 illustrated in fig. 5 below: (1) exposition, (2) development, (3) recapitulation. the three parts are in turn framed by (i) introduction and (v) coda. while the exposition establishes the dominant tonality (usually laid out in the tonic and the dominant), as well as the pitch, tempo, and timbre of the prime theme, the development phase utilizes techniques such as inversion, augmentation, subdominant tonic replacement, and the like. how does the sectional sonata form play out in the case of the personal signature? let’s break it down into pieces: [*] introduction: the strong vertical line of the ‘b’, which is the arsis making way for the thesis, the tension of arpeggios slowly resolving into the two picada, can be viewed as the initiating indicator of the name sequence: here, the vertical line [/] of the ‘b’, before it evolves into the more fluent ‘b-o […]’, serves as an introduction not only to the sudden pairing of arpeggio and picado but also to the performance of ligados, that is, hammer-ons and pull-offs, illustrated in fig. 2 as the dotted eight and sixteenth sets.20 the introduction is thus a compressed studio of dominant techniques and the musical/rhythmical material to come. [*] exposition: here we have the second part of ‘b-o’ and the spill over into ‘ka-m-p-[m-a-n-n]’ as it further exploits the arpeggio mode while also uncovering the picada. this is the part of the cycle where rhythmical traits and melodic patterns are taken to center stage. [*] development: this is the phase where we see a maturation or perhaps an expansion from the commencing beginnings (the anacrusis, accents, and arpeggio -> first picado). the name is now fully formed – played – by the picado moving almost deterministically into the two bursts at the end of both middle and surname. finally, the dynamics of the piece recapitulates, as it almost falls to rest in the coda, or (potential) reprise. 20 geeky note again: if one listens to vicente amigo, the ligados sound almost like distant seagulls. they are often ‘pulled’ from notes very far away, say, from a c# to an a on the first string. such technique requires, to be expertly executed, very stretchy lefthand fingers (comp. worms, 2006). b. k. walther: writing and flamenco qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 23-57 ©2023 41 fig. 5. the personal signature broken down into the sectional sonata form. to partly conclude, the personal, handwritten signature is a musical object that can be analyzed, and as a flamenco gesture it splits into topics of time, tempo, genre, and levels of expressiveness and the techniques that convoy and enrich it. all of this emmeshes the idea that the signature, as a deep epitome of language performed or played, is ‘music’. the signature is felt and perceived within the bodily, pre-reflexive, not-yet-verbalized realm of meaning making, and subsequently approximately annotated. let us therefore, in the next two sections, look more closely into the phenomenology of writing and the signature. first by asking the question: why is music a gesture? ii: interlude: music, gesture, and gestalt in classical music theory, gesture is any movement, either physical (bodily) or mental (imaginary). as such ’gesture’ includes both categories of movements required to produce sound and categories of perceptual moves associated with those gestures (lebaron & streeck, 2000). gestures reflect not only rhythms, dynamics, climaxes or pauses within the music itself – in short: the analyzable properties of (composition) music; gestures also serve communicative and expressive functions in the performance and perceptual consumption of music (hatten, 2004; godøy & leman, 2010). gestures can thus be said to exactly bridge the barrier between the ontology of music (what music is in itself) and the epistemology that tries to explain how we perceive it (see also small, 1998). the prime gesturality of music is the fact that we experience and understand the world, including music, through body movement as we make sense of situations and b. k. walther: writing and flamenco qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 23-57 ©2023 42 actions in the world and within music by relating to our own body movements or by forming an image in our mind (jensenius et al., 2009).21 although the study of musical gesture is a vast and complex field of research, some grounding assumption can be made that according to gritten & king (2006) is broadly semiotic in nature: ”a gesture is a movement or change in state that becomes marked as significant by an agent” (ibid.). the decisive aspect of music gesture is that it is neither completely compatible with music in itself, music as performed or recorded, music as singular or reproduced object; nor is it reducible to subjective perceptions of music (more on subjectivism in the coda). rather, music gesture resides in the interchangeability, the quality of music of being capable of exchange or interchange between the performance and the perception of the flow of energy of sounds and pulses which we together call music. this idea of music gesture being not just an intermediary between two ontic realms, music making and musical interpretation, but furthermore a phenomenological and very much physical, and intentional, object in itself, echoes in both merleau-ponty and derrida, as we shall discuss in section three. in the body in the mind (1987) mark johnson describes gestalt structure as a “constraint on meaning”. human beings experience force via interaction implying that there is always a structure or sequence of causality involved (lakoof & johnson, 1999). such sequences he also dubs “image schemata” that can be broken down into its smaller parts while still retaining their integrity as gestalts, i.e., as irreducible patterns of meaning making. one such schemata or gestalt structure is “removal of constraint”; it is a schema “that suggests an open way or path, which makes possible an extertion of force”, johnson writes (ibid., p. 46). there is nothing blocking the force as freely flowing energy or exertion. however, the force is not the source of the removal of any restraining barrier (that would be a counterforce), but rather the felt sense of power to perform some action (which brings the force close to what johnson terms “enablement”). as i examined above, music is gestural gestalts that involve the movement of objects (sounds and sequential pulses) through space in some direction. there is thus, 21 levinson argues for a view on musical comprehension as spirally interlinking elements played out between the acoustic and the perceptual level when he writes that “to hear the expressiveness of music is to hear it as personal expression; that to hear it as personal expression is to hear a sort of gesture in the music; […) that to hear such musical gesture is to deploy a capacity to imagine in spatial terms” (levinson, 2006, p. 77). the ability to hear and resonate with music and its gesturality, on a perceptual level, is thus to possess a “robust spatial imagination” (ibid.). b. k. walther: writing and flamenco qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 23-57 ©2023 43 johnson would say, a vector quality, a directionality inflicted on music production as a forceful movement. we can say, then, that music-objects originate in their gestalts as recognizable and analyzable sources dictated by the ‘laws’ of their schemata; and at the same time that music-objects entail degrees of power or intensity. the former would be the composite nature of music, the fact that music is both ‘sounding’ and can be cut to pieces or broken into bits; while the latter speaks of the expressiveness of the music gesture. however, as we will discuss now in the final section, this expressive gesture that is music is not a dislodged afterimage of the originality it exposures (i.e., the signature that is identical to itself) but an intentional, playful object in its own right. iii: philosophy in the flesh iii.1. body-subject (merleau-ponty) embedded between, on the one hand, the aesthetics of writing as content displayed through various media, and the systematic perception of such content via the grammatical and semantical laws of representational signs, on the other hand, stands the oftenoverlooked writing machine, the ’controller’, and the body as subject, as merleau-ponty ponders in his phenomenology of perception (1995; cf. walther & larsen, 2019). the membrane between the aesthetics and complexity of a writing output passes recursively through a body and a physical controller-input. such a controller, or in the case above a pen used to execute the signature later to be substituted by video recorded footage and guitar playing in order to procreate the authenticity of the bodily performance, may grab our attention only to fall into the background replaced by a sensation of control, i.e., the abstract machinery of language and conceptual understanding. such abstraction, berger & del negro inform us, requires treating the machinery as an object of intentional representation – rather than viewing it as a corporeal ‘within’ immovable from the bodysubject (berger & del negro, 2004; young, 2011; also derrida, 2001). still, the pen and the guitar, along with the interiorized knowledge of sonoric and rhythmic qualities, that close and faultless relationship with writing in and through the hand, seem to inaudibly disappear to be substituted by an even greater revelation – finding a rhythm of play/writing while engaging with writing-as-music itself. i do not perform my own signature for the sake of conceptual clarity, but rather for the joy of playful, rhythmical b. k. walther: writing and flamenco qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 23-57 ©2023 44 mimicry.22 this innate quality of play, music and rhythm, we might add, is what berger calls “unreflective consciousness” where the body experiences its own motor intentionality and thus becomes completely absorbed bodily in an act (ibid.). speaking from the vocabulary of computer game studies (ludology) sudnow (1983) insists that the practice of playing computer games is much closer to playing instruments, and certainly completely different than the rational, configurational, and distanced gameplay typically found in studies of what games mean and how we play them. this is a perspective which hamilton (2011) expands upon when he insists that interfacing with a game is a “kinaesthetic dance of feedback and response that can easily be thought of as a kind of music” (para. 1). so, players play music playing games; the same way everyday writers play flamenco music playing signature. hamilton calls it the “rhythm of play”. rhythm is, he explains, essentially division of time segmented into notes and “a whole note contains four quarter notes, each of which contains two eight notes” (para. 11) that can be divided further, and so on. as we saw in the previous section, this relates to the question of how rhythm rationalizes itself through synthetic concepts like meter, tempo, and foot. the point is that games establish and create different patterns of rhythm – not just as rational means for conceptualization but also as instances of a bodily play, or being in the world. some rhythms are fast, others dense, others still are slow and some mix and remix patterns creating shifts between hectic or soothing tempos (walther & larsen, 2019; walther & ryan, 2022). what is at stake here is rhythm and other modes of structuralizing ‘machines’ that read a set of bodily behaviors organized by space and time into meaningful routines. seamon (1980) coins it a ”place-ballet” of recombining and resequencing patterns of tonality and paces. furthermore, this insistence of the body as the primary arena of perception, rather than the reliance on reflexive rationality and epistemological assurance as rooted in the tradition of descartes and kant, point towards merleau-ponty’s chief idea, namely that the body must not be conceived as separate from the mind as in the 22 there might be such a thing as sonoric or rhythmic remembrance where the subconscious repetition of patterned sequences of sound or pulses acts as a kind of a priori, perceptual reasoning with objects in the world and how they function. thus, i recall back in the days of chunky landline telephones that very often i couldn’t remember the numbers (digits) themselves. and yet the sounds and rhythms of these numbers inscribed a bodily resonance in me which i could then re-duplicate and ’play along with’ – so that i effectively dialed the right number. for me the telephone numbers were pieces of music. this example may be max speed subjectivism; still it’s important to note the intimate connection between bodily perception and conceptual reasoning. b. k. walther: writing and flamenco qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 23-57 ©2023 45 cartesian dualism. merleau-ponty maintains instead that the body is the principal condition for our being-in-the-world, for subjectivity and intentionality. in fact, he radicalizes the heideggerian notion of being (dasein) and zeug so that using a tool simply is being, tool-being. the body-subject doing tool-business means to always-already interact with the world, and the body-subject cannot escape that condition. going back to the analysis of the signature as a ’felt’ (and later performed) piece of flamenco music, we can abstract from the above that when writing one’s signature the body-subject, pace merleau-ponty, reacts to solicitations of what it means to achieve ’signature’. merleau-ponty would then say that we possess an intrinsic ”intentional arc” (1995) that we approach as a tool from a specific position in relation to our body – this exclusive tool being the pen and the body-work it requires to harvest instantaneous meaning. we clutch the pen with our hands and fingers to provide a sensory information about the size, weight, and shape of it. through our body as medium the rhythm that penetrates and frames such qualities flow freely, and all kinds of data that relate to the rich solicitations implanted in the task at hand are tacitly there for the taking. it is the body-subject, merleau-ponty concludes, that fulfills series of movements that feel appropriate (while, in fact, they are random) and, at the same time, signify identity. extending from the musical analysis of the personal signature this appropriateness is a marker of sensuous stimulus qualities that can be interpreted and (in my case) felt as music, effectively an aesthetic quality; and yet it is also a symbolism of the legitimacy of the author’s identity, and thus a political or juridical nomenclature. the latter is precisely the point of departure for derrida’s critique. merleau-ponty’s conception of the intentional arc is developed further in what dreyfus (2016) calls the ”flow of coping”. this skillful coping, as it is, consists of two separate forms of intentionality (dreyfus, 2002), one in which actions are deliberate and planned and another containing spontaneous and transparent actions. this is especially helpful when considering the music making of the signature praxis, since it involves two seemingly disparate actions; one that falls under the sway of rationalization and identity (the reproductive accuracy and trustworthiness of the signature as a legal act), and another that is the unique product of the imaginative and resourceful non-identity of the author. as we shall see, it is exactly this simultaneous existence of the rational and the ’auratic’ b. k. walther: writing and flamenco qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 23-57 ©2023 46 in the signature that institutes its aporetic nature, if i understand derrida correctly. on a passing note: i would not call this simultaneity aporetic, but rather musical. the intentional arc is thus the ’grip’ of our surroundings using tools to both extend and express our pre-epistemic being. how is that connected to rhythm? according to henri lefebvre (2004), rhythm is at once a repetition and a renewal (ringgaard, 2010). abstractly speaking, rhythm is the corresponding energy of heidegger’s concept of time that he called sorge, in sein und zeit (heidegger, 1962). sorge is the spiral of our intentional projection into the future and the connectiveness of this projection to the past that finally lands (momentarily) in the present (gegenwart). heidegger’s conception of time as a continuous moving forth and spiraling backwards rings strongly in what is the essence of rhythm – namely that it is a compás of tension and relief, thesis and stasis. rhythm, lefebvre claims, is one of our deepest concepts, felt through our heartbeat, sounding in our womb and exited through the speed of our emotional affect. speaking in a heideggerian fashion, rhythm is an exalted measure simultaneously consuming past movement and creating expectations for the next (schulze, 2012). as such, rhythm is a pivotal channel for our creative accomplishments, the bursts and emissions of play and of writing. what is important is that rhythm functions not only as a bundled flow of experiences with the world – and the tools to operate the world using the intentional arc – but also as a means to bind memory and sharpen focus. it is precisely this binding mechanism which is accomplished by the musical meter as well as through the repetitious replayability of the performed signature; a way of fastening the endless flux to a steady materialization and allowing the tempo to increase or decrease. in phenomenology of perception merleau-ponty connects transcendentalism with what could be seen as a radical empirism (smith, 1993). yet, as seip (2009) writes, the concept of the transcendental is related solely to our body and being-in-the-world so that there’s a profound transformation from the patterning function kant attributes to understanding (vernunft) to the operations on the perceptual level. “consciousness is being-towards-the-thing through the intermediary of the body”, merleay-ponty says (cf. 1995). an obvious critique of applying the language of flamenco to the act of writing one’s signature would be that this is merely a metaphorization, a replaced representation that only works by a certain similarity of content or structure and therefore is not the b. k. walther: writing and flamenco qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 23-57 ©2023 47 ‘thing’ (signature) in itself.23 but what if we attribute intentionality to the world itself? this is what happens in merleau-ponty’s later writings, notably the visible and the invisible (1968), in which he introduces the term “flesh” as a name for the kind of being that supersedes the dualism of perceiver and perceived, or, as it were, metaphor and identity. everything within the world, merleau-ponty argues, is part of a system of exchanges which also implies that any true ontology would be an interactionism accounting for the dynamic back and forth participations between beings. this idea of the “flesh” can be read as a radical continuation of husserl’s proto-phenomenological scheme of intentio and intentum both comprised within one and the same holistic act of consciousness. subject and object are not static and distanced things, one functioning by way of thinking, the other by extension, as descartes claims, but rather they are interchangeable entities and part of the same universality within the world. coming back to the signature-as-music, merleau-ponty’s “flesh” could be regarded not only as the intermediary system with which to grapple the perceptual and sumptuous dynamic of writing, as well as the dance and music that it offers and the flamenco system that seemingly unlocks its secrets; but in such a way that the directedness and selfapprenticeship of the “flesh” is flamenco: the detectible and kinaesthetic traces of bodily style. music is not just an image of writing, it is writing. iii.2. signature, aporia (derrida) all of the arguments above – the signature as flamenco music, the “flesh” as both controller and intentional object in itself – may be seen as ways of trying to overcome representationalism. or, invoking derrida, as modes of collapsing the distance between originality and image/sign. thus, derrida explains in an interview entitled “les arts de l’espace” (2013), that the handwritten signature is not just a placeholder for the conceptual identity of the author herself, but rather the result of a “confirmed performativity”. such performativity, derrida says, “is absolutely heterogeneous; it is external to everything meaningful in the work”. the signature is not an eligible nomen of identity, the true yet expatriate sign, but rather the “’being-there’ of the work that is more or less an ensemble of analysable semantic elements” (ibid.). when a signature is 23 compare (funk, 2011). b. k. walther: writing and flamenco qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 23-57 ©2023 48 performed, an event takes place; and this event is “analysable”. this way, derrida claims, the signature is both an act that opens up for deconstruction – since the signature may reclaim its “rights” (droit) as perceptual property rather than belonging solely to a juridical and metaphysical system – and an act that playfully participates in the constant “tracing back” in an infinite effort to recapture the perfect specimen of that ‘original’ version of the signature. it is because the signature is never completely identical with any other version, and since the shape of the handwritten signature is never reproduced perfectly, that we “commit […] performatively” to the repetition of original traces. such “traces”, i would insist, are not representations of a lost original style or legislative identity (i.e., futile attempts to get the signature right); but rather they are bursts of iteration and difference joined together by the repetitious music in them. therefore, in my interpretation of derrida, the signature is haunted not by the originality of the perfect signature it cannot reach, but by the traces of the “event” itself. understood this way, the identity of the signature is not its lost origin or metaphysical unconditionality but rather the identity in the performed ensemble of producing/performing a signature and reproducing it over and over in time. as juridical sign the signature “quotes a set of norms constituting a cultural or juridical context”, neef and van dijck writes (2006); as event the signature represents and is the unique style of its writer hosting an “ensemble of analysable semantic elements”, as derrida tells us. in margins of philosophy (1982) derrida writes that “the effects of signature are the most ordinary thing in the world”. they are ordinary, yes, but they are first and foremost impossible because “of their rigorous purity”. a signature must have a repeatable, imitable form. in performing this form, the signature acts out its own aporia, derrida argues (see also derrida, 1992; 1996). for the signature to detach itself from the present and singular intention of its production it needs to produce a certain amount of sameness by way of “forging” the original style (fraenkel, 1992). hence, the authenticity of the signature lies not in the originality of the handwritten signature, or in the inkling of signature-as-identity, but rather in the making of it, endlessly, as “stylish traces” (ibid.). merging merleau-ponty and derrida together with the musical analysis outlined in the previous section one could argue that the critical stance here is not the deconstruction of the role of the signature as epistemic and essentially ‘fake’ iterative reproduction of identity and originality. rather, the important thing is that within b. k. walther: writing and flamenco qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 23-57 ©2023 49 phenomenology there is no such onto-teleological base or substratum hiding underneath or behind the signature. instead, the metaphysicality of the signature lies within and vibrates throughout its perceptual – and musical – “ensemble” of traces that haunt the performing author-subject and which also seem to summon “analysable […] elements”. the signature must be understood in its patterned, sequential, and plural sense; it is always-already embodied, trained, and repetitiously anticipating sensuous and musical performance and analysis. coda in this article i have tried to clarify how the understanding of writing not only benefits from the structured vocabulary of music but that writing indeed is music. here, of course, in the pretext of the handwritten, personal signature, which, as we saw, could be probed using the flamenco system (compás, palos, etc.) and the flamenco notation (arpeggios, picada, ligados, etc.). further, we discussed how this idea (or rather perceptual identification) of the musical object-as-writing is profoundly sustained by gestural musicology, by the concept of the gestalt, and by the thinking of merleau-ponty and derrida who both place pre-conceptual materialism rather than rationalized metaphysics at the base of explaining how we perceive and experience the world, including music. the causal context for my musical analysis is thus respectively the flamenco ‘method’ and perceptual thinking. however, this begs the questions of biases and methodology. is the introduction of flamenco to the act of writing one’s signature, and hearing/playing its music, not a typical example of a confirmation bias? this bias explains the tendency to search for or otherwise interpret information in such a way that it confirms or supports one’s prior beliefs, values, or ideas (gerken, 2017). following from this, i would insist that what really clouds the argumentation is not the information bias in itself, but rather the undecidability as to whether the ‘error’ falls under hypothetical or systematic categories. if the methodological proceedings in this article are flawed in any way, it could stem from both the initiating, deductive claim that writing is music; and it could have been the result of the gradual accumulation of supportive evidence, i.e., an inductive fallacy. moreover, the musical analysis presented in this article may easily run into the problematic realm of ’subjectivism’, i.e., that a theory purporting a methodology which b. k. walther: writing and flamenco qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 23-57 ©2023 50 limits knowledge to subjective experience effectively compromises the analytical data and hence the verification and validation of the results. this, then, runs parallel to the challenge of avoiding the confirmation bias in its deductive as well as inductive guise. as a response to this, i’d like to go back to proto-phenomenology: edmund husserl repeatedly stressed that even though the task of philosophy is to provide accurate descriptions of the act of perception as it is experienced from a perceiver, thus seemingly evoking subjectivism, such descriptions will always be narrated from a first-person perspective (husserl, 1981). however, despite the descriptions’ apparent appeal as ‘subjective,’ or, in fact, because of this appeal, they must be even more objectively valid. vigilant accounts of phenomena in the world that are filtrated through our consciousness must always, husserl asserted, trigger a conceptual thinking about the idea (eidos) behind them. this is the spectral presence of idealism in husserl’s transcendentalism – as opposed to the later merleau-ponty who, as we have seen, favors a much more panperceptual transcendentalism placing the body-subject and corporeal knowledge center stage. besides being perceived in the act of consciousness collapsing the distance between object (intentum) and subject (intentio), phenomena also hold the key as to how they generally (or ideally) invite perception and systematic reasoning. whenever husserl ponders a phenomenon (it always seems to be one of the trees in his back garden), he also chases down its transcendental constituent. husserl referred to this as the eidetic reduction, a kind of ‘going-back-to-the-idea’ (elliston & mccormick, 1977). the method of eidetic reduction is when the philosopher moves from the consciousness of individual and concrete objects to the transempirical realm of pure essences and thus achieves an intuition of the eidos. it is interesting to note that eidos is the greek word for “shape”, i.e., of a thing – meaning what something is in its invariable and essential structure, apart from all that is contingent or accidental to it. the eidos is thus the principle or necessary structure of the thing, which husserl often refers to as transcendental idealism or, simply, the ‘method’ of describing the act of perceptual experience. in the flamenco interpretation of the handwritten, personal signature i strongly believe the soleá to be rooted in exactly such a transempirical realm of pure essences. the soleá is the organizing principle undergirding the various sensuous and rhythmical elements woven on top of it. inferred this way the stipulated palo points to the objective ‘truth’ behind all the trickery that goes on at the surface level that may very well be b. k. walther: writing and flamenco qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 23-57 ©2023 51 disregarded as random and unreliable. in my case, and on a personal note, the question of unreliability is easily overcome by the sheer pleasure of producing music. b. k. walther: writing and flamenco qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 23-57 ©2023 52 references antovic, m. 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(2011). a geometry of music: harmony and counterpart in the extended common practice. oxford: oxford university press. valdo, s. (1999). nuevo flamenco: jazz influences and introduction of the electric bass. long beach: california state university press. walther, b.k. & larsen, l.j. (2019). bicycle kicks and camp sites: towards a phenomenological theory of game feel with special attention towards ‘rhythm’. convergence, 26 (5-6): 1248-68. walther, b.k. & wright, r. (2022). shapes of play: towards a phenomenological heatmap of player experience. games: games as art media entertainment, in press. withrow, g.j. (1981). the natural philosophy of time. oxford: oxford university press. worms, c. (2006). maestros contemporáneos de la guitarra, vol. 1: vicente amigo. paris: combre. young, k. (2011). gestures, intercorporeity, and the fate of phenomenology in folklore. journal of american folklore, 124 (492): 55-87. zagalaz, j. (2012). the jazz-flamenco connection: chick corea and paco de lucía between 1976 and 1982. journal of jazz studies, 8 (1): 33-54. acknowledgements the author wishes to thank an anonymous reviewer for positive and considerate comments that greatly helped sharpen points and arguments. a great thank you also to martin hauberg-lund laugesen who initially lend a patient, intelligent, and fellow-geeky ear to the author’s ramblings on the language of flamenco and the art of bursts prior to putting it all down on paper. b. k. walther: writing and flamenco qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 23-57 ©2023 57 about the author: bo kampmann walther, phd, associate professor, dept. for the study of culture, university of southern denmark. he has written and lectured extensively on new media, computer games, ludification, sports and media, and much more. he has published 500+ articles outside of academia (newspapers, journals, magazines, etc.), including three monographs on football tactics and culture, and is an entusiastic flamenco and jazz guitarist. in 1991 (alas, many years ago) he won the ben webster special award for talented young jazz guitarists. he also works as a consultant in the advertising, media, and sports businesses. together with miguel sicart (it university of copenhagen) he is currently working on a monograph entitled the laws of the game: a game studies book about soccer, which will hopefully come out in 2025, on mit press. he sees himself as a veteran and fervent writer off the beaten track (speaking of beating!). in fact, a common idiom among his media studies colleagues at the university is “don’t try to write like bo kampmann walther!”. he has the yon-dan (fourth level) black belt in karate. qualitative studies vol. 8, no. 1, 2023, pp. 137-161 issn 1903-7031 children who write ‘off the beaten track’ and what we can learn from them stine heger1 1 danish school of education, aarhus university, tuborgvej 164, 2400 copenhagen, denmark in a recently initiated research project, i explore children’s voluntary creative writing and its possible significance for their motivation, engagement, writer identity and capacity to work with other types of writing. in this article i share some preliminary insights from my current field work among these children who write “off the beaten track” in the sense that they spend their free time outside of school writing together and being taught by professional authors. i argue that we can learn a great deal about some basic characteristics of writing, craft, community, and enjoyment in writing from these children and their writing practices. i also share some of my own (human) writing experiences (with reference to badley, 2019), and i present a thought of not post-, but pre-academic writing: writing that is built on learning the craft of writing, becoming a writer, and working with story and voice early on and throughout education. keywords: children’s fiction writing, writing community, writing enjoyment, progymnasmata, writer identity introduction “what i like about writing is that you only need your imagination. there are no boundaries, you are really just in your own world. it is also fun because you can get inspiration from all sorts of things, you can seriously write a poem about a flower swaying in the wind and nothing more” sara 13 sara, the girl i am quoting above, is one of the children that i have spoken to in my research. she and other children express to me how the freedom to use their imagination without restriction is something that they really value and enjoy in writing. most of us probably don’t think of typical academic writing as something that involves using only s. heger: children who write ‘off the beaten track’ and what we can learn from them qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 137-161 ©2023 138 our imagination or poetically describing a natural phenomenon, and there certainly are restrictions when we write academically. in his article post-academic writing: human writing for human readers (2019), graham francis badley calls for a more accessible academic writing: writing that has a more human perspective, writing that connects the writer to the reader by showing that there is someone behind the text, a human with a voice. he also encourages us to immerse ourselves, practice and learn more about the craft of writing, so that we will be able to write more lively, creative and less inflated and disembodied. he wants us to improve as storytellers. he wants us to enjoy writing more. with this in mind, i will argue that we can learn a great deal about these aspects of writing from sara and other child writers. academic writing: persuasion and practice being a rhetorician by education and training, my view on writing is fundamentally rhetorical. writing and the teaching of writing have been a vital part of the rhetorical domain since the birth of the discipline around 400 bce (kock, 2013). the teachings of rhetoric had from the beginning a strong focus on the practical activity, the development and display of text production. many rhetoricians, going back to aristotle, generally define rhetoric as the capacity to discern the available persuasive potential in any given case (jørgensen & villadsen (ed.), 2009). so to me, academic writing is primarily about persuasion and building arguments. an argument can take various and sometimes also creative or narrative forms, but regardless, persuasion is at the core of the academic genre and text in my understanding. learning to write well, to build an argument, to write with flair and creativity requires lots of practice, and – quoting badley – “the trouble is that neither academic nor post-academic writers get much or any training in writing” (badley, 2019, p. 186). to become good writers, we need to practice, also by doing different kinds of writing. for us to actually spend time writing, for us to really sit down and do this varied practice of writing, we need to feel like writing is something that we like to do. we need to feel like writers. as one of my favorite writing teachers donald murray would say, our attitudes usually predict and limit our accomplishments (murray, 1986): how we feel about writing, and what we think of ourselves as writers is paramount. this may come as no surprise. however, i am learning new and interesting things about this fundamental circumstance of writing when i observe, spend time with, and talk to s. heger: children who write ‘off the beaten track’ and what we can learn from them qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 137-161 ©2023 139 children between the ages of 11 to 18 who write. they write because they enjoy it and because they see themselves as “someone who writes.” i will share with you what i think we can all learn from these children and their writing practices and why. to get there, i begin by sharing some insight into the intimacy of my own current writing practice and the attitudes and feelings towards writing that to my experience are quite common. sharing is essential, in fact it is a fundamental part of the human writing experience (badley, 2019). my own writing when i was working on the first drafts (yes, plural) of this article, i found myself stalling, hesitating, getting stuck: what position was i writing from? what did i want to say? what could i say? who was i to say anything, really? i shared my doubts with a friend, marie, an anthropologist and fellow researcher and writer. “you know,” she said matter-of-factly, “we all feel that way. all the time, really.” it is comforting, isn’t it? to know that you are not the only one who struggles with writing. marie knew what i needed to hear, and she was able to help me, because she, too, is writing, exposed and vulnerable in the same way that i am. but, to receive this kind of comfort we must be willing to show how vulnerable we are when we write. we need a sense of community. when i feel vulnerable and unable to write (and if marie is not around), i also like to consult with murray: “put yourself on the spot,” he says. share your doubts. “respect your own judgement,” he says. “of course, you should be aware of the scholarship that has preceded you, but pay close attention to what you see with your own eyes, hear with your own ears, think with your own mind. ours is not only a profession of confirmation but also of exploration […] if i publish my guesses, others might respond with their truths.” “write for yourself,” he says. “don’t try to figure out what other people want but try to figure out what you have to say and how it can best be said.” s. heger: children who write ‘off the beaten track’ and what we can learn from them qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 137-161 ©2023 140 “lower your standards,” he says, quoting william stafford: “the so-called ‘writing block’ is a product of some kind of disproportion between your standards and your performance […] one should lower his standards until there is no felt threshold to go over in writing. it’s easy to write. you shouldn’t have standards that inhibit you from writing.” “there is no need to be consistent,” he says. “learning does not stop with publication. […] “of course i will contradict myself from time to time.” (murray, 1986). i like to think of donald murray as ‘my friend don’: the way he smiles at me, the reader, from the cover of the essential don murray – friendly white beard, glasses, twinkle in the eye – makes me feel like he wants to help, and reading his advice instantly changes my attitude and my feelings towards my own writing. it works every time. being a writing teacher murray (who died in 2006) has been called america’s greatest writing teacher, and his mission was to demystify writing by revealing as much as possible about the habits, processes, and practices of writers (newkirk & miller, 2009). i took on murray’s mission as my own when i worked for nearly a decade as a writing teacher and consultant at the danish school of education, aarhus university in denmark. working as a teacher of academic writing i learned that most of murray’s advice also helped my students. i saw that a lot of students had never really learned to master the craft of writing. not only were they insecure about the academic genre(s) and what was expected in the final texts, they were also very insecure and inexperienced with handling the writing process. i have seen this fact come as a surprise to other university teachers, who believe strongly that writing is something students must have learned at least in high school, that teaching writing isn’t something we really have time to deal with, that we can expect students to just be able to do it. at the same time, it is a widespread notion that “students can’t write” (hvass & heger, 2017; laugesen, 2021). of course, students do learn to write in the danish school system: they are exposed to many different writing tasks and to writing in many different genres through primary, secondary and high school. but do we teach the craft of writing? s. heger: children who write ‘off the beaten track’ and what we can learn from them qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 137-161 ©2023 141 i have my doubts. my students had been told since high school that an academic text needed to include analysis, but they didn’t understand exactly what analysis was, how or why you write it. they knew of course that they had to meet the deadlines, but they often didn’t know what to do or how to get there. they were unfamiliar with strategies for handling the process of writing, and they would tell me: “can’t you just tell me what i should write?”, “i’m just not a good writer,” “i am someone who never really wrote much,” or “i just don’t enjoy writing.” in the lines of badley, you could say that many students don’t feel they have a writing voice (badley, 2019). they don’t know who they are supposed to be as writers, what they are supposed to say or why; they are unsure about whom they are writing to or under what circumstances (heger & hvass, 2018). even to experienced writers, the act of writing can feel new or different every time we have to write in a new genre, a new context, for a new audience. this is the case for me, and maybe for you? certainly for students. in 2018, helle hvass (a fellow rhetorician) and i published a book based on a writing counseling project. in the project we had provided help with writing to more than 1,000 students over a period of five years. the students all came to us because they were experiencing some kind of writing issue and needed help with their writing assignments. our job as trained rhetoricians and writers was to be the ‘someone’ that students, and sometimes faculty, could turn to with questions and doubts about academic writing. our book has a danish title that might translate to: keep on writing. we wrote it by collecting all the questions we had received from students in writing counseling, and we also collected the answers we provided that seemed to have helped the most. the first and most important part of the book touches on handling the processes and the craft of writing, because we saw that this was the fundamental issue that all students had. we made it our most important task to help keep up the student writer’s spirit by giving out the kind of comfort that we naturally gave each other on a regular basis, or that marie gives me: knowing that you are not alone in your struggles. “many students think that their questions about writing are stupid. they are ashamed to be experiencing writing problems. they think that they ought to be able to write in (all) the academic genre(s), but at the same time they are missing someone who will tell them what they are actually supposed to do and how they are supposed to do it” (heger & hvass, 2018, p. 7 translated from danish). so many of my students felt that they were just not writers – sometimes s. heger: children who write ‘off the beaten track’ and what we can learn from them qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 137-161 ©2023 142 only because they experienced recurring problems, problems that i think we all experience when writing. i have long been wondering what we can do to help all students feel like they are writers. how can we help ourselves when writing? this brings me back to the work i am currently doing in my research with children and young people who do feel like they are writers. working with them is constantly inspiring and educational. why we should be interested in children’s fiction writing outside of school we have been used to thinking that the ability to read contributes to success in education, employment, and citizenship: reading is a democratic craft. writing has traditionally been considered something that few would master like a fine art, and the rest of us just had to learn to make it through (clark, 2006). in recent years there has been a so-called turn in the development of mass literacy. as writing researcher deborah brandt has put it: writing has overtaken reading as the basis of people’s daily literate experience (brandt, 2015). to become a writer early on has become vital in learning, education, and civic life. writing is a democratic craft. despite the importance of this, many students still fail to develop strong writing skills and many struggle to develop motivation in writing. motivation actually tends to recede through the school years for many students (boscolo & hidi, 2007; camacho, alves & boscolo, 2020). it is known that children who do enjoy writing and are motivated to write are eight times more likely to achieve well academically (clark & teravainen, 2017; young & ferguson, 2021). factors like interest, identity, engagement and motivation are vital to the development of strong writing skills (cremin & myhill, 2012; krogh, 2012; laugesen, 2021; matthiesen, 2015). this we know; but we know very little about what kinds of writing instruction, teaching or writing practices can actually strengthen these factors (boscolo & hidi, 2007; camacho, alves & boscolo, 2020; nolen, 2007). some argue, however, that fiction writing and literary participation might promote children’s desire to write and their overall development as writers. bret healey, an australian writing researcher shows in his research that children appreciate writing in creative, narrative, and personal genres when they are developing as writers (healey, 2019). in her work from 2019, danish researcher marie-louise molbæk notes that children benefit from experience with fiction writing when doing other types of writing tasks (molbæk, 2019). in england, the organization first story has a similar point in their s. heger: children who write ‘off the beaten track’ and what we can learn from them qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 137-161 ©2023 143 yearly reports from the creative writing program that they offer to socially or academically challenged students: the young people who participate in their program experience a significant improvement in writing skills, but they also seem to improve in all other school topics across the curriculum (first story, 2019). baran, a boy who has taken part of the program is quoted in the newest report from 2021: before first story i didn’t like writing anything, i felt it was something that i couldn’t do. i really hated my english lessons because i had to write. when i found out that my class were involved in first story, i didn’t want to do it. i thought it was going to be just like my english lessons. however, i soon realized that it was different – interesting. the workshops allowed me to express my feelings. being given the freedom to write whatever i wanted made me feel free. i didn’t have to think about the rules of writing, techniques, spelling and grammar, and i was always encouraged to write in whatever way felt natural to me. it felt like i found my own voice. (…) i have proved to myself that i can write and i can write well. i have found that i have my own unique style which is appreciated by others. (…) i now feel confident about my writing skills and being able to speak in front of my class, which is something that i would never have done before. i have come such a long way and i'm proud. as a writer and writing teacher i am moved, inspired, and enamored by this quote. stories like this one are repeated by other participants of first story’s program. we might imagine the kind of writer baran would (not) have been had he not had this opportunity to discover himself as a writer through creative writing. when this first came to my attention and i started my current research, i soon realized that children and young people’s creative writing is researched very little both in l1 studies (i.e., first language education research), in writing research and in children’s literature or culture studies. in research within the field of children’s literature there has, however, been a recent growing interest for children’s creative text production as part of understanding the concept of “children’s literature” or “youth literature” (christensen, 2016; gubar, 2013). s. heger: children who write ‘off the beaten track’ and what we can learn from them qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 137-161 ©2023 144 children’s perspectives in writing research and how they matter this brings me to another thing that is poorly researched, namely children’s experiences with writing in general and with creative writing specifically (healey & merga, 2017). in my research and in exploring and understanding these creative writing practices, i strive to include as best i can the perspectives of the participating children. this can be an ambiguous claim (warming, 2019, spyrou, 2018), so let me elaborate a bit on that: my project explores children’s “writing enjoyment,” “writing desire,” or “writing for pleasure” (heger, 2020; young & ferguson, 2021). the aim of the project is twofold: to theoretically explore this terminology (“skrivelyst” in danish), and to empirically explore children’s fiction writing experiences. the overall method is qualitative, drawing on anthropological approaches to theory making (eg. bundgaard et al., 2018; cerwonka & malkii, 2007). i carry out the empirical fieldwork as an explorative case study with ethnographic methods – that is extensive participant-observations, informal conversations and interviews (bundgaard et al., 2018; emerson, fretz & shaw, 2011; hoek, 2014; spradley 1979) and phenomenological, hermeneutical analysis, inspired by e.g., healey (2019) and healey & merga (2017). i am currently in the process of carrying out this field work in three (possibly four) author schools for children and in two (possibly three) school classes (grades 5th and 6th), where authors act as visiting writing teachers. the main interest of my fieldwork is the writing practice that takes place, and the participating children’s experiences and perspectives. the empirical findings will feed into the development of terminology and theory (bowen, 2006; bundgaard et al., 2018; hoek, 2014). this means that i actively include the children in the process of understanding and theorizing “writing enjoyment”. i draw a fundamental inspiration from children’s literature studies as well, adopting marah gubar’s ‘kinship model’ understanding of children and childhood when i work with the children in my project. “[the kinship model] is premised on the idea that children and adults are akin to one another, which means that they are neither exactly the same nor radically dissimilar. the concept of kinship indicates relatedness, connection, and similarity without implying homogeneity, uniformity, and equality” (gubar, 2013, p. 453). this means for instance that i don’t claim that i am able to experience exactly what children themselves experience. i am not a child, and i don’t pretend that i can assume the position of one in my research. i am conscious of the fact that i – the adult researcher – have both responsibility and power to make s. heger: children who write ‘off the beaten track’ and what we can learn from them qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 137-161 ©2023 145 decisions about the project in a way that the children don’t. but i do my very best to explore and understand their experiences, and to consider their points of view. in my research i respect and value their statements and experiences on writing as much as my own and those of the adult authors who teach in the author schools. the children’s views on what it means to enjoy writing are pivotal in the selection and development of theory in my project. adopting the kinship model of understanding children and childhood also sets the foundation for my firm belief that we, adult academic writers and writing teachers, can certainly learn valuable lessons from these children, their writing practices, and their experiences with writing and being writers. so, in this article, drawing also on pahl (2019), i investigate ideas about writing across age, contexts, and genres. this “writing-across” perspective means moving from a focus on “writing-in” (writing as a single mode in a single context) to a perspective on writing as something that is unavoidably entangled and emerging across different situated events and settings (smith, hall & sousanis, 2015). pahl points to the need in writing research for “a new onto-epistomological stance – that of affect” (pahl, 2019). ideas lie across and are located in the everyday, opening out new modes of thinking about patterned practices […] [t]his approach requires a much more diffuse set of research practices, or ‘thinking devices’ to look at writing on the move. research methods have to be agile to make sense of these processes, requiring a new horizontal mode of inquiry. this might mean redoing research ethics so that children and young people become agentive in what gets researched and how, and they themselves can become part of writing research as it unfolds in their midst. (pahl 2019, 2) and so, i move on to some details about the writing practice in author schools for children that i am currently studying. researching ‘author schools for children’ in denmark an author school in denmark is a free-time writing activity taught by professional authors. it typically takes place at a local library. the participating children write ”stories and poetry” as they themselves put it. children are aged 11 to 18, and meetings are s. heger: children who write ‘off the beaten track’ and what we can learn from them qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 137-161 ©2023 146 typically once a week for two hours. much of the time they just sit and write together quietly, but they also talk about writing, read aloud, give feedback, and receive writing prompts, tips, exercises, and knowledge about writing from the author. the author typically also shares her own personal experiences with writing processes, making stories, building characters, playing with language, etc. some author schools publish the children’s stories and poetry in books (anthologies). the children are seen and treated as apprenticing authors (see also cremin, 2020). the author works as a kind of mentor, helping the children to navigate and master the writing process and to tell their stories, craft their poems, etc. some of the children have hopes of becoming professional authors themselves one day, but this isn’t the main point of their participation. the author schools that i study are not talent programs; they are free-time activities like music lessons or soccer practice. within the past 10 to 15 years in denmark there has been a significant increase in the number of these author schools for children (skyggebjerg, 2016). despite this rather flourishing literary writing culture among children and youth, there is almost no research on the subject. this to me was a remarkable realization: writing is a fundamental and crucial activity in school at all levels, and motivation towards writing is a persistent challenge, as i already stated above. yet, very little attention is paid to this growing number of organized free-time activities where children write and receive professional writing instruction for the simple reason that they enjoy it. skyggebjerg – the only danish researcher who so far has written about this – suggests that knowing more about these activities and the experiences of the participating children might inspire new ways of promoting written engagement and motivation, also in traditional, academic school settings (skyggebjerg, 2016). an obvious inspiration for my project. in my fieldwork i visit the author schools when they meet on a regular basis. i participate as much as possible in what is happening, but at the same time i try to observe the writing practice “as it is” without interfering more than i have to by just being present (bundgaard et al., 2018). writing is a vital part of my own methodology, and i aim at becoming an accepted member of the children’s writing community. i learned quickly that the children and the author share a quite intimate space, and that i had to work to become part of this space for them to want to speak to me and share their thoughts and experiences with me. i write as much as possible with the children. i try to experience what they are experiencing through writing. this means that when they write, i write. s. heger: children who write ‘off the beaten track’ and what we can learn from them qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 137-161 ©2023 147 when they stop writing to talk or share texts and thoughts, i also stop writing, and i also share when possible. sometimes i take part in a writing exercise and share the outcome of that – for instance a poem written in twenty minutes time (because that is what they do) – sometimes i write and share my field notes. i thus do everything i can to show that i am willing to be vulnerable in writing just like they are with each other. so far, this has helped me to gradually gain the children’s trust and confidence, so that i can get as close as possible to their perspectives and lived experiences. the interviews i conduct range from “talk here and there” to “informal conversations” to more structured conversations with guiding questions. from these conversations with the children specifically some themes emerge quite clearly when i ask them questions like, “what do you like about the author school?”, or “what makes you enjoy writing?” below i sketch out these themes as a preliminary insight from my research into children’s experiences with writing enjoyment and being writers. afterwards i will return to my overall argument – what i believe we (academic writers and teachers of academic writing) can learn from these children and their writing practices. current research status – analytical assumptions this article builds on meticulous episodical readings of the first four months of my ethnographical studies. these readings involve reflections on the data already produced, its relevance and gaps, reading through my fieldnotes in intervals and so on (bundgaard et al., 2018; hoek, 2014). based on these readings i outline a number of themes, i.e. topics that i see coming up somehow in and across all my conversations with the children so far. i will now bring forward examples of three themes. there are more potential themes than the three, but they are so far the most dominant throughout my data material: when i speak to the children about why they enjoy writing in the author school, they all eventually talk about 1) a strong sense of belonging to a community of writers or “others with the same interests,” 2) the agency, independence or sense of freedom to “decide for oneself what and how to write,” and 3) the importance of being able to use their imagination “without restriction.” s. heger: children who write ‘off the beaten track’ and what we can learn from them qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 137-161 ©2023 148 writing community (vulnerability and belonging) writing researcher steve graham proposes an understanding of a writing community where: writing is conceptualized as a social activity situated within specific writing communities. writing in these communities is accomplished by its members. […] [w]riting is simultaneously shaped and bound by the characteristics, capacity, and variability of the communities in which it takes place and by the cognitive characteristics, capacity, and individual differences of those who produce it. (graham, 2018, p. 258) the practice of writing is thus viewed at the same time as both an individual and a social activity. some important features of a functioning writing community are: a shared purpose, members feeling like a part of something bigger (a collective history), and engaging in shared common activities. using graham’s definition of a writing community, one could say that in the author schools, the children definitely find a strong shared purpose in writing together. they improve their writing (skills) through shared activities, they can express whatever feelings, stories, or thoughts they want to express in writing, they share an interest and a passion for writing with peers, and they get guidance from a professional writer who accepts them and sees them as writers on their own terms. the following excerpt from my fieldnotes is from one of my visits to an author school. in this particular case, a group of nine children (aged 11 to 17) meet with the author “lisbeth” at a local library every monday afternoon from 4:30 to 6:30 pm. the library is quite small and located in an old railway building. all the exhibited books on the library shelves face out into the room, the covers of hundreds of stories facing the children as they write their own. the children sit quietly together and write. trains rush by outside, while the only distinct noise inside is the tapping of fingers on keys. after having written for a while, they stop to talk about their writing, how it is going, or what to do next. lisbeth is sitting on a chair that is a bit higher than the low coffee table, her socked feet resting on the edge of the tabletop. the children are seated in the small grey sofas around the table, laptops in laps. one girl is writing by hand s. heger: children who write ‘off the beaten track’ and what we can learn from them qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 137-161 ©2023 149 in a notebook. i have managed to find a stool; i have placed it in a corner between two of the sofas. i am ‘in’ their circle, but also not quite part of it. (it’s an ok position, i think). lisbeth continues: “what about your story – what was the conflict in yours?” (she is talking to bera) […] “it is what makes the person do stuff, right?” says bera. they keep on talking about basic conflicts, goals and obstacles in stories. lisbeth turns to selma and talks about her story from last week, then she adds, to everybody: “your stories make impressions on me, i remember them” – and she keeps on referring in detail to the children’s different texts from last week. [...] “what is the conflict there?” (to selma). selma says that she doesn’t quite think that there is a conflict yet? “that’s right” says lisbeth, “it is something that this character hasn’t met yet, but what could it be?” selma says something about meeting a new character who then betrays the first character, and then falls in love maybe? [...] lisbeth keeps on talking to the group about selma’s story, and the others join in with suggestions as to what could happen and how the story could evolve. […] a main character and a goal is good, says lisbeth, but there must be obstacles and challenges (conflict), otherwise the story becomes dull. [...] (heger, field note, 2022). after this, they keep on talking about what they want to do today. as per usual, lisbeth has different suggestions, one group could work with poetry, and another could keep on working with building plots. they all agree to do that, and they get to writing quietly together again. lisbeth is also willing to share some of her own experiences with writing – how does she come up with ideas? what does she do when she cannot write? what are her strategies in the process of writing or coming up with ideas for stories? both young & ferguson (2021) and cremin (2017) touch on this aspect: the importance of being taught writing by someone who is him-/herself a writer. in the rhetorical writing teaching tradition this is almost taken for granted (e.g. murray 2004; lindemann 2001), but it isn’t the norm in the danish educational system, and this is something the children in the author schools really value (see also cremin & oliver, 2017; cremin, 2006). looking at this writing community from the outside and coming into it, i would say that it is also built on willingness to share and be vulnerable in writing. when speaking to the s. heger: children who write ‘off the beaten track’ and what we can learn from them qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 137-161 ©2023 150 children, it is obvious that the sense of belonging to this community is of great importance to them: “i like it that i am here with others who also like to write, that we’re writing together.” – sara 13 ”what is so special about the author school is that the others read what i write (…) that you get to see how different we can all write… that we see each other’s (texts).” – selma 12 “i think the best thing about being here is that you can write together with others, because i mean, it’s also fine to write at home, but i – it just doesn’t give me the same, the energy is just not the same. if i write at home i can often feel like, no i don’t want to do this, this is boring, i can’t come up with anything. but here, we’re inspired by each other, or at least i feel i’m inspired by the others.” – natasja 12 a sense of freedom (agency) in their book writing voices – creating communities of writers cremin and myhill point out how children and young people in their research “value and enjoy writing more when they are in a position to exert a sense of their own authorial agency and ownership. […] the older primary writers […] desired more independence and increased imaginative involvement in their writing; many also voiced a marked pleasure in narrative writing.” (cremin & myhill, 2012, p. 84). this corresponds very well with my own preliminary findings. i am writing here about the theme i call a sense of freedom. below i present another theme, imagination. as the quote from cremin and myhill suggests, these two themes might be closely related, but in my data i do see them as two separated themes. the danish children in my study frequently use the word “free” (“fri” in danish). going further in my research i will dive deeper into this concept of ‘freedom’, drawing also on s. heger: children who write ‘off the beaten track’ and what we can learn from them qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 137-161 ©2023 151 other researchers’ work on children’s understandings of freedom or agency (spyrou, 2018; wyness, 2015). my current focus here is the fact that the children, across all my conversations with them, talk a lot about the value of being free to write what you want and how you want: “it is fun to write when it is really free (…) when you can just decide for yourself.” – alexis 16 ”if lisbeth says that we have to do something, then you can just write something else if you don’t think what she’s suggesting is fun for you.” – emilie 11 “it is like this; writing at school is like a small claustrophobic room, and you have to constrict yourself through it (…) and then here, then you’re just in a mansion with lots of space.” – bera 11 ”i want to say that i do like writing in danish (lessons at school). but then i just think danish (writing) is more fun when there aren’t so many rules. and that is also what is so great about the author school, that there aren’t so many rules about character traits, specific story lines and all that.” – alexis 16 it is quite striking in my data how the children in these conversations create an image of the author school as a contrast or even an opposition to writing in school: at the author school writing is free and you can decide for yourself what and how you will write, whereas in school, writing is restricted and instrumental. this is something that i will also investigate further throughout the course of my phd research. whether writing in school really is so restricted and instrumental, i cannot say from my current data. but as i am taking the children’s perspective seriously, i must note that this is the clear experience of the children in my study, across the different author schools. the children of my current s. heger: children who write ‘off the beaten track’ and what we can learn from them qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 137-161 ©2023 152 data attend a total of 12 different danish schools (both from urban and rural areas). it is worth mentioning that these children obviously don’t represent all children. as a group they represent children who are already interested in writing and in this sense the sample of children is biased from the get-go. later in my phd research i will explore what happens when the writing practice represented by the professional author in the author school “travels across” (pahl, 2019) to a conventional classroom where ‘all children’ participate in the writing practice. imagination (story) the last theme i will highlight in this article is imagination. i see it quite clearly in my data and it has to do with “coming up with stuff,” “making up stories,” and “using your imagination” without restriction. the children tell me that they value and enjoy writing stories and just making things up, playing with characters, plot and language – without the restrictions of predetermined framing, topics, storylines or the like. the following is a transcript excerpt from a talk i had with a group of girls from an author school. in the situation, we are talking about a specific writing exercise that they have told me that they all like a lot. it is a “warming-up” exercise where they are given, for instance, a word, an image or a piece of music – and then just have to write whatever comes to mind non-stop for 10 minutes. esther is 14 years old, the others – a group of seven girls are 12 to 15 years old. esther: you can easily get going with writing something. and then there aren’t so many boundaries… maybe it’s also just that, at school… i don’t know, at school there must always be so many boundaries. you can try to bend them, but the teachers don’t like it. but then with this, i like it that if you really come up with something good, you just feel like i could go home and keep on writing, and – well, i feel that way about the other exercises too. stine (me): tell me more about what you mean by boundaries? esther: so, like, assignments from the teacher at school...? stine: ah ok, so the frame or the writing instructions – that it has to be a certain way? esther: mmhmm, yeah! s. heger: children who write ‘off the beaten track’ and what we can learn from them qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 137-161 ©2023 153 stine: and – you don’t like that, or? esther: no! because then you’re not allowed to use your imagination (…) i think it’s really boring when you don’t get a chance to come up with something on your own. [there is scattered mumbling of “yeah”, “mmhmm” and other acknowledging sounds from the others] stine: you said yes, ingeborg, and you’re nodding too, clara-sofie? do you all feel this way? [all nodding and saying yes or yeah]. again, the opposition to school writing is quite obvious, but so is the emphasis on the value of being able to just come up with stuff, any way you like, using your imagination. summing up, it seems that these children feel like writers and enjoy writing because of a strong sense of belonging to a writing community. in the intimate space of this community, they can share thoughts, feelings, writing attempts and so on, and they can be vulnerable in writing together. they value and enjoy the freedom of independence in writing and the unrestricted use of imagination when writing stories or poetry. they simply have fun writing together, writing is a form of play. but there may be even more to fiction writing than having fun and enjoying writing. what if imagination and story prelude argument and logical reasoning? let us go back to the report from first story and the quote from the boy baran that i presented earlier in this article. being able to write creatively brought something about in his writing that wasn’t there before. confidence, engagement, identity, voice. i see notions of this too in my conversations with the children from the danish author schools: “well, i’ve gotten better at writing stories and stuff, of course, because i have started coming here, and uhm, i also think i am better at giving feedback to others in school now.” – natasja 12 s. heger: children who write ‘off the beaten track’ and what we can learn from them qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 137-161 ©2023 154 “i think i have gotten better at presenting and performing at school, and things like that, and also, i’ve gotten better at reading aloud. i feel more confident.” – ingeborg 15 “i also am better now at just… talking to people, really. i didn’t really do that before.” – maja 14 the children’s notion of being ‘someone who writes’ is quite strong. if they didn’t already have a strong writer identity when they arrived at the author school, the author and the children among themselves generate and amplify the feeling of being a writer, of authorship. the confidence they gain from this seems to spread to other areas of school and life. although my results are preliminary, i will now risk the notion that creative writing or fiction writing specifically might have a potential in writing enjoyment, building a writer identity and improving writing skills more broadly. i get this idea from the first story reports, from my own data – and also from knowledge about the system of teaching prose composition and elementary rhetoric practiced in european schools in the hellenistic period until early modern times (as described, among others, by kennedy, 2003). stay with me as i explain this connection. the handbook of writing exercises which is called the “progymnasmata” was the common basis for teaching writing and composition for centuries. “progymnasmata” means “preliminary exercises” and the curriculum described in this work consists of a “series of composition exercises, which present a graded, cumulative sequence of writing tasks, manageable at each step, within an explicit rhetorical framework. the method uses the part as a pattern for the whole. you learn how to compose a whole speech or written essay by first becoming proficient in the parts” (d’angelo, 2000). so, the idea of this writing program is that when you have done all the single exercises, you will be proficient in the craft of writing as a whole and ready for participating in civic life, public debates, etc. the sequence of exercises reads as follows: the narrative, the fable, the description, the proverb, the anecdote, refutation/confirmation, the commonplace, praising and blaming, the comparison, the s. heger: children who write ‘off the beaten track’ and what we can learn from them qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 137-161 ©2023 155 speech-in-character, the thesis, and “for” and “against” laws (d’angelo, 2000; kennedy, 2003). what i want to emphasize here is that in all accounts of these exercises, the first things one must practice as a developing writer are “narrative” and “fable” – fictional exercises – and the underlying idea of this pedagogy is that in order to become an educated participant in the democratic conversation, someone who is able to reflect on issues of civic importance, someone who can successfully argue a certain viewpoint, someone who can understand and analyze contexts and audiences, one must first and foremost develop ones imagination and understand the power of story. as d’angelo writes: “imagine learning the art of persuasion through such interesting and enjoyable forms as myths, historical episodes, descriptions, fables, proverbs, and other kinds of wise sayings, anecdotes, speech-in-character, and the like.” so going back to recent research in denmark: when molbæk (2019) notes that it seems the children in her study can use what they learn from fiction writing in other types of writing tasks, she might be touching on something that goes back to an ancient understanding of the importance of practicing writing and becoming a proficient writer through fiction, imagination, and story. post-academic writing? i will finish this article by going back to badley and his encouragement to immerse ourselves and enjoy writing more as academics. to be more creative and less disembodied. in this regard, the first thing we can learn from the children in my study is that a strong sense of community in writing can affect the way we see ourselves as writers and how much we enjoy writing. consequently, how much we enjoy writing might determine how good writers we can become, how much we dare write creatively and freely. this i believe to be fundamental. from my study (both reading of previous research and in my current empirical field work) i see, however, that writing enjoyment is like a slippery piece of soap. it’s continually difficult to grasp and define what it is and how to study it. so far, however, i am convinced that there is an important relation to the sense of belonging to a community. as graham writes “the social environment can further promote or suppress a sense of motivation within the writing community (boscolo & hidi, 2007). if the community views its writing as meaningful, addressing important issues or problems and involving the collective efforts of the community, this will likely create a heightened and shared sense of motivation within the organization versus a s. heger: children who write ‘off the beaten track’ and what we can learn from them qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 137-161 ©2023 156 social milieu where community members feel disconnected and do not value the writing that is done.” (graham, 2018, p. 262). building on my own experience with being a writing teacher and learning from my current research, i have the following thoughts on the idea and ambition of badley’s post-academic writing: 1) we need to create local and global communities of writers who are willing to be vulnerable: to become more “human” writers in academia, i believe we need a stronger sense of community – among colleagues and among students. we need to be ok with vulnerability and doubt. we need to embrace the affective domain in writing and address more openly the emotions, feelings, attitudes, anxieties and (a)motivations that we all experience (laugesen, 2021; mcleod, 1991), realizing maybe that people who never share and always look like they’re in complete control – that they are probably very lonely (murray, 1986). 2) we should not expect ourselves (or our students!) to be able to do things that we haven’t learned or that we have never had time to practice. we should be mindful that being able to write more creatively, arguing with clear voice and storytelling, as badley suggests we do, is not so easy. as much as i admire the ambition (and agree with the call for prose that isn’t impersonal and impenetrable) i also know this: it takes practice, time, effort and patience (or blood, sweat, and tears as we might say). as far as our students, we should not spend energy being dissatisfied with the students that we have, but instead we should find out what they need to learn to become, and think of themselves as, writers. 3) we might think about what comes before academic writing. what should be taught in the schools? learning from the children in my study, i would say that we need to take a closer look at the role of writing as craft and creative writing, and the power of imagination and story in the writing classroom. perhaps, overall, a more playful approach to writing and the teaching of writing. cremin and myhill pose a similar argument (cremin & myhill, 2012, p. 33), and the notion also corresponds with the classical rhetorical teaching tradition (see fleming, 2016). in denmark, for a number of years now (first in 2016), the option to write a story or another fictional assignment has been removed from the final written l1 exam in 9th grade. this has led to discussions about the role of fiction writing in schools. from my perspective this discussion is vital. there is a strong tradition for reading and teaching with literature in the danish l1 education, but in writing instruction the dominant focus has in recent years been on writing in “authentic genres” meaning mainly situated, communicative s. heger: children who write ‘off the beaten track’ and what we can learn from them qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 137-161 ©2023 157 (journalistic) genres that exist in the world outside of the school context. there is nothing wrong with that as such; but in this perspective, what do we do with fiction writing? if we are to learn something from the children in my study and if we were to draw on the knowledge of the ancient teachings of the “progymnasmata,” we might explore the notion that fiction writing is important for the development of learning to write successfully in the more informative, rational, argumentative (and, ultimately, academic) text genres. i would like to think more about not so much what a post-academic writing program would look like, but perhaps what a pre-academic writing teaching could consist of. most academic writers will need to master the conventions before we can learn how to break them. we need to master the craft of writing to be able to work creatively and play with it. if we want strong writers at our universities, writers who are capable of variation, creativity and both convention and innovation, we might start thinking about how we create writers throughout the school system. i think we should consider for instance how we can create strong communities of writers in classrooms, and how we can make every student feel like a writer. it might be that in the danish language we have the fundamental issue that we don’t really speak of “writers” in the normal classroom because we don’t have the right word for someone who isn’t a professional. the danish word “skriver” or “elevskriver” is used by researchers (e.g. krogh and others), but we don’t see it used in classrooms or with children calling themselves that. in the author schools, all the children are writers – or “authors” (“forfattere” in danish) – and from what i see, just being able to use that word about themselves has a fundamental impact on their beliefs about themselves as “someone who writes”. s. heger: children who write ‘off the beaten track’ and what we can learn from them qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 137-161 ©2023 158 references badley, g. f. 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(2021). writing for pleasure – theory, research and practice. routledge. about the author: stine heger (1980) is a phd fellow at the danish school of education, aarhus university, denmark. her interest in and research on writing is cross-disciplinary, touching rhetoric, l1 and children’s literature studies. her previous work includes various publications on academic writing and writing in authors schools for children. her educational background is in rhetoric and danish (university of copenhagen) and in children’s literature and media (aarhus university). as a young student, she also studied creative writing at new york university. qualitative studies vol. 8, no. 1, 2023, pp. 162-193 issn 1903-7031 a method off the beaten track: refining creative writing process through practice-led research nathali h. s. pilegaard & heidi philipsen1 1media studies and screenplay development, university of southern denmark how can you improve your writing processes and your creative projects by examining your own working conditions? in this article, we address this question and the possibilities and challenges of the method called ‘practice-led research’, which is a method off the beaten track in media production studies. we examine assignments by students from the educational program of ‘screenplay development’ at the university of southern den-mark. our purpose is to clarify how the students have used practice-led research to enhance their screenwriting, and whether this method has contributed to their talent development. the theoretical framework in the article is constituted by donald schön’s (2013) practice epistemology. as our analytical lens we use robin nelson’s (2013) modes of thinking, as well as talent development theories by anders ericsson (ericsson & pool, 2016) and mihalyi csikszentmihalyi (1996). based on our findings, we suggest how to get started you’re your creative writing and improve your writing processes. keywords: practice-led research, screenplay development, writing processes, talent development a method for optimizing writing processes it can be frustrating and hard to get started on a creative writing project, for example a screenplay. you may have a good idea, but not know where to begin, where to sit and what time to start if you want to optimize your writing process. on ’screenplay development’ (where we both teach), the students often experience the challenge of how to optimize their writing processes. as part of their education, the students must write a screenplay for either a film or a television series. and as part of the program, they attend a course called ‘research and development’ where the themes are creative processes, n. h. s. pilegaard & h. philipsen: method off the beaten track qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 162-193 ©2023 163 methods, and research techniques used in screenwriting. as part of their exam for this course, the students must write an examination paper about, e.g., their own creative processes and practices in screenplay development. many of the students use this exam as an opportunity to examine how to improve their approaches to and the conditions for their writing processes. in our article, we define this kind of study as ‘practice-led research’. how this method can be used to improve creative writing processes is the focus of this article. we thus examine how practice-led research can contribute to becoming a writer and to write in systematical ways. in the last couple of years, there have been many calls for diversity in academic writing (badley, 2019; gilmore et al., 2019). our article is also a response to this call because it demonstrates the possibilities of practice-led research as a resource for motivating many kinds of writers and stories. methodology the empirical data of our study are 112 assignments crafted by students from screenplay development and supplemented by a survey done with the same group of respondents. the students could choose their own topic and case for the assignment. first, they had to deliver a written synopsis in which they described the theoretical framework and their empirical data. later, they attended an oral examination in which they would analyze their data and answer their research question. they were not allowed to work in groups but had to write their assignments individually. our survey was primarily quantitative, but it also included some qualitative elements (see the appendix). our study is organised into two levels, which we identify as micro and meso-level. on the micro-level, we examine the approaches and reflections in the 112 assignments. we highlight selected assignments which we find representative for the rest of the assignments. our survey provides information on the students’ experiences with and reflections on practice-led research as a method to improve their writing processes. on the meso-level, we address how practice-led research in general can improve your writing processes and potentially contribute to talent development in (screen)writing. n. h. s. pilegaard & h. philipsen: method off the beaten track qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 162-193 ©2023 164 what is practice-led research? practice-led research (in the following abbreviated to plr) can be understood as “[..] an original investigation undertaken in order to gain new knowledge, partly by means of practice and the outcomes of practice” (candy & edmonds, 2018, p. 63). internationally, plr is a developing field of research, for example in screenwriting studies (dean, 2020; lee et al., 2016). in this article, we do not intend to clarify plr as a methodology. instead, we use the term to define the method our students used in their assignments. as a method within the studies of the creative arts, plr represents a way of exploring work with a personal approach. linda candy and ernest edmonds have defined ‘practice’ as an activity which connotes ‘doing something’ (e.g., writing a screenplay) and ‘research’ as a systematic investigation aiming to establish facts, test theories and attain new knowledge or understandings of a phenomenon (candy & edmonds, 2018, p. 63). candy and edmonds, however, tend to simplify the concept of practice to ‘doings’: activities that people do. but as practice philosopher theodore schatzki has emphasized, practice is a set of both ‘doings and sayings’: something done or said which is linked by practical understanding, rules, teleoaffective structures,1 and general understandings (schatzki, 2002, p. 87). here, we use the concept of practice to concretize our understanding of the students’ writing practices and processes. plr is not to be confused with practice theory, which is often used as a theoretical framework in sociological studies in order to examine specific practices and activities in everyday situations (gad & jensen, 2014; reckwitz, 2002). when plr is conducted, the study is embedded in practice. here, the method is used to explore whether a better approach can be developed in a specific situation. the method can thus lead to the identification of new practices. in graham badley’s words, the method can thus contribute to gaining a critical stance and a reflective self in relation to one’s own writing process (badley, 2019, pp. 182-183). these results can afterwards be turned into models, frameworks, or guidelines to improve other practices (candy & edmonds, 2018). plr shares many elements with autoethnography. here, reflexivity is brought into the field (campbell, 2016) through first-person descriptions, studies based on complete 1 a teleoaffective structure of a practice is made up by a range of normative and hierarchically related ends that its practitioners pursue, e.g., the goal of the specific action. the ends people pursue indicate what matters to them, thus furnishing them with an affective orientation. (sandberg & tsoukas, 2019, p. 374) n. h. s. pilegaard & h. philipsen: method off the beaten track qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 162-193 ©2023 165 membership in a community, reflective ethnographies and other things (baarts, 2020). we have, however, located some differences between autoethnography and the kind of plr studies we found in our case study. both are based on a kind of introspection, whereby you contemplate yourself and your surroundings, from which you later derive knowledge. whereas the personal life experience in autoethnography is often used to generalize the experiences of a group, plr on the other hand, is used to derive knowledge about your own practice: in the case of our students, this was knowledge about their individual writing processes. we apply the concept to the students’ approaches with the purpose of improving their processes, because the studies they conduct in their assignments are focused on their practices and situations. we complement candy and edmonds’ definition of plr with hazel smith and roger dean’s (smith & dean, 2009), namely that this kind of research is a combination of the practitioner’s trained, specialized knowledge and the process that the practitioner partakes in. this is, however, a deemphasized method in the field of danish media production studies (redvall, 2021), which is why we also reflect on how plr as a method off the beaten track was used by our students. practice epistemology in the following, we present our theoretical framework, which is inspired by the practice epistemology developed by schön (2013). plr is rooted in pragmatism where knowledge is considered a result of practical activities and actions (gustavsson, 2014). practical knowledge (called ‘techné’) is often overshadowed by theoretical–scientific knowledge (called ‘episteme’): the ‘pure science’ and thus the most highly acclaimed kind of knowledge (ibid.). besides episteme and techné, there is also practical–ethical knowledge (called ‘phronesis’). phronesis is a kind of knowledge which seeks to make things ethically better and increase the wellbeing of either oneself or others (ibid.). our point of departure is a mix of techné, episteme and phronesis, because we focus on how the students used plr to improve their processes in terms of not only writing techniques but also knowledge on, e.g., creativity and motivation, as well as ethical findings on how to take care of their own processes in the best ways. schön has criticised academia for its one-sided knowledge-understanding: the dominance of episteme (gustavsson, 2014). he has argued that the focus on episteme is n. h. s. pilegaard & h. philipsen: method off the beaten track qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 162-193 ©2023 166 based on the notion that practitioners solve their problems by using theory, which are extracted from systematic, scientific knowledge. reality, however, is often not expressed in well-organised structures, schön stresses. instead, it appears to consist of messy, indefinable situations which cannot be explained by technical rationality (ibid.). people have various backgrounds, and they see things and solve problems differently. therefore, problem solving does not take place through technical rationality, but by inventing and trying out strategies that fit specific problems. here, phronesis can be useful (a point to which we will return), and in connection with this schön introduces the concepts of ‘knowledge in action’, ‘reflection in action’ and ‘reflection on action’. knowledge in action is a kind of knowledge which people reveal through their actions, and which can be hard to express verbally. it is, nevertheless, possible to make this tacit knowledge more explicit through observation of and reflection on actions (ibid.), which is exactly what the students’ practices consist of in our case study. here, the reflections in and on action are relevant. reflection on action means to think about the action after it has taken place. reflection in action refers to reflection during the action (ibid.). schön, thus, argues that knowledge and action cannot be distinguished from one another because practitioners reflect in and on action. according to our case study, many of the students used logbooks to reflect on their actions in as near real time as possible. they have thus reflected both in and on action. plr’s influence on writing processes and the written work our students used different approaches in order to study their individual writing processes. most of them used logbooks, video observations and scaffolded tasks as empirical data to analyze their processes. they also used other approaches, such as reading screenplays written by others, watching films and series, or conducting interviews with professional screenwriters. in this article, we only focus on the logbooks, video observations, and scaffolded tasks, as they represent the favourite approaches used by our respondents. we define these approaches as follows: logbook is a kind of field notes. it is a mainly qualitative method in which the student writes down experiences and thoughts, for example in a journal. this is a fluid, unedited, and honest kind of writing which the student can use to remember situations, feelings, and experiences in the process of creation (philipsen, 2022; skjoldborg, 2014). n. h. s. pilegaard & h. philipsen: method off the beaten track qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 162-193 ©2023 167 video observation is used when the students want to record their own processes. the purpose is, for example, to be able to observe their own writing habits, including practices and/or the degree of immersion and concentration in a task. scaffolded tasks here mean constraints in tasks which are imposed by a lecturer, a team and/or the students themselves. here, scaffolding is understood as constraints in a task formed on the basis of the six levels of scaffolding developed by learning theorists david wood, jerome s. bruner, and gail ross: 1) recruitment, 2) reduction in degrees of freedom, 3) direction maintenance, 4) marking critical features, 5) frustration control, and 6) demonstration (wood et al., 1976). heidi philipsen has supplemented these levels of scaffolding with three overall categories: institutional, team, and individual scaffolding, referring to who has imposed the constraints on the task (philipsen, 2009). the students applied different types of scaffolding during their plr. for example, one of the students appended the following task, which constituted the scope of the writing process with ‘individual scaffolding’ and ‘reduction in degrees of freedom’: figure 1. example of a scaffolded task. the students mostly used logbooks (31%) and scaffolded tasks (27%) as part of their data collection and generation of empirical data. many of them wrote their logbooks almost likes personal diaries with a special focus on the experiences of their processes and evaluation of their written work. some of them even wrote down the duration of their work processes. others used logbooks to evaluate whether they experienced immersion in their writing based on theoretical parameters (see figures 2-3). in figure 2, the logbook is based on parameters, while figure 3 is written like a diary referring to parameters. n. h. s. pilegaard & h. philipsen: method off the beaten track qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 162-193 ©2023 168 figure 2. logbook based on nine theoretical parameters. figure 3. logbook based on nine theoretical parameters but written as a diary. n. h. s. pilegaard & h. philipsen: method off the beaten track qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 162-193 ©2023 169 in these two examples, the students focused on the mental activities, for example thoughts about concentration, fear of failing, and the balance between the task at hand and the skills. in figure 2, the student also describes her physical surroundings. the purpose of the two assignments was to study whether music affected their motivations in the writing processes. as it appears from figure 1, the lack of music highly influenced this student’s writing, because he sometimes experienced problems with concentrating. the silence influenced his writing process because it prevented him from doing his work: “i was distracted many times: […] when i became aware of the silence. […] i became aware of myself, because it was quiet in the room, so i felt that every touch on the keyboard made a lot of noise.” this student experienced that he needed music when he was writing, otherwise he risked being distracted and not able to improve his work or skills. the student from figure 2 also focused on the use of music in her writing process. however, she experienced the quite opposite: the lack of music had no immediate consequences. she described how she felt concentrated and that she did not think about the lack of music. here, she applied her theoretical parameters in order to conceptualize her experiences as a feeling of ‘flow’: the experience of being so immersed in an activity that you forget, for example, place and time and your own concerns (csikszentmihalyi, 2013). she used these parameters to conclude that she did not necessarily need music to become immersed in her work or motivated to write. the two students used their logbooks to systematize and evaluate their experiences of the writing processes, so the logbooks functioned as a way of collecting data for evaluation. both students finally used the knowledge they had gained through their plr to conclude which locations represented useful conditions for their writing processes and which kind of music (if any) they should listen to. their use of logbooks thus helped them advance their experience of concentration. some of the students supplemented their logbook with video observations. this is an ethnographic method which is often used to study how people act in different situations and how activities are conducted through the interplay between speech, behaviour, and the use of different tools (heath, 2016). the students used video observations as a method to gain knowledge about their surroundings and how these influenced their actions during their writing activities. one of the students examined how the environment affected her screenwriting process. this offered her more knowledge about her writing conditions than n. h. s. pilegaard & h. philipsen: method off the beaten track qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 162-193 ©2023 170 the logbooks. before she started her writing process, she described the environment in her logbook, the purpose of the task, her level of motivation, and so on. the logbook was designed as a brief survey to herself. figure 4. a logbook before the student began the screenwriting process. during the screenwriting, she recorded herself by using the video camera on her computer. after her writing activity, she wrote about her experience in her logbook, for example why she thought the surroundings made it difficult for her to focus. figure 5. logbook after the screenwriting process. n. h. s. pilegaard & h. philipsen: method off the beaten track qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 162-193 ©2023 171 in the above, the student describes how she found the place stressful because she was surrounded by many people. however, her logbook indicates that she still managed to complete her task of the day which was to write a scene. but she also mentions in her logbook that she was anticipating a very difficult writing process because of her distracting surroundings: “i could not focus, and i thought a lot about the arrangement (the setup and so on) of my writing (instead of just writing)”. this indicates that, even though she completed her task, the quality of her writing was not necessarily good enough, according to her own expectations. finally, she compared the knowledge from her two logbooks with her video observation and she was thus able to confirm (validate) the experience described in her logbook. figure 6. extract from the student's comparison of data from logbooks and video observation. based on the results of her logbooks and video observations, she concluded that what worked best for her (because of her ability to concentrate) was to write alone instead of surrounded by people. this illustrates how the use of logbooks and video observation in plr made it possible for the student to improve her writing process. we also found examples in which students used a more quantitative approach in their logbooks. n. h. s. pilegaard & h. philipsen: method off the beaten track qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 162-193 ©2023 172 figure 7. examples of quantified logbooks. the quantification of their work (for example, the number of written words or the quality of the written work) is also a way for students to clarify the effect of the conditions for their processes. the student in the example above (with scores from 1-10) described that her work from 4 am until 5 am resulted in three written screenplay pages and she regarded the scenes as being of relatively good quality. her quantification also indicates that, even though she was able to write three pages, her mental condition was not good. she estimated her mood and level of tiredness at scores of 6/10, and she also wrote that she found it hard to experience flow. this indicates a potential schism in the student’s evaluation of the quality of the work and her feeling of carrying it out. n. h. s. pilegaard & h. philipsen: method off the beaten track qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 162-193 ©2023 173 while the students wrote these assignments, they were also introduced to basic screenwriting tools on another course. the survey we conducted indicated that some of the students, before being accepted onto the screenplay development program, had already worked in the media industry. for that reason, the different activities in their writing processes seemed ‘natural’, while for others they did not. still, for both types of students the combination of logbook and video observation pointed out actions and patterns in their processes which they had never thought of before. besides the use of logbooks, one of the most used approaches in the students’ plr was to use scaffolding in tasks (philipsen 2009). in figure 8, a student gave himself such a task: figure 8. example of a scaffolded task. figures 9-10 illustrate examples of a short description of a film idea and a brainstorm: figure 9. example of a short description of a film idea. n. h. s. pilegaard & h. philipsen: method off the beaten track qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 162-193 ©2023 174 figure 10. example of a brainstorming process. as a part of their oral exam, many of the students who had used scaffolding in tasks described the scaffolding as important for their motivation during the writing processes. philipsen (2009) has illustrated that creative practitioners often experience constraints as useful and motivating because they offer their processes focus and direction in the form of a clear goal. this experience is demonstrated in many one of the student’s logbooks. here, we see an example, where a student regarded the scaffolding as one reason for her final concentration: “generally, i found it distracting. in the beginning i found it stressful, also because i was not comfortable sitting there surrounded by so many people. but i managed to write the scene, which i think was due to the clear goal.” (see figure 5). we could also identify some improvements in the written scenes from the same student. she wrote four scenes sitting in four different locations. one of the first scenes was written in a place where she felt very distracted, as mentioned in the quote above. the scene is characterized by a slow pace. for example, long dialogues. it also starts a long time before the actual action toke place, ends after the conclusion, and moves slowly toward the main conflict in the scene. most screenwriting on literature emphasizes that dynamic scenes contain changes (for example, character change and/or a change in the action line). a scene ideally starts as late as possible and ends as early as possible in relation to the main action that takes place in it (nielsen & rukov, 2019; truby, 2007). the scene which the student wrote while feeling distracted did not fulfill these criteria. n. h. s. pilegaard & h. philipsen: method off the beaten track qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 162-193 ©2023 175 later, when she wrote another scene in a silence place where she felt concentrated, we found a (minor) improvement in her writing. the beginning of the scene is still slow, but the scene ends ‘early’ with a character saying: “mum is dead.” this example emphasizes an improvement in the student’s writing when her writing process took place in a location where she felt able to concentrate and the task had a clear goal. her improvement could also be caused by other factors than the location and type of scaffolding she used for this task. perhaps she had a good talk with a friend or read a useful chapter in a book on how to write scenes before she sat down to write the scene that turned out well. there are lots of unknown and influential factors when you start looking into writing processes. for that reason, it is important, both for the individual writer and for researchers like us in this field, to write down as many factors as possible when carrying out plr. the use of logbooks and observations, however, shed light on more details of the processes than working without these tools. it thus seems fair to conclude from our overall findings in this case study that such tools do hold a potential for optimizing the processes and through this the writing. screenplay students, and writers in general, who use this method will be able to ‘reflect on action’, as schön calls it, if they use logbooks right after their activities finish. badley makes a similar point when he stresses that: writers learn to improve themselves as storytellers by, e.g., telling others about their experiences (badley, 2019, p. 184). reflecting on experiences by sharing them with others or keeping a logbook thus has the potential to initiate self-critical behavior (ibid.: p. 187). the knowledge that students and writers gain from this approach can be defined as ‘know what’ (nelson, 2013). often what you write in a logbook is more honest and trustworthy than what you choose to tell a friend. it seems fair to conclude that logbooks have more plr-potential for improving writing processes than speaking to friends (philipsen, 2022; skjoldborg, 2014). plr can facilitate critical reflection critical reflection on processes is described as an essential and indispensable part of plr, because the research tradition is based on the interplay between practical knowledge and more abstract, conceptual thinking, often understood as verbally articulated (nelson, 2013). this constitutes our analytical lens when, in the following section, we further n. h. s. pilegaard & h. philipsen: method off the beaten track qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 162-193 ©2023 176 address how the students’ use of plr contributed to improve their writing processes and also their writing. the interplay between practical knowledge and more abstract, conceptual thinking has been described by barbara bolt as a “double articulation between theory and practice, whereby theory emerges from a reflective practice at the same time as practice is informed by theory” (bolt, 2016). nelson expresses the dialogical, dynamic approach in this model: figure 11. nelson's multi-mode epistemological model (nelson, 2013, p. 37) in the middle of the model is ‘art praxis’, the practice itself. the three kinds of knowledge are placed in each corner of the triangle, which illustrates nelson’s point that they all influence the practice. the arrows between the different kinds of knowledge mark the interplay between them because the creative practitioner can move between them while practicing (ibid.). ‘know how’ is process-related knowledge and can be compared with schön’s ‘knowledge in action’. it thus represents techné. ‘know that’ is academic knowledge (episteme), which is articulated in words and/or numbers. when we describe n. h. s. pilegaard & h. philipsen: method off the beaten track qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 162-193 ©2023 177 various kinds of knowledge in this way, they can appear to be linear modes in which, one after the other, they build up to the next mode of thinking. that is not the case, because plr is an iterative process: a reflection about what works is undertaken so that the reflector can deduce the methods that make it work (ibid.). the terminology used by our respondents indicated that they gained a kind of ‘know how’ from their research. this became clear when they demonstrated that they understood the notions and terminology of screenwriting, e.g., when they used concepts like ‘point of attack’ to clarify specific elements in their stories (see figure 9). they thus used ‘know how’ and ‘reflection in action’ when writing. they were not necessarily aware of this as they were working, which is why it can be difficult to capture and conclude whether ‘reflection in action’ actually occurred. however, their use of the fundamental concepts indicates that they did gain some knowledge. in the previous paragraph, we illustrated how some of the students wrote logbooks both before and after their writing processes with the purpose of capturing the immediate experience of the creative work after it took place. in their logbooks, the students started reflecting upon their individual experiences of the writing process and the writing they produced. this can be considered a kind of ‘know that’, because the students gained knowledge (e.g., about how different environments influence the work), and they articulated this in their logbooks. this leads us back to badley’s point that it is possible to improve one’s writing by telling others about the experiences. when the respondents subsequently sat the exam and used episteme to explain and understand why they experienced the work processes as they did, they used ‘know that’. here, the knowledge they had gathered during their studies was part of an informed reflection about their processes and writing because they reflected ‘on action’ (schön, 2013). they pointed out strengths and weaknesses in their own approaches as researchers and practitioners and suggested solutions for their future writing processes and ideas for how to improve their writing. through their critical (self-)reflection, they were able systematically to identify the problems and possibilities in their writing processes. for some respondents (those who did not keep a logbook), the learning curve became a linear process between initial ‘know how’, then ‘know what’ and, finally, ‘know that’. the ones who used logbooks in their research emphasized a more iterative process between the three modes of thinking (nelson, 2013). in figure 5, a student initially wrote n. h. s. pilegaard & h. philipsen: method off the beaten track qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 162-193 ©2023 178 a logbook, then worked on a creative project while recording herself in it, and thus captured a part of her ‘know how’. when she finished her writing, she stopped the recording and once again wrote notes in her logbook, codified her experience of the process, and was able to show that her modes of thinking had moved from ‘know that’ to ‘know how’ and back to ‘know that’. the student examined the recording (which represents a codification of ‘know how’) from which she wrote down observations. in this way, she was able to support her points from the logbook. in the exam, she used ‘know what’, because she implemented episteme to explain her experiences and suggest solutions for further improvements. she thus ‘reflected on action’. the respondents who used different methods of data collection and empirical data moved between the various modes of knowing in approximately this order: know that, know how, know that, know what. the plr method thus contributed meaningfully to their writing processes, their development, and also, to some extent, their writing skills. the method made it possible for them to conduct a critical reflection on themselves and their writing practices (aspects such as time, place, surroundings), which in turn contributed to their concentration and made it possible for them to improve their flow and thus their writing. the latter is expressed in the example from figures 5-6. the student deduced that she could not concentrate if she was surrounded by many people because this affected her writing negatively. plr contributed in a positive way by helping her develop her skills as a screenwriter because it gave her an awareness of how to create a room for concentration. even though it is possible to read flow-theory literature and pick up some general best practices for creating flow conditions (csikszentmihalyi 1996, skjoldborg 2014), it still varies from writer to writer what is noisy and what is helpful in the processes. for that reason, our conclusion is that it is crucial to conduct individual plr studies. in the following section, we reflect on not only the contributions but also the challenges of plr as a method. we now examine how the approach contributes to talent development. in this way, we move from the micro to the meso-level of our analysis. influences on talent development “writing is a heart-oriented enterprise,” as the experienced, american screenwriter and teacher richard walter has emphasised: “writers love having written, but we hate to n. h. s. pilegaard & h. philipsen: method off the beaten track qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 162-193 ©2023 179 write” (walter, 2010, p. xvi). this conclusion might seem strange, as writers are often very passionate about writing, but we recognize the mechanism walter is pointing out in the behaviour of the respondents in our study. many of their assignments start with phrases such as “i love being a writer but find it hard. i want to understand how to handle this paradox”. as illustrated in this article, the students are able through plr to find individual methods for handling this challenge. some realize that they need stricter scaffolding, others need to write in more peaceful surroundings, and so on. this selfreflexiveness is attained because of their use of plr, since the method facilitates the student’s reflections on their experiences (badley, 2019). as schön (2013) has stated, creative practitioners are navigating in complex and unpredictable situations when they create new things. walter adds to this that a special circumstance for writers is that: “they must deal with seemingly separate items – story, character, dialogue, and many others – that are not separate at all but exist only in combination with one another.” (ibid., p. xx) even though the students have added new skills and aspects of their talent during the educational program, they still need to develop their skills because they work (or want to work) in a creative field where they must invest personally in the stories in order to interest an audience and renew the domain. and what does our study, in this regard, have to offer their talent development? to reflect on this, we include a brief section on talent development in relation to practitioners within the creative field, even though most research in this field has been carried out with a focus on sports or musical talent (e.g., ericsson and pool, (2016)) or business talent (e.g., larsen (2012)). little has been written about talent development in the media industry (philipsen et al., 2014). our analysis illustrates that some of the students used plr as a method to clarify where creativity and productiveness were for them individually (in which physical locations for example). the question is not whether they have a talent for writing, but how they enhance this talent. those who can adapt to situations that make this happen potentially learn to handle resilience (crises in the writing processes for example), which is an important skill in the competitive media industry. in this regard, plr illustrates the practices that the students undertake and how they can learn where and how they are most creative or/and n. h. s. pilegaard & h. philipsen: method off the beaten track qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 162-193 ©2023 180 productive in their writing. such competences bring ‘know what’ into play, i.e., phronesis, because the students potentially learn to reflect on what works for them individually (gustavsson, 2014; nelson, 2013). in their studies, many of the respondents displayed an ability to self-reflect on the conditions and to adapt to the conditions necessary for them to acquire the optimal writing processes. in the assignments, they also carried out what talent researchers have named ‘deliberate practice’ – as opposed to ‘deliberate play’ (ericsson & pool, 2016). we conclude that they used deliberate practice because the processes they went through all lay within the domain of screenwriting (instead of other types of creativity). according to ericsson and csikszentmihalyi, it is important to get to know the domain in which one practises very well, that is, to know its discourses, methods, references, etc. this requires students to continue and persist in terms of working with the processes in their area of talent. scaffolding and plr seemed to help our respondents in this regard. talent definitions are usually concerned with both qualifications and passion (larsen, 2012), as well as the ability to carry out intensive training within a certain domain (buhl, 2010; ericsson & pool, 2016). none of the talent approaches we have found directly define self-reflexiveness as an important skill. we argue, however, that the selfreflexiveness writers/students can obtain through plr will help them establish and use relevant scaffolding, to adjust this supportive concept along the way, and to act in flexible ways whereby they learn to handle and motivate their own writing processes. in so doing, they potentially strengthen their talent for writing. even though the facilitation of the plr as a method to improve writing process and writing turned out to be well-functioning in our case study, we did also find some points of criticism. most of the time, the respondents in our study worked alone. although they gained important insights by doing so, teamwork is the mode that often characterizes the media-production industry (redvall, 2009, 2013). our respondents learned to optimize processes on an individual micro-level, but not on a team level. instead, they must find team-level experiences elsewhere in the study program or in their practice within the industry. whereas techné, as briefly introduced above, is oriented towards the production of something, episteme is oriented towards knowledge of something that can be helpful for the production (e.g., models of dramaturgy). but phronesis, which is the basis of insight into the making of good decisions and appropriate actions, has still not been n. h. s. pilegaard & h. philipsen: method off the beaten track qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 162-193 ©2023 181 reflected fully upon in our findings. we concluded that most of the respondents brought ‘know what’ into play when they did their assignments and exams. ‘know what’ can, we argue, be compared to phronesis. phronesis does not deal with science or truth (aristotle, 1995). instead, this type of insight often deals with complex and changing situations that require the ability to make wise choices alone and/or in teams. phronesis focuses on choices that cannot be captured by universal rules (e.g., dramaturgical models). it requires good judgement in relation to, for example, how to best achieve one’s goal (ibid.) or the goal of a story. in a writing process, the screenwriter must locate a meaning or structure which is not already there. this is what plr may be able to teach the students/writers. creative talents use their own imaginations as resources. if they want to pass on a message and attract audiences, they must invent stories from scratch, and these stories often stem from something they have personally experienced, felt, or imagined. according to walter, every story must have a personal link from the screenwriter to the story (walter, 2010). this drawing on personal resources challenges the often hard, creative processes. our study illustrates that what the respondents often do is to break down or separate these interlocking items systematically and apply them as a learning process through the use of plr in their assignments. contributions and challenges the students’ plr studies all had one thing in common: they yielded a systematization of their individual writing processes. furthermore, they contributed by making the applied theory practicable, because the respondents could use it to clarify the possibility of improvement in their individual practices. many of them explained in our survey that they experienced how plr offered them self-knowledge, because it made it possible for them to know more about themselves, their work, the work of others, and made it possible for them to improve from this knowledge. as a method to enhance writing processes, plr is relevant because it improves the consciousness on how the writing process affects writing. the method helped the students to reflect on action by moving between different modes of thinking (e.g., from know that to know how, know that, and know what). plr thus made is possible to examine the conditions of their writing processes and decide where, when and how they should do their writing. when the respondents realized what kind of writing conditions they needed, they also discovered how they could improve n. h. s. pilegaard & h. philipsen: method off the beaten track qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 162-193 ©2023 182 their concentration and immersion in their work, which can be a motivating factor. our analyses have illustrated that when the respondents felt that they were concentrating during their writing, they also had better conditions to locate the strengths and weakness in their work. this is in line with csikszentmihalyi (1996), who pointed out that the most important question for a creative talent is not to ask what creativity is, but where it is: in which surroundings and situations. we thus argue that plr has the potential to promote the development of a talent for writing (such as screenplay development). we also argue that it is a useful method to improve writing conditions, because it can be used by all different personalities. our respondents examined how their surroundings influenced their concentration in different ways, even though many of them used almost the same methods. writers/students are different people who work best while sitting in different places at different times. as schön (2013) has argued, people thrive in different conditions and can thus come to different conclusions. plr as an improvement method in terms of writing processes pays attention to this crucial point. preparing the students for the practices they might encounter in the media industry is one of the reasons why practice (and the emphasis on techné) is included in higher educational institutions that feature educations like screen play development. we, as teachers of screenplay development, have experienced how theoretical perspectives can contribute in terms of explaining and improving the writing processes. after trying out plr studies, the students often gain a better understanding and a better ‘language’ to help them explain what they need in the processes and in the dramaturgical models. this is emphasized both in this article and also by the danish screenwriter pernille hyllegaard, educated from our education, who has stated that “acquiring a language for the dramaturgical rules also means that you know why you use them or break them” (philipsen, 2019).2 based on our case study, we argue that plr studies can contribute to learning process by demystifying the writing processes through scrupulous exploration of practitioners’ competences and the kinds of knowledge they use. in other words, the students/writers can use this method to learn about a given practice by experiencing it systematically through action. the fact that plr is so flexible makes it possible to study and conduct a 2 [our translation from] at få et sprog for de dramaturgiske regler gør jo også, at man ved, hvorfor man bruger eller bryder dem. n. h. s. pilegaard & h. philipsen: method off the beaten track qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 162-193 ©2023 183 critical reflection on your own practices. it thus unites know what, know that, and know how. finally, the results presented in this article indicate that plr is a useful method to bring a more post-academic form of writing into media production studies. traditional academic writing is criticized by badley for being a writing practice that “becomes a view from nowhere, the viewpoint of no one in particular” (badley, 2019, p. 180). badley calls for a movement towards ‘post-academic’ writing where the writer is, e.g., more prominent in his or her own research. the respondents, we examined, meet this request. but according to badley post-academic writing is also a more personal approach to academic writing. this is expressed when he emphasizes that the road towards post-academic writing can be found by: “[…] adopting a human stance, revealing a human perspective, developing a human voice, improving ourselves as human storytellers, learning more about the human craft of postacademic writing, enjoying our serious and playful manifoldness as human creatures, and continuing our human conversations.” (ibid.: 182) in the assignments we have examined, that personal reasons for writing a story are often in focus: to improve your skills, your writing, and thus yourself as a storyteller. to write a screenplay is a personal thing to do, but it must not be too personal. the it thus needs to be backed up with a critical distance, and an ability to work in structured and effective ways as writers. we argue that plr, in the case study we have carried out, contributes to balancing the writing processes as being personal and yet professional. conclusion: a method off the beaten track so, what happened when the respondents researched their own writing process? they gained motivation and were able to learn from their plr. the method can be considered rather off the beaten track because it is very deemphasized in danish media production studies. however, the method has the potential to improve not only writing processes, but also the writing itself and talent development. the majority of the 112 assignments n. h. s. pilegaard & h. philipsen: method off the beaten track qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 162-193 ©2023 184 illustrated different kinds of reflections on the part of the students, and thus offered insights into several items from the (screen)writing domain. through plr, the students learnt to act wisely regarding their own writing practices. no universal episteme knowledge can teach the students what and where creativity is because they all have different profiles and motivations. however, studying and improving their own phronesis by using plr systematically can. our case study only focused on the processes relevant to screenplay students; but it can offer perspectives on talent development in the media industries much more broadly. our findings can be modified and applied to other educational institutions, such as the national film school of denmark and other educations that have a focus on writing stories. this is the kind of ‘reflection on action’ study that the field of media research and education needs more of. we have addressed how plr can contribute to talent development in (screen)writing. our study has illustrated how students used the plr method to clarify what kinds of problems they individually faced in their writing, and how they could improve their conditions, their concentration, and their motivation. the method also enhanced the project they were working on at the time. in other words: when they examine what works in their writing process, they can attain better work practices and ultimately better stories. based on our findings, we argue that plr is a useful approach to develop your creative writing processes and writing, because the conditions of the process and the product (the screenplay) are connected. the method is useful because it can contribute by clarifying work, by which we mean practices specifically in their own context. it is thus possible to develop new empirical knowledge. finally, we argue that plr offers the individual insights into their own creative process and writing, because it addresses the opportunity to write about and reflect on your writing experiences. badley stressed: “as talking and reading and researching and writing animals, we learn to be human.” (badley, 2019, p. 187). but we conclude instead: as talking, reading, (self-)researching and writing animals, we learn to be writers and to write – in this regard, plr is a useful method off the beaten track. n. h. s. pilegaard & h. philipsen: method off the beaten track qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 162-193 ©2023 185 recommendations based on our findings, we want to propose how you can use the plr method to get started on your writing and/or to improve your writing. when am i most efficient in my writing process? you can try to test your writing at different times of day and use logbooks. for example, you can start with writing in the morning one day, at lunchtime the next day, and in the evening the third day. use a logbook every day before you start writing and when you have finished your writing or other tasks (depending on how much time you have allowed yourself to work). you can have a specific focus in your logbook, or you can keep it more like a diary with no specific focus or structure. you can also write questions for yourself in your logbook, such as “how motivated am i on a scale from 1 to 10?” or “how satisfied am i with the work i have done today?” when you have tested different times of day, you can compare your logbooks and conclude when you are most efficient. the same exercise can be done if you want to know where to sit in order to be more efficient in your writing. how do i get started on my writing? you can assign yourself different scaffolded tasks. this can be for example “use five minutes on brainstorming ideas for your protagonist’s goal in the story” and thereafter “use 10 minutes to evaluate your ideas. then use another 10 minutes to choose the three best ideas.” you can initially try to assign yourself different scaffolded tasks in order to figure out what kind of scaffoldings you are most comfortable with before you start to assign yourself tasks related to your actual writing task. a scaffolded task does not need to have anything to do with the development of the story. constraints can also relate to your physical location of work. you can give yourself a scaffolded task like this one: “use one hour writing on your project in a café. also use one hour the next day, but this time at home. finally, use one hour on the third day to work on your project, but this time at the local library. these assignments can be supplemented by logbooks in which you initially note your degree of motivation and/or concentration and later how the place influenced your motivation, your concentration, and thus your work. n. h. s. pilegaard & h. philipsen: method off the beaten track qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 162-193 ©2023 186 what do i experience when i work? you can also supplement both exercises with video observation. this does not need to be complicated but can be conducted by using your phone and/or computer camera. when doing plr, logbooks cannot capture what you are doing or experiencing during your writing unless you remember this precisely afterwards. if you, for example, experience immersion in the task if can be difficult to remember when you are engrossed in your work. video observation can be a useful tool because it can supplement with insights about this. finally, we want to remind you that the kinds of plr we have explained and studied in this article, and that we now recommend, do not amount to a ‘one size fits all-model’. you need to test different methods and situations more than once if you want to improve your writing process and thus the quality of your writing. for the same reason, it is not certain that the keeping of systematic logbooks, like the ones we have examined in our article, is useful for everyone. as we mentioned earlier, the logbook is a personal tool, and it can be modified to your specific methods. if you want to write your logbook as a diary, feel free to do so! if you want to write questions for yourself and design your logbook as an interview guide, you can do that. it is up to you. this is also one of the strengths of plr: it is a method that can be modified to fit the individual person and thus contribute to the development of individual people’s writing process and creative products. n. h. s. pilegaard & h. philipsen: method off the beaten track qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 162-193 ©2023 187 references aristotle. 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(2021). de kreative medieindustrier. in m. eskjær & m. mortensen (eds.), klassisk og moderne medieteori (pp. 135-157). københavn: hans reitzels forlag. sandberg, j., & tsoukas, h. (2019). practice theory: what it is, its philosophical base, and what it offers organization studies. in h. tsoukas (ed.), philosophical organization theory (pp. 363-383). oxford: oxford university press. https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198794547.003.0013 schatzki, t. (2002). the site of the social. pennsylvania: the pennsylvania state university press. schön, d. (2013). uddannelse af den reflekterende praktiker tiltag til en ny udformning af undervisning og læring for professionelle. aarhus: klim. skjoldborg, b. (2014). flowskrivning: vejen til flydende skriveprocesser (2 ed.). kbh.: powerwriting.dk. smith, h., & dean, r. t. (2009). practice-led research, research-led practice in the creative arts. edinburgh: edingburgh university press. truby, j. (2007). the anatomy of story: 22 steps to becoming a master storyteller. new york: farrar, strauss and giroux. walter, r. (2010). essentials of screenwriting: the art, craft, and business of film and television writing (1. printing ed.). new york: plume. wood, d., bruner, j. s., & ross, g. (1976). the role of tutoring in problem-solving. journal of child psychology and psychiatry, 17(2), 89-100. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1469-7610.1976.tb00381.x https://doi.org/https:/doi.org/10.7146/mediekultur.v25i46.1342 https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137288417 https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198794547.003.0013 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1469-7610.1976.tb00381.x n. h. s. pilegaard & h. philipsen: method off the beaten track qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 162-193 ©2023 190 about the authors: nathali herold solon pilegaard (1994) is a phd student at media studies, university of southern denmark. her phd project is a media production study about screenplay development in the danish television industry. her focus is especially on screenwriters’ storyworld building (the development of the diegetic world). in her spare time, she is developing a screenplay for a danish tv series in collaboration with another screenwriter. nathali’s latest media book is the narrative investigation – serial writing, production, genre & viewership (written together with heidi philipsen, 2023) heidi hilarius-kalkau philipsen (1971) is associate professor at media studies, university of southern denmark. besides from this she is head of the education ‘screen play development’. her research field has always been production studies on creative storytelling processes. her scientific heart is beating for talented practitioners who carry out stories through film or series. she is also a storyteller herself. at her publication list is both scientific books on media, but also a novel, a book on icelandic horses and a short film. her latest media book is the narrative investigation – serial writing, production, genre & viewership (written together with nathali pilegaard, 2023). n. h. s. pilegaard & h. philipsen: method off the beaten track qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 162-193 ©2023 191 questions from our survey please state your age: 20-30 31-40 41-50 51-60 61-70 71-80 81-90 90+ do you study screenplay development as a postgraduate course or as part of a bachelor? postgraduate course, class 2020 postgraduate course, class 2021 as a part of my bachelor, class 2020 as a part of my bachelor, class 2021 what do you do for a living? if you are a student what is your major, for example danish, media sciences, english? do you have any experience in film and television production? yes (please explain how) no do you want a career in the film and television industry? yes no i do not know i already work in the film and television industry when you designed your assignment in the course research & development, what did you think of the most: the result of the exam or that you wanted to use the knowledge you have gained after your education? the result of the exam i wanted to use the knowledge i have gained after my education n. h. s. pilegaard & h. philipsen: method off the beaten track qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 162-193 ©2023 192 both i do not know something else (please clarify) did the course on research & development and the assignment for the exam improve your skills so that you are able to get a job in the film and television industry? yes no i do not know can you use the knowledge you have gained from the course research & development and from your assignment for the exam? yes no i do not know have the academic approaches to the creative work improved your skills as a screenwriter? yes (please clarify why) no (please clarify why) do you feel that the competences from the course on research & development can be used in other situations, for example on your job? yes no i do not know what did you as a creative practitioner gain from examining yourself or other creative practitioners as part of your exam assignment in research & development? what have you learned from your exam assignment in research & development that you can use in your creative work, regardless of whether you want work in the film and television industry or not? what methods that you were introduced to and/or applied in your exam assignment in research & development do you want to use in the future? (you can select more than one) logbook n. h. s. pilegaard & h. philipsen: method off the beaten track qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 162-193 ©2023 193 video logbook or observation scaffolding task work plan something else (please clarify what) questions from our survey microsoft word wright skulking and spying then telling tales qualitative studies vol. 8, no. 1, 2023, pp. 110-136 issn 1903-7031 skulking and spying then telling tales – becoming a walking-writing-researcher hazel r. wright1 1 school of education & social care, anglia ruskin university, cambridge & chelmsford, united kingdom i share a different way of writing about research by doing and discussing it. first, the restrictions of the covid-19 pandemic forced me to adapt my methods of researching, to catch snippets of data when and where i could, by email, phone, and family chats and then by observing and eavesdropping on passers-by on my daily walks in rural england. then, to protect identities i adapted my way of writing, crafting partly fictionalised composite stories. i use my short vignettes, living in lockdown, to show how i wrote as ‘others’, and changed roles to fully examine my processes-in-action. writing narratively and ‘telling’ stories to engage my audience, led me to parallels within the theatrical tradition, especially the method acting approach of stella adler. i also found that the archetypal figure of the flâneur (particularly as conceived by baudelaire and walter benjamin) provided a conceptual framework for my walking/watching practices. he, too, simply wandered, seeing what there was to see, but usually in a city. i use these frameworks to reflect on my own work, drawing on parallel methodologies to show how it constitutes research, and explore the role that writing plays overall. keywords: flâneurie, narrative research, covid pandemic, writing qualitatively, voice, storying my title caught your eye? i have your attention? then, i will share with you my new ways of working, driven by the covid-19 pandemic, when close contact with others – in my case in-depth interviewing – was foolhardy and, quite often, forbidden by law. the process emerged piecemeal. ‘targets’ for biographical narrative, my method of choice, were restricted to those i already knew, some of them elderly and ‘vulnerable’. and for over a month, walking locally was the only permitted reason for leaving the house apart from emergencies, or food shopping which we quickly learned to do online. h. r. wright: skulking and spying then telling tales qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 110-136 ©2023 111 i love walking – but usually go to the hills or forests rather than stomping the local footpaths. in england, cambridgeshire where i live is known for its flatness. often just above sea-level, land is extensively arable (inaccessible), muddy clay (but we are on the chalk!), and dare i say it, just a ‘tad’ boring if you like climbing up. i love walking and walking fast – but my world was full of quasi-walkers. the pavements were cluttered with others. neighbours who chatted in socially distanced clusters, shouting across the statutory two metres gap! sprinters gazing into the distance and giving way to no-one. people with too many dogs on extendable leads, or no leads at all: “don’t worry he won’t hurt you” – but my! he slobbers! and large families with children on skates, scooters, and bikes-without-bells-with-rather-poor-brakes who come up behind you at speed and fall off – if you are lucky. i love walking and walking fast and thinking as i walk – but this was impossible. i had to slow down, walk onto the verge or into the road, bombarded by snippets of conversations all around me, all along the way. i learned to walk differently – fast-walking at night and in wet-and-windy weather and slow-walking on warmer days with my eyes and ears especially open, as noses, mouths and hands were officially deemed risky. i learned to walk differently in the crowded countryside – seeking pleasure in nature and its seasonal changes but spying, eavesdropping, and storing away those snippets of conversation to make them my own, a research resource of value. in short, i learned to walk in the crowded countryside as a flâneur – indulging my customary city habits in a rural context. for i had long realised that the love of wandering – developed with my father in early childhood and continued ever since, indulged on all my holidays and every conference i have ever been to – deserves that name. i am a lifelong flâneur – albeit one who, until recently, had little knowledge of either 112 h. r. wright: skulking and spying then telling tales qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 110-136 ©2023 baudelaire’s or benjamin’s fascination with this cultural archetype in previous centuries. but i turn to them later, for i want to share my approach and what it led to first! so you know i walk. but not yet how i became a ‘walking, talking’, watching, writing, ‘living doll’ flâneur. * at the start of the pandemic, i had turned to the elderly for research data. i was able to interview a family member (a real person, here called grace) and talk a bit about, and to, her friends, as well. starting to write-up my material for a conference, i found my first dilemma. how could i ensure anonymity, confined as we were to our local communities? i needed more data to better conceal identities. a second dilemma concerned writing. if i thought my lengthy descriptive piece lacked purpose, who would read it? i needed a punchier style. out walking with grace, one step ahead to ensure her safety on crowded ill-kept pavements, i began to see the world through her eyes, to borrow the lens of an-other. i could write about her views, but people might guess they were hers. the virtues of eavesdropping emerged when i overheard two women discussing issues similar but different to grace’s. if i blended such material with what i had already, my account would be less attributable. if i wrote it as a story, it would be livelier. and this is how my research career as a flâneur began, for i saw and overheard many things of interest once i started to listen rather than block-out conversations. i was skulking and eavesdropping but doing no harm when collecting material by stealth for none of my writing would be about real people who could be identified. * makes sense if you remember cliff richards performing lionel bart’s song ‘living doll’ (with the drifters in 1959, and the young ones, for comedy relief in 1986). it was everywhere whether you liked it or not! 113 h. r. wright: skulking and spying then telling tales qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 110-136 ©2023 i had a ‘way of working’ that worked. it sounded dubious but was actually very ethical, sculpting a version of reality that felt authentic. it was enjoyable to do, playing to my love of walking, curbing my frustration with others, and letting me write creatively. others, i am told, find it enjoyable to read – another bonus. storying — a serendipitous outcome? or a developmental process? my research preference has always been to interview actively, prompted by holstein and gubrium (1995, p.14) who (citing pool, 1957, p.193), see ‘every interview’ as ‘an interpersonal drama with a developing plot’. to do this effectively, i have to think on my feet rather than rely on rolling out a pre-planned interview schedule. that suits me. i like to work flexibly, to do what seems appropriate at the time and only later seek labels for the methods brought together in an emergent methodology, one tailored to meet my specific needs (wright, 2009, 2010). my yardstick for inclusion is that approaches are congruent rather than pre-specified within a known (or should i say, claimed?) framework. for me, random bricolage seems inappropriate in narrative work that is essentially using stories to shape events and/or portray lives. continuity, consonance, congruence, and coherence are important. during lockdown my work was similarly emergent with writing becoming an increasingly important strand within the overall process. my initial text, there’s nowhere to go (the ‘lengthy descriptive piece’ mentioned earlier) remains a work-in-progress but is fast becoming a resource. although not so intended, it is in effect a field-note equivalent – clandinin (2013) would call it an interim text – for it is how i recorded events as they happened, or rather, a little time later, for i wrote late into the night after my first walk with grace. i began to experiment with writing as if i were an-other and my first tentative ‘story’, through the eyes of the elderly, found a home in an issue of the irish journal, the sociological observer (wright, 2021b). here, borrowing conceptually from mishler 114 h. r. wright: skulking and spying then telling tales qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 110-136 ©2023 (1995), i describe my process as one of blending ‘the story overheard and the story observed to create the story imagined’, one that i can then share. this first ‘lockdown’ story was about an elderly woman (a composite figure whom i later call dora) taking a brief walk, claiming her entitlement to go outside once a day for legitimate exercise. it existed in many versions before i found a voice that i was happy with. it sees the busy pavement from her perspective, managing to convey the crowding far more succinctly and with more impact than i did in my initial ‘lengthy descriptive piece’ that was ‘merely’ observed. that first attempt – one that aimed at representation – ran to a thousand words, a quarter of which concerned dogs. the later extensively re worked version that opens this article describes the dogs in only twenty-three words. but in the story imagined, the fictional dora only needed to say “and there will be dogs…” when listing her other concerns, to convey her dislike of encountering them on the pathway. pleased by this brevity, i was encouraged to explore writing as an-other in more detail and found support for the affinity i experienced during the process in coutu’s (1951, p. 182) notion of synconation – a ‘thinking and feeling as one believes the other person thinks and feels’. i found myself strangely ‘haunted’ (to borrow from avery gordon, 2008) by these others i ‘adopted’, the act of writing only partly cathartic. yet i stayed with the process, continuing to collect material by spying and eavesdropping and weaving it with legitimate(?) data into a set of stories that spanned the life-course. some of these stories, tasked to portray typical behaviours during the early days of the covid-19 pandemic, are published online as learning to live differently in lockdown (wright, 2021a) but i discuss them from a different perspective here, as i continue to reflect upon and develop my processes. learning to live differently offered five stories, representing different stages in the life course. dora – an elderly citizen living alone glenda and mark – enjoying an active retirement 115 h. r. wright: skulking and spying then telling tales qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 110-136 ©2023 dan – working from home anna and ellie – being three and going to nursery teenagers – hanging out when hanging out is banned collectively they enabled me to experiment with different writing approaches, to explore different others casting myself in different roles. i say “roles” here, deliberately to leave a space to explain my positionality. initially, i identified the different roles i assumed as selves (my narrative-self and researcher-self, for example) but later chose the suffix me instead, worrying that ‘self’ carries too many connotations, opening up too many historical debates. it lies beyond the scope of this article to tangle with the challenges raised by ‘isms’ and ‘ologies’, to engage with semantics, to justify the philosophical value of my work, or wander too far into the intrapersonal worlds patrolled by psychological theory. instead, i find that the world of entertainment (theatre) better frames my material despite knowing that this may be (mis)construed as less academic or indulgent. if so, so be it! my aims are to record an historic moment by portraying how different social actors experienced it and to share this with my readers (my audience). as with theatre, i want the readers of my text to enjoy being entertained by my words (my performance) and therefore choose to engage with it. i loved the serendipity experienced when shaping my approach so deliberately try to capture a sense of that within my written text, crafting each element and letting it unfurl slowly. my method was emergent, so i drift through this narrative, demonstrating my way of writing “off the beaten track” by doing it. (you will need to read to the end if you want to see how that works but do pause to study the scenery along the way!) the backdrop — the story-of-the-stories and the stories themselves. throughout the tale-telling process, the material i had collected shaped my decisions about how to write it up. i listened to my data continually in my head, even though what i created were fictional stories built from multiple fragments, and my starting point was different for each. i experimented with writing as an-other when i voiced dora’s thoughts as well as her speech), on behalf of the other (with glenda who really talked to me), as an imaginary other when i built a composite picture of a work-at-home father from 116 h. r. wright: skulking and spying then telling tales qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 110-136 ©2023 multiple pre-collected strands, as imaginary others who exist as two real children when anna and ellie’s story is performed, and then as a narrator when i create the teenagers’ story myself – although whether i was passively or actively part of this is a moot point for in a sense i was peripheral, an unwilling listener. (when you learn more, i think you will agree that i can scarcely say observer here). the dora story that i discuss here, dealt with life in the home in contrast to the earlier theme of going outside. it captured the confusion felt by the elderly when life went online (onto the magic carpet according to dora). local social activities stopped; her independence disappeared overnight. such extreme change was particularly difficult for older people with fixed routines and little appetite for anything new or different. dora was alone, but not alone in this respect. ‘her’ story was constructed from numerous observations and snatches of conversation all of them ‘real’ but brought together into a single story by me, writing as an-other, developing the approach used in my first story to create a story imagined. glenda and mark, an active retired couple, fared better than dora; lockdown with a partner was potentially less lonely. au fait with computers, with adequate pensions and an established home and garden, their only real concern was an inability to see as much of their grandchildren as they would have liked. the couple’s story was offered by the wife, in response to a request for a story of resourcefulness that was misinterpreted. i was not looking for frugality but more broadly. on reflection, i realised that her insistence that little had changed in their lives was the foundation for their story for other couples of a similar age were also finding it relatively easy to slip into a quieter existence, not realising just how long that might continue. the act of fictionalisation here was to write as the other, for i stayed with what i was told, re-ordering the elements to make them more succinct, and to ensure that none of the details revealed the couple’s identities. i wrote as the wife, but the story embraced that of her husband and spoke on behalf of retired couples. the couple’s story captured a calm transition in contrast to that of the younger father, dan, who had to contend with too many people. he was feeling the pressure of working 117 h. r. wright: skulking and spying then telling tales qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 110-136 ©2023 at home with school-age children not at school – but probably nothing like as much as his wife did – and this was a theme i overheard many times on my daily walks. created as an imaginary other, from many snippets of stories overheard on my walks, dan had a direct voice, but his wife and children could also be faintly heard within this story (appropriate as sometimes it was the wives i heard complaining). this suggested to me the possibility of creating a polyvocal family narrative and, with hindsight, maybe encouraged the next story to take a dialogic form in which two voices are directly heard. the idea behind anna and ellie’s story was given to me during an online chat, as a brief comment about how young children were adapting to lockdown. at that point, i am me, openly engaged in a conversation and not consciously collecting data. as i tell you this, my role is that of narrator, as it was when i set the scene within my published text, saying: “the story fascinated me, and i stored it away for future use”. but these children have real identities, the person i talked to works with real children, so ethically the story could not be re-told exactly as told to me and nor could i allow them to be recognisable. to embellish this ‘snippet’ later and turn it into dialogue, i had to think deliberately as others might, think ‘what would three-year olds do and say, what would this look like if i were witnessing it?’. i had to stand momentarily in the shoes of these other(s). to avoid simple representation, i let the children become imaginary others with distinct personalities; pre schoolers who could talk for themselves through me. in creating this story, several different roles were taken up sequentially although such a claim simplifies reality for the role changes were ill-defined and rarely consciously chosen, and certainly not analysed or labelled until after the event – as now. not so elsewhere. in the teenager’s story, despite the darkness, i have a more visible role; for i tell it from my own perspective, perhaps, allowing an identity as author to jostle for position alongside narrator. in part, this is a story witnessed rather than overheard for i am legitimately present. as narrator, introducing the teenagers’ tale, i described the invisibility of these youngsters during the early lockdown, their confinement to their homes or, maybe, a retreat into online interaction. as i witnessed their illicit late night in the park personally, albeit lying in bed kept awake by the noisy teenagers outside (for here it was the subjects who were loitering aimlessly in the public 118 h. r. wright: skulking and spying then telling tales qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 110-136 ©2023 space rather than me the flâneur), i was being me. but as soon as i begin to think ‘what is this event like to the teenagers?’ (surely just an escape from confinement not an opportunity to disturb sleepers.) i am thinking as someone other. the imaginary other however, has no part in this story as i tell it from my own perspective, albeit embellished to make it a story rather than a simple account. above i briefly considered author a suitable label for my role but already i choose narrative-me as a more appropriate descriptor, for i know that this story is based on reality as i was ‘there’. but “why -me?” — to echo a commonplace childhood whine — but then discuss acting rather than acting up. as i claimed earlier, the processes i follow align more closely with the theatrical tradition than with either the internalised multiple selves that emanate from psychological theory or the long-debated notions of self, rising out of the domain of philosophy. therefore, to use -me to identify different roles is preferable to using -self. in line with this theatrical framing, the various ‘me’s and ‘others’ you encounter in this text are performative personae generated in a liminal space in which i can think myself into another role or think as someone other than myself might think. writing another’s story is an act of creation and performance albeit on paper rather than on stage, and i can find many instances within the world of theatre where writing about the ‘act’ of acting quite often resonates with my experience of the ‘act’ of writing as developed and practised within this article. both acts seek to perform for and engage as fully as they can with their audience, both require skills to be honed and outputs to be crafted, both harness a person’s own skills to the task of representing an-other, both require the artful use of devices to clarify meaning and, importantly, the willing suspension of disbelief (coleridge, 1817) on the part of the audience. recognising these shared qualities, i turned to the literature of acting and read assiduously seeking further framing for my own act of writing and finding parallels in stella adler’s adaptation of method acting (as described by gordon and lang, 2009). from the mid 1930s, stella challenged the primacy of affective memory – a technique that forced an actor to probe still-raw emotions. instead, she favoured a focus on words – the script of the play, its existence as a written text. for stella, a credible actor relied on the ‘given 119 h. r. wright: skulking and spying then telling tales qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 110-136 ©2023 circumstances’ of the script aided by a ‘broad knowledge of history, culture, literature (p. 157) – in my terms, contextualisation; and some knowledge of the playwright – in my case the author – and his/her intentions. when teaching, stella emphasised imagination and script analysis, invoking observation and sense memory before moving to improvisation, processes which resonate for me when i consider my own activities. moreover, it is claimed that stella’s technique was intuitive and sometimes contradictory – suggesting the method was flexibly applied – perhaps an ‘emergent’ approach. “that’s what stella-did, boys, that’s what stella-did.” † but what about me? what do i do when i write? my turn to story form is one of accretion, the layering of insights gleaned from very different (sometimes contradictory) traditions as i moved through life. the skills that support the crafting of stories from multiple random snippets were acquired piecemeal as my experiences changed. the early-years-educator-me observes closely, reading body language for meaning, learning to hold key material mentally until there is chance to write it down. the biographical researcher is transgressive (like the flâneur), traversing disciplinary boundaries to consider the whole person, working holistically rather than dissecting data into themes and parts. the active interviewer, interested as much in what is not said as what is said, is constantly alert, thinking creatively and with an open mind, allowing ideas to simmer and connect and impressions to flourish. add all this to a lifelong love of reading and the act of storying seems almost inevitable – becoming a walking-writing-researching flâneur, a natural progression. when i research and write like this, i see myself as the voice-piece of stories that tell themselves, for, as i began to discuss in my earlier article (wright, 2021a, p. 64), i seem to be both detached and actively engaged with my subjects, collecting data ‘deliberately and incidentally’ – as, we will see, does baudelaire’s flâneur! since my intention is research rather than fiction orientated this duality feels entirely appropriate, a balancing of personal biases that is ever present when qualitative research is approached with † makes sense if you know irving gordon’s song ‘what did delaware boys, what did delaware’ (performed in 1959 by perry como) which portrays us states as puns, making their beginnings into girls’ names (what did della wear, boys?). the boy scouts like it! 120 h. r. wright: skulking and spying then telling tales qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 110-136 ©2023 honesty for ‘one’s subjectivity is like a garment that cannot be removed’ (peshkin, 1988, p. 17). thinking like an-other (a position i acknowledge is always located within my own interpretative frame) and writing as an often-composite imaginary other, i let the story unravel without my conscious guidance. afterwards, i am able to view it as if i were an outsider and draw out points of relevance just as i would with someone else’s text, or with faithfully recorded interview data, something that took me by surprise initially. i can also pursue my exploration of writer positionality within the creating-and-writing process with more clarity. i see that my underpinning role was one of narrator, providing each story with context and continuity, but fully believe that often – once i was engaged – the story simply wrote itself. using my imagination, i became the voice-piece for the others, albeit each a composite individual; one who both existed and didn’t exist, rather like the flâneur whose habits, we will see, i was unwittingly echoing. i explored different styles of writing but never intentionally. to me it felt as if i was telling the-story-that-had-to-be-told. the imaginary others dictated the form of their stories and were strangely real to me. i could ‘see’ these characters and their settings clearly in my mind’s eye: dora finding life difficult; the retired couple adapting quite easily; the working-at-home manager safely in his attic, free from the familial chaos within which his wife was trying to work-at-home; the two pre-school children whose playful dialogue arose from a scenario mentioned over the phone; the teenagers in the park in the middle of the night, whose story i found myself telling from my own perspective as if to leave them shrouded in the darkness that concealed them and grant them the invisibility that they believed kept them safe from recognition. switching from thinking like an imaginary other to the researcher-me (i too claim multiple roles or identities) i was able to reflect on the stories and consider the strategies used to convey emotions, the overall meanings and significance of the detail within them. it was as if the words emanated from someone other than me; an experience that was 121 h. r. wright: skulking and spying then telling tales qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 110-136 ©2023 weirdly satisfying and apparently not uncommon (yet hard to find when looked-for rather than unexpectedly noticed. van maanen said this before me and so did others. perhaps you can remember where!). it was possible to consider the stories collectively and suggest what could be learned from them, to look for patterns within and across the narratives as if encountering them for the first time. social restrictions had made the external world a strange and isolated place; writing like this was making my internal world a strange but highly populated space where i could ricochet around its inhabitants and make them dance to the tunes in my head that were slowly emerging as words. i could enjoy the company of others even when real-life contact was proscribed. let me tell you a story now. a new one where the story and commentary are enacted together. “are you sitting comfortably? then i’ll begin.”‡ to start in narrator mode, the new story is about charlie, a young boy riding his bike. he is a composite character, and when i tell his story i again act as the voice of an imaginary other. i’m going fast. in my yellow jersey. i’m in the lead. we’re on our ‘daily exercise’, mum, michael, and me, but i’m on my bike. dad’s with us, too – it’s a sunday – but he keeps stopping. talking to ronnie this time, ’bout his car again. now he works in the attic every day, the bimmer don’t start when he wants it. on sundays dad comes with us – but he isn’t really with us ‘cos he keeps chatting. he says all days are like a sunday now, everything shut. my school’s shut and its boring. i miss alfie and seb, even miss marten. she can do sums! my mum gets them wrong even when i’ve shown her how to do them. did she learn nothing at school? ‡ how the children’s story on bbc’s daily radio programme ‘listening with mother’ (1950-1982) was introduced. (nostalgia again) 122 h. r. wright: skulking and spying then telling tales qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 110-136 ©2023 dad is better at sums but he’s always upstairs. we have to keep the noise down, micky and me. we take no notice. if dad gets really cross, he might use the ‘f’ word again. then mum will tell him off. sunday used to be church but that’s shut, too. we have campfire church on friday night instead. that’s more fun – it’s spooky by the graves in the dark – the ghosts might come out. but the campfire’s rubbish, just a torch covered in red paper and a pile of twigs. we have a real one at beavers but here it’s just pretend – like god and angels and harry potter and tinkerbell. we get hot cocoa like good boys; it keeps your hands warm. micky and me blow it cold when they’re all quiet. we make funny noises and mum has to open her eyes. she pulls faces at us but can’t tell us off, so we pull faces back. that’s great fun. stepping aside from the telling, as the reflective-me, i can reconsider this story and briefly do so here. i note the child’s perspective but also the echoes of his class status – the bimmer (bmw car), the largely absent father figure who can easily work at home, the names of his friends (alfred and sebastian) not exclusively class-bound but together suggesting upper rather than lower status. i catch the echoes of appropriated parental discourse: mention of ‘daily exercise’; the phrase ‘did “she” learn anything at school?’ so probably “you” in an earlier conversation; the request to ‘keep the noise down’; the talk of the ‘f’ word; and the compulsory church attendance that hints at conformity rather than firm beliefs. this is the researcher-me commenting here, as i look at the story-that-told-itself with fresh eyes to see what i can glean from it; studying it critically, too, to check that it reflects the many situations overheard and observed in passing, as i walk. looking at this story more broadly i can see how it builds on some of the earlier ones, offering a child’s perspective on the crowded pathways that so upset the elderly woman, and the problems of parents working from home particularly the dad who is there-but-not-there. as my subjects live in parallel, in families in the local community, their social contexts are 123 h. r. wright: skulking and spying then telling tales qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 110-136 ©2023 similar, especially when lockdown reduces everyone to localised living, so links make sense. perhaps this demonstrates how easy it is to shift from role to role, how the change is one of intent and action rather than of mental state, in keeping with my choice to frame my work with ideas from the theatrical tradition. from narrative-me to reflective-me is a marked transition but the shift from this to researcher-me is much subtler, no more than a sharpening of focus. i found the act of describing the world from multiple perspectives rewarding and, moving forward, i am becoming more confident and more ambitious. whilst there is no suggestion that what i will write could be compared to chaucer, i do admit to tracing my fascination with multi-voiced texts to studying parts of his fourteenth century work, the canterbury tales, in early secondary school. (as an educator that is a satisfying connection to make!) my next project (already started) examines a family, parents and three children, and will have chapters written in the partly real/partly imaginary voices of its members. seeking a readership beyond the purely biographical, i will act as narrator for a family who adopted a mixed-race toddler and the experiences of ‘being different’ evoked in a white rural community in england’s west country in the 1960s and later years of the twentieth century. the scope is broad, enabling me to assume the voices of a family of others in extended texts, shaping the stories of imaginary others as i protect identities and let the stories develop their own styles. in dealing with issues like trans-racial adoption, bullying in school, practices of exclusion in everyday life, the researcher-me (me as me) will be both present and absent, lurking in the shadows of the characters created, waiting for a turn to speak. like charlie, i think ‘that’s great fun’. 124 h. r. wright: skulking and spying then telling tales qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 110-136 ©2023 unquestionably ‘living’, i am now ‘walking, talking’, watching, writing, too. but what about the flâneur? i approach flâneurie as one who does it – and has always done it without giving it a name – part of the geographical-me who constantly reads my surroundings, and therefore rarely gets lost whether strolling in rural or urban areas. as a geographer, i came to know a little about flâneurie but from a practical standpoint – the act of walking and observing was akin to fieldwork; the scanning of terrain traversed, its form and features, the plants, animals, and people whose activities bring it to life. starting to skulk and eavesdrop on my daily walk as a form of data collection, unwittingly moulding flâneurie into a research form, i knew little about it beyond its name and what it described. when a chance encounter at a conference newly brought the term to my attention and i decided to shelter among its roots, i started to read! we can surmise that people have always walked the land, but when did some become flâneurs? where does the label originate, and what makes a passer-by merit the title flâneur? i needed to learn more. the flâneur, an individual described as a ‘stroller’ (lynes et al, 2019) is an ambiguous figure from the outset. arguably in goffman’s terms (1959) he exists only through his performances (pope, 2010, p. 7), the act of strolling in the crowd, part of it and apart from it, able to observe passers-by unnoticed and unchallenged, a description that also applies to my own activities. traceable back to the napoleonic era (boutin, 2012) he has been an ‘icon of urban modernity since the 19th century’ (serlin, 2006, abstract) and ‘a flourishing cultural and literary figure’, ‘due to the rapid change in the urban environment’ (toiskallio, 2002, p. 171). paris was being modernised, its growth and increasing importance as an industrial and commercial centre being used to justify a focus on vehicular rather than pedestrian access and the tearing down of ancient streets (and arcades) to make way for bland arterial roadways and spacious boulevards – symbols of progress and modernity. the flâneur was invoked to observe and comment on these changes as they happened. being an imaginary figure, his roaming was untrammelled, determined only by the author who wrote him into 125 h. r. wright: skulking and spying then telling tales qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 110-136 ©2023 existence, able to see whatever that author wanted him to see, making him a useful literary device. baudelaire, famously drew attention to this archetypal parisian figure, central to french literary and artistic culture, in the painter of modern life (1972, 1863 in french), where he describes mr g (the barely disguised painter, constantin guys) as a flâneur: ‘his passion and his profession is to merge with the crowd … for the passionate observer it becomes an immense source of enjoyment to establish his dwelling in the throng, in the ebb and flow, the bustle, the fleeting and the infinite’. (baudelaire, 1972/1863, pp. 12-13) the flâneur moves in the urban crowd as into an ‘enormous reservoir of electricity’, taking pleasure in the diversity of stimuli of the urban environment (baudelaire, ibid, 13) in many ways embodying the characteristics that make a good researcher (as i claim to be), for ‘he takes an interest in everything the world over, he wants to know, understand, assess everything that happens on the surface of our spheroid’ (baudelaire, ibid, p. 9). shields (1994) even likens him to a participant observer (pope, 2010, p. 8); a parallel that i find excessive in my own context for the only commonalities i share with those i study are space, time and ‘professed’ activity – walking – in which we are all only ostensibly engaged. this flâneur is an ambiguous figure, one of ‘those independent, intense and impartial spirits who do not lend themselves easily to linguistic definitions’. a ‘lover of life’, he likes to ‘be away from home and yet to feel oneself at home anywhere; to see the world, to be at the very centre of the world, and yet to be unseen of the world … incognito wherever he goes’ (baudelaire, ibid, 13). this is someone whose presence is unremarked, as is mine when i am gathering data; a chameleon character whose changing hues project multiple identities not so dissimilar to the multiple voices, i use within my work. he is a shadowy figure who exists ontologically only through those who write about him and is known only indirectly 126 h. r. wright: skulking and spying then telling tales qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 110-136 ©2023 through the act of reading about him; an arguable parallel with the imaginary other i described earlier, equally a literary device. for the cultural theorist, walter benjamin, the paradoxical – and to use his term, ‘phantasmagoric’ – city of paris offered scope to work on his theory of ideological illumination, seeking to ‘forge’ a ‘more historically nuanced’ marxism (cohen, 1984). benjamin decried ‘phantasmagoria’, ‘that miasma of misrepresentation that stands for reality in our time’ and sought to challenge the views of those seduced by it (martel, 2013, online). he focussed his attention on the parisian arcades which, in their pre-modern blending of interiority and exteriority and blurring of public and private spaces remained places where humans could loiter and stare, in stark contrast to haussmann’s modern boulevards. in his extensive but never completed study of the arcades, places representative of the ‘ruined hopes of the past’ (leslie, 2006, p. 93), benjamin saw the ‘authentic’ fiâneur as a key observer of city life, fascinated by the unexpected (van leewuen, 2019) and alert to the significance of minor details and events witnessed. in convolute m of the arcades project (1999, in english), benjamin notes larousse’s description of the flâneur as one who has: ‘his eyes open, his ear ready, searching for something entirely different from what the crowd gathers to see … [for whom a] word dropped by chance will reveal to him one of those character traits that cannot be invented and that must be drawn directly from life …’. (m20a,1,453) earlier benjamin had noted fournel’s claim ‘regarding the legend of the flâneur’ and how: ‘with the aid of a word i overhear in passing, i reconstruct an entire conversation, an entire existence’ (m7,8,431). such actions resonate clearly with my own practice of flâneurie, of being one who skulks, spies and eavesdrops, making good use of the casual comments picked up in that way. 127 h. r. wright: skulking and spying then telling tales qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 110-136 ©2023 in contrast, in another note, one just prior to larousse’s statement, benjamin refers to rousseau’s second promenade, reporting text that captures my pre-lockdown habit of enjoying ‘solitary walks and the reveries that occupy them, when i give free rein to my thoughts and let my ideas follow their natural course, unrestricted and unconfined’ (m20,1,453). this was the style of walking that i was forced to relinquish when ‘my world was full of quasi-walkers’, leading me instead to create and present ‘a plausible front, behind which, in reality hides the riveted attention of an observer …’ (m13a,2,442). benjamin spurned the modern temptation to construct phantasmagoric visions that diminished the ‘complex, hybrid, opaque reality of expanding metropolitan centres’ (van leewuen, 2019, p. 304). he sees the city as ‘the realization of that ancient dream of humanity, the labyrinth’ and claims that the flâneur ‘without knowing it, devotes himself’ to this labyrinth [m6a,4]. in short, he is one who wanders aimlessly to see what there is to be seen. yet i wonder — can flâneurie be authentic, archetypal and actual? can there be a ‘living’ flâneur? for benjamin, the ‘authentic’ flâneur is equally interested in those who conform and those who don’t, those who choose to live on the peripheries of contemporary life, seemingly resisting political and commodity fetishism – individuals of particular interest to benjamin. he denigrates as ‘inauthentic’, the flâneur who seeks superficial stereotypes, in effect choosing what to look at, maybe what to see, leading me to pause to consider where he might place my work. for in choosing what to include and exclude in my stories i am moulding the flâneur to suite my own purposes and am aware that to benjamin any shaping might be inappropriate, and the process of creating ‘typical’ stories from multiple data sources deemed a stereotypical practice. however, i claim authenticity, as the walking and watching began entirely without a research intent or focus, and what i saw and heard serendipitously determined what i did next. also, because i follow constructionist rather than reductionist principles, for i build 128 h. r. wright: skulking and spying then telling tales qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 110-136 ©2023 more complex vignettes with the fragments of material i collect. i have related how i leave my mind to play with snippets of data seen, observed and asked for and let the stories unfold naturally, only re-crafting and editing once their initial shape has shown its outline. for i am seeking authenticity even when undertaking narrative ‘smoothing’ (polkinghorne, 1995) to make them coherent and ensure they ‘flow’. like frank (2010, p. 37) i believe that: ‘the value of stories is to offer sufficient clarity without betraying the complexity of life-in-flux’ and like benjamin, i champion such complexity. continuing with the non/authentic distinction, i think it to be questionable given it is applied post-hoc to an imaginary (even if archetypal) figure. as it is a fictional archetype, writers and researchers can mould the flâneur to their own purposes and many do so for the literary flâneur can never speak independently, never set pen to paper to directly communicate with others unlike contemporary living flâneurs (like me) who can switch between passive and active engagement with the world, at will. thinking critically, it could be said that the flâneur enabled/enables an author to distance him/herself from his/her own opinions. from a less sympathetic viewpoint, he could be construed as passing off as ‘real’, impressions that are actually ‘unreal’, prompting me to acknowledge again the importance of admitting to fictionalisation and of stressing that it is the observation of, the listening to, and the engagement with real people, and thereby the collection of real data, that makes my work research not just simply writing. as a fiction, the flâneur is hard to challenge but one area much debated is his masculinity and where this fits with more contemporary views on gender (notably by wilson, 1992; and wolff, 1985 if you want to read further). indeed, elkins, in her book the flâneuse (2017), espouses a feminine version. she writes mainly about female writers who choose the city (paris, new york, tokyo, venice and london) as their source of inspiration. i am ambivalent here, preferring to broaden the generic term to include women like myself whilst accepting that the historical figure was a male one. and i still hold that the archetypal flâneur remains a puppet controlled by others, a figure who cannot actually write. those of us in current society who pin the label to our lapels, must recognise that we appropriate the archetype, making it serve contemporary needs. it was ever thus. as 129 h. r. wright: skulking and spying then telling tales qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 110-136 ©2023 elkins so eloquently claims, “the flâneur is a beguiling but empty vessel, a blank canvas onto which different eras have projected their own desires and anxieties” (ibid, p.11). yet i wonder still, are we simply continuing the european tradition of re-writing the text that defines this archetypal figure? or do we simply ‘pass’ for flâneurs rather than being truly authentic if we make such changes? this i cannot answer definitively, but i can affirm that, personally, i hold the fictional archetype dear, and reflect that as real living people we sometimes only practise flâneurie rather than becoming flâneurs. so that is how the flâneur-me walks alongside the archetypal figure. until our paths deviate, for i can write — and he cannot! yet i remain enamoured by flâneurie . . . because . . . . . . in research terms, flâneurie is open to empirical serendipity. with this approach, i work with what i find rather than seeking what i expect to find. in using story forms to communicate these findings i also have a wide degree of choice for the genre enables me to use my imagination to anticipate the needs of my audience rather than tie myself into the linear discussion of data more often seen in academic writing. . . . the ambience of flâneurie, its happenstance characteristics, enabled me to move from frustration to enthrallment when ‘my world was full of quasi-walkers’ and this still feels good. flâneurie is a relaxed and pleasurable activity leaving me open to embrace any opportunities that arise; and that is the beauty of skulking and spying and then telling tales, as a form of research, and of sharing research with its potential audience. i could stop now — but don’t because i hear continuing whispers: ‘is this really research or merely fiction?’ “to arms!”, i call. help me slay these demon voices! my way of working sits clearly within the qualitative paradigm and a narrative framework as do many others, but despite some similarities, it does occupy its own distinctive niche and i claim that it can be equally trustworthy if carried out with care. with ethnography, the researcher observes the daily practices of a group, more often as an insider researcher, seeking to make ‘the familiar strange’ (van maanen, 1995) rather than visiting distant unknown places. as atkinson (2017, p. 2) says, it involves 130 h. r. wright: skulking and spying then telling tales qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 110-136 ©2023 ‘exploration and analysis that is based on participant observation and the direct engagement of the researcher with the chosen setting’. the researcher is collecting data by watching, by joining in, by seeking clarification through conversation, possibly even interviews, and using this to create written descriptive accounts, and to make interpretations – even judgements – about what is happening and what it means. there is scope to question and seek clarification when unsure. this potentiality of engagement with participants is alien to the detached flâneur who, as van leewuen (2019, p. 307) succinctly says, ‘is essentially preoccupied with the practice of observing, with the role of passive spectator.’ yet surely an observer can also listen, too, and possibly focus more acutely on something significant than might be possible if playing an active role. so, need this render the findings less trustworthy? i would argue that it frees me to write what i believe to be the case rather than playing the traditional writing-researcher game of striving to support every claim with a direct quotation taken out of context. when i begin to collect data more purposively, as i walk, there are some similarities with the observational strand of ethnography but still no opportunity for further verification through later questioning. this is not a problem for me as i have worked with young children. close attention can more than compensate, even for a flâneur ‘en passant’. furthermore, i question whether verbal verification always supports greater authenticity for it also offers opportunities for (mis)interpretation, for (mis)correction and (post-hoc) justification. perhaps the hybrid nature of my methodology compensates for any lack of verbal verification for i do talk directly to some of my research ‘subjects’ but not with those whom i only observe. with auto-ethnography, the researcher recounts his/her own life, perhaps using an-other as a sounding board and someone to challenge specious assumptions and unrecognised bias. chang, a keen advocate, believes it ‘shares the storytelling feature with other genres of self-narrative but transcends mere narration of self to engage in cultural analysis and interpretation’ (2008, p. 43). but however rigorous the reporting and thorough the analysis, the account is essentially a personal one, only the tangible actions and facts 131 h. r. wright: skulking and spying then telling tales qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 110-136 ©2023 verifiable by others so inclined. arguably, the act of making sense of things purely from experiencing them is enough, but surely the act of writing imposes a further layer of unsought and unspecified subjective filters. how can it not? most writing-up of qualitative research data is similarly sieved but this may carry greater risks when external checks are limited. those writing-up data collected through flâneurie are equally unaccountable, but arguably less biased since they are not their own study subjects. finally, with biographical research, my customary approach, the researcher interviews others in depth. s/he uses ‘the individual life as a lens or microscope … to explore, relativise, confirm or correct existing understandings and interpretations of the past’ (renders et al, 2017, p. 6) and this contextualisation, the turning of a life story into a life history (goodson, 2001) lends weight to the methodology. but this is a recall strategy as i have reported elsewhere (wright, 2013) and we know that memory can play tricks, be overwritten or simply refuted, particularly if the participant is elderly with a diminished sense of time, logic, categorisation and connectivity. furthermore, it is well-established that the story told today is not the story that will be told tomorrow, for how we tell things changes with mood and inclination and often recall encourages further recall or a rebuttal of an initial denial that can further distort or be corrective of the first attempt to ‘tell’. but this contingency holds true for interview and observational data, too, and arguably most qualitative research findings are specific to a particular time, place and context, hence geertz’s (1973) call for ‘thick descriptions’, drawing our attention to what we write about the research context. with my approach, the stories are composed and crafted rather than directly told and this is a slower process that allows the details to ‘settle’. there is time to reflect and revise, revisit the data, or even look for more. an additional walk at a particular time of day will often provide opportunity for further verification that the story being written reflects what is customarily overheard and seen. composing stories from multiple sources is advantageous, too, for to bring alive a fictitious character, i seek typical behaviours – those that transcend a single instance fixed in time, place and social context. 132 h. r. wright: skulking and spying then telling tales qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 110-136 ©2023 to summarise … with flâneurie as i practice it, the researcher stands apart from the people s/he is passing, loitering to remain in earshot and eavesdropping on their conversation(s). any ethical concerns are addressed through fictionalisation, the building of composite stories that try to say something useful about the conversations overheard and the people observed. this is a particular style of working but its strands are not unique. the context is a chosen one as in ethnography (with no recourse to participant clarification later); the account is a personal one lacking in-built checks as in auto ethnography; and the means of collection are informal (and partly conversational, relying on memory), as in biographical research. yet, flâneurie is more than a bringing together of these different elements and my writing method, too, extends beyond the standard reporting of research. with all approaches that deal with real lives and thus with complexity and uncertainty, trustworthiness – and thus their perceived value – depends on the competence and morality of the researcher. a sensitive observer and listener, able to record and interpret data skilfully, who works carefully, honestly, and respectfully, is likely to add to knowledge and understanding of the worlds in which we live – and in my case, loiter. his/her writing is likely to illuminate. but if we fail to work like this, we will distort our practices and mislead those who trust in us, rendering our stories ‘merely’ entertainment, rather than insightful. moreover, if we fail to write engagingly, or lack authenticity, we may leave our audience dozing in the stalls. on a personal note, for me flâneurie would lose its allure and i would lose my enthrallment with the world i walk through, a world that still is ‘full of quasi-walkers’, prompting a stream of stories to harvest later. at this point this narrative really does stop — but look — there is plenty more for you to read before the curtain finally falls! 133 h. r. wright: skulking and spying then telling tales qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 110-136 ©2023 references atkinson, p. (2017). thinking ethnographically. sage baudelaire, c-p. (1863/2010). the painter of modern life. english edition (2010) of le peintre de la vie moderne (translated by p. e. charvet, 1972). penguin benjamin, w. (1999). the arcades project. english edition of das passagen-werk, 1927-1940 (translated by h. eiland and k. mclaughlin from german version edited by r. tiedemann and published in 1982). harvard university press boutin, a. (2012). rethinking the flâneur: flânerie and the senses. dix-neuf, 16 (2): 124 32 chang, h. (2008). autoethnography as method. routledge clandinin, d. j. (2013). engaging in narrative inquiry. left coast press cohen, m. (1984) walter benjamin's phantasmagoria. new german critique, 48 (autumn): 87-107 coleridge, s. t. (1817) biographia literaria, ch xiv, project gutenburg [ebook #6081, 2004] coutu, w. (1951). role-playing vs. role-taking: an appeal for clarification. american sociological review, 16 (2): 180-87 elkin, l. (2017). flâneuse: women walk the city in paris, new york, tokyo, venice, and london. farrar, straus and giroux. frank, a. w. (2010). letting stories breathe: a socio-narratology. university of chicago press geertz, c. (1973). the interpretation of cultures. basic books goffman, e. (1959). the presentation of self in everyday life. doubleday goodson, i. (2001). the story of life history: origins of the life history method in sociology. identity, 1 (2): 129-42 gordon, a. (2008). ghostly matters: haunting and the sociological imagination. university of minnesota press gordon, m. and lang, a. f. j. (2009) stella adler. in stanislavsky in america: an actor's workbook. taylor & francis group hollway, w. and jefferson, t. (2000) doing qualitative research differently: free association, narrative and the interview method. london: sage. 134 h. r. wright: skulking and spying then telling tales qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 110-136 ©2023 holstein, j. a. and gubrium, j. f. (1995). the active interview in perspective. in the active interview. sage leslie, e. (2006). ruin and rubble in the arcades. in b. hanssen (ed.), walter benjamin and the arcades project. continuum lynes, a., craig, k. and uppal, p. k. s. (2019). benjamin’s ‘flâneur’ and serial murder: an ultra-realist literary case study of levi bellfield. crime media culture, 15(3): 523-43 martel, j. (2013). anti-fetishism: notes on the thought of walter benjamin. clt, 22 apr 2013. https://criticallegalthinking.com/2013/04/22/anti-fetishism-notes-on-the thought-of-walter-benjamin/ mishler, e. g. (1995). models of narrative analysis: a typology. journal of narrative and life history, 5: 87-123 pei-wen, c. k. (2013). the flâneur/flâneuse and the benjaminian law of ‘dialectic at a standstill’ in joseph conrad's the secret agent. conradiana, 45 (2): 125-44 peshkin, a. (1988). in search of subjectivity – one’s own. educational researcher, 17 (7): 17-21 polkinghorne, d. e. (1995). narrative configuration in qualitative analysis. in j. a. hatch & r. wiesniewski (eds), life history and narrative. routledgefalmer pool, i. de s. (1957) a critique of the 20th anniversary issue. the public opinion quarterly, 21(1): 190-98 pope, r. (2010). the jouissance of the flâneur: rewriting baudelaire and modernity. space and culture, 13 (1): 4-16 renders, h., de haan, b. and harmsma, j. (2017). introduction to: the biographical turn: lives in history. routledge. roy, a. (2011). the agonism of utopia: dialectics at a standstill. traditional dwellings and settlements review, 23 (1): 15-24 serlin, d. (2006). disabling the flaneur. journal of visual culture, 5 (2): 193-208. shields, r. (1994). fancy footwork. in k. tester (ed.), the flâneur. routledge toiskallio, k. (2002). the impersonal flâneur: navigation styles of social agents in urban traffic. space and culture, 5 (2): 169-84 135 h. r. wright: skulking and spying then telling tales qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 110-136 ©2023 van leewuen, b. (2019). if we are flâneurs, can we be cosmopolitans? urban studies, 56 (2): 301-16 van maanen, j. (1995). an end to innocence: the ethnography of ethnography. in j. van maanen (ed.), representation in ethnography. sage wilson, e. (1992). the invisible flâneur, new left review, i (191): 90-110, january february wolff, j. (1985). the invisible flâneuse. women and the literature of modernity theory, culture & society, 2 (3): 37-46 wright, h. r. (2009). trusting the process: using an emergent design to study adult education, kaleidoscope special issue, december 2009, pp.62-73. wright, h. r. (2010). integrating lives through adult education: a case study of mature women training to work in childcare. unpublished phd thesis, anglia ruskin university, cambridge uk wright, h. r. (2013). remembering our lives or learning to tell the truth? the researcher role in recall. esrea life history and biographical research network conference, university of canterbury at christchurch, 28 february 3 march 2013 wright, h. r. (2021a). learning to live differently in lockdown. teraźniejszość – człowiek – edukacja (insted: interdisciplinary studies in education & society), 23 (1-89) september: 63-79 wright, h. r. (2021b). through the eyes of the elderly: life under lockdown or what to avoid in future crises. the sociological observer, 3 (1): remaking social futures through biographic, narrative and lifecourse approaches: story-making and story-telling in pandemic times (online): 113-17 for a moment, the writer-me lurks behind the curtain hoping for echoes of a faint round of applause . . . before i walk on .............. 136 h. r. wright: skulking and spying then telling tales qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 110-136 ©2023 about the author: this researcher (hazel r. wright) dislikes being pegged and pigeon-holed! interdisciplinary approaches and emergent methodologies are far more fun. i have ‘served my time’ – in publishing, where i learnt to write and edit; and as lecturer in both college and university, doing conventional research. but now i am free to experiment, to indulge my interests in people’s lives, in walking and watching and imagining; free to be the flâneur i always was and to try to be the writer i always wanted to be. for this special issue, i have taken another step off the beaten track, and ventured further along the dimly lit path towards more creative ways of working. untitled qualitative studies, 1(1) 2 the social dynamics of social science research: between poetry and the conveyer belt emily abbey & tania zittoun abstract: this paper considers the semiotic organization of the research process in the social sciences. it offers a detailed analysis of the semiotic organization of a much used technique in the social sciences: the one-on-one non-directive interview. we consider how different signs might constrain the researcher’s thoughts and actions within the ongoing processes of interview dialogue. we are especially interested in different semiotic representations that may constrain the researcher’s understanding of his or her direct perception of phenomena: the researcher as a “poet” or as a “machine.” it is suggested that these notions may differentially constrain the researcher’s monitoring of the interaction with a participant, and that decisions in this monitoring process can have important implications for the ability of the interviewee to more fully express what it is he or she tries to communicate, and for the process of generating new knowledge. in conclusion, we suggest “poetic” and “mechanistic” approaches to the direct perception of phenomena, though distinct, may nonetheless be understood to complement one another. key words: intersubjectivity, ruptures, interviewing, signs, machine, poetry please cite this article as: abbey, e. & zittoun, t. (2010). the social dynamics of social science research: between poetry and the conveyer belt, qualitative studies, 1(1): 2-17. research in the social sciences humans use signs to organize their relations to the world, and an emerging field—cultural psychology—aims to better understand this process of ‘meaning-making’ (bruner, 1990). signs, which stand in for other things, function as organizers by constraining—in some way—the ongoing field of interaction, while also offering guiding suggestions for the future (valsiner, 1998). researchers in the field of cultural psychology have become interested in meaningmaking activities within an extraordinarily wide variety of domains of human activity. yet there is one arena that remains somewhat understudied: their own research practice (see however cornish, zittoun & gillespie, 2007). signs are no less organizers of the dynamics of research in the social sciences than they are in any other domain of human psychological functioning, often with important consequences for all aspects of the methodological cycle (valsiner, 1998; valsiner & van der veer, 2000). yet, this layer of organization often goes unnoticed by the very researchers who study the meaningmaking. for this reason, although discourse about research practice in psychology focuses on methods and techniques (ginsburg, 1997; gubrium & goldstein, 2001), the discursive construction of meaning (grossen & salazar, 2006), and more rarely, ethics (brinkmann & kvale, 2008) and the issues of participant’s rights (e.g., informed consent and confidentiality), in this paper we explore the semiotic organization of the research process. interviewing in social sciences there are numerous aspects of research methodology—understood as a cycle—(branco & valsiner, 1997) which could be explored through our present focus. in this paper, we will narrow our focus specifically to the topic of one-on-one non-directive interviewing. one-to-one qualitative studies, 1(1) 3 interviewing as a method is much used in the social sciences; much is written on its techniques, but it is less questioned as a practice and, nowadays, as an epistemological choice (blanchet, 1991; blanchet & gotman, 1992; kohler riessman, 1993; kvale & brinkmann, 2008). in this paper, we do not question the use of this method. rather, we focus on the semiotic organization of the interviewing process, considering different signs which might constrain the researcher’s thoughts and actions within the ongoing processes of dialogue. we are especially interested in different notions of objectivity, and how these may constrain the researcher’s monitoring of the sense-feeling stream of the interaction with a participant. we believe that different decisions in this monitoring process—whether to attend to ruptures in the feeling stream—have important implications for the ability of the interviewee to more fully express what it is he or she tries to communicate, and for the process of generating new knowledge. in this way, our focus here is both specific and general as we concentrate on a specific area, yet will conclude by suggesting how these ideas can be extended to other aspects of the research process. intersubjectivity & the semiotic configuration of interviewing how to describe a research interview? social sciences have developed rich understanding of situations of interaction and dialogue. they have given tools to describe a situation of interview as follows. a psychosocial description of the dialogue a research interview is a specific setting. two participants who engage in that setting first have to make it exist as such. through the dialogue and drawing on their experiences, representations, and expectations, they attempt to define the situation. a shared definition of the situation is part of establishing the dialogue. in therapeutic settings, for example, the main effort might precisely be to define what the conversation is about (grossen, 1996, 2006). in turn, when the definition of the situation is not shared, misunderstanding can occur. typically, an interviewee might believe that there is a “right” answer to the question asked by an interviewer, using a school-like definition of the situation (grossen & perret-clermont, 1994). once the definition is shared enough, a frame for the dialogue can be created. a frame is thus not something given; it is constructed through intersubjective dynamics. the frame enables a specific space, or field to emerge (lewin, 1951). it sets a genre, mobilizes the participants’ experiences of other dialogues, their understanding of implicit rules, their discursive, emotional and cognitive skills. the nature of the field is very often dependent on the clarity of the frame. for example, in a research interview the researcher makes explicit one rule, the fact that the data will be confidential. thanks to the frame, each of the participants then knows what is allowed and expected: whether he will be judged or not, whether he can be informal or not, etc. in turn, participants can refer to the frame when the interaction becomes problematic; an interviewee can thus ask whether his discourse is relevant for the research. the frame of a setting is itself mostly dependent on wider institutional demands and traditions, and traversed by various symbolic streams. thus, an interview taking place in a university building is partly over-determined by this situational context, which also confers a specific status to the researcher as an “academic” which might be perceived “higher” in status than an interviewee who is a skilled worker. however, the frame can protect the situations from these various forces. precisely, confidentiality might isolate the dialogue from the controlling presence of the institution. within such a framework, the discourse appears both enabled and canalized by many semiotic qualitative studies, 1(1) 4 streams, and co-constructed by the participants. important research has undertaken finegrained analysis of the progressive emergence of shared meaning. this has brought many researchers to see cognition or thinking as shared activity, with the problem of losing the person’s internal activity (mishler, 1996; notterman, 2004; salomon, 1993). our attempt is thus to bring back the intrapsychological processes at stake in an interview. in an interview, two persons are engaged in meaning making – both together, in interpersonal exchange, but also, on their own, in intrapsychological dialogue. our proposition is to examine the relation between individual sense making and shared meaning in the ongoing flow of the conversation. intrapsychological semiotic dynamics the same situation can be described from the perspective of either of the participants, engaged in meaning making. each participant of an interview has a personal story, made of a large range of experiences and knowledge. the person has an experience from past dialogues, which gives him a certain number of expectations of what an interview is about, and how one communicates with another person. she might also have more formal skills, such as the mastery of narrative or argumentative styles, or interviewing skills, acquired in specific contexts of socialisation. finally there is all the stuff that constitutes the person’s life experience, opinions, thoughts, memories, wishes and desires, from which she can draw to nourish the content of a conversation. one way of representing the dynamics through which people confer meaning to situations with others is given by the semiotic prism. a semiotic prism is the reunion of a classical psychosocial triangle, representing the interactions taking place between a person, an other and an object of discourse (moscovici, 1984), and a semiotic triangle, showing how an idea at time 1 and at time 2 are always mediated by a sign under some form (after vygotsky, see vgotsky & luria, 1994, and zittoun, cornish, gillespie & psaltis, 2007). in the following semiotic prism, we represent the person, an object of the world with the socially shared meaning it might have, an other person, and the sense that this object might have for the person. figure 1 semiotic prism in our case, the object is any aspect of the situation of interviewing, mostly the co-constructed discourse, but also elements of the frame, non verbal communication, etc. the sense of the object is the echo or the resonance that the object has for the ongoing feeling life of the person, as well as her own conscious or unconscious memories, fantasies and wishes. thus, at any moment of the interview, each person is engaged in an intrapsychological dialogue, where she examines what is currently being said, what it means in that particular frame and discursive exchange, and how it makes sense and feels for her. for example, two persons might agree on the meaning that titanic has (it is the story of a romance beyond class-barriers on a sinking boat). yet both might have conferred very different sense of object for p ofrobject object person other qualitative studies, 1(1) 5 senses to that film. one person might be an enthusiastic navigator, and for her the film evoked exciting images of fighting with powerful waves. the other person might be in the middle of a divorce procedure; the sense of the film for her would be that of a representation of the failure of passionate relationships. thus, the two persons share the meaning of the film, but confer different senses to it. interpersonal dialogue semiotic dynamics: emergence of meaning within the field an interview situation puts in presence two persons engaged in meaning and sense making. in this interpersonal dialogue, two persons co-construct a discourse, that both persons usually expect to be co-understood, while each person also produces some sense to the discourse and the ongoing interaction in that particular setting. we could represent this by putting side by side two semiotic prisms, each engaged in their own dynamic, yet joined around the meaning of the ongoing co-produced discourse. other person 1 person 2 other object of discourse (shared meaning) sense for person 1 sense for person 2 figure 2 semiotic prisms in intersubjective situation in our example of two persons talking about titanic, we can think that the conversation will feel differently for two persons that confer very different senses to the same object. talking about the film, the navigator might engage her excitation and enthusiasm; the divorcee might rather feel sad. yet these different feeling tones might well remain unobserved if the two persons concentrate on the meaning of their dialogue. in effect, in a socially shared situation, two participants are generally expected to focus on the maintenance of a shared meaning. personal sense is also usually expected to remain private. our proposition here is that the research interview can, and should precisely give a full status to the ongoing gap between interpersonal meaning making and intrapersonal sense-making. three semiotic streams to summarize our model and put these processes back in time, we can identify three (at least) intertwined streams of semiotic processes constantly occurring: stream 1: the meaning stream first, each person is engaged in the meaning-making of an interview, which is, diachronically, paving the way with signs to simply “understanding what the other is talking about”, and reply to this etc. both participants normally expect meaning to be shared to some extent. this is the overt stream of meaning. qualitative studies, 1(1) 6 stream 2: the sense-feeling stream second, each person is engaged in sense making, which is directly following the participants’ changing emotional experiences, constantly triggered by the presence and the discourse of the other, or any atmospheric reason. this stream is latent, and refers to how signs in the meaning stream “feel” for the person. it also involves further semiotic streams and their feeling tone. stream 3: the reflexive stream third, each participant can also draw on various other signs to synchronically reflect on the ongoing evolving situation. the participants can use elements of the frame, of the definition of the situation, of their general expertise, to reflect on the whole field. more specifically, this is where the interviewer’s expertise is becoming relevant. he or she might use signs to take some distance and raise higher-level, more general signs to reframe the whole field (this man says he did not eat meat, but, hoho, he is a vegetarian! therefore probably left-wing etc.) here professional skills are also engaged, and knowledge that might be used to trigger more discourse, hear within what is said, know when enough information about a topic is gathered, and so on. these three streams of signs thus canalise and shape meaning which is constantly done and undone within the evolution of the interaction, the addition of new information, the changes of perspectives, the relational dynamics. semiotic prisms and evolving fields of experiencing it is now possible to have a closer look at the ongoing evolution of these three streams of meaning, and at the interaction between interpersonal meaning making and intra-psychological sense-making. within the field of the interview, the three streams of semiotic processes are constantly fusing, separating, interwoven and mingling with each other. but how can intrapsychological and inter-personal processes affect each other? to answer this question we need to speak about internalization – the processes whereby semiotic mediation in the shared reality become part of intrapsychological processes, and externalization – the processes through which intrapsychological processes take a shared semiotic form (valsiner, 2007). from inter-to intrapsychological process in terms of the meaning-making process, the interviewee externalizes an idea through a verbal statement: “ojajudjhdlj” which opens in the interviewer’s mind a sub-field of possible meanings (e.g., what this person might say next, what her world is like, that is, the life-world of the other seen from the researcher’s perspective): she says “ojajudjhdlj” <> does this mean y? x? z? this subfield of possible meanings constructs an ambivalence—the co-presence of forces of different degrees of attraction and repulsion (lewin, 1936)1 occurring based on the conflict between the researcher’s present relation to the world [she says “ojajudjhdlj”] which offers 1 here we build on lewin, who did not conceptualize the simultaneous combination of positive and negative valence—ambivalence. qualitative studies, 1(1) 7 one idea, and the researcher’s emerging subfield of possible meanings, all of which at that given moment are uncertain: [does this mean y? x? z?] (abbey 2006; zittoun, 2007). the interviewer immediately begins the process of trying to overcome this tension and uncertainty of meaning, formally in the interviewer’s externalized response, for instance, “so you are saying y…” which itself continues the process of his or her sense-making. so too, this externalization on the part of the interviewer: “so you are saying y…” if internalized by the interviewee, inspires a subfield of possible meaning for her, instigating another tension and further progression of the interaction in an attempt to overcome this. in a general sense, it is suggested here that ambivalence can be understood as a mechanism though which the interview develops, working on two interrelating levels: internalisation: each externalized statement of one participant (the interviewee or interviewer), once internalized by the opposite, creates ambivalence for that person [she says ojajudjhdlj <> does she mean x y z?] and inspires movement in her stream of subjective understanding as she attempts to overcome it: [she says ojajudjhdlj <> does she mean x y z>do you mean y?]. externalisation: this externalized statement [do you mean y?] once internalized, creates a reciprocal process of movement for that person, and can be understood to push the ongoing dialogue itself through time fluctuations in ambivalence within this general model, the level of ambivalence can fluctuate over time depending on the level of subjectively perceived uncertainty between one participant’s internalized statement and its subjective reconfiguration. if the ambivalence is too weak meaning-making may stagnate [“we have nothing to talk about”] and at others it can grow so strong that sense-making becomes difficult [“what is she saying?!”] and the discussion, prematurely foreclosed. broadly, a moderate level of ambivalence can be seen as ideal, wherein the interview proceeds in a start—stop manner for quite some time, where at each moment of exchange there is a possible rupture [“what does she mean?”], forming a tension strong enough to inspire further movement [“do you mean y?”] and giving rise to the next meaning and further development. ‘realness’ of the participant, knowledge construction & the sense-feeling stream one purpose of carrying out the research interview is to learn something from the participant. yet, numerous issues complicate this otherwise straightforward goal, as suggested by the psychosocial analysis of the situation: meanings are also canalized by the power dynamics within the research setting, communication barriers such as language differences, as well as the general ambiguities of any ongoing communication depending upon how it is perceived (buhler, 1928). one specific concern among these others will be our focus here. that is, within the interview, we only have “the meaning” of what the interviewee says, and this clearly cannot convey the entire richness of her ongoing experience—her phenomenological reality—at that given moment. as interviewers then, in some ways we constantly face the possibility of unintentionally overriding the participant’s voice with our own, and therein missing the opportunity to learn, or develop new ideas. many interviewers will be sensitive to this dilemma from the start, and try as much as possible to avoid it. to this end they may, for instance, ask the interviewee if a question makes sense, or if there has been a miscommunication. the interviewer may often restate what the interviewee qualitative studies, 1(1) 8 has said, to check whether one understands. moreover, the interviewer may allow periods of silence when the interviewee does not immediately respond, so as to allow the interviewee’s thoughts to unfold as they will. these tactics are useful, yet here, we build on those ideas, suggesting another possible—albeit indirect—option for being sensitive to the interviewee. ruptures within the sense-feeling stream we propose the interviewer can increase his or her ability to know the other, to understand more deeply what this interviewee tries to communicate, exactly through a process which may seem a bit paradoxical, as the suggestion is for the interviewer to pay close attention to his or her own subjective experience. more specifically, we suggest the interviewer can better know the other by monitoring his or her own ongoing experience, and especially, his or her feeling stream. we are interested in those moments where we internalize what the participant says, forming some sense of it, and yet simultaneously, realize her statement nonetheless does not make sense at a deeper, more feeling-based level (see also abbey, 2007). such a moment can be interpreted loosely through the construct of rupture, as developed by zittoun: “in a situation of rupture, changes are instances of disquieting experiences… which suddenly endanger customary ways of doing things, put at stake taken-for-granted routines and definitions. the obvious suddenly comes into question. in other words, there is an interruption of uncertainty in everyday experience…” (zittoun, 2006, p. 6). it is our sense that these moments of rupture within the feeling stream of our own ongoing experience may indeed signal exactly those moments when the participant is trying to communicate something which falls outside the boundaries of our sense of the world, that is, they signal instances where any assumed sense of intersubjectivity falters, at least momentarily. yet, because these are the very moments when one may learn new things about the participant, potentially leading to new insights, we can call these ruptures in our own ongoing feeling stream heuristic ruptures. of course, such ruptures in understanding may not mark such moments. but rather than treat such moments as annoyances to be moved beyond quickly, we here suggest the loss of mutuality may signal a need for deeper focusing in just that place, focusing on that ambiguity, thus avoiding as much as possible overriding her voice with our own. sensing intersubjective ruptures: monitoring the sense-feeling stream functionally, how can such monitoring for intrasubjective and intersubjective ruptures be accomplished? for this we need to come back to ambivalences. as suggested above, we here consider three semiotic streams (meaning stream, sense-feeling stream, reflexive stream); ambivalence can appear within any of these streams, but also as these streams seem to appear contradictory or divergent. we here focus on a tension within the sense-feeling stream, or between having some idea of what the person said, yet sensing at a latent level that it does not make sense. this ambivalence—like all others—is, to some degree, present during an ongoing interview as no one ever feels they understand everything about what the other party is saying. nonetheless, we here are especially interested in those moments where the tension grows strong. it may be at this moment that the ambivalence becomes explicitly noted as a rupture. thus, functionally, we suggest to be aware of intersubjective rupture by way of reflectively monitoring the sense-feeling stream qualitative studies, 1(1) 9 figure 3: reflective monitoring of the sense-feeling stream semiotic guiding of the interview exchange we suggest that the monitoring of the sense-feeling stream can occur through a reflective semiotic stream, drawing on various other semiotic devices to synchronically reflect on the ongoing evolving situation. the specific nature of these semiotic devices or mediators is critical to our point here: what should happen when one senses, “while we are still talking about the same thing, it feels as if we are not.” this basic scenario can be represented abstractly as follows. regulators for reflective stream: two options a) keep going (possible rationalization: it is simply a ‘bad’ question or phrasing). in this case, the professional reason wants us to be neutral and objective: avoid emotion, and if they are aroused so to be noticed, let them fade out. b) stop and focus here! in contrast to option a, in this latter case, the professional reason wants us to consider a different quality of connection to feelings, and to the ongoing interaction itself. reflective stream: sense-feeling stream: immediate experience: what was said <>what it could mean does / does not feel like participant answers the question /makes sense meta-level semiotic organizer of monitoring reflective monitoring of sense-feeling stream: sense-feeling stream: immediate experience: what was said <> what it could mean does / does not seem to answer the question keep going / stop and focus here qualitative studies, 1(1) 10 figure 4: meta-level organizing of how sense-feeling stream in monitored on the necessity of monitoring semiotic streams we thus propose to consider the movement enabled by a “stop and focus here” semiotic mediator as a core move in a research interview. it is not only fundamental for epistemological reasons, as a tool to get access to the other’s stream of experience and meaning-making. it is also fundamental for ethical reasons, as the researcher who creates the interview setting has the responsibility to not let “fall” the other out of the field of the shared understanding (abbey, 2002). but how does a researcher develop such an ability to identify ruptures, and to distance herself from the stream of meaning thanks to a “stop and focus here” tool? as any other distancing tool, it might have three main origins. it might simply come from the researcher’s retrospective analysis: the experience of ruptures called the researchers attention on the phenomenon and from that new perspective, the awareness on these situations emerges (mead, 1932). this might also have emerged through dialogue with other researchers, as dialogue can imply a change of perspective. finally, it might also be the result of the researcher’s reflection and location within a tradition of theories and meta-theoretical orientations, as we will now examine. illustration the following is a snippet of an interview conducted by the first author, used to illustrate the above outlined process of rupture in the sense-feeling stream, monitoring for those ruptures, and the novel view of the participant’s subjective experience that may be gleaned from such efforts. the participant is a 20-year-old woman, pseudonym amanda. during the interview, amanda is recounting how she and her family arrived in the united states after escaping from the anarchistic conditions that had existed in her native country—albania—after the fall of the communist government in 1990. at the time of the interview, she and her family had been living in america for four years. in her own words, she describes the situation she and her family left in albania as follows: and especially when i left here, it was in 1997... the country was in total chaos. there was no government. the government was overthrown. for a while there was complete anarchy. everybody […] had arms, they had to defend themselves. […] because […] during that time […] there was no police, […] people were doing whatever they wanted to do. and you know, […] rape usually […] was very common, and schools were closed because a lot of parents, you know, wouldn’t send, especially girls to school, because they had […] absolutely no protection. and, you know, schools were closed for four months during that time. and […] you’re at home, you can’t go out for four months. it was […] isolation, especially for girls my age. as amanda describes the high prevalence of women who were raped during the anarchistic period she had lived through in albania, i—the interviewer—was interested to know how she made sense of these horrific events, and why women had suffered so much more than men during this time. i understood the discrepancy in suffering through a sort of feminist lens, seeing these rapes and maltreatment of females in particular as stemming from a broader, societal level pattern of discrimination based on the belief that women are inferior to men. i asked: q: what... i was wondering, um, sort of about that. like, for men, were there... i was wondering, you know, were women particular targets […] or... qualitative studies, 1(1) 11 amanda replies: a: well, women are... have always been more vulnerable. and especially in societies like albania that have, you know, sort of had in their culture that women are, you know, probably not inferior but, you know, less powerful towards men. especially when it comes to the physical, to the physical side. but you know, they can’t defend themselves as men would, or you know, they don’t have the physical strength as men would. so, you know, that sort of, um, nurtures the whole feeling of superiority, i mean indirectly... even if it not direct... in this initial response, amanda seems to begin with comments that are ostensibly consistent with my own understanding of gender inequality as she links difference of treatment between the sexes to a societal level pattern of discrimination. she says, “and especially in societies like albania that have, you know, sort of had in their culture that women are, you know, probably not inferior but, you know, less powerful towards men.” however, in the next sentence of amanda’s response to me, a feeling of rupture in the sense-feeling stream begins to occur. she says, “especially when it comes to the physical, to the physical side. but you know, they can’t defend themselves as men would, or you know, they don’t have the physical strength as men would…” by saying this, amanda seems to emphasize that much of the inequality between men and women’s treatment is rooted in discrepancies in physical size and strength. her comment created a rupture in the sense feeling stream because, from my perspective, such a differential in physical strength is a characteristic of an inequality between men and women that would always exist--even in a society where the dominant belief was in equality between the sexes. i felt as if amanda was downplaying societal level inequalities between the genders that—from my perspective—heavily maintained the environment where excessive violence, and acts like rape could be differently perpetrated against women. thus, at the time, amanda’s response made sense in terms of stream 1, that is, i could understand what she was saying, but in terms of stream 2, there was a definite rupture in the sense-feeling of the moment. it is at this point in the interview where the semiotic mediation of the ongoing interaction becomes critical. using stream 3, at this moment i had two choices—either assume the question had been poorly worded and continue, or to stop and focus, trying to better understand. i chose this as a moment not to ignore, but to “stop and focus.” practically, this resulted in my asking amanda another question, one in which the aim was to clarify and understand better amanda’s sense of the causes of women’s disproportionate level of suffering, especially rape. did she think about societal level patterns of discrimination, or did she believe that physical differences in size were primarily to blame for what she and other women had experienced during the war? i ask: q: and it... i was wondering, are there other ways you think in albania that women are thought of to be quote-unquote “less strong” than men? or is it just something that is about, um, their physical abilities? amanda responds: a: no, it’s just about how, like, society cultivates the whole feeling about it. women are okay with it, that they’re... they’re viewed that way. i mean in europe they give a... a more emphasis on femininity and, like, you know, being feminine. not too muscular qualitative studies, 1(1) 12 and that kind of thing. it depends. you know, though. it’ll... it doesn’t really matter how much... how the society... well, it doesn’t really matter how you put it, like, you know, they’re physically stronger, or mentally, or that kind of thing. it all depends how a society chooses to view. and then women have... have just accepted it for the... sometimes they didn’t have a choice, and sometimes, you know, they were okay with it. so... again, the sense of rupture in the sense-feeling stream could be felt. after all, amanda didn’t seem to be negating my views in a broad sense, for in both of her answers she spoke of gender inequality as being based at the level of societal beliefs and practices. yet in both her answers she nonetheless seemed to be purposely de-emphasizing this fact—and what to me was the central issue. in this second response, her primary point seemed to be that european women understand their femininity differently than they do in america. while i understood what she was saying, i didn’t see what it had to do with the fact that women were being raped. certainly amanda was not saying that by being more comfortable with their femininity, these women also accepted the phenomenon of rape! preserving the ‘real’ amanda by highlighting these moments of rupture in the sense-feeling stream, it started to become clear that amanda was not trying to avoid my question, nor did she necessarily share different views than i in terms of the roots of the disproportionate amount of suffering females had experienced, as compared to males. at the same time, she was, however, trying to communicate two additional points. first, it wasn’t that amanda didn’t acknowledge the societal-level basis for discrimination against women, but rather, in her lived experience, the physical inequalities between the sexes had been far more salient. the act of rape is, of course, at a basic level, one person’s physical will overpowering another’s. for me, having never had the immediate contact with rape that amanda had experienced in her native country, societal-level explanations were primary. by contrast, for amanda, a societal-level basis for inequality was of secondary importance to physical strength. second, and in relation to her second response, amanda seemed to be resisting defining her own female identity through to my own “american-feminist-female identity.” perhaps, it wasn’t that amanda and i disagreed that the rape of women is wrong, and that its prevalence and acceptance is linked to a societal level reinforcement of gender inequality, but rather, that amanda was trying to communicate that the models of female identity she constructed her resistance from were different from mine. in some ways she was perhaps trying to point out that many feminists in the united states may actively resist by shunning traditional semiotic indicators of femininity, such as cosmetic use, long hair, wearing skirts, etc. by contrast, amanda in no way wanted to adopt this sense of herself. in essence, to fully answer my question, and to determine her own meaning, amanda needed to resist me at the same time that she resisted societal norms in her native albania. guiding of the interview process: ‘artists’ & ‘machines’ thus far we have considered the interview setting as framed within a semiotic and fieldtheoretic conceptualization of the interview setting, and considered the importance of not ‘losing’ the ‘real’ participant, because it is from her that we learn, and that new ideas may emerge. we have also discussed the importance of monitoring our own—as interviewers— sense-feeling or latent aspects of experience as a means to try and preserve that real person. we finally have pointed out the role of meta-level signs “keep going/stop and focus here” as qualitative studies, 1(1) 13 guiding that all important monitoring of the feeling sense of stream 2, and in turn, possible loss of intersubjectivity. in this third section of the paper, we turn more broadly to the fact that the meta-level signs that guide the researcher in his or her moment-to-moment movements during the research interview do not arise from nowhere. such guiding can be understood as reflecting still higher, more abstract discourses covering different models of knowledge construction, and especially, the researcher’s direct perception of phenomena. it is in this section that we will explore briefly the notions we believe guide these decisions, and their implications for the specific aspect of the interview research process on which we here focus. theorizing the researcher’s felt rupture our attempt to give a full status to the researcher’s experience of rupture within his sense and feeling within an interview is not a romantic stance for more empathy in research. on the contrary, it follows a theoretical and epistemological reflection about the specificities of a research situation involving two persons or more, a characteristic of social sciences. some long, yet marginalized traditions of research, have attempted to name and theorize what we have called a “stop and focus there” semiotic mediator. here we present two current reflections. in recent phenomenological reflection, authors have developed techniques to create the special sort of suspension of attention demanded by the “stop and focus here”. it requires notably a moment of suspension, and a redirection of attention from the outside, shared social reality, to the internal sense-making. although this redirection corresponds to what we describe, in this tradition the authors are interested in situations where the interviewer asks the interviewee to “stop and focus” on some experience he or she is mentioning; the researcher is not interested in his own stream of sense-making in the experience of interview (depraz, varela & vermersch, 2002). the question also been addressed by psychoanalysis under the term of “counter-transference”. counter-transference is the feeling-sense provoked within the psychoanalyst by the interpersonal situation, including the shared discourse with its ambivalences, and his perception of the variations of the feeling-sense stream of the patient. some psychoanalysts consider ruptures in their counter-transference as major technical tools. they indeed try to analyze the change in their personal stream of sense-feeling, and on this basis propose an interpretation of what is going on in the patient. the condition for such use of countertransference is the fact that the analyst has himself acquired a strong personal insight through psychoanalysis, enabling him to distinguish in his or her reaction, the part of his personal life and echoes, and the part due to the variation in the other (neyraut, 2004; quinodoz, 2003; rosenbloom, 1998; winnicott, 1958). the research interview differs from these two situations as follows: the researcher is not trying to provoke a state of suspension in the other, he is using naturally occurring ruptures, like the psychoanalyst; yet unlike the latter, he does not use this rupture to make hypotheses about the sense-feeling making of the other. rather, he uses the “stop and focus” semiotic mediator to ask a new question to the interviewee and thus reorient the shared field of experience. identifying the researcher: poet or machine? beyond these differences, the phenomenological, the psychoanalytical, and our semiotic positions obey the same principle: the attempt to theorize the perspective of the researcher as part of the meaning being created within the experience of a dialogue (see also devereux, 1967; qualitative studies, 1(1) 14 fogel, 2006). broadly speaking, such a focus itself has—more profoundly—been understood to correspond to one same meta-theoretical position, which is usually opposed to “mainstream” psychology. within mainstream psychology, there is a common emphasis, suggesting that objectivity is indeed made possible in part through the researcher remaining more or less separate from the research process, not coloring the experience with his or her thoughts, feelings or actions any more than is necessary. such a focus is, in many senses ‘mechanistic’ insofar as researchers are aiming to minimize any differences between them, as one who aims to avoid or move quickly past ambiguities that may arise within the process, and who aims to simply carry out the data collection and analytical duties with as much interpersonal consistency as possible. we here speak about something of an ‘alternative to the mainstream’, broadly speaking, reflecting more of a ‘personal-perspectival’ approach to understanding phenomena (valsiner, 1998, p. 293). it is an orientation that departs from a sense of the researcher as a totally autonomous aspect of the research process, and instead emphasizes the researcher act more as a poet than a machine, that is, as one who is personally connected to the research process, one who tolerates the ambiguities within it—and even focuses on them, insofar as they may signal important moments. one who understands his or her personal and unique insights as valuable tools in knowledge construction. general conclusions in this paper we have explored the semiotic organization of the research process in the social sciences. to do this, we have concentrated on a much used aspect of that process: the semidirective or non-directive interview. looking at the interview, we have focused on those moments where the researcher experiences a rupture in his or her ongoing latent or feeling sense of the participant’s comments. we have suggested that these may be critical moments in the process of knowledge construction, but noticing and paying attention to these moments does not simply happen, rather, it is regulated by higher-order signs, whose meaning reflects— potentially—the researcher’s immediate theoretical tradition, as well as highly abstract notions of knowledge construction and the researcher’s relation to phenomena in the social sciences, which we have for the sake of discussion termed the “poet” or the “machine”. in so making this contrast, it is not our intention to create or support yet another bifurcation in psychology. moreover, in conclusion we would like to point out that even what we here term ‘poetic’ itself is only made possible through some rather ‘mechanistic’ processes. in what we have here offered, we certainly promote some ‘mechanistic’ aspects of the researcher’s relation to phenomena—though we would caution against ignoring the changes in the feeling stream, as a ‘mechanistic’ approach to phenomena traditionally would. we suggest the creation and maintenance of the frame, and importantly, the techniques for mediation to be used for reflective distancing on the sense-feeling stream (or stream 2). in our understanding, it is only through these functional/mechanistic means—especially the decision to attend to ruptures within the feeling sense of stream 2—that we theoretically and experientially assume more of a ‘poetic’ relation to the phenomenon in question. by using these techniques, we increase our connection to the process, hopefully better understand it, and become part of the process through which new ideas do emerge. acknowledgments a preliminary version of this paper 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(2007). the metaphor of the triangle in theories of human development, human development, 50, 208-229. authors emily abbey is an assistant professor in the department of psychology at ramapo college of new jersey. working from a developmental orientation and a cultural perspective, she is generally curious about the semiotic organization of human lives, and the relationship between poetry and psychology. recently, she has published in the journals culture & psychology, estudios de psicologia, and is co-editor of a volume on microgenetic approaches titled, innovating genesis: microgenesis and the constructive mind in action (with rainer diriwächter, infoage). email: eabbey@ramapo.edu tania zittoun is professor of education at the university of neuchâtel, switzerland. she is interested in people’s changes through their interactions with symbolic objects and with other people. she is associate editor of culture & psychology, and has recently published in human development and the international journal for psychological and behavioral science. she is the author of the book transitions: development through symbolic resources, and of two other books on the institutional and semiotic mediations of youth and adult transitions. email: tania.zittoun@unine.ch qualitative studies vol. 8, no. 1, 2023, pp. 363-387 issn 1903-7031 critical reflections on collaborative writing: editorial experiments in fostering equitable dialogue shona mcintosh1 & sarah ruth lillo kang 2 1 department of education, university of bath, claverton down, ba2 7ay, bath, somerset, united kingdom 2 department of leadership, middle, and secondary education, southeast missouri state university, scully 244, one university plaza, cape girardeau, mo, 63119, usa drawing on our experience of creating an innovative co-edited book form, we consider the risks and possibilities of experimentation in high-stakes writing and editorial work. writing and editing conventions that value parsimony, individuality and objectivity can result in sparse writing styles that disconnect authors from their texts. in applied disciplines, such as education, academic writing can be a barrier to communication with practitioners and fail to connect research to practice. to foster a connection, academics, educators, practitioners and alumni were grouped to undertake dialogue-centred collaborative writing about equitable engagement in global citizenship education. we found that “critical and liberating dialogue” (freire, 1993, p. 39) in this third space (bhabha, 1994) challenged dominant writing conventions, and invited critical consideration of liminalities beyond the self as writing became linked to knowing differently. with large parts presented in dialogue format, our article reflects on the editorial challenges and pleasures of fostering dialogic, collaborative writing for equity. keywords: dialogic writing; experimental; critical reflection; academic writing; equitable editorial practices https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9223-3949 https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7207-1252 s. mcintosh & s. r. lillo kang: critical reflections on collaborative writing qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 363-387 ©2023 364 buckle your seatbelts, you’re in for a different style of writing shona: hello. i’m shona. sarah: and i’m sarah. shona: we’re delighted to contribute to this special issue by co-writing a paper that models a method of foregrounding dialogue in text. we do so because dialogue, though central in the verbal exchanges underpinning academic knowledge production, rarely appears in academic writing itself. sarah: we’re not claiming that we invented the inclusion of dialogue in academic writing. we see verbatim quoting in several forms already. for instance, the literature is regularly quoted, acknowledging the unique perspectives of given scholars. study participants are also directly quoted– an act that implicitly recognizes the importance of individuals’ language and perspectives. yet there are far fewer examples of academic pieces where co-authors speak directly to one another in the text. we see great value in dialogue, both on and off the page. shona: in this article we critically explore the potential of dialogue. for example, we see dialogue as a way to illustrate divergent perspectives, something that narrative writing masks. conventional academic narrative presents ideas as a consensus, presenting a false sense of value-free neutrality (bhavani, 1993). while co-authors may have negotiated phrasing, there are few opportunities for readers to view the ways thinking may have differed. in other words, academic writing traditions can disconnect the authorial textual voice from the often more tentative authorial verbal explorations that produce the text. sarah: we also see dialogue as a potential way to disrupt patterns of privilege. for instance, in educational research, traditional academic writing can reinforce power hierarchies between scholars and practitioners, limiting participation in knowledge production to those that “know the rules” of academic writing in a field where permissible writing is narrowly defined (hartley, 2008). shona: some consider rigidly conventional writing as “lumpy, heavy and pretentious” (badley, 2016, p. 514). s. mcintosh & s. r. lillo kang: critical reflections on collaborative writing qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 363-387 ©2023 365 sarah: but we see dialogue, both in the creation of writing and in the product, as a way to engage in the deliberate equity work that freire (2012) argues for. his dialogic approaches emphasise the importance of deep and critical listening, of people coming together to unearth inequities and of collaboratively working towards new solutions. shona: we recently engaged in an experimental collaborative and dialogic writing project that attempted to address both these areas. while it was certainly not without challenges or flaws, we saw considerable promise worth sharing. we write as coeditors of a book about global citizenship education (gce) that purposefully aimed to connect academics and practitioners researching and working in this area, groups that generally work separately from each other. we set out to minimise disconnects across theory/practice silos and found critical dialogue a helpful tool to make room for plural perspectives. we wanted to ensure that academic knowledge, which sat comfortably in a published book, did not dominate the practical knowledge of educators, unused to academic conventions. sarah: readers, you’ll see that we move back and forth between more conventional narrative sections and dialogue. this mirrors what happened in the book. the conversational tone purposely departs from academic writing and moves towards an exploratory new space. the ideas in the narrative sections illustrate points of consensus between us. they also serve important organisational purposes, helping readers by contextualising, analysing or framing dialogue sections, a challenge we discuss more fully later in the article. shona: this format means we can also present our own perspectives by attributing our words to our names. and we can engage in textual conversation, with one another or talk directly to you, the reader. not only does this model the technique we developed in the book, but it illustrates how collaborative writing need not be presented as consensus. we stand by our words, literally, attaching our names to passages that reflect our perspectives. nevertheless, the final written dialogues were edited and refined for textual flow and have been crafted for presentation in an academic journal. inevitably, our perspectives have also shifted in response to one another through writing this way. even so, many closely reflect real-time conversations sarah and i s. mcintosh & s. r. lillo kang: critical reflections on collaborative writing qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 363-387 ©2023 366 had with one another over skype, where we alternated between writing and discussing our ideas aloud. sarah: we realise that you might find it disorienting to have dialogue in places you are accustomed to having narrative. readers might crave traditional literature reviews, for instance, but we embed our references into conversations throughout. as unusual as it might be, there is a precedence for centring on dialogue. we draw on the experimental work of others who have been writing off the beaten track (inter alia lillis, 2011; childers et al., 2013; handforth & taylor, 2016) and acknowledge the work of qualitative methods journals, such as this one and qualitative inquiry for instance, that provide spaces for experimental academic writing. please bear with the discomfort of the unfamiliar and reflect with us on the potential these approaches present. shona: in the book project, we saw how surfacing dialogue enabled contributors to better understand their own and others’ perspectives, resulting in writing that informed equitable pursuits of gce and social justice practices. new, equitable, spaces for knowledge-sharing emerged. while the work in the book brought benefits such as new ways to approach equitable gce, the process of bringing it into being relied on a great deal of synchronous and asynchronous behind-the-scenes editorial work with chapter groups. this was time-consuming, tiring, frustrating at times, and editorially challenging. we offer our reflections on the process to you without suggesting we have solved all the issues it has presented. sarah: interestingly, though not altogether surprisingly, the dialogues, verbal and textual, that we had as editors and as co-authors were instrumental in the final form of the book and of this paper, and our experiment shaped our understanding of our respective perspectives and raised questions about equity and editorial practices in conventional academic writing. we continue this article with contextual information about our book and positionalities. we present the origins of the book and catalysts for its eventual form. we reflect on the behindthe-scenes dialogues amongst contributors while preparing to write then transition into the challenges with representing those dialogues in writing. finally, we end by exploring the s. mcintosh & s. r. lillo kang: critical reflections on collaborative writing qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 363-387 ©2023 367 ways that we, as editors, navigated the tensions of producing unconventional writing in a sector with pervasive normative conventions. throughout this paper, we use dialogue interspersed with narrative, the former relating to individual perspectives and the latter for presenting shared views. we hope that the paper prompts you to reflect on the potentials of unconventional academic writing in your own field. the dialogic book project the book we centre on, enacting equitable global citizenship education in schools: lessons from dialogue between research and practice (lillo kang & mcintosh, 2023)), intentionally sits at the knowledge intersections of academia and primary/secondary schools, with contributors and audiences from both domains. the text brings together thirty-six authors and two editors from six continents with a shared interest in promoting equitable gce in schools. contributors from a range of professional backgrounds include academics from several disciplines, primary/secondary educators, young climate activists, school administrators, school counsellors, educational consultants, and researchers. reaching across researcher/practitioner silos was an intentional strategy to connect different perspectives on gce. the book is divided into two parts; part one focuses on dismantling normative understandings of gce (shona was the part one lead editor) and part two focuses on optimising gce practices through dialogic exchange (sarah was the part two lead editor). each part included six to seven contributor chapters and one cross-thematic dialogue chapter. the book also contained an introduction and conclusion. while a two-part book with an introduction and conclusion may sound conventional, we included dialogue in the text to mirror the dialogic processes that were occurring behind the scenes as each co-authored chapter was constructed. the cross-silo chapter teams, based on different specialisms, spanned geographic, language and/or professional divides; authors, in most cases, did not previously know one another. we challenged them to use dialogue to critically explore provocations, which we wrote to reflect specific gce expertise, and to capture those conversations in their chapters. s. mcintosh & s. r. lillo kang: critical reflections on collaborative writing qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 363-387 ©2023 368 the resulting chapters were atypical in that they were multi-genre in nature, with a mix of narrative writing and script-style dialogues. contributors were asked to include explicit positionality statements and write using the first person. after contributor chapters were written, we, editors, identified cross-cutting themes from each part and invited relevant contributors to engage in further writing around those. the result was editor-curated, scriptstyle dialogue chapters to end part one and part two. dialogue was further infused into the introductory and concluding chapters, giving readers insights into the editorial conversations that framed the book. we saw the approach as an experiment in purposeful dialogue, drawing on freire’s (2012) promotion of liberatory dialogic practices. we hoped, as freire (2012) noted, that such interactions might enable contributors to “‘re-consider,’ through the ‘considerations’ of others,” (p.112). these re-considerations emerged through generative intersections in third spaces (bhabha, 1994) and opened expansive possibilities for connecting with others. by exploring beyond established boundaries of self/other into liminal spaces, where space is meant in the sense of unfamiliar territory, we find “the third space [which] is a challenge to the limits of the self” (bhabha, 2011, p. 10). in the book, authors experienced this challenge through dialogue between themselves and with us; they encountered new viewpoints that became part of their own. in this way, individuals’ positions frayed a little at the edges, softening to allow an expansion that accommodated others’. this personally expansive process, supported through liberatory dialogue, was neither academic nor non-academic, producing a hybrid where academic and practitioner contributions were presented as equally valuable. this equity, between two often separate domains, pushes against exclusionary hierarchical conventions, particularly in education, that values academic above practicebased knowledge. our positionalities as editors who are both also qualitative researchers, we feel it is imperative to acknowledge our positionalities and practice reflexivity through positionality statements, as advocated by many including merriam and tisdell (2016). in the book project, while not a formal study, we asked all contributors to critically reflect on their respective upbringings, educational s. mcintosh & s. r. lillo kang: critical reflections on collaborative writing qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 363-387 ©2023 369 backgrounds, experiences, and contexts, making these core influences visible within their chapters. we offer the same transparency for readers here as well. shona: my work in education spans both teaching and research, firstly as a secondary school teacher, in london and spain, then as an academic in the uk. my research in international education focuses on learning relationships as potent sites for social transformation and i am currently developing methodologies for epistemic justice. my background makes me aware of the disconnect between educational research and practice but i saw, in our book, potential for academic and practitioner voices to connect with each others’ knowledge of gce. i also recognised the ongoing, inspiring, open and challenging conversations with sarah as invaluable for developing my understanding of the potential of equity through dialogue. sarah: meanwhile, i am an american teacher educator and researcher. i currently teach preservice and practising teachers at a university in the usa. much like shona, i began my teaching career as a secondary english educator, with experiences in the usa, south korea, and uganda. my undergraduate, master’s, and doctoral degrees all come from equity-oriented programs in the usa, programs that equipped me to push boundaries of the status quo. most of my research is qualitative in nature and focuses on elevating the voices and experiences of educators. shona and i really connected over our shared interest in work at the intersections of academia and practitioner spaces. origin story although the book’s final structure is described above, here we look back at its evolution to surface the emergent nature of developing publications. we reflect on catalysts for particular choices that led us away from writing norms. by looking at the rationales behind our decisions, we are better able to reflect on the possibilities of the eventual form of our book. we began the book project, as many editors do, with a vision and a call for contributors. we had decided we wanted a dialogic (freire, 2012) project that included s. mcintosh & s. r. lillo kang: critical reflections on collaborative writing qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 363-387 ©2023 370 academics and practitioners working together towards critical gce in primary and secondary schools, intentionally challenging entrenched binaries. our initial call inviting potential authors to submit proposals for chapters, included openness to unconventional styles (such as using poetry or comics to explore gce). initially, we were primarily concerned with presenting diverse perspectives alongside each other, creating a selection of viewpoints informed by differing contexts and expertise. we imagined opportunities for direct conversations across contributors in dialogue chapters at the end of thematic sections and asked in our call that all contributors be open to these further sorts of dialogic elements. once we had a balanced contributor list and a detailed enough vision, we began our proposal process with routledge. these publisher conversations catalysed our first major shifts. routledge was quite interested in a book with both academic and practitioner contributors. a routledge editor oriented us towards bhabha’s (1994) concept of third space, a resonant metaphor that we saw had potential for work at academic/practitioner intersections. the routledge critical global citizenship in education series editor, carlos torres, had recently included a book with scripted dialogue (bosio, 2021), though that text was written in an interviewer-interviewee style. torres was excited about our application of the freirean dialogic. routledge representatives initially asked us to consider a two-volume collection, which would have allowed all our wide-ranging contributors to be involved. but as the contracting process continued, routledge asked us to scale back our plans to a single volume with a fairly firm upper word and chapter limit. this challenge catalysed our eventual innovations. sarah: readers, we knew we were at a crossroads. we didn’t want to cut contributors, which went against our vision for bringing together a wide range of authors. instead, we got creative, developing the idea of contributor mash ups. shona and i met (on skype) with all the contributor proposals in front of us and, using knowledge and bios, we matched diverse authors into chapter teams. we wrote specific provocations for each chapter then asked contributors if they would be willing to experiment with something more directly dialogical with someone they didn’t know. a few s. mcintosh & s. r. lillo kang: critical reflections on collaborative writing qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 363-387 ©2023 371 contributors decided not to continue with the project, but, shockingly, nearly all our initial contributors were willing. shona: the unusual approach catalysed not just the new vision for the book but also for our editorial roles. sarah: as we began to play with this new vision, we recognised its better fit for our theoretical aims. from the outset, we valued freire’s emphasis on dialogue as a mechanism for understanding, but our original proposal did not fully centralise dialogue. according to freire (2012), you can’t force someone’s mind to change, or as he puts it “unveil the world for another” (169); one has to discover or reconceptualize one’s ideas in dialogue with another. the fortunate emergence of this collaborative form of writing seemed an exciting way to encourage equitable discussions whilst downplaying our editorial powers. shona: of course, those author/editor power dynamics, something we felt sat uneasily in a project focused on equity, were still there but we became aware of the potential for exploration of the third space in something akin to an ontology of immanence (st. pierre, 2021); we committed to a bold experiment in unfolding emergent knowledge. re-envisioning collaboration: dialogues behind the scenes interested contributors began engaging directly with a specific aspect of gce with someone in a completely different context (in most cases, someone they had not previously known). these collaborations were neither academicnor practitioner-led, developing in/towards a third space. the cultures of collaboration in each respective sphere led to norms that were simultaneously helpful and problematic in shaping our contributors’ writing. despite established collaborative academic publishing traditions, particularly in the social sciences, guides to academic writing promote objectivity, parsimony and formality within a fairly rigid range of acceptable structures for presenting research knowledge (hartley, 2008). while these conventions were familiar to our academic contributors, we were wary of the effect that this would have on practitioner contributors if they felt unable to name their world (freire, 2012); in other words, if academic knowledge was perceived as dominant, how could alternative knowledge have equal credence? the deliberate aim of s. mcintosh & s. r. lillo kang: critical reflections on collaborative writing qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 363-387 ©2023 372 using dialogue was to unsettle conventions of dominant knowledge that privilege educational researchers’ knowledge over practitioners’. we thought that, as editors, we could foster an egalitarian co-author relationship to support dialogic explorations, whilst simultaneously realising we could not escape editorial authority entirely. meanwhile, in practitioner realms, we know that educators often collaborate around practical problems, like curricular design, but are encouraged towards consensus instead of critically questioning practices that maintain power hierarchies. we found useful freire’s (2012) description of cooperative dialogue: cooperation, as a characteristic of dialogic action which occurs only among subjects (who may, however, have diverse levels of functions and thus of responsibility) can only be achieved through communication. dialogue, as essential communication, must underlie any cooperation (…) dialogue does not impose, does not manipulate, does not domesticate, does not ‘sloganize.’ (…) let me re-emphasize that posing reality as a problem…means critical analysis of a problematic reality. (p.168) we felt that forays into cooperative dialogue held potential for equitable connection of knowledges and the sort of radical co-presences (stein, 2015) that we hoped would stimulate cooperative criticality. however, there was wariness from practitioners and academics alike about the risks involved. as freire (2012) explained, “[c]oncepts such as unity, organisation, and struggle are immediately labelled as dangerous. in fact, of course, these concepts are dangerous to the oppressors for their realisation is necessary to actions of liberation” (p.141). freire helps us think about two key points here. firstly, in the context of this article, the oppressors, representing those with power to fully express themselves as human while unjustly limiting that power in others, is tied up with the power to write for an academic audience and, therefore something that gave the academic contributors more authority. secondly, bringing contributors together in dialogue format not only flattened that power hierarchy but also deliberately worked counter to academic individualism and conventions in a publication industry that privileges particular knowledges. this might not be liberation but we were intent on making space for other knowledges to sit alongside those privileged academic narratives about gce. s. mcintosh & s. r. lillo kang: critical reflections on collaborative writing qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 363-387 ©2023 373 we do not wish to overclaim the effect of the book on its contributors and ourselves. we have evidence, from informal conversations and authors’ written comments, that many experienced a shift towards expanded perspectives through their dialogues. however, within the wider sector of academic publishing, to which this special issue speaks, we are aware that this is a struggle against entrenched and hierarchical practices. shona: we saw dialogues as essential in avoiding the reproduction of dominant editor/author hierarchies, which made centralising collaborative relationships crucial. we framed all chapter contributors, academics and practitioners alike, as experts in the chapter sub-topics. we challenged contributors to not only exchange perspectives, but also to question underlying assumptions in one another’s views, cultivating relationships that embraced critical introspection. we did so to encourage “[i]ndividuals who were submerged in reality, merely feeling their needs, [to] emerge from reality and perceive the causes of their needs” (freire, 2012, p. 117). we held that, through dialogue, they could better understand both their own views and expand them to include vastly different contexts and world views. sarah: this was no small ask though, since most contributors did not know each other. contributors were engaged in conversations, not interviews, but nonetheless we saw some of what maxwell (2013) described as negotiated relationships based on a trusting partnership. most chapter groups quickly realised that they needed to understand one another’s backgrounds and build rapport before launching into critical work. in-person meetings were not an option with contributors geographically distant and in the midst of covid-19 travel restrictions. instead, traditional face-to-face interactions were moved to digital platforms. although less than ideal, most teams started getting to know each other, sharing ideas through video and audio calls before writing began. shona: ideas developed more smoothly in some chapters than others. criticality was differently experienced across the groups. at some points, collaborative tensions (or lack thereof) prompted authors forwards, and in some moments the tensions impeded s. mcintosh & s. r. lillo kang: critical reflections on collaborative writing qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 363-387 ©2023 374 the process. additional tensions arose as groups worked through differences in meanings and language. sarah: language was an interesting mediating factor. we had numerous contributors who worked in english despite it not being their first language. even when contributors shared a first language, there were colloquialisms and idiosyncrasies specific to their cultural contexts and professional backgrounds. we even saw this in conversations with each other as editors, where our u.s. and u.k. origins were reflected in our language and interpretations. contributors, therefore, needed extra time to establish connections and understand one another’s words and meanings. but one thing i thought was so interesting in this process was that disconnects often highlighted different interpretations and ways of seeing. for example, i was in a chapter team with another academic and a practitioner. together, we looked at the role of explicit curriculum in shaping practice. almost immediately, the differences in our curricular-oriented language were very clear, reflecting significant differences in the ways we respectively viewed curricular innovations and reforms. this sort of dissonance became the most interesting part of our conversations and was ultimately what we centred much of our writing on. shona: i see that dissonance as generative of insight but it had to emerge from places of trust. groups, composed of people with real emotions, had varying levels of comfort with these collaborations and there was potential for group dynamics to be unsettled if, for example, one person insisted on seeing things their way and moved unthinkingly into the conventional “lead” (dominant) author role. while a traditional lead author’s guidance in navigating the writing process and group logistics can be valuable, we wanted to discourage groups from letting one person’s voice overshadow their peers’ perspectives. indeed, one practitioner i worked with felt imposter syndrome in his group of academics, and only overcame it with reassurance from me and his coauthors that his perspectives were equally important. without this level of sensitivity for each other, the chapter would have floundered. for this kind of writing to work therefore, time and space must be made for trust to develop. s. mcintosh & s. r. lillo kang: critical reflections on collaborative writing qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 363-387 ©2023 375 sarah: that trust must exist between contributors and editors as well. we recognized that in conventional academic systems the “relationship of authors and editors may be at the origin of experiences of power and suffering” (roth, 2002, p.217). we continually reflected on how to keep our editorial powers in check and worked to give teams space to collaborate organically. while we could not completely remove ourselves, we were especially dedicated to letting multiple perspectives arise. to the degree possible, which we discuss more fully below, we tried to give contributors room to discover ways to collaborate and explore ways to capture their interactions in writing. shona: indeed, we began seeing the reflections of these dialogues in their emerging writing as continued claims to the valence of their perspectives. however, representing those behind-the-scenes dialogues on the page took us into new writing territory. representing dialogues in writing in this section we attempt to make visible the challenges we encountered as we tried to capture the dialogic practices we just described in writing. you will see that thinking about how to represent dialogues in writing was entangled with various ongoing off-page, spoken dialogues. we raise questions about the mechanics of writing as well as how our view of dialogue broadened and informed the final text. we acknowledge the messiness of writing together, as a group from varied backgrounds, and engage with the potential and challenges we experienced with this sort of writing. sarah: we knew, as editors, we had to be clear with our contributors about what we wanted although, we freely admit, we were building the proverbial plane as we were flying with regards to writing style. we found we could be very clear with contributors what our overall goals were, but the meandering path to the final product was much less defined. while dialogue was central in our proposal, we did not have a precise stepby-step plan for how to take spoken dialogues to the page. we knew it was going to be a real challenge, recognizing that spoken and written dialogues accomplish different work, as do more traditional narrative forms. we wanted to capture, in some sort of genuine way, the nuances of communication. yet we both anticipated and then s. mcintosh & s. r. lillo kang: critical reflections on collaborative writing qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 363-387 ©2023 376 experienced the challenge of shifting oral to written words (rubin & rubin, 2012). shona: we looked for models of dialogues in academic writing. for example, in academic contexts, particularly the social sciences, examples of collegiate or dialogic writing exist (hartley, 2008), though are largely written in the third person, as if all contributors were of one mind. although verbal and textual dialogues contribute to the development of what is considered conventional academic writing, we felt the academic convention of expressing consensus had no place in a book that aimed to connect different perspectives. sarah: we looked at other examples, like bosio’s (2021) book. bosio’s text had large sections of transcript where he interviewed important thinkers and theorists. this text, in the same routledge book series as ours, showed some openness to extended sections of printed dialogue in an academic text. or handforth and taylor (2019)’s text, which modelled ways of showing individual versus shared thoughts through stylistic features. they used different fonts to visually demonstrate points of view. shona: for us, seeing authors who “interrupt [their] narrative to exchange dialog (sic.)” (chiders et al. 2013, p. 508), showed us a non-conventional way for different perspectives to sit in the same writing space without one dominating over another. i saw in purposeful transgression of academic norms (childers et al., 2013) that the play script form could accommodate this. sarah: while open to forays into unconventional territory, we recognized that, because the book was being published as part of a scholarly series, we had to meet publishers’ expectations about consistency, of style and quality of writing for instance, or risk not being published. so we agreed on some basics that we felt would meet these expectations. we eventually settled on american spellings and grammar. we encouraged our contributors to explicitly state their positions at the start of their chapter, to come forward and ‘greet’ the readers. we asked them to situate their knowledge clearly, showing who was talking by using the first person and names. this was not easy for contributors and nearly all chapter teams experimented around ways to show where their thoughts came together or diverged when were they speaking as an “i” or when as a “we” on topics of shared interest? the most successful s. mcintosh & s. r. lillo kang: critical reflections on collaborative writing qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 363-387 ©2023 377 attempts seemed to use the narrative sections to show alignment and the scripted dialogue sections to denote individual perspectives. shona: logistical challenges posed by cross-time zone communication prompted some teams to employ asynchronous means such as emails and collaborative documents with comment functions. early verbal dialogues with and between groups were augmented by written dialogues, using google documents to draft chapters. we began to expand our boundaried conception of what dialogue is and what it could do. sarah: contributors and editors strategically used google’s comment feature to pose questions and respond to each other. these asynchronous marginal dialogues developed as juxtapositional hybrid spaces, between the tentative spoken and ‘concrete’ written, and as alternatives to dense academic language (lillis, 2011). shona: the use of comments are common in drafts of academic papers, allowing authors’ responses to text in progress, but habitually removed prior to submission (lillis, 2011). once erased, the final publication conceals evidence of constructive cooperation and hides the authors’ persona, creating a distance, valued in traditional writing as a marker of scientific objectivity. but that objectivity, which haraway (1988) refers to as the god trick, also fails to communicate in ways language is used in life (lillis, 2011) and is partly responsible for maintaining a distance between research and practice. sarah: we had embarked on the book with the aim of dismantling distance between groups of people working in gce, committed to the potential of freirean dialogue. a strength of dialogue is deliberately avoiding that antidialogical action (freire, 2012) that asserts one view over others and, so, oppresses, edging some voices (and knowers) out of valued epistemic (academic) spaces. but representing such dialogue on the page poses stylistic challenges. spoken dialogue lacks many of the traditional organisational structures present in texts and we struggled to replicate textual signposts and recreate the work done by things like paragraph breaks or headers. shona: on top of that, we couldn’t replicate the flow of spoken dialogues in natural conversation which often respond to physical cues like body language, gestural and facial movements and tonal shifts in inflection and register. we found ourselves s. mcintosh & s. r. lillo kang: critical reflections on collaborative writing qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 363-387 ©2023 378 grappling with questions like “how do we keep readers engaged and following the logic of the conversation?” perhaps, as a reader of this article you have wondered where is this going? what is coming next? i felt it even while writing this! we all had to continually renegotiate what writing in dialogue was like when it followed neither academic nor practitioner conventions, especially considering our contributors’ varied publishing experiences. sarah: it was interesting that this posed different challenges for our academic and practitioner contributors respectively. many of our academics, who were used to writing in a-personal ways, struggled a lot with first person writing while our practitioner contributors often had less experience in critical practices. though the dialogic elements of the project fostered first-person style, it was important that we modelled a respectful, critical relationship to show it was safe to question one another’s ideas, and everyone’s knowledge was valuable. added to countless comments, video conferences and emails, i even recorded video feedback for teams to watch in their own time. shona: i also think that chapter organisation around provocations was helpful in purposefully re-representing authors’ familiar topics as subjects for “critical analysis of a problematic reality” (freire, 2012, p. 168). like you, i found video conferences useful, especially when authors struggled to be critical, to keep at it, to write in dialogue. we could offer reassuring support as well as examples of how others had done it. sarah: that tension, to both reassure contributors and ensure a consistent text, whilst straying from the beaten track made us, and our contributors, simultaneously excited and nervous. as we continued to coach and model thought processes, we saw more and more examples of our contributors questioning one another directly and moving toward more critical discussions. shona: but experimentation with text that is neither fully verbal or written dialogue, but deliberately constructed to mimic and read like a conversation, resulted in something neither academic nor un-academic, neither synchronous nor asynchronous. it was a hybrid, recognisable but with uncertain significance (bhabha, 2011) in each sphere. s. mcintosh & s. r. lillo kang: critical reflections on collaborative writing qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 363-387 ©2023 379 that there could be “equality in difference” (bhabha, 2011, p. 14) rather than oppression of some knowers and perspectives because of difference, was only possible in this third space, where multiple voices could equally assert their legitimacy. sarah: it may be uncomfortable to see gaps in our understandings or ways that our perspectives might be clouded by a particular privilege, but these uncomfortable conversations were exactly why we all wanted to engage in this sort of work. we, as editors, have come to understand each other’s perspectives well enough to venture beyond the book project and share this writing style with an academic audience. in addition, it has prompted us to critically reflect on the power of editors to elevate a broader range of perspectives. editorial dialogues: the challenges of working against/amidst conventions this section considers the generative tensions that we identified during this project, as well as their potential and limitations, along with editorial choices that, although not without risk, resulted in what we think offer liberatory and equitable spaces open to alternatives to dominant knowledge production practices. throughout, we critically reflect on the effect of the push and pull we experienced between the conventional and unconventional and how this shaped our experience. editors in academic contexts have considerable authority and play both mediating and gatekeeping roles, tending to be white and male, according to feeney (2015). they work within dominant knowledge systems as custodians (scott, 2019) that assert “typically” (hartley, 2008, p. 3) acceptable writing conventions, conferring legitimacy on academic writing with the power to “marginalise, silence or erase alternative ways of knowing” (scott, 2019, p. 140). editors have the potential to set the agenda for what matters and can select, change, cut and rearrange authors’ text to fit their publication’s aims. they work with the opinions of reviewers, recruited sometimes from personal networks (feeney et al., 2019), whose suggested alterations to articles under review have the power to secure publication (roth, 2002) that academics depend on for their livelihood (hartley, 2008). though privy to the requirements of the editorial boards or academic publishing houses, still dominated by s. mcintosh & s. r. lillo kang: critical reflections on collaborative writing qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 363-387 ©2023 380 the usa and the uk (cummings & hoebink, 2017), editors' key role is ensuring authors’ writing meet these requirements. sarah: we continually grappled with how to perform some of the inescapable and important responsibilities of editing while avoiding some of the power traps described above. we also found ourselves navigating how to do these things in the context of industries with clearly defined norms and ingrained hierarchies. we still had conventional editor responsibilities like securing a contract, liaising with publishers and contributors, keeping to a timeframe, and ensuring the text ultimately felt unified. but some of these tasks, in the context of an atypical book, were challenging to manoeuvre. shona: for example, when we initially sought a contract, we found that our vision fell outside the publisher’s conventional categorizations for texts—practitioner or academic. we felt strongly we were doing something both/and, not either/or. a lot of our early discussions with one another explored whether the book would actually connect across those silos, and whether we had too much of a lean towards meeting academic conventions. even before we made a case for a hybrid audience to the publisher, we had to question the feasibility of something new within acceptable publishing norms. sarah: even once our unconventional project was contracted, we still constantly had to navigate conventional pressures. for instance, no matter how much we hoped this would be a jointly constructed project with our contributors, the reality was that this was still an enactment of our vision—a vision we committed to publishers before most contributor dialogues took place. the vision was pliable and evolving, but we as editors cannot deny we were a heavy guiding force within it. as they talked, we did too. and that had an influence. shona: our editorial dialogues were ongoing, both synchronously through weekly video calls and asynchronously by email and through shared digital documents. they were central to our navigating the tensions between contributor freedom and meeting the consistency demanded by publication conventions. s. mcintosh & s. r. lillo kang: critical reflections on collaborative writing qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 363-387 ©2023 381 sarah: we talked constantly as the project evolved! we have joked many times about how we have come to share the same brain. but really, i think it’s more that we can anticipate the types of questions the other will pose and the perspectives we each bring to challenges. how many times did we stop and ask one another, “what do you mean by x?” shona: this was part of the process of unpacking terms, re-reconsidering (freire, 2012) assumptions we had continually taken for granted. here, as in the book, some of that stayed in oral conversations and some ended up being integrated in the writing. sarah: we often wondered how our different intended audiences would receive the book. would our educator audiences find the sorts of pragmatic pieces they are accustomed to in practitioner-aimed texts? we asked every chapter team to be sure to end their chapters by imagining their chapter’s life with its readers. but was that enough? would our academic audiences take empirically grounded perspectives seriously if they were presented as dialogues instead of the conventional methods-resultsdiscussion format? would they respect the knowledge of non-academic contributors? shona: do you remember i told you that an esteemed colleague had quietly informed me that a book “for practitioners” wouldn’t be as highly regarded as an “academic” book? i worried that what we were doing would be poorly received as well as worrying whether practitioners would engage with the book. this academic-practitioner binary illustrates structural conventions actively separating knowledges, creating an abyssal line (de sousa santos, 2018) that establishes hierarchies and favours dominant (western, capitalist) knowledge practices. but it reinforced our resolve to overcome the disconnect between the two. sarah: i felt always aware of the simultaneous push towards exploring this third space and the pull back towards the safe knowns of conventional writing. shona: we often found ourselves in dialogue between these spaces, in our conversations with each other more than with contributors: going between the (in)applicability of the dialogue format for educators and academics, for different audiences and purposes. s. mcintosh & s. r. lillo kang: critical reflections on collaborative writing qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 363-387 ©2023 382 sarah: it is interesting to see the parallels between the tensions we navigated writing the book and the tensions we found drafting this article. writing this article was so much more difficult than we imagined. initially, we thought we could model what we did in the book. but our use of dialogue here feels completely different. in the book, we used dialogue to highlight dissonance in perspectives. the book was a space for that. this paper is a different space again. we do far more talking directly to the reader, which was not something we did as much in the book. perhaps because here we have a clearer picture of our audience– academics interested in a special issue on writing differently. shona: and even while we have been writing this, there have been background voices internal (ours) and external (si reviewer and editors) making demands. showing our evolving thoughts in dialogue format does not make visible all the shifts in our thinking in response to them. the text here also presents a fairly coherent expression of a solid perspective which differs greatly from our fluctuating verbal conversations. sarah: i also think at moments we liked to pretend that conventions didn’t exist (in the book and in this article alike). but that conventional backdrop always loomed, especially for those of us who have been trained in conventional academic writing practices. even after numerous reassurances from publishers (in the book) and from the guest editors (in this special issue) that unconventional approaches were welcome, we still continually found ourselves asking, “what will a reader be expecting?” we felt this all the more in writing an article for a peer-reviewed academic journal, a genre of writing with far more conventional rules than a book project. shona: that push and pull was something we had to let sit with us through both projects. and while those tensions have been constant in our conversations about this paper, we have noticed how they supported changes in our ways of connecting. sarah: after so many hours of dialogue, we have developed a lot of aligned thinking, even while we both bring our unique perspectives and mirror the book process where dialogues offer spaces to show connections and differences. shona, after as much work and thinking around this as we’ve done, you and i almost at times speak as one voice (even as we write side by side… in real time… over skype). s. mcintosh & s. r. lillo kang: critical reflections on collaborative writing qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 363-387 ©2023 383 shona: breakfast time for you; afternoon tea time for me! the way we are now writing, sarah, is possible because of those hours of spoken dialogue. i have come to see the dialogue on the page as a fossilised record of those vibrant dialogues that generate knowledges. sarah: absolutely. i think in both the book and this article, dialogue allows a reader to be a proverbial fly on the wall in conversations between people with mutual interests and distinct expertise in topics. shona: i suppose now i’m left asking what the value of this is, to academic readers or practitioners. is it ultimately only beneficial to those present when/where the dialogues take place? sarah: i certainly hope not! the authors engaged in the dialogues definitely changed through the process, as was reiterated numerous times by contributors in follow up communications about their book experience. but i think there is great value in centralising the words of individuals in context, to understand the particularities of their unique perspectives and the implications of these. offering such context enables readers to reflect on transferability (lincoln & guba, 1985). is this not after all an underlying premise of qualitative research? shona: i agree and might add that understanding others, through dialogue, generates insights into lives beyond our own and that this idea is central to gce. maybe what i am coming to understand with you is that those silos we initially identified were partly maintained by academic writing conventions; that conventional ways of conveying academic knowledge about educational practice actually sidestep dialogue. and it now feels odd to me that dialogue, so fundamental to humans’ being, is largely absent from the forms of writing that are used to convey new knowledge about humans’ learning. s. mcintosh & s. r. lillo kang: critical reflections on collaborative writing qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 363-387 ©2023 384 concluding thoughts this paper has presented our attempt to overcome the distances that conventional academic writing establishes between writers and readers. even as we wrote, we revisited and reframed our memories of the gce book; we were challenged to re-present to you, the reader, key things we had learned from all those dialogues. but there is a risk in deliberately avoiding dense prose and conventions that dominate academic writing: we make ourselves vulnerable to views that what we know matters less because of how we present it. nevertheless, we stand by our initial assertion that this way of writing – and editing – has huge potential to include knowledges that are less commonly visible in academic publications, and we invite you to find spaces for equitable collaborative writing in your field. s. mcintosh & s. r. lillo kang: critical reflections on collaborative writing qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 363-387 ©2023 385 references badley, g.f. 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(2015). mapping global citizenship. journal of college and character. 16(4), 242-252. https://doi.org/10.1080/2194587x.2015.1091361 https://doi.org/10.2307/3178066 https://doi.org/10.1177%2f1474022211398106 https://doi.org/10.1023/a:1016030212572 https://doi.org/10.1111/issj.12219 https://doi.org/10.1177/1077800420939133 https://doi.org/10.1080/2194587x.2015.1091361 s. mcintosh & s. r. lillo kang: critical reflections on collaborative writing qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 363-387 ©2023 387 acknowledgements our perspectives on this topic were heavily shaped by the efforts of our amazing book contributors whose passions, creativity and willingness to try something unknown allowed us to explore unconventional writing. thanks to tristan bunnell, young jae chang, kimberley daly, richard dean eaton, hesham elnager, virginia araceli feliz, angela gascho, rebecca gillman, brandy hepler, caroline hickman, anne k. horak, estelle baroung hughes, stacey jones, naaz kirmani, tahsin khalid, brigitte kürsteiner, leeanne lavender, elouise mayall, tara merks, laurence myers, james o’donnell, alysa perreras, dana l. plowden, adam poole, karla m. prince-cheng, rosa maría retamales, stefanie rinaldi, diana rogers-adkinson, greg slosek, seidu sofo, ana-daniela tavsancea, victoria wasner, andrew watson, shamayim watson, and debra williams-gualandi. about the authors: shona mcintosh is a lecturer in international education at the university of bath in the uk. having read english at university then taught it in secondary schools, she has seen how overly prescriptive forms can stifle expression in some knowers. her phd focused on the social and relational aspects of learning to teach and this continues in her research in international schools and global citizenship education. her work with her post-graduate students, many of whom are mature educators in international schools, has prompted her to identify platforms for their practical knowledge and sees equitable collaborative writing as a powerful means to do so. sarah lillo kang is an assistant professor of middle and secondary education at southeast missouri state university in the usa where she works with pre-service and practising educators. her research interests include global citizenship education, experiential and community-based pedagogies, diversity and inclusion issues in secondary english classrooms, and informal support networks for educators. dr. lillo kang has taught on three continents and subjects including english, writing, communications, literacy, teaching english as a second language, pedagogy, research methods, and diversity topics. she is passionate about working at the intersections of academia and practitioner realms and about collaborations that break down silos. critical reflections on collaborative writing: editorial experiments in fostering equitable dialogue buckle your seatbelts, you’re in for a different style of writing the dialogic book project our positionalities origin story re-envisioning collaboration: dialogues behind the scenes representing dialogues in writing editorial dialogues: the challenges of working against/amidst conventions concluding thoughts references qualitative studies vol. 8, no. 1, 2023, pp. 194-226 issn 1903-7031 life pushing through: coming to writing and mining for deep reflexivity birgitta haga gripsrud1 1department of caring and ethics, faculty of health sciences, university of stavanger, kjell arholms gate 41, 4021 stavanger, norway. as a researcher, three of my fields of interest have been the breast, breast cancer and death. in 2020, life interrupted as my mother phoned to say that a ct-scan had revealed a small growth in her left breast. having just published an article on policy guidelines for the integrated breast cancer pathway, i was thrown into this pathway as next of kin, accompanying my mother through diagnosis and treatment. with life pushing through in this way, i started writing about the experience. in 2021, life interrupted again: the tumor in my mother’s breast had metastasized, her cancer is incurable. increasingly, the writing became a lifeline for me. in this text, i develop a “creatography” to bring forth and give form to, by way of an assemblage of fragments, the struggles i’ve had with writing about this experience, as well as the pleasures i’ve had going off the beaten track. i highlight how we often have personal stories to tell about our relationships with professional research fields, yet we hesitate to give them substance or credit in our academic writing. i reflect on how we could and why we should engage in such emotional labour, while sharing my own process of coming to writing. i see this writing as an opening: to begin mining my own fields for deeper reflexivity. keywords: academic writing; creatography; intersubjectivity; deep reflexivity; the personal in the professional venturing into the other terrain my attunement to this special issue concerns a scenario where life events interrupt the researcher and push through topics of interest in such a way that it marks a point of no return in the professional terrain. i wish to share how i myself have dealt with such an experience by going off the beaten track, slowing down my pace, coming to writing differently. although this is a deeply personal venturing, my hope is that some aspects of my experience can be relatable to my reader. beyond a need for personal expression, my wish is to encourage other people’s writing when life interrupts, throwing us off our once familiar tracks. b. h. gripsrud: life pushing through qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 194-226 ©2023 195 on the beaten track the pavement stones broken realigning themselves ad hoc adapting to the ground the terrain the moss or stunted grass between the cracks the broken glass shards and other debris the other track next to it, the wildflowers and weeds on its side, is also beaten but made not with concrete slabs but feet and paws and bicycle tires all walking or rolling this track to make way deviantly challenging or accompanying the prescribed route to make way more intuitively it’s easy but your feet get muddy when it rains you slip or slide your way through the mess away from home or returning to it mode of orientation my text will take the form of an assemblage of fragments: stories, anecdotes, poems, scenes, dreams, slips of the tongue, notes to self, literary excerpts, song titles, excerpts from my academic writing – each related to my experiences as a next of kin, as a daughter, and as a human-being-researcher. i name this method of writing “creatography”, referring to my definition below. creatography: english: from the latin creare + the greek graphia: the process, acts and forms of bringing forth, making and assembling something in writing – b. h. gripsrud: life pushing through qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 194-226 ©2023 196 creating, not from nothing, but drawing on the stuff of life, of being and becoming;1 making an entry into the unchartered field. a core concern for me has been how i can open up to the possibility of – and represent in writing – making something out of pressing life matters when these matters are close to heart and therefore difficult to even think about, let alone articulate. how can i accommodate a nascent form of thinking through writing at this point, without imposing timeless ideals for analytic coherence? can i resist the compulsion to tame this text? if i follow its inner intuitive logic, i may not be capable of providing my reader with one red thread to hold onto. in other words: how can i begin to play with the messy and entangled objects of my new reality through writing? (b) […] playing is not inner psychic reality. it is outside the individual, but it is not in the external world. (c) into this play area the child gathers objects or phenomena from external reality and uses these in the service of some sample derived from inner or personal reality. without hallucinating the child puts out a sample of dream potential and lives with this sample in a chosen setting of fragments from external reality. (winnicott, 2005/1971, p. 69) what is my text to be? what is it? parallelisms between life, relations, writing in research/for the researcher. a biographic-relational event that pushes life into research (perhaps revitalizing the research in this way) – and which opens up for a new way to approach the research field (and life!) through much more explicit self-exploration and autobiographical writing than before. 1 or the “becoming of being”: “subjectivity as the total, substantive, acting, thinking and feeling, embodied, relational being” (hollway, 2015, p. 21). b. h. gripsrud: life pushing through qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 194-226 ©2023 197 i have touched this life in writing previously, but always felt it to be transgressive, dangerous, embarrassing. i want to grab hold of this transgression and begin to mine it reflexively in relation to the life event that interrupted my research field (finding life had already arrived there, even before this). “mystery as method” (alvesson & kärreman, 2011); “productive breakdowns” (p. 60) and puzzles in empirical research call on creative thinking (p.61) deeply relational: intersubjective deeply existential: i write because i have to writing (life) as com-passion (bracha ettinger, wendy hollway), com-pulsion “writing is making sense of life” (nadine gordimer) intergenerational-therapeutic? knausgård «om sommeren», see yellow post-it note. is it true that writing protects the author against relationships? through creatography, i want to confront the feeling of transgression. i approach this almost as an act of “cultural sniping” (spence, 1995) not only to push against the impositions of scientific supremacy (gripsrud & solbrække, 2019), but to tease the rigid style guides and checklists for quality appraisal which inhibit potentials within the scholarly article genre in many scientific journals. i expose myself in writing «to reveal the process of navigating one’s way through […] the murky depths, when one’s vision has become clouded, one’s touch is tentative, and one is compelled to strain all the senses in order to perceive a path to follow or a way out [.]” (beedell, 2009, p. 102, my italics). as such, i write while i sing a chorus “in praise of detours” from the worn-out ways and the tracks we already know so well as writing professionals in academia (wegener, meier & maslo, 2018). b. h. gripsrud: life pushing through qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 194-226 ©2023 198 off the beaten track the dry and wet grounds inundated by rainfall or scorched with the sun’s heat flowing over or evaporating drowning or burning coming through life pushing through with one hand, suffering, living, putting your finger on pain, loss. but there is the other hand: the one that writes. (cixous, 1991, p. 8) “is there such a thing as coincidence?”, my mother asks. or sometimes she states it: “there is no such thing as coincidence”. it is not uncommon for researchers of illness and disease to have been close to such phenomena in their personal history. personal experiences can be clearly be emotional drivers, more or less consciously, for working with – or within – the fields of health and medicine (see e.g. moen, 2018). however, at first glance, i myself had no significant history to relate to when i started researching breast cancer. the closest personal experience i had with me into the field, was the visual memory of small pale scars on my mother’s breasts. these were from benign growths removed at different times before and after i was born in 1977. i remember that when i was around six or seven, mamma was hospitalized overnight because she had to remove a lump in her breast. i slept over at my uncle and aunt’s, indulgently cared for by my three older cousins who braided my hair and dressed me up in their big-girl clothes, i even have a photo of this: i am sitting on a rock in their garden in the evening sunlight, smiling with my lips closed to cover my gapped teeth. i recall this sleepover, because it felt so special, like a lovely dream. in time, as a teenager or adult (?) i learned that for my mother this had not been such a lovely day. for her, the lump had been a veritable cancer scare. on that day when she b. h. gripsrud: life pushing through qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 194-226 ©2023 199 went to the hospital, she did not know whether she would wake up from the anesthesia with or without her breast. this, despite the fact that she urged the surgeon for a lumpectomy, to save the inflicted breast if possible. lumpectomy was then (early 1980s) a new and more gentle intervention that my mum had read about in a us women’s magazine. the senior consultant’s response to her request was along the lines of “if you’re not happy with the treatment we can offer here, find yourself another hospital.” my mother kept the breast, because the lump turned out to be non-cancerous.2 to the extent that i carried with me this memory of what could have been a potentially life-changing event as a preconception in my own research before this point of documentation in 2017, it must have been in my recognition that it is not with indifference that a woman faces the threat of losing a breast, and that as a woman you have to be prepared to defend your bodily integrity in the encounter with the surgeon’s will to ‘slash and cure’ cancer. this very scenario was later thematised in a single case study on a research participant (not my mother) who had exclaimed to her doctors that “she would rather die than lose the breast” (gripsrud, 2021). looking back, i realize that i must have felt the resonance of my mother in analyzing this case, but at the time i refrained from reflecting on it in writing. cancer mamma one day in 2004, i opened the weekend issue of the guardian and was struck by an unusual photographic portrait of a woman. i felt it like a bodily blow and wrote about it in my thesis (gripsrud, 2006), detailing what i had observed and absorbed in the portrait: this woman’s lost expression, facing the camera’s eye. had she lost her way or lost her mind? there was the blood-filled plastic drain hanging from her pristine white 2 this story was documented in my notes from 2017, indicating how i was already privately engaging with and reflecting over my mother while writing about breast cancer in my professional capacity, however this incident was not a topic of written reflection in my phd thesis where i wrote about the breast (gripsrud, 2006). i did write a lyrical narrative in my thesis about loving my mother’s body when i was a girl, and how deeply i longed to have curvy thighs and full breasts like hers (op.cit), however i missed the opportunity to mine deeper into my archive of experiences with the breast and my mother. b. h. gripsrud: life pushing through qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 194-226 ©2023 200 compression bra, it felt to me as if her heart had been torn out and fastened to her side with a safety pin. the woman in this portrait is the actress lynn redgrave, and the photographer is her daughter, annabel clark. when redgrave was diagnosed with breast cancer, it became the starting point for a creative project: the mother wrote a diary, while the daughter took pictures3 (redgrave & clarke, 2004). little did i know then that i would come to experience a repetition of this scene – when, in december 2020, i was facing my own lost mother, post breast conservative cancer surgery: it’s 7 p.m. we’re on our way to pick up mamma from the hospital and take her home to her apartment. it is dark and the wind is blowing cold and northerly. due to the pandemic health and safety measures, i have to pick her up in the entrance section of the day surgery department. we meet up in the strange space between two sets of automatic sliding glass doors. mamma is standing there, she is so pale in the face, i immediately comment on it and reach out for her, “oh, poor you”. the nurse who has accompanied her from the anesthesia care unit, quickly tries to ameliorate my concern by explaining that “it is the blue dye” that does it, it makes her skin so very pale and gaunt. but despite the blue dye that was injected into my mother’s breast, the surgeons could not find her sentinel lymph node and had to perform a full axillary dissection. the nurse quickly shows me how to empty the surgical drain (we’re still standing in a public space, between the two sets of sliding glass doors). the drain hangs in a green, hand-sewn bag made by volunteers, as if, for shame’s sake, to cover up a grotesque reality: that newly operated cancer patients are sent out into the world on a cold and dark autumn evening with their bloody drains hanging on display. fish soup for supper. emptied the drain, as directed. restless sleep at night, mamma was up three times on the creaking floorboards. (my notes from the day of my mamma’s breast conservative surgery) 3 many years before, the artist hannah wilke (1940-1993) made a photographic arts project on herself in relation to her mother’s breast cancer, at a time when breast cancer was still a considerable social taboo (“portrait of the artist with her mother, selma butter”, 1978-1981). b. h. gripsrud: life pushing through qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 194-226 ©2023 201 après-coup: take one that my mamma would get cancer mamma at the age of 78, is something none of us had expected or prepared for. but “why not me?”, as she kept saying. being too old to be eligible for the mammography screening programme, her tumor had been a random discovery in a ct scan of the abdomen, which incidentally captured a segment of her left breast and the malignant growth within it. approaching middle-age i have been more concerned with (or superstitious of) the risk that i myself could get breast cancer, as the dream fragment below indicates – emerging at the time when i was writing about women’s experiences of breast cancer: dreamt i had breast cancer. “nobody was there”.4 wrapped in large bandages and hospital attire, pajamas, robe. didn’t know whether i had lost the breast or kept it, kept the nipple. didn’t know what it looked like. numb despair. […] sudden shift to scene in a hospital room (?) with an elderly woman. operated on for breast cancer. she met me with her despair, she reached out to me. we couldn’t comfort each other; we were both lost, disheartened. she wanted something from me. pointed to her bandage, needing help. breast conservative treatment. intimate sphere. to enter into something involuntary, something that is not mine. sticky hospital room. strange. (extracts from my notes about a dream i had in 2016) in the dream, i felt it – what it could be like to have breast cancer, to be lost in dispair. but who was the older woman in my dream? is there such a thing as co-incidence? (mamma) 4 association to a phrase from a poem by the norwegian poet ellen francke (1947-1990) that i referred to in my phd thesis (gripsrud, 2006). another phrase from the same poem inspired the title of the breast cancer study that i worked on, “i am not the same”. francke writes evocatively about a woman’s embodied experience of breast cancer surgery: “and the milk glands died/ my white, rugged, sweet trees/the cold steel hacked them/and they fell/ and no one was there/not even you” (francke 1985: 29-55, my translation). b. h. gripsrud: life pushing through qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 194-226 ©2023 202 mamma – mamma5 throughout my work i have attributed fundamental importance to the infant’s first object relation – the relation to the mother’s breast and to the mother – and have drawn the conclusion that if this primal object, which is introjected, takes root in the ego with relative security, the basis for satisfactory development is laid. (klein, 1975/1997, p. 178) so this is why, how, who, what, i write: milk. strong nourishment. the gift without return. writing, too, is milk. i nourish. and like all those who nourish, i am nourished. a smile nourishes me. mother i am your daughter: if you smile at me, you nourish me, i am your daughter. goodnesses of good exchanges. (cixous, 1991: p. 49) in my home office, i have a framed photograph. taken a sunny summer’s day in 1977, it is an intimate portrait of the little family i was born into. figure 1: a family portrait from 1977, photographed then by sigurd haga. i have subsequently photographed the portrait on the bed of my phd monograph. 5 mamma is what i call my mum/mama in norwegian. mamma is also the latin term for the milksecreting organ (breast, udder) of female mammals, or a type of cloud formation (meteorology), hence also the medical diagnosis cancer mamma. b. h. gripsrud: life pushing through qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 194-226 ©2023 203 here i am, held by my mother and gazed upon by my father, suckling my mamma’s full left breast. i kept looking at this reassuring and idyllic motif in the days around my mother’s breast cancer surgery on this same breast. since she only gave birth to this one baby, and since my parents divorced when i was six and my mother has remained single, it was she and i that would be facing her new illness together. can it really be that there is a malignancy in this breast, a poison in my mamma’s sweet mamma? my mother, her breast, they have rooted me: materially, relationally, symbolically, psychically – and as such they constitute my “primary experiential structure” (solheim, 1999, p. 28, my translation). new position in the familiar terrain: from researcher in the field to next-of-kin […] it is true, that as a woman, it is hard not to identify with, not to feel the pain of the friend, sister, mother, daughter with breast cancer. it is hard not to think: what if it [were] me? (gripsrud, 2006, p. 277) october 2020, two months before the inhospitable post-surgery scene with mamma, saw the publication of an article that i had co-written with ellen ramvi and bjørn ribers. the article was based on material from my amputated ethnographic fieldwork in the breast cancer clinic (2016-2017). getting formal approval to conduct this research became a longwinded process and, in the end, i had to give it up, realizing that i was running out of time, and that my fieldwork would be severely compromised if i accepted the medical ethics committee’s terms, informed by an overly legalistic understanding of research ethics. what remained for me to write about in terms of data, were the policy and clinical documents that related to my research topic on integrated breast cancer pathways. b. h. gripsrud: life pushing through qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 194-226 ©2023 204 in the article, we argued that in light of recent policy shifts in norwegian healthcare policy, «we are at a critical juncture for reflecting on what constitutes quality in integrated cancer care at the experiential level» (gripsrud, ramvi & ribers, 2020, p. 250). indeed, two months down the road, i was placed in prime position to observe “the experiential level”, not as a researcher but as next of kin, accompanying my elderly mother through diagnosis, surgical treatment, post-surgical recovery and adjuvant treatment. during this time, mostly characterised by a state of shock for my mamma and a confoundedness for myself, my colleague ellen suggested to me: “maybe you should try to write about this, auto-ethnographically? and maybe your mother could write too? you are both people who write, aren’t you?” my mother has worked as a journalist and editor, and has written diaries all her life. to me, the idea of us writing in tandem, is both intensely alluring and daring. after work that day, i go straight to a bookstore to purchase a notebook for my mamma, who writes mostly by hand. i give it to her in the days after surgery and say to her, “take this notebook, and just see if you would want to write in it. there is no pressure, but it’s an opportunity, if you will”. mamma looks a little skeptical at first. what is going on in her mind? i decide not to push it further after this. i just leave the notebook with her. she has written in the notebook. “no great literature,” she says to warn me. but she writes. and i am writing myself. at first, i did not think i would make it. i therefore started with short notes on my mobile, documentation of medical consultations where i accompany mamma. then fuller texts appear on my computer. b. h. gripsrud: life pushing through qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 194-226 ©2023 205 for me to take on my own writing felt like a bidding and foreboding transgression, which involved the attempt at turning my mother and my self6 explicitly into a matter of research. dealing with this has been a considerable emotional labour. i have had moments and periods while writing when i found myself almost anaesthetized (i wrote ‘euthanized’ first, as if wishing to put myself out of my misery) by tiredness, and at other moments – when trying to articulate things in writing – i found myself feeling torn apart, fragmenting. yet i have kept at it when able to. mamma tells me that she keeps writing too. so, there is a mother and a daughter writing, each for their own. we, i, don’t know at this stage what may come of this tandem writing. i have not (yet) asked to read my mother’s writing. what keeps me from asking about mamma’s writing? politeness or care (i don’t want to impinge on her space for private reflections, i don’t want to push my research agenda because of her illness and suffering). distance (at this stage i want to keep my own writing free. my story will change if i begin to read her story, because we are so attuned to each other). defence (against the anxiety in asking for permission to read a private text, anxiety of reading her writing of the pain of the distress of the loneliness she is confronting and my distressing relation to feeling responsibility for her). i am having a hard-enough time dealing with my own (written) stuff. [all of the above are possible explanations] for now, i decide that this paper has to be about my process of “coming to writing” (cixous, 1991) – albeit through an event that is mainly my mother’s. i write, acknowledging that: 6 i’m evoking the title of nancy friday’s feminist classic from the year i was born (1977) my mother/my self: the daughter’s search of identity. this book was passed on to me from my mamma. b. h. gripsrud: life pushing through qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 194-226 ©2023 206 it is hard to write about my own mother. whatever i do write, it is my story i am telling, my version of the past. if she were to tell her own story other landscapes would be revealed. (rich, 1986/1976, p. 221) my mother has made her own track through another landscape of writing. my writing stays close to my heart at a time when i am mostly feeling dumbfounded by how cruelly life can push through into the ‘professional sphere’. après-coup: take two at the time of my mother’s diagnosis, i had another article in press, bearing the ominous title “mothering death” (gripsrud, 2021). i now felt torn about it and wrote to my editor, alfred sköld, to express the concern that this title now appeared even more uncanny to me because my own mother had got breast cancer. my mind was spinning. could her prognosis be jinxed by this title? could the paper in some way appear as a poorly concealed ‘death wish’ on my mother, who, after all, was on the curative spectrum, and who, with all the complexities of a close relationship, i love. through dialogue, the editor and i agreed to keep the title on my paper, because however it resonated with me personally, and whatever fantasies it could evoke, it did reflect the psychic reality of the research participant with whom i had co-created data for interpretation. with the support of alfred, i stood my ground on “mothering death”. from the primary diagnosis of cancer mamma in 2020, there is an unexpected turn of events in the new year. in january 2021, life pushes through again, as a new ct scan of my mother’s torso reveals a growth in her spine, and with ultrasound other tumors are detected on her liver. with these images as messengers from the inside, mamma leaves the curative spectrum and is diagnosed with incurable metastatic cancer. i was overwhelmed by sadness when mamma calmly phoned me on a friday to tell me what the oncologist had told her that day. my son and i despaired b. h. gripsrud: life pushing through qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 194-226 ©2023 207 together, paralyzed from doing anything that afternoon and evening, barely able to speak for crying. in the weeks that follow, mamma is worried about her left breast. will they take it? i have to be brave and tell her that the breast doesn’t matter in the medical sense, it’s already too late for a mastectomy because the cancer has spread to other organs. “you will not be cured of this cancer. you will probably die from it”. this is a lot to take on board for mamma, and we have to have this brutal conversation several times before the reality of this unreal situation sinks in. i can see the phrase “mothering death” in a new light now and as descriptive of the relational and intersubjective process of trying to come to terms with incurable disease: the final transition in life where mothering is indeed the very thing that is called for. asking for permission: our experiences have taught us note 7 june 2022 ask mamma about consent to write about her. she is open on fb. focus on my experience as next of kin and the process of writing about the experience. won’t name her, but she can be identified if someone wants to. some details about her illness and my observations of treatment, etc. note 12 june 2022 went to visit mamma. she told me about a radio programme, where it was said that we have to talk about death. sitting close to me, she looks me in the eyes and says: we have to share our experiences because it can open up for others to express themselves about what is hard for them and what they b. h. gripsrud: life pushing through qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 194-226 ©2023 208 struggle with. (she said this more beautifully and truthfully than i can relay here.) after a while i initiate a new topic of conversation: “mamma, i have to ask you something”. i feel like am i a kid again, asking my mother for something big. i dive into it before i lose my courage. try to explain that i’m writing in new ways about myself and her for a special issue on writing off the beaten track, and that i refer to her and the breast cancer in my text. that she can be identified through my writing. i ask how she feels about it, if it’s ok with her, or not. she says, with little hesitation, that she has “no problem” with this. she says that she herself has chosen to be open about the cancer on facebook. i explain that i’m trying to write about when life pushes into the research field, and about the stories we bring with us into the field as researchers. i say that i feel i have carried her with me in my research always, there are so many overlapping interests and experiences between us. she remarks that this is something she has also thought about. i say thank you to her for agreeing to let me write about her, we look into each other’s eyes. during this moment mamma is her old self: calm, collected, dignified, brave, wise – fully and adequately present to me as my mother, as i have known her throughout most of my life. i feel her power over mine, in the fear that she can just turn me down and there will be no opportunity to appeal, reminding me of my childhood and teenage years when she was a single parent holding the boundaries in place for me. she could be so formidable! it is therefore a heartfelt thank you from me to her, and i feel tears pressing in my eyes as i utter ‘thank you, mamma’. i could sob but don’t. i feel a flow of gratitude, love, and emotional relief, because for me this was such a tough question to bring to her and i have been dreading the day when i would have to face her with it. without words, i feel that she understands how important this writing is to me. i quickly feel the desire to go back into the work on my text. our experiences have taught us, and by sharing them we can comfort one another, ease suffering and aid each other’s healing. this is a principle that my mother has b. h. gripsrud: life pushing through qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 194-226 ©2023 209 practiced through much of her life, whether by telling her own story or listening to others’. i have been worried, though, that my ‘agenda’ to write about my experience of her breast cancer will usurp something or come across as an exploitative project. looking in from the outside, is my work inappropriate because of the vulnerability in the situation? my mother is clearly the more vulnerable party, due to her illness, age and being made the object of my written reflection as a researcher. as my notes indicate, i am also feeling vulnerable as a daughter. i am also outing myself in this paper and it’s daunting but i feel that i have to do it. i’ve thought about the courage of fiction writers who write their lives and relations into their novels. they do it because they must. who is who? we are, none of us, ‘either’ mothers or daughters; to our amazement, confusion, and greater complexity, we are both. (rich, 1986, p. 253) “as long as the ship can sail,” mamma says to me, sings to me.7 she is the ship, and the song reflects her outlook on life with incurable cancer. she is an orderly person and worries about what i am to do with all her furniture and things after she dies. she hands things over to me, and i keep them in my home, less orderly, but i hold onto them. she is clearing. she calls the cancer ward to book patient taxi transport to the hospital and tells the nurse at the other end of the line that she must notify the transport that there will be a “companion”, “because i will be accompanied by my mother”. it gets quiet on the other end before they both burst out laughing. “well, i mean my daughter,” mamma says. she laughs when she tells me this and i laugh along. it is true enough that as a daughter, i have long been in 7 a translation of the swedish song title «så länge skutan kan gå», by evert taube. “så länge skutan kan gå/så länge hjärtat kan slå/ så länge solen den glittrar på böljorna blå/om blott endag eller två/så håll tillgodo åndå/for det finns många som aldrig en ljusglimt kan få! och vem har sagt att just du kom till värden/ för att få solsken och lycka på färden?» b. h. gripsrud: life pushing through qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 194-226 ©2023 210 the role of my mother’s mother. at times her need for care and being-with has exceeded my capacities, leading me to feel like a disappointment to her (or myself). the role as mother for my mother is now actualized by the care needs of an elderly and single woman with metastatic cancer and a demanding treatment regimen, as well as other conditions that prevent her from taking part in the manic societal drive for “active ageing” (liveng et al., 2017). although the call to be good to and care for my mother has been strengthened, i have also felt, stronger than in a long time, that she is “my mamma” (i begin to refer to her, childlike, as “mammaen min”, “my mummy”, in written communications with friends and colleagues) – with the love and longings this entails and the memories that are awakened day and night. the foundations are moving in us both. about coming to writing, as it were awake in the night, thoughts thickening, layering, driving me from bed, down the stairs into the kitchen and to my laptop in darkness. a childhood friend of my husband died yesterday. he had cancer but died of complications resulting from an accident. a stirring pretext for this writing, of my compulsion to night-write. for who among us is untouched by cancer, by the tragedy it initiates, its brutal interruptions. as i type into the computer, i feel myself entering a more cognitive mode; the pressure of associative night thinking drains out, and i worry that its most powerful content will slip out between my fingers. from this note, written in the autumn of 2021, i gather that i’m concerned with staying close to the emotional experience that kept me from my sleep. i must have wanted to write my mind, as my mind appeared to me while lying there sleepless in bed. the act of getting out of bed in almost total darkness, walking to the kitchen, logging onto the laptop and getting to writing pulled me further away from the intensity that kept me awake. b. h. gripsrud: life pushing through qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 194-226 ©2023 211 making sense, documenting, “capturing the experience” (gripsrud et al., 2016): night-writing with slippery tentacles while they are still capable of sucking onto associative streaks in night thinking, night swimming, night dreaming. this is one of several sleepless nights and early mornings i spent pondering this text. i am usually a sound sleeper. so, what then wakes me, pulls me, pushes my sleeping mind into consciousness, buzzing with energy in associative modes, what is it that is pushing me forward towards the text coming out of me. more than being inspired and desiring, i am becoming compelled, impelled or possessed by this invitation to write off the beaten track: i have to do it. i will do it. i must. feeling called-upon by the call, as it were, i wonder how this writing could proceed. below are two fragments, which speak of this internal process: what is this paper about? it is about finding an apt language, even pushing boundaries to find expression (expressive writing?). it is about a developing auto-ethnography, except what is a mother-daughter ethnography (a duo-ethnography?). it is about the many and complex overdeterminations in life – my research interest, my relationship with my mother (where do we start, where does it end?) it is a love story, with all the great ambivalences that love entails. b. h. gripsrud: life pushing through qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 194-226 ©2023 212 this paper is about writing to write: to love, inseparable. writing is a gesture of love…read-me, lick-me, write-me love. (cixous, cited in gallop, 1988, p. 165) why do i write? (girlhood dream documented in an old diary that we found in a box: my mother wanted to become a writer) as a six-year-old, i taught myself to read. waiting in a ferry queue to denmark, i started reading aloud from a book and recall my mother’s face, the expression of disbelief as she looked down towards me, realizing that i was reading out words from the book i was holding in my lap. my mother taught me to sing, singing to me, with me. my mother and father must have taught me to speak as an infant. they read to me. my mother taught me to write, writing with me. it caused me rage and tears to learn to express myself clearly and convincingly. why do i write? why do you write, mamma? b. h. gripsrud: life pushing through qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 194-226 ©2023 213 stopping and slowing: the struggle with putting experience into words differently8 entry, notes 25 march 2022: mourning – inability to write (period from before and including christmas 2021 to february 2022). tearful, tormented, i now know (as in really know) that my mamma is going to die. i’m thinking about it. every event with her feels like the last event. unbearable, emotionally. i worry about what’s coming. low energy, lethargic, tired. tiredness as defence against reality, against emotional pain? i wanted to submit an abstract to this special issue but feared i wouldn’t be able to do it. it was too hard. reached out to colleague to see if we could write something together instead. she never responded. day before deadline (31 january) i sit down to write the abstract. i submit it and apologize to editor for submitting it one day late. however, find out day after that i was not late. i did hand in before deadline. dates shift in my head; i feel too late even when i am on time. editors’ comments to my submitted abstract (8 february 2022, my translation): “we were a little amused by, and found it really interesting, that you ended your abstract with reestablishing the academic mask with generic theory jargon that you had been brave enough to take to task and challenge by introducing personal narratives in your academic writing, whereby you experienced exposing yourself. perhaps you can reflect on this…that you couldn’t avoid rounding off your abstract with a completely impersonal ribbon of abstract concepts when what you wanted to write about was your own, personal, existential ‘coming to writing’…” 8 as i repeat “writing differently” in this text, i become aware that i am paraphrasing a book that has been important to me as a psychosocial researcher, namely wendy hollway and tony jefferson’s (2013) doing qualitative research differently: a psychosocial approach. b. h. gripsrud: life pushing through qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 194-226 ©2023 214 how to do academic writing improperly? there is no dummies guide to it. i have theory to shield me from exposing my self, or to authenticate this experiment: a fig leaf for shame, or a fig leaf for fear. “freedom. it’s just a feeling… you know it when it happens. i’ll tell you what freedom is to me: no fears!” (simone, 1968). entry, continued, notes 25 march 2022: mid-late february 2022 – begin to write more on the first version his text. feeling of pleasure, excitement, joy, creative abundance, relief. share this experience with ingvil over a lavish dinner. she comments, bemused, on the “counter-intuitive” nature of what i’m doing with this text. by that i think she means my writing in the midst-of raw experience. for me this is intuitive – this writing pulls me into it. i guess the counter-intuitive aspect is that i’m taking this experience, this writing with me into the world by seeking to have it published in an academic journal. so be it. i transgress. days after this, i succumbed to covid-19. my triumph in this defeat was that i did not infect my mamma. i did not give her the dreaded ‘kiss of death’. with three vaccine doses, i got it like a heavy cold. but as week two came to an end, i was really not feeling well. weeks followed after this and i am currently (may-june 2022) writing this text in a state of “long-covid” exhaustion: i have had to stop, delay and slow down most things in life. i can no longer pull myself together without cost to my (already limited) vitality. i am forced further off the beaten track by fatigue and brain fog. b. h. gripsrud: life pushing through qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 194-226 ©2023 215 this text is the first writing i return to when i gradually return to work part time, and i hold onto it for dear life during a slow and tumultuous recovery process, jutting down notes here and there while unable to work on my computer for longer periods of time. i find solace in the state of reverie that this slow and fragmented writing brings me into. i get to dream and wander around in my writing, when this dreaming and internal wandering is all i am capable. i am returning to drink from the source, to where i come from as a writer. i’m writing this mid-may 2022 for the first two months my illness experience was mostly in my body. “at least i am not feeling depressed”, i said to myself, partly savouring the opportunity to ‘just be’. not more than a couple of weeks after, though, i go through emotional havoc: i escape the city to seek refuge. alone in the mountain and our cabin, isolated. a sunny day on the terrace, i cherish the moment. being in nature, being among the rocks, water, trees, soothes my soul, steadies my sensitive, restless heart. then, the abrupt interruption of long past events, good and bad: early childhood, my loving parents, their divorcing, pappa making things good for me as a new single father, losing him when he moved across the country, mamma remains the single parent and becomes ill when i am in my teenage years. the sadness of love, of loss, of unmet needs for care and parenting that i denied for many years. who takes care of me? the embodied craving to be held. i have felt it. “sinking downwards into myself” i go to the forest and arrive in the darkness, the moon is green and dangling like a swing on the sky, i light up the fire and lay myself down and sleep heavily, b. h. gripsrud: life pushing through qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 194-226 ©2023 216 sinking downwards into myself, not without fear, but confident because you must will and dare what you must.9 (hjort, 2020, p. 141, my translation) the covid-body has paused me, and these are the floodgates opening to emotional experiences that are not new to me but the intensity with which they return to me now, in the mountain, is overwhelming. i write it all down, with two persistent streams running down my face. i light up the fire and go to bed, sleeping for a long time. days in a vulnerable state after this – is this a breakdown unfolding? an existential crisis? is it mourning? the next week, my mood is lifted. still exhausted in the body but mentally lighter still. more creative, more hopeful and joyful. coming to writing: the pains and pleasures in this paper, i draw on past and recent experiences of an autobiographical nature, which concern the ongoing labour of “coming to writing” (cixous, 1991) off the beaten track. in doing so, i enter the push and pull ethics of com-passion (hollway 2015, drawing on bracha ettinger). by exploring the mother-daughter relationship, i can allow a new sense of “feeling-with” to play into the depths of my experience of being a qualitative researcher engaging with breast cancer and death while also being the daughter of a mother who is living with incurable breast cancer. is writing for me a compulsion or a drive? do i feel pulled, or pushed to write? 9 “jeg drar til skogen og kommer fram i mørket, månen er grønn og dingler som en huske på himmelen, jeg fyrer opp og legger meg og sover tungt, synker nedover i meg selv, ikke uten frykt, men fortrøstningsfullt fordi du må ville og tørre det du må.» (hjort, 2020: 141). the word «fortrøstningsfullt» signifies «confidence» but also connotes comfort or being comforted (“trøst”) in norwegian. b. h. gripsrud: life pushing through qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 194-226 ©2023 217 is writing a need, a survival? whose desires run through me, my writing, other than those i can recognize as my own? […] the art of storytelling is the art of exchanging experiences; by experiences he means not scientific observations but the popular exercise of practical wisdom. (ricoeur 1992: s. 164, referring to walter benjamin). this text does not represent the “art of storytelling”, it represents the struggle to tell. i do not know if my creatographic assemblage represents “a fragmented totality” (levine, 2009, p. 172) or is the germ of “practical wisdom” that can be told more artfully and analytically insightfully, given time. but this text is a steppingstone to thinking about how the emotional experience of accompanying my mother through the curative breast cancer trajectory and into her new life with metastatic breast cancer – consciously and unconsciously – will accompany me in my own life and my research interests. it is a fact: i cannot be unmarked by this experience. by writing now in this way i make myself taste my own ‘medicine’, i give myself a therapeutic writing intervention (gripsrud et al., 2014; gripsrud et al., 2016; gripsrud, 2021). the writing action helps me to externalize things that impinge on me (levine, 2009, referring to winnicott, p. 172), helps me grapple with the complex and the chaotic. i lay myself bare through writing, hoping that my assemblage may reveal the painful tearing of tissues, exposing the bones and viscera of a “dialectical researcher subjectivity” (fog, 1998, p. 154): my research interests have never been separated from my life and my relationships. least of all, have they been separate from my mother, who is as inevitably in my elemental materials (my life matter) as i am in hers: watching over mamma in the shower: i see my body in her body, recognizing her structure and substance in myself. b. h. gripsrud: life pushing through qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 194-226 ©2023 218 creatography, as i experienced it writing as emotional expression (exploring my innermost thoughts and feelings) writing as a creative and meaningful retreat from meaningless suffering and illness writing and taking the time to write as acts of self-care writing as a lifeline for persevering: i can stand what life throws at me if i can write writing as com-passionate relationality, feeling-with, thinking-with, self and other writing as a relation to an “imaginary reader” (gripsrud et al., 2016) and writing as defence against relations in that by writing one can indulge solitude (knausgård, 2017, p. 130) writing as catharsis, no end to that one ever writing as blind-folded self-analysis, potentials and pitfalls to working things through alone writing as a battle between desire for freedom and feelings of shame nascent thinking about writing as mining for deep reflexivity i went off the beaten track, to write about life pushing through into research. through creatography, i have opened myself up to engage the personal in the professional. this text testifies to my alienated experience of being in this other terrain. by entering it creatively and intuitively, an emotionally challenging ‘bad’ situation has allowed me to establish a ‘good’ object: the umbilical of writing has kept me connected to myself, to my mother, and has sustained me in my relation to the text. as my creatography attests to, entry into the unchartered personal field of study (for me) concerns facing the pains and pleasures of engaging “difficult knowledge”: lovely knowledge reinforces what we think we want, while difficult knowledge includes breakdowns and not knowing, which becomes the very force of creative research. (wegener, meier & maslo, 2018, p. 4) b. h. gripsrud: life pushing through qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 194-226 ©2023 219 the piercing affective nature of my life interruptions were such that i could repress or split them off – or – i could begin the attempt to relate to them but not by rationalizing events that appeared as uncanny parallelisms (see après-coup, take one and two). beginning to relate to the interruptions, has meant stumbling off to search for new tracks in writing. finding adequate aesthetic form to feelings, is a neglected area of qualitative inquiry, which, after all, is concerned with conveying embodied and emotional experience and psychosocial meaning-making. i myself, i am guilty of not having payed enough attention to this, though i have contributed brief experimentations (see gripsrud et al. 2018 for collective scenic composition; gripsrud, 2021 for lyrical fieldnotes), i have also emulated the stylistic genre of positivist knowledge production (gripsrud et al., 2016). i am therefore grateful to the editors of this special issue, for braving the elements in their call for academic writing off the beaten track and for giving me courage to really experiment with this text. i am not sure that i would be a researcher if research did not involve writing. engaging in this writing i have ventured into wilderness, taking me out of routinized, prestructured, formulaic academic article writing production. writing off the beaten track has been an invitation: to bring me back in touch with myself and my desire for and need to write. writing in this way is also bringing me back in touch with – and allowing me to articulate – my mother as a foundational material, a source of love and knowledge, as well as of mutual ambivalences and frustrations, “envy and gratitude” (klein, 1997/1975). this is a move towards what i call “mining” in the primeval depths of reflexivity, working my way slowly downwards into the infinite hermeneutical abyss of “unthought knowns” (bollas, 1987). perhaps more aptly, this move is facilitating emergent knowledge of my maternal relation as “the most intimate and the most distanced unknown” (ettinger quoted in hollway, 2015, p. 85). by being able to sink into writing at the time of my own illness, i have come into touch with my vulnerabilities and dependencies, summed up as an ongoing need of mothering. this realization contrasts a deeply engrained defensive tendency to be selfsufficient and get on with things on my own, a way of dealing with the challenges, disappointments and losses that life has dealt me. b. h. gripsrud: life pushing through qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 194-226 ©2023 220 is writing for me a way of satisfying a need of being alone or is it a way of exploring relationality, a conversation with the (m)other within me? although my thinking here is still nascent, i hope that this text demonstrates that by mining researcher subjectivities and biographical experiences, we may begin to enrich our ways of “knowing” (hollway & jefferson, 2013: 159), personally and professionally, while strengthening the trustworthiness and quality of both research and writing. i believe that there is also an ethical dimension to taking on this reflexive mining – as an emotional and expressive labour – in that by averting from the “murky depths” (beedell, 2009) of our own experiences, as researchers, we may invite more risky forms of research, while sanitizing our writing practices. risky forms of practice could include, for example, ignoring (the value of) non-verbal or hidden meaning or rationalizing the irrational, intolerance of intensive affects or taboos in the field or data, defending against anxieties by avoiding difficult topics, questions, or findings, projecting unconscious affects, fusing self and other in the research relationships; de-humanizing data analysis, instrumentalizing or idealizing research for one’s own partly conscious ‘agendas’. risks such as these can never be entirely avoided, but as qualitative researchers we must strive to know ourselves better while we seek to co-create knowledge with others. venturing out of the other terrain i cannot see myself as a researcher without writing. looking back, it was “coming to writing” (cixous, 1996) that was my rite of passage into ‘doing research’ and ‘becoming an academic’. yet, despite this inextricable relationship between knowledge and writing, i have hesitated to bring my own stories into academic texts. the moment my mother phoned me to say that a lump had been spotted in her left breast, and then phoned again weeks later to say the cancer had spread, there was no going back to a time of innocence for me as a researcher. as this creatography reveals, however, mamma was already there in my thinking – and in my dreams – but i used to feel inhibited from exploring this more fully in my academic writing. b. h. gripsrud: life pushing through qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 194-226 ©2023 221 i am by no means the first researcher of to have a personal story to tell. life is rarely separate from work, nor is research subject separate from the researcher. but life can get larger than life sometimes, and what are we to do then? i have ‘done’ writing, because that is what i know to do. writing is my way of grappling with life, emotional experiences, and “difficult knowledge” (wegener, meier & maslo, 2018, p. 4) evoking powerful psychosocial tropes: breast, cancer, mother, suffering, death, mourning. i am writing differently, hopefully, as a means to begin to more fully “access and develop my researcher subjectivity as an instrument of knowledge” (gripsrud, 2021 referring to hollway, 2015). writing differently has involved developing different forms of writing, as well as the indulgence of time and reverie due to illness, which has slowed me down. it has also involved the struggle to tolerate tiredness and to stay with emotional distress, the textual and psychic fragmentations – including the absence of words – rather than rushing in to create solace through narrative, analytic or theoretical wholesomeness. how could my attempts at mining the depths of the daughter-mother relationship find expression and form, were it not through writing into the wilderness? 29 april 2022. off the beaten track [describe features of the other, non-beaten track. metaphorical aspects of the nature track in my internal landscape, which is also my landscape of escape in real life.] the downtrodden grass and moss there. the natural footstep in the big rock. leaping across the crevice from one rock to another getting across the talus or stream. the unpredictable slipperiness of these rocks when it rains, the fear of falling, b. h. gripsrud: life pushing through qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 194-226 ©2023 222 breaking a leg not to be found. the hidden holes that trap my foot. the twines that trip me up, the clumsiness. the soggy mire that sucks me down primeval layers of organic matter i may disappear into the residues of time immemorial. or rather, is it the case that in this paper i try to convey how things appear – through writing (in writing) when the track does not offer a meaningful trajectory anymore. nobody can give direction in this unknown land. no downtrodden track is there ahead, leading me towards a destination that others have inhabited before me. with no track, arrival at the destination is an uncertainty. will others be able to trace my steps off the beaten track? will i be able to retrace my own steps back to a point of departure? if i get lost, would i ever wish to return to the point that i set out from? going astray. going wild. making detours or walking in circles. going native in the motherland. june 2022 creatography unfolded fragment by fragment. there is no end to this writing only depths and beginnings. b. h. gripsrud: life pushing through qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 194-226 ©2023 223 references alvesson, m. & kärreman, d. (2011). qualitative research and theory development: mystery as method. london: sage. beedell, p. (2009). charting the clear waters and the murky depths. in s. clarke & p. hogget (eds.), researching under the surface: psycho-social research methods in practice. london: karnac, 101-119. bollas, c. (1987). the shadow of the object: psychoanalysis and the unthought known, london: free association books. cixous, h. (1991). coming to writing and other essays. cambridge, ma: harvard university press. cixous, h. (1996, 1st french edn. 1975). sorties. in h. cixous & c. clément, the newly born woman. london: i.b. tauris publishers. fog, j. (1994). med samtalen som udgangspunkt. det kvalitative forskningsintervju. [the conversation as a point of departure. the qualitative research interview] københavn: akademisk forlag. francke, e. (1985). det dobbelte kyss [the double kiss]. oslo: tiden forlag. friday, n. (1977). my mother/my self: the daughter’s search for identity. new york: dell publishing. gallop, j. (1988). thinking through the body. new york: columbia university press. gordimer, n. (2014). nadine gordimer: a life in quotes. the guardian, 14 july 2014. gripsrud, b. h. (2006). spectacular breasts: mapping our historical and contemporary cultural fascination with the breast. (phd monograph). university of leeds. gripsrud, b. h. (2008). the cultural history of the breast. in v. pitts (ed.), a cultural encyclopedia of the body (vol. 1), 31-44. westport: greenwood publishing. gripsrud, b. h., brassil, k. j., summers, b., søiland, h., kronowitz, s., & lode, k. (2016). capturing the experience: reflections of women with breast cancer engaged in an expressive writing intervention. cancer nursing, 39(4), 51-60. gripsrud, b. h., søiland, h., & lode, k. (2014). ekspressiv skriving som b. h. gripsrud: life pushing through qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 194-226 ©2023 224 egenterapeutisk verktøy ett år etter brystkreftdiagnosen resultater fra en norsk pilostudie [expressive writing as a self-therapeutic tool one year after the breast cancer diagnosis – results from a pilot study]. nordisk tidsskrift for helseforskning, (2), 45-61. gripsrud, b. h., ramvi, e., froggett, l., hellstrand, i., & manley, j. (2018). psychosocial and symbolic dimensions of the breast explored through a visual matrix. nora – nordic journal of feminist and gender research, 26(3), 210229. https://doi.org/10.1080/08038740.2018.1482958. gripsrud, b. h., & solbrække, k. n. (2019). correction to: scientific supremacy as an obstacle to establishing and sustaining interdisciplinary dialogue across knowledge paradigms in health and medicine. medicine, health care, and philosophy, 22(4), https://doi.org/10.1007/s11019-019-09906-6. gripsrud, b. h., ramvi, e., & ribers, b. (2020). couldn’t care less? a psychosocial analysis of contemporary cancer care policy as a case of borderline welfare. journal of psychosocial studies, 13(3), 247-262. https://doi.org/10.1332/147867320x15985348674895. hjort, v. (2020) er mor død? [is mother dead?]. oslo: cappelen damm. hollway, w. & jefferson, t. (2013) (2nd ed.). doing qualitative research differently: a psychosocial approach. london: sage. hollway, w. (2015). knowing mothers: researching maternal identity change. houndmills, basingstoke: palgrave macmillan. klein, m. (1997, 1st edn. 1975). envy and gratitude – and other works (1946-1963). london: vintage. knausgård, k.o. (2017). om sommeren [in the summer]. oslo: forlaget oktober. levine, s. k. (2009). trauma, tragedy, therapy: the arts and human suffering. london: jessica kingsley publishers. liveng, a., ramvi, e., froggett, l., manley, j., hollway, w., lading, å. & gripsrud, b. h. (2017). imagining transitions in old age through the visual matrix method: thinking about what is hard to bear. journal of social work practice, 31(2), 15570. https://doi.org/10.1080/08038740.2018.1482958 https://doi.org/10.1007/s11019-019-09906-6 https://doi.org/10.1332/147867320x15985348674895 b. h. gripsrud: life pushing through qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 194-226 ©2023 225 lorde, a. (1980). the cancer journals. san francisco: aunt lute books. moen, k. (2018). death at work: existential and psychosocial perspectives on end-of life care. basingstoke: palgrave macmillan. redgrave, l. & clarke, a. (2004). journal: a mother and daughter’s recovery from breast cancer. new york: umbrage editions. rich, a. (1986, 1st edn. 1976). of woman born. new york: norton & company. ricoeur, p. (1992). oneself as another. chicago: the university of chicago press. simone, n. (1968). “freedom is a feeling! freedom is no fear!”. interview excerpt from peter rodis’ 1970 documentary on nina simone, new york. accessed on 1 november 2022 from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=npd8f2m8wgi. solheim, j. (1999) finnes våre kropper i våre hoder? [do our bodies exist in our heads?]. kvinneforskning. vol. 1: 19-32. spence, j. (1995). cultural sniping: the art of transgression. london: routledge. wegener, c., meier, n. & maslo, e. (2018). cultivating creativity in methodology and research: in praise of detours. london: palgrave macmillan. winnicott, d.w, (2005, 1st edn. 1971). playing and reality. london: routledge. acknowledgements to mamma, “my mother who circulates in me, my mother who is in me as i was in her, what a strange bond, strange and red, contained, and which does not collect itself, does not stop, which goes by, escapes, follows its course across generations, carrying colours well beyond ourselves.” (hélène cixous, 1996, p. 82). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=npd8f2m8wgi b. h. gripsrud: life pushing through qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 194-226 ©2023 226 about the author: birgitta haga gripsrud is professor of health humanities and psychosocial studies. her research is broadly characterized by interdisciplinary engagement across the humanities, social sciences, health sciences and medicine. most of my life i have relied on writing for thinking and feeling, expression and making. i used to work as a teacher of creative and academic writing, as well as a freelance writer and translator. i have experimented with writing academically, as well as applying writing therapeutically for women with breast cancer. one of my longstanding research interests is the interweaving of culture and embodied experience, corresponding with my desire to wander off the beaten track and into the in-between areas of art and science, including writing differently. about coming to writing, as it were stopping and slowing: the struggle with putting experience into words differently “sinking downwards into myself” references untitled qualitative studies, 1(1) 18 perceptions of power and democracy: analytical and methodological dilemmas of the construction of images niels nørgaard kristensen abstract: how is political identity and power understood in post modern society? this paper uses a single qualitative interview with a truck driver to investigate the elements that impact the formation of political identity. the paper suggests a qualitative bottom up approach as a method and as a way of inquiry into understandings of identity and perceptions and discusses the interview against advantages and dilemmas of the design. key words: power, political identity, bottom up approach, constructivism. please cite this article as: kristensen, n. n. (2010). perceptions of power and democracy: analytical and methodological dilemmas of the construction of images. qualitative studies, 1(1): 18-32. introduction this paper is investigating the understanding of political perceptions by analysing an interview with a truck driver, selected as part of a larger case study. the purpose is to unfold a hermeneutics of the political subject, which means uncovering opinions, understandings, perceptions and practices in relation to democracy, politics and political power which de facto is “non-observable.” it takes a qualitative methodology and constructivist epistemological position under scrutiny and offers a discussion of the advantages and drawbacks of an approach, which could be labelled a constructivist bottom up approach. subsequently, it seeks to add to the political sociology of post modernity and the knowledge of political identity. the paper addresses the following questions: how do people conceptualize and experience power in a modern democracy e.g. do people feel that they have a say? how is power and politics dealt with in everyday life? the paper looks into the analysis of the data from one respondent in the larger case study. aim of the study and scientific method in a study under the auspices of the danish democracy and power study “billeder af magten” (kristensen, 2003) on which this paper draws, the focus is specifically on how the members of contemporary danish society experience power and their own role in democracy. the study implies a general inquiry of features of the socio-cultural world dispositions, practices, processes that constitute pre-conditions for people’s actual participation in politics and civil society. in short, these preconditions involve cultural attributes prevalent among citizens that can, in various ways, facilitate democratic life. this notion of civic culture is anchored in everyday life and its horizons, and can thus be seen as an important region of the habermarsian life world with its negotiation of norms and values (habermas, 1996; dahlgren, 2003). i shall not go over the study here, but it will serve as a basic surrounding for the discussion of central methodological issues. culture consists of patterns of practices and meaning, and they provide taken for granted orientations factual and normative as well as other resources for collective life. they are internalised intersubjectively: they exist “in our heads”, guiding and informing action, speech and understanding (dahlgren, 2001). some of the problems involved when working with qualitative studies, 1(1) 19 phenomena such as meaning, opinion, attitudes, etc. is that you get the information “second hand” you just really cannot plug out an idea or understanding of peoples heads, and you have no direct access to the data (lewis, 1991). you simply have to rely on your methodological framework. the methodological approach used in the study involves “intruding” into the respondents´ world subsequently trying to condense, reconstruct and interpret meaning and belief systems in relation to democracy, societal power and political action. the analysis must be able to uncover the tacit knowledge involved in relation to political identity (not quite unlike althusser´s concept of “symptomalistic reading”; althusser, 1969). this notion thematises the connection between actual conditions and the subjective experience of the same, cf. marx´s distinction between objective and subjective class class an “sich”/”für sich” (marx & engels, 1992 [1848]). this points to at least three seminal and basic methodological problems: 1. how do we know what the actual conditions – or the “objective” positions (of identity) – are? 2. how do we know that we are locating the actual subjective understanding of the respondent? 3. how do we construct a coherent power image from the data? at least since phillip converse´s 1964 seminal article – “the nature of belief systems in mass publics” – political scientists have strived for ways of unfolding citizens´ political beliefs (and almost exclusively doing so from a positivist methodology). this approach suggests, however, that most individuals´ political beliefs are characterized by high levels of ambivalence – and, following, that people should not be provided fixed-choice questions, but should rather be given a chance to talk. hence, a qualitative methodology is preferred. people do not make simple statements they shade, modulate, deny, retract, or just grind to a halt in frustration. such manifestations of uncertainty much be seen as just as meaningful and interesting, as the definitive statements of a belief system (hochschild, 1981). foucault tells us, that power is everywhere (foucault, 1982). his notion of a net of force relations represents ontology: a specification of basic aspects of sociality (schatzki, 2006). at the level of epistemology the methodological approach in use is constructivist as well as bottom uporiented. this means, firstly, that it sees reality as being socially constructed. it thereby rejects “essentialist” epistemological understandings of political life, its actors and institutions. the aim is not to uncover life worlds in a naturalistic manner, but rather to examine the understandings and the production of meaning through which the social world is constituted. instead, an anti-essential perspective is suggested – giving priority to action and identity construction as the foundation of empirical inquiry. in a constructivist ontology reality is not simply “out there”; instead, it is always under the influence of the “lenses” through which we view it. secondly, the approach is bottom up-oriented, challenging top-down approaches to identity operating on the precondition that there exists a tight correspondence between structural position and identity. instead, the approach is founded in a research design using case studies and a qualitative, inductive approach (sørensen 1998). in this respect it draws on a large body of literature (e.g. ragin & becker, 1992; yin, 1994; flyvbjerg, 2001; prasad, 2005). also, it is grounded in a notion of everyday life, citizenship and political identity by establishing a broad conception of politics – where politics is seen as a major force penetrating the life world realms. what i aim for here, is a position that is neither macro or micro or neither objectivism or subjectivism – but takes into consideration the empirically guided focus on context and everyday life. by “context”, i mean the specific surroundings to a given case or biography, thereby indicating not a micro oriented focus (with its unacceptable voluntarism) – and not a macro oriented focus (with its unacceptable determinism), but exactly a mix between qualitative studies, 1(1) 20 these positions. chantal mouffe argues for conceiving of the social agent not as a unitary subject but as the articulation of an ensemble of subject positions, constructed within specific discourses and always precariously and temporarily sutured at the intersection of those subject positions. she advocates developing a non-essentialist conception of the subject and regarding identity as identification rather than essential properties of the subject (mouffe, 1993). 29 interview persons were selected for the case study on the basis of a number of different ordinary characteristics like gender, age, occupation, geography, etc., but also on the basis of their capacity to represent certain types or stereotypes, e.g. the traditional worker, the farmer, the unemployed, the pensioner, the political activist, the official, the ict-innovator, the selfemployed entrepreneur, the student, the manager, the professional. the respondents were interviewed individually – with the interviews lasting from 1-3 hours. the purpose was not to select a representative stratification, but to seek variation. a wide range of issues such as political identity, societal power (or lack of power), political awareness, level of political knowledge, political liabilities, work situation, sources of information and attitudes towards the media were addressed during the interviews. a semi-structured interview guide was used during the interviews, but only for guidance, as i took on a “narrative” approach (van maanen, 1988); largely letting people themselves tell their stories. the interviews were transcribed and given a preliminary analysis. 11 of these 29 interviews the ones i found most informative were transformed into what i call “political biographies” and were treated to deep analyses in a manner which is unfolded in this chapter. then following the analyses or main findings were sent to the respondents for comments, corrections and validation. the truck driver, who will be presented in this article, was initially “picked” for the study as a representative of a typical danish tabloid newspaper reader. the research questions in the study were: • how are power relations experienced and which forms of power are pointed out? • from where is power seen? what are the originates of power perceptions? a distinction is made here between foundations in local and distant power relations. on a more fundamental level, how is the understanding of power basically constructed (e.g. dichotomically/hierarchically pluralistic/egalitarian)? • how is one’s own role in democracy experienced? research question 1) treats power perceptions as the dependent variable, where as in 2) it shifts into being the independent variable; 3) thematises the questions of political engagement and empowerment. in the following i will lay out the fundamentals for my strategy of analysis. we are all carrying around various specific conceptions of society regarding equality and diversity, position and status, degrees of separation from power, etc. my approach to the interpretation of the data can be illustrated through this real-life example: in the period, when i was doing my interviewing, i incidentally had a brief experience involving such perceptions. one day i was doing my grocery shopping on a lovely day of spring. beside the parking lot outside “netto” (a danish grocery store renowned for its low prices), a ca. 60-year-old woman is standing and enjoying the sun. she obviously has good time on her hands. we smile to one another as i get out of my car. at the very same moment, a fellow drives by in a red, open convertible sports car. he parks the car a little ways away. qualitative studies, 1(1) 21 “hey – isn’t that an mg?” she enquired. “i think so,” i replied, “but i’m no expert.” my familiarity with cars, sports cars in particular, is hardly impressive. “hmm. there’s something that just doesn’t fit,” she continued. “pardon me?” “yeah – ”netto” and an mg!” this brief anecdote serves to demonstrate how we have very precise expectations regarding specific relationships when we are constructing understandings and images of how things fit together. what is fascinating is that even though we live in the same society and share the same “objective” reality, we interpret it in entirely different ways. we construct various matrices through which we perceive the world around us, and the task for the analyst is to uncover or decompose the matrices in order to reveal how such understandings of society and power are formed. for example, what is the nature of the relationship between one’s own experiences and the manner in which one experiences structures of societal life? we all have stereotypical senses of the order of things in this world, and these can be particularly informative, both in terms of the manifest understandings of power and the more latent and shrouded perceptions and means of structuring reality. consequently, i approach the analyses by looking for basic understandings and (also stereotypical) perceptions like in the real life example, simply because such understandings are highly informative and offer insights, which might not be gained via a “standard” research design. these points and possible origins of power perceptions are further elaborated from various theoretical perspectives below. mediated vs. practice-based identities and conceptions of power identities and everyday cultures incarnate central features and characteristics of actors. not only are they indicative of values, they also express an individual dimension of acknowledgement. the central analytical question in this section is: from where do people primarily pick up or construct perceptions of power? the literature on power is voluminous, and the body of works on identity is growing (calhoun, 1995; delanty, 2000; jenkins, 2004; smith, 2004). neither can be presented in a just way here. historically, the british cultural studies tradition has been a prominent provider of related work. a central analytical point of departure for this tradition was the connection between the objective class situation and consciousness, i.e. the subjective understanding of this situation (bulmer, 1975). classic studies of workers´ images of power (lockwood, 1966; bulmer, 1975) indicate that it is the power situation in relation to ones immediate surroundings and employment situation that structures perceptions of wider societal power relations. society is understood here as constituting an aggregated and magnified body of the hierarchy of working life, i.e. as the enterprise “writ large”, with the same authoritarian relations and the same level of disempowerment. in terms of a distinction between near/distant power relations, this tradition exclusively picks up on the former. the relevance of this assumption is, however, increasingly questioned today, as factors including the relationship between the media, the public, cultural pluralisation, globalisation etc. are entirely absent in this tradition. modern society is marked by a pronounced spatial, temporal and institutional differentiation, and it is necessary to seek influences in the more “distant” relations, including globalisation and processes in the media. media presumably plays a central role concerning the formation of political attitudes (beck, 1992). the power of the media is, therefore, increasingly seen as a fundamental aspect of modern society, and citizens´ experiences of democratic processes are increasingly linked to understandings of mediated political communication – both in relation to political processes of qualitative studies, 1(1) 22 regulation and individuals´ understandings of society and its problems (bennett & entman, 2001). we live today in a mass media-saturated environment (gibbins & reimer, 1999). we encounter a “mediated reality” where a vast majority of political activity is conducted with the media in mind, and the public receive the vast majority of their information from media reporting (bennet & entman, 2001; lilleker, 2006). the mass media remains the key mode for reaching a mass audience thus serving as a factor, which conceivably facilitates or hands over certain political understandings, images and perceptions. in this way, media cease being “media” in the original sense of the word – that is as the messenger of information and communication from a sender to a receiver. instead, modern media transform into a kind of means of perception which independently constructs, produces and arranges the “reality” which is publicly deliberated and contemplated: reality is medialised. some, on the other hand, pay attention to more delicate changes in patterns of political orientation and participation and the growth of “lifestyle politics” (bennett, 1998), which is characterized by an individualized, rather than a collective, engagement, and increased attention to single-issue-policies rather than ideology and overarching political issues. in a scandinavian setting dahlgren and others have argued for serious changes in the political culture, hereby stressing changes in the functioning of democracy (dahlgren, 2003). it is a well-established assumption in sociology that if people are incapable of controlling or coping with the world around them, they will simply reduce it to the dimensions of their immediate surroundings (castells, 1983). hermeneutics therefore often examine the down-toearth experiences as a part of the filter and “tool box” used to process and interpret the more distant phenomena including the political system. late modernity, for instance, forces the individual to constantly make decisions (i.e. to act reflexively). this gives rise to a need for ontological certainty and practically grounded knowledge pertaining to everyday life, which anthony giddens (1991) refers to as the practical consciousness. practical consciousness is linked to the rules, routines and strategies that serve as the basis for the constitution of everyday social life in relation to time and space. the term can be drawn upon in relation to abstract systems, e.g. expert systems, which increasingly have an effect on our everyday life. the practical consciousness or “practical understanding” affects the field of identity formation and the field of perceptions of power, and it points to a notion of immediacy, when accounting for sources of power perceptions. in the way it is used in this study, however, this does not mean to constitute some kind of immediate, life form based formation of identity i.e. a kind of essential identity or kernel of identity. the “practical understanding” is in this sense also a kind of constructed or mediated understanding. modern identity formation is – in other words seen as a process of construction, but it is a process of construction based on experience and with limitations and inertia belonging to it, not an arbitrary one with a free individual choice. still, the formation of political attitudes and awareness can hardly be narrowly understood as an extension of the work sphere, as in the lockwood-tradition, where almost all aspects of the social are derived from working life. it is hardly possible in studies of contemporary society to assume beforehand that working life fundamentally lays out the structure for our entire life form. there are a number of forms of structure found in modern society that must be assumed to be common for all, regardless of occupation. an example of a current identity construction will be presented in the following section via the analysis of long-distance truck driver, joergen. it gives an insight into specific world views and more fundamental ways of structuring understandings, which are building on an everyday life context in the sense-making of society and political life. this respondent notably uses his qualitative studies, 1(1) 23 practical consciousness for construction of images of power. analysis: joergen, the truck driver joergen is a 43 years old truck driver living in the danish town viborg. joergen is divorced, and today he lives alone in an apartment. after finishing school, he became a working boy before joining the military. following his military training, he started working as a truck driver for a demolition company. he subsequently began working as a haulage contractor together with his brother, the two of them establishing a moving company. the brother later quit, but joergen continued on his own with export hauling for fifteen years, where he primarily drove between denmark and southern germany. he is now driving a forklift in a large factory. long-distance trucking represents a lifestyle not just a job joergen explains. the thing about the job that he liked was the dream of being a “free bird” on the road. he usually drove with furniture to germany. when joergen was away from home, he lived in his truck, which was furnished with a bunk, coffee machine, refrigerator and stove “it had everything.” he did not miss a thing, he insists: there was electricity, television and a video. “i have always been my own person kind of different”, he says: “nobody is going to tell me what to do.” joergen has a deeply felt need for autonomy and the profession as a trucker serves this purpose. therefore, he tells, he got a truck and started his own company. joergen is a fine example of someone whose identity and understandings of politics, democracy and power to a large extent are structured by the life world and the “immediate.” he shows this in his comments of the relationship between politicians and laymen and the question about political authority and public regulation, e.g. the dichotomy between political systems “experts” and life world “experts”, which he thematises on the basis of the sociological phenomena of traffic: joergen: there´s something that drives me crazy i mean, the politicians have been told by an expert that if speeds are increased by ten kilometres per hour, then “x”-number of people will die. that´s just not true, right? i mean why do those people die? sure, if something goes wrong for them, then the speed contributes to making the situation worse. if we all drive 0 km/hour, then nobody will die. that´s a good beginning, but people will ultimately go crazy. that just can´t be right when we are on a four-lane highway, which is fully illuminated, and everything is ok and our cars are equipped with the latest abs things and whatever else you can get. then you are sitting there and doing 80 km/h, because politicians have figured out that it is the most defendable. that is what we are able to manage. and down on the other side of the line (germany; my addition nnk), they are driving 180 km/h instead; because they say that they can handle it. joergen appears far from an apathetic or alienated political identity. he has been a member of a political party for all of his adult life notably various rightwing and liberal parties linking entrepreneurship and petty-bourgeoisness to membership of political parties. obviously, joergen does not simply roll over and subject himself to regulation and management from above. “i decide how fast i am going to drive on the highway. for the politicians are incompetent”, he says. perhaps they are listening to expert advice, but joergen will not acknowledge their expertise. as such, they have no sense of what is actually going on no idea of the reality on the road, he thinks. as to politicians getting involved via legislation, joergen seems incited by the dichotomy between those in control and those being controlled, i.e. the vertical dimension between authorities and citizens. his understandings are to a large extension based on the experiences from the system of traffic. as an individual motorist, in traffic we are operating in qualitative studies, 1(1) 24 the field of tension between collective rules and individual freedom between community and autonomy. for joergen, the motor vehicle is a symbol of freedom and an image of autonomy – and it represents an open, free space, where one can be oneself. politics and state (e.g. traffic regulation) are here equated with paternalism and judicial know-all´ism, as unfolded by politicians and technical experts. the automobile thus becomes a metaphor for freedom itself: the real world and the system are locked out, and one is free to “be oneself.” in the car, it is legitimate to think about oneself, demand ones rights or pursue personal interpretations of what constitutes “proper” driving. “i just pay the fine, if i get caught”, he states. in my readings of joergen´s everyday cognitive understandings, traffic consequently represents the key word when one is seeking to gain access to joergen´s wider perceptions of society and power. admitted, i do make a major conceptual leap between micro and macro levels, when i am linking life world perceptions to notions of identity and power. but in the interview situation, i did not invoke these metaphors. the respondent himself brought these issues up. joergen: the other day we were driving to work. we have a four-lane road down towards århus, so i come driving on some guy´s tail, and he pulls out in the passing lane. i know that there are ruts in the slow lane and it is better to drive in the passing lane, but when he can see me coming and that i am going to pass him, and then he is obligated to remain in the first lane, regardless of the road conditions. but then he can see me, so he just starts driving faster, because then he is at least able to accelerate away from me. but then i got mad at him, and i said to myself, “he isn´t going to get away from me”, because my car is a little stronger, apparently, so i pull up on his tail, but he stays out there in the passing lane. so, then i thought hey, i don´t feel like arguing about this with him, so i just passed him on the inside. and that was that. it appears as though joergen displays a certain degree of high-handedness behind the wheel; the traffic concerns joergen´s own, specific empowerment strategy, but in a more figurative sense, it also serves as a metaphor for societal interaction in general, and power in particular. it is thus decisive for joergen´s understanding of society and a means by which he constructs understandings of the world around him. this image of traffic is generally also suitable for describing more fundamental mechanisms in society and democracy. joergen reveals how the notion of democracy and the paroles of “liberty, equality and fraternity” are exposed in this magnified reading of the system of traffic, which becomes a true model of democracy. we saw above, how the issue of liberty is amplified in the stressing of individual autonomy. also, the notion of equality is easily found. on the one hand, motor vehicles represent a source of power. at the same time, they also represent a symbol of “absolute” democracy and complete equality of power. in the traffic, we are all equal. the ceo does not have rights that ordinary people do not. status and income make no difference. or as joergen points out: joergen: handicapped people also become equals when they come whizzing on by. they have specialized cars. and then when they have to get out of their car, they cannot do a thing. but as long as they are sitting in their car, they are on equal terms with everybody else behind the wheel of a car. so that is probably where we are most equal as citizens. we are born equal, and we are equal when we are driving our cars. one can hardly articulate it much clearer. according to this metaphor, traffic also becomes an image of empowerment: everyone, joergen says, even the handicapped, can hold their own. at the same time, it becomes an image of an important democratic principle concerning equality and justice (“fraternity”): in the traffic, we are equal in the formal sense, just as we are also equal before the law in society in general. on the other hand, we are not really equal. here, his qualitative studies, 1(1) 25 image of power distribution is evident. there is also an upper class in this universe: they are the ones driving fancy cars and bmws, mercedes etc. at the same time, there is a large middle class, where all of the “solid” vehicles and family cars can be found, and then there is the “miserable” lower class, where all of the ladas and “wrecks” are dominant. the people in the bmws (i.e. the upper class)are capable of driving away from the others. as such, the types and brands of automobiles thus reproduce some of society’s fundamental class distinctions, also found in societal division of labour and in status classes: joergen: i mean, truck drivers down in germany that is the lowest a person can sink. and that is why there are some big conflicts with some of those bmws and mercedes. they feel that they are the ones who have paid for the road, so they [the truck drivers, ed.] had better not sit there and set the tempo and bother them. joergen interprets his “practical wisdom” in his own “theoretical” readings such as inferring freedom, equality, fraternity as concepts related to traffic. i will in the following elaborate on these interpretations as an example of what giddens labelled the “double hermeneutics.” the social researcher studies phenomena which are already constituted as meaningful by laymen and turns in “second order” concepts using the metalanguages invented by social scientists (giddens 1984). in this case this means trying to promote a different kind of knowledge – the type of practical knowledge that aristotle called phronesis, which means the practical wisdom that grows out of intimate familiarity with practice in contextualized settings: “the local knowledge – even tacit knowledges, that cannot be taught a priori, grown from the bottom up, emerging out of practice, forgoing the hubris of seeking claims to a decontextualised universal rationality stated in abstract terms of false precision” (schram 2006:28). the traffic, in joergen´s construction, reveals testimony regarding inequalities and the natural extension of the class struggle. but there is also “good news” from that front; for one can actually break the (class) society determinism: when you are a truck driver, the ceo might well come speeding along in his mercedes 600, but if you use your indicator and pull out, he can maintain his right all he wants, joergen says. in other words, joergen draws some fundamental societal characteristics from this situation. his conceptions of power thus fit with his own, personal experiences and life situation. joergen uses traffic as the basis for his description of the world as “every man for himself.” it is all about survival, and ultimately we all have to take care of ourselves, he claims. the truck drivers represent the “underdogs” and proletariat on the road. they suffer under poor working conditions; they are the ones hauling the biggest load; they are the ones that are making their way the most slowly in the chaotic traffic; and they are generally unwelcome in the traffic. under these conditions, they join together in a form of community. as such, the conventional relations can also be turned on their head, and the truck also becomes a concrete symbol of power. for the ultimate force belongs to the truck on the strength of the power derived from its dimensions and raw power it can flatten all of the other vehicles in the event of a direct confrontation. in a sense, the truck drivers will always ultimately have the power on the road. from time to time, a smouldering class riot does indeed flares up: the truck drivers become rebellious. and they know that they are invincible as long as they unite. they have long ago discovered the advantages to be had in solidarity and collective organization, cf. the “convoy” phenomenon. they are strong individually, but collectively they are untouchable in relation to the others on the road. occasionally, the long-distance truck drivers gang up against a specific opponent: “oh yeah. once we were even four or five guys who got together and locked a guy in, so that he was between the four trucks”, says joergen. in the situation joergen refers to, the trucks surrounded a german bmw on the highway, two in qualitative studies, 1(1) 26 front of it and two behind it: joergen: yeah, we locked him in. i mean they come along with the pedal to the floor. we can see them from a distance here comes a guy in a hurry. but on the other hand: we also want to be able to pass once in a while, so we work up a proper head of steam so that we can make a quick and efficient passing. so you are sitting there thinking, “when is it time to go?” and suddenly you say to yourself, “now!” and you hit your indicator. and then he comes zooming up and he is flashing his high beams and then when he comes up alongside of you, he gives it to you with everything he has got. so then you call out to the guy in front of you, “try to pull out”! and then you´ve got him. i can just remember him sitting there, hanging out of the window. he got a chance to cool off a little. life on the road can well assume the character of a real “wild west” life. to a certain extent, you make your own rules, and woe is he who dares to challenge the dominant order and its actors: joergen: i have also heard about a guy [trucker; my addition nnk], who obviously also pulled out, and then the bmw in question drove in front of him and braked. i have also tried that you are about to slam into him from behind. so you have to brake, and all of the shit you have in the back gets thrown around. but this guy, he didn´t brake he just kept his foot on the gas and steamrolled over him. joergen´s example illustrates how power relations can be turned on their head: the ceo is disempowered and must involuntarily subject himself to the force and caprice of the truck drivers, while for joergen; the situation represents the unavoidable liberation from the determining structures and class distinctions. by no means, however, are the boss-types or the wealthy the only scapegoats in joergen´s traffic-universe. generally, he simply does not have much good to say about the others on the road: “at one level or the other, it is just as much all the other nitwits out there. when it begins to get a little slippery, there are some people who slow right down. they see ice rinks all over the place. or else a tractor comes rolling along”, joergen explains. for the ultimate confrontation is when a truck on a relatively narrow road meets a tractor or a different kind of agricultural vehicle: joergen: an oncoming combine harvester with everything stretched out over both lanes i mean, if one of those things comes along, i just stop the truck. then it is his problem to get around me. if i pull all the way into the side and i have stopped my truck, then if he gets into an accident, it is his responsibility. those guys have really had some problems getting by. it just can´t be right that i have to drive my truck into the ditch. it appears rather obvious that joergen protects his autonomy, and that he attaches central parts of his understandings to traffic. but how should we determine the foundations of this identity construction? the role of truck driver in the case of joergen is not to be understood as an essential identity or a kernel of identity, neither is it as such an “imposed identity”, “pressing” joergen into certain forms of consciousness, that are useful and supportive of his survival and personal development and existence. rather, i think, it must be seen as an opportunity or as a central “offer” in the labour of identity formation, which modern and reflexive individuals constantly construct in everyday life through different experiences and processes of identity seeking. different roles are intertwined in the political horizon of reflection through the diverse fields of opportunity and experience that are related to the points of exchange between everyday life and political institutions and political publics. in short, the ways in which we look qualitative studies, 1(1) 27 upon and understand political life. here, i believe, the bottom up approach shows its relevance: rules are always constituted locally by the actors themselves, and in context, rather than being law-like phenomena, or an objective instantiation of a general principle or law. contextualism in this sense implies that empirically occurring regularities are always situational, and not the result of either remote laws operating behind the backs of the actors concerned or an idiosyncratic researcher’s interpretation of the scene in question. this notion is very similar to althusser´s (1983) concept of interpellation. to interpellate is to be called for by something and in this process to take upon your own shoulders to identify with a particular idea or identity and more precisely the process by which you recognize yourself as belonging to a particular identity. the specific construction of the truck driver identity must be seen as the individually experienced, contextual and simultaneous interpretation of both structure and agency. not just “one side of the coin.” understanding is framed within deeply embedded foundations that the actors find normal and acceptable to use. rationality, in other words, is therefore always implicated with power: “no context stands outside power. if that were the case, then it would exist nowhere, outside understanding, outside possibility, outside sense” (clegg, 2006:174). conclusions in this paper i have presented a framework for a “hermeneutics of the political subject“ building on a bottom up methodology and a constructivist ontology. i have argued for a qualitative methodology and the use of approaches that are “interpretive” and involve the attempt to discursively grasp the consciousnesses and senses of meaning that identities involve for the human beings who possess them. what is gained from the use of this approach, which a “standard” design would not capture? the case of joergen – standing alone – is naturally hardly useable for causal theorising. still, it seems possible to submit some common patterns in relation to power perceptions, identity and empowerment. joergen is obviously just one example – a single case – but the findings line up with other respondents in the case study showing a theoretical representativity (riis, 2001), and they reveal a more general pattern: people often use their practical consciousness to structure perceptions of power, and as a central building block in the political identity formation. the larger case study revealed nuanced perceptions of power. however, people often tend to conceptualise power as being blurred, systemic and structural. nevertheless, they apparently do not feel powerless or distant from power. paradoxically, while experiences of power as “system” are common, the actors appear to be both resourceful and active. confidence in individual capacity to make a difference seems considerable. certain basic understandings are maintained in this approach. first, it is explicitly political. this means at the ontological level that it understands individuals as guided by political motives, rationalities and interests, which they will defend and act upon. the world is political – and according to our identities, roles and positions, we will defend such interests. this means, e.g. in relation to case studies, that involved actors have certain interests at stake in the case. these are in general merely and fundamentally different, which is acknowledged and taken as a part of departure. it is the task of the researcher to have these interests or versions of ”truth” unfolded in order to have the material analysed hermeneutically and to approach a position from where conclusions can be made. the most obvious route to enhancement of research quality is to link the designing of the methodological approach closely to the purpose of the study. the approach favours the case study for its holistic appreciation, emphasising the importance of context: identity and meaning are linked to the understanding of individuals´ qualitative studies, 1(1) 28 meaningful social practices (kristensen, 1996). it investigates how power is interpreted through “life world lenses.” the participants own narratives are the starting point for the analyses of political identities and the approach pays interest in the meaning, which individuals themselves ascribe to action and behaviour. if you wish to understand what someone is doing you might probably ask him. he could be lying of course but you would get access, criteria of distinction and types of categorizations through which he constructs his conscious world. the conversation is the most obvious route into this world. it is guided by the interviewer (lewis, 1991). only interpretation is the entrance to this kind of knowledge, as facts do not speak for themselves. a valid qualitative study is one that takes into consideration the context of those who are the subject of inquiry and analyses, how phenomena are made meaningful for people. the identities and the life worlds of the individuals involved can, following, not be uncovered in a ”top down” manner. this is exactly the condition which renders the concept of contextuality so crucial. the approach looks for codes of practice recognizing the mechanisms of power that might be hidden within these practices and hereby to some extend emulating ricoeur´s notion of “the hermeneutics of suspicion” (ricoeur, 1981). this signifies a method of interpretation which assumes that the literal or surface-level meaning of a text is an effort to conceal the political interests which are served by the text (gripsrud, 2002). it is a critical strategy of interpretation aiming to strip off the concealment, unmasking those interests. it thereby suspects the credibility of the superficial text and explores, what is underneath the surface to reveal a more authentic dimension of meaning (ricoeur, 1981), like i have tried to demonstrate in the case of joergen. respondents are the owners of views, and you have to acknowledge and validate your findings and interpretations. studies that take interpretations as their frame of reference are only as ontologically secure as these intersubjective interpretations are stable (clegg, 2006). so, what kind of validity can be attached to the study? in the constructivist methodology the concept of validity is generally not a matter of genuine concern (hansen, 2003). clearly, this adds to the problems of this approach: we don’t really know. this is, however, after all a basic condition of all scientific methods. in constructivist approaches, the validity of a study is not determined with reference to certain scientific methods or a study’s replicability, but on how a given interpretation may be judged: is it thorough, coherent, comprehensive? does it make sense, or ring true? is the interpretation provocative and generative of further inquiry? if a study meets these criteria, it may be said to be valid (clark, 1999). an anti-essentialist approach distances itself from the classic, objective paradigm of “truth”, which regards recognition as a process in which an investigative subject with value-neutral, scientific instruments uncovers a self-supporting object and its riddles. in this sense, recognition is not a “pure”, clinical process; to the contrary, it is a constant, dialectical and conflicting relationship, and the validity of an interpretation depends, according to this perspective, on its capacity to convince and acquire status as inter-subjectively plausible within the scientific public (habermas, 1971; kaare nielsen, 1996). i here sanction the habermarsian notion of communicative validity (habermas, 1971). the production of knowledge is seen as a social construction of reality (esmark et al., 2005). “assessing qualitative research through a social constructionist lens, however, is premised upon the belief that research findings are always already partial and situated; that they actively construct the social world which is itself an interpretation and in need of interpretation. if we reject the very notion of an empirical world untouched by the social and political, how are we to assess the research claims we make? if we concede that “truth” and “objective knowledge” cannot be invoked unproblematically, upon what grounds are we to say one research claim is qualitative studies, 1(1) 29 better (i.e. valid) than another?” (aguinaldo, 2004:135) constructivists often argue that there are many possible interpretations of the same data, all of which are potentially meaningful (guba & lincoln, 1989). how, then, are we to judge an interpretation as being a valid one? often, if we emphasize meaning at the individual and local level, there is a tendency to downplay power relations that privilege certain constructions over others. constructivists are therefore often accused of being idealists with little to say about the material world (clark, 1999). a common critique against constructivist studies points to the risk of relativism – or the matter, that one interpretation might be as good as any other. this is, however, not necessarily the case: explanations and interpretations may well be judged against each other. and not all contributions are equally valid. constructivism only claims that it is not possible to “step outside” of interpretations as such – and that every assessment is given within the frames of a given discourse. one can not transcend such frames and provide universal evaluations and findings. constructivism does not reject the notion of truth as such – but rather it internalises this matter within certain discourses (hansen, 2003). validity is originally a concept derived from positivism, although it is certainly not exclusively tied to this position. one problem could be, however, that it also serves a discursive function in the social sciences, and the issue of validity can itself be seen as a construction of power: validity polices the social science enterprise, and thus, to some extent functions as a practice of power through the de/legitimation of social knowledge and research practice (aguinaldo, 2004). the notion of validity should therefore never be treated as a given concept. on the other hand, we should decline to abandon the concept of validity altogether. only by questioning the issue of validity and only by presenting plausible and alternative methodological design, we can contemplate scientific dominating positions and expand our knowledge. joergen was chosen for analysis in this article because he – in a paradigmatic way, i think exploits political ideas and metaphors in his conceptualizations of everyday life, and notions of e.g. power and democracy are easily found in his verbatim quotes. also, concepts of autonomy and political empowerment ring out explicitly in his narratives – which make him highly perceptive for analysis. clearly, joergen represents a dichotomous understanding of power. and likewise obviously, he tends to conceptualize power through the lenses of his life world using imagery and understandings based on conditions in his near surroundings. this is precisely the reason why the bottom up approach is applicable and that we need to comply with the use of approaches that are “interpretive” and involve the attempt to discursively grasp the consciousnesses and senses of meaning involved for individuals. we are born equal, and we are equal when we are driving our cars, joergen says. i argue that the findings in joergen´s case basically are valid. but one should always pay attention when doing studies in the field of political identity formation and transformation, simply because these concepts are very difficult to capture. we need to acknowledge a basic problem and condition related to social research regardless of methodology used: these matters are “hard to handle.” the bottom up approach searches for knowledge between the intuitive everyday conceptions and the reflexive views – between the world as it is practically comprehended in an everyday manner – and the same world as it appears in a theoretical reading (lykkeberg, 2008). exactly the point where the intuitive everyday conception is retrieved in the theoretical version opens for a different kind of knowledge. the approach endeavours a pluralistic emphasis allowing for more contextual, contingent and multiple political truths that involve a greater tie between theory and practice and a connection between thought and action in specific settings. when analyses open for such identity codes and points of navigation, we should, i believe, gain qualitative studies, 1(1) 30 access to fuller insights. references aguinaldo, j.p. 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(1994). case study research. design and methods. london: sage publications. author niels nørgaard kristensen is an associate professor in the department of economics, politics and public administration at aalborg university, denmark. email: nnk@epa.aau.dk untitled 16 analysing group interaction in focus group research: impact on content and the role of the moderator mette grønkjær, tine curtis, charlotte de crespigny & charlotte delmar abstract. interaction between group participants is considered the distinct advantage and hallmark of focus group research. it is therefore necessary to include the social interaction dynamics in analysing focus group data. little information is however available on analysis of the social interaction in the group and the analytical outcome for the content of the data. this paper contributes to the discussion of the value of participant interaction in focus group research by analysing sequences of interaction collected recently during a research project. this project utilized focus groups to investigate the perceptions and meanings of alcohol use in denmark. as a frame for analysing group interaction, elements of conversation analysis were used. the aim of this paper is to illustrate group interaction and its impact on the content of focus group data, and highlight the role and some of the challenges posed by group interaction for moderating the focus group discussion. the interaction analyses led to the construction of four interactional events: negotiating and constructing normality in interaction, disagreement and/or consensus, homogeneity and the impact on interaction and content, and coming to and making sense of a dead-end (including the risk of hierarchical issues). the interactional events are followed by considerations on the impact they may have on the role of the moderator. keywords: focus group; group interaction; moderator role; conversation analysis please cite this article as: grønkjær, m., curtis, t., de crespigny, c. & delmar, c. (2011). analysing group interaction in focus group research: impact on content and the role of the moderator. qualitative studies, 2(1): 16-30. introduction focus groups are well established as a legitimate data collection method within the qualitative research tradition. the method was originally developed in the field of market research, but has become frequently used in social science, health and related disciplines. the rationale behind the use of focus groups is that knowledge is created through the diverse experiences and forms of knowledge of, and interaction between, participants. focus group participants provide an audience for each other, which encourages a greater variety of communication, and therefore different contents, than other qualitative methods of data collection (kitzinger, 1995). the main advantage of focus groups involves how group interactions can reveal and highlight the participants’ perceptions, attitudes, thinking, and framework of understanding, as well as identifying group norms, sub-cultural and cultural values (kitzinger, 1995; kitzinger, 1994; krueger & casey, 2000). findings of focus group research, however, often report results using quotations from one individual at a time. this may give the impression that individual viewpoints can be isolated from the interaction between the group participants (duggleby, 2005; wibeck, dahlgren, & oberg, 2007). halkier (2010) stresses the necessity of including the social interaction dynamics in analysing focus group data. although the literature deals with focus group interaction as part of moderator questions, group composition and introduction to focus groups (rabiee, 2004; plummer-d'amato, 2008; bloor, frankland, thomas, & robson, 2001), less is available on the analysis of the social interaction in the group and the analytical 17 outcome for the contents of the data (halkier, 2010). this view is supported by other authors who claim that even though interaction is the hallmark of focus group research, the interaction has seldom been analysed or discussed in research based on empirical material collected from focus groups (hydén & bülow, 2003). wibeck et al. (2007) further claim that researchers may capture and take advantage of the interaction itself when analysing the data, rather that treating interaction as merely a tool for efficient data collection. successful group interactions between focus group members rely to a large extent on the moderator (mclafferty, 2004; morgan, 1997; krueger et al., 2000; curtis & redmond, 2007; redmond & curtis, 2009; plummer-d'amato, 2008; wibeck et al., 2007; bloor et al., 2001; barbour, 2007). most authors identify group interaction as the distinct advantage of focus groups, but it is also one area that presents a number of challenges to the researcher (clark, maben, & jones, 1996). thus, in developing focus group methodology on group interactions, the role and challenges of the moderator on group interaction should be considered and discussed. moderator challenges on group interaction need to be recognized, addressed and carefully dealt with (warr, 2005), as there is a risk of collecting data of poor quality, and consequently less trustworthy results. this paper provides a contribution to the discussion on interaction in focus group research by analysing sequences of group interaction that were recently collected during a research project where focus groups were used to investigate the perceptions and meanings of alcohol use in denmark. as a frame for analysing group interaction, elements of conversation analysis are used (silverman, 2006; potter, 1996; puchta & potter, 2004). the paper aims to illustrate group interaction and its impact on the content of focus group data, and highlight the role and some of the challenges group interaction pose on moderating the focus group discussion. the next section provides an overview of the particular study, including background and method. this is succeeded by a brief description of conversation analysis followed by analyses of group interaction sequences (interactional events) from this particular study. each interactional event is succeeded by considerations on the role of the moderator in such events. a research project on alcohol use as example this paper draws upon empirical examples from the research project ‘alcohol use in denmark: drinking contexts and the meanings and perceptions of alcohol use from a public health perspective’. the background for this research is that alcohol consumption levels in denmark are high. the prevalence of people who drink alcohol above the recommended levels of low risk to health is increasing, which is reflected in alcohol related causes of premature mortality, morbidity and lowered life expectancy (who, 2004). although a significant amount of literature exists on the amount and frequency of alcohol consumption in denmark, there is far less concern with the cultural and contextual influences on alcohol use. for effective public health and health promoting initiatives, normality perspectives and cultural factors are important in understanding not just individuals’ behaviour such as risky drinking, but also the external influences on, and conditions in which, this occurs (rose, 1992). therefore this study sought to reveal and describe the cultural and contextual influences on danes’ alcohol use from a public health perspective. the overall study used a sequential mixed methods approach (creswell, 2003), and consisted of an initial quantitative study using national survey data, followed by a qualitative study using focus group discussions. the aim of the overall study was to create new knowledge of alcohol use in denmark that can be applied in the development of future public health policies and strategies, including health promotion, within the alcohol area. 18 participants the study consisted of five focus group interviews between danish participants. the focus groups were each constructed based on the following age groups: 16-20; 21-34; 35-44; 45-64; and 65-82. the groups consisted of both men and women. there were five to six participants in each group (a total of 27). all names reported below are pseudonyms. sampling and recruitment participants were purposely sampled through the use of selected gate keepers who were able to recruit participants with diverse characteristics to ensure variation in gender, social and professional backgrounds. this approach was aimed at ensuring both homogeneity and heterogeneity in the group construction (morgan, 1997). thus, the focus groups were characterized by age as the factor of homogeneity to ensure some degree of commonality among participants, but with sufficient variation to allow for contrasting opinions (krueger et al., 2000). focus groups a theme guide was developed and used to guide the discussion. the opening question in each of the five focus groups was: “what is the first you come to think of when i say alcohol and alcohol use in denmark”? this was succeeded by a discussion of the following themes: drinking contexts; the “normal” use of alcohol; the meaning of alcohol use and public health perspectives in relation to alcohol use. the group discussions were audio-recorded onto a mini-disc and transcribed ad verbatim for analysis. data analysis was performed using nvivo software and two major themes emerged: acceptance and expectance and drinking contexts and the legitimacy of alcohol use. the results are under preparation for publication. conversation analysis the analysis in this paper is inspired by, and uses elements of, conversation analysis (silverman, 2006; potter, 1996; puchta et al., 2004) to analyse focus group interaction from the abovementioned research project. as such, the paper is not interested in making in-depth descriptions of conversation analysis, but rather to contribute to the discussion of participant interaction in focus group research using elements of conversation analysis. conversation analysis is concerned with actions and interactions as social phenomena. it studies talk in interaction and considers conversation as action taking place between actors (potter, 1996; puchta et al., 2004). conversation analysts claim that conversation is far from disorderly; in fact it is incredibly orderly. the principal ambition of conversation analysis is to reveal and account for this orderliness (potter, 1996). thus, conversation analysis is based on the attempt to describe people’s methods for producing orderly social interaction (silverman 2006; potter 1996). as with other methodological tools, e.g. discursive psychology, conversation analysis can be employed to systematically analyse focus group interaction data (puchta et al., 2004). while discursive psychology goes beyond the conversational situation itself and attempts to analyse how situational interaction draws upon, negotiates, moderates and changes the larger discursive repertoires, conversation analysis is concerned with the orderliness, structure and sequential patterns of interaction (silverman 2006; potter 1996). by viewing talk as a form of social action and paying attention to the sequence and structure of talk, conversation analysis can assist the researcher in getting access to the construction of meaning and social action being performed by the group participants (barbour 2007; pg. 37). conversation analysis can also assist in analysing how the contents of norms are negotiated within the focus groups (halkier, 19 2010). thus, this methodological approach was found relevant for analysing group interaction in the abovementioned project. conversation analysis offers a range of tools for analysing interaction between participants in focus groups. in this analysis, we have used one of the simplest, but most fundamental analytical tools from conversation analysis; adjacency pairs (potter, 1996). adjacency pairs are fundamental to interaction and can be thought of as the basic glue of conversation. the rationale is that many actions in conversation are linked together; when one specific action is undertaken it is likely to lead to a second specific action (potter, 1996). adjacency pairs bind a conversation together and are thus considered normative relations; for example between questions and answers (silverman, 2006; puchta et al., 2004). given this normative relation, adjacency pairs involve preference organisation (potter 1996). this means that to a particular utterance, there is a preferred response (i.e. acceptance or agreement) or a dispreferred response (i.e. rejection or disagreement). a particular feature of adjacency pairs is the account. an account concerns the justifications behind the decisions, opinions and actions that participants express in the focus groups; most often characterised by descriptions. in some cases, the process of building accounts and descriptions involve repair. repair is often used in focus group interaction and is concerned with how participants repair their own and, more delicately, others’ talk (puchta et al., 2004). our analyses resulted in a series of events that occurred in the focus group interactions. the events are as follows: negotiating and constructing normality in interaction, disagreement and/or consensus, homogeneity and the impact on interaction and content, and coming to and making sense of a dead-end (including the risk of hierarchical issues). in the following, the events are illustrated with empirical examples. each sequence is followed by considerations of the role of the moderator with regard to the specific events. negotiating and constructing normality in interaction in the study of alcohol use in denmark, the idea was to investigate the cultural perceptions and meanings of alcohol use, including normality perspectives. in the following extract, the focus group participants aged 65 to 82 are discussing what constitutes normal use of alcohol: per: well, we have already discussed this thing about sharing a bottle of wine for dinner. connie: yes, we have. because we are sharing a bottle when two people are gathered. but not as much in our home anymore because i have become more moderate …. [connie mentioned previously that she is on a diet]. so there is always a little drop left in the bottle for the next day, but i only drink one glass. per: not in our house. i have to admit that. we drink a bottle of wine every evening. connie: and we have always done that. we have. ellen: i too think that a bottle is suitable for two. connie: i think so too. knud: well, not every day? connie: yes, every day. bodil: no, friday and saturday. knud: i find it very un-normal if you drink so much every day. i think you have that reminder about the 7 and the 14 [refers to standard drinks/maximum recommended level per week].... per: no, well that’s not enough. it is 14 and 21. 20 jens: 14 and 21 knud: oh yes, 14 and 21, yes. yes, but i think you… and i know that if you say that you are just going to have a glass for dinner every evening. well, there is not much left in a bottle when you are finished anyway. i know that [laughing], but i still think that you think a little about it if you drink every day. that you want to stay a little under what they recommend. moderator: so you are conscious about the recommendations? ellen: yes, i am. per: i am not. ellen: i take them into consideration. per: i have a feeling about it, but i never think about it. as i told.... my wife has an old friend and they were discussing this thing about the 21 drinks a week and he said: oh god, i am already there by monday. [everyone laughs] connie: yes, there are some who drink more than others. per: but conscious about it... i don’t think you think about it. i don’t think about it. but, you have a feeling of ... where... what ....there are three..... there are three standard drinks in a bottle of wine [sharing a bottle with his wife each night], and times 7, then you are at 21. and then the rest during the week, right. so then you are up to about 26, 28 per week. i don’t think it is harmful when it is wine. i think it is worse when it is strong spirits. connie: yes, i think so too. because i think it is rare that we drink strong spirits. in this extract, adjacency pairs are exchanged when participants share their experiences and discuss their perceptions of the normal use of alcohol. initially, per and connie express agreement when they refer to their previous discussions on what they find normal (sharing a bottle of wine every evening). ellen contributes with a preferred reaction in that she agrees that a bottle is suitable for two. in response, knud enters the discussion by questioning the others’ opinions and by that he destroys the perceived consensus. this dispreferred response challenges the perceived agreement between per, connie and ellen and initiates a negotiation about normal use of alcohol. the sequence is then characterised by repair when per corrects knud on the recommended levels of alcohol (maximum 14 standard drinks per week for women; 21 for men). although not agreeing to the other group members’ view on normal use of alcohol, knud negotiates his opinion by indicating his understanding (‘i know that’). this response may be an attempt to soften the dispreferred reaction. he also laughs when he provides his point about considering the maximum recommended levels, which may make the disagreement less uncomfortable. moreover, the fact that knud uses you-form instead of i-form may even indicate the normative character of the interaction; this change of forms is a way of making an account that supports his own view of considering the recommended levels (as you normatively should, according to the health authorities; a preferred response). in the latter part of the sequence, the group discusses their consciousness about the maximum recommended levels for alcohol use. per is not conscious about them and accounts for his behaviour by providing an anecdote from his wife’s friend that makes the group laugh. the introduction of joking can be seen as one way of making an account or diffusing an uncomfortable situation; but it also functions as an invitation for the other participants to join in. connie accepts this invitation by giving a comment on what she views as generally understood about there always being some people who drink more than others, and per returns to the initial question by using descriptions to account for his opinion. in this case, per justifies 21 his own alcohol use by listing the amount of alcohol he would normally drink on a weekly average. despite revealing that he drinks alcohol above the recommended levels, he justifies his drinking by stating that as long as it is wine, and not strong spirits, it is not harmful. he receives a preferred response from connie who argues her case by saying that we (she?) rarely drink spirits (as opposed to wine). thus, they use their own alcohol behaviour to construct the idea that wine is not as harmful as spirits. the interaction above illustrates that there is diversity in the group with regard to the perceived normality of use and conforming to the recommended levels. as expected, there are many and varied patterns of drinking and thus a variety of perceptions of what constitute normal drinking behaviour. the exchanges of adjacency pairs; the agreements and disagreements, the accounts and the way they are built provide rich data on the subject. what is interesting about this sequence, and quite relevant for public health purposes, is the way the participants account for their use of alcohol and negotiate their opinions. knud has to account for his opinion by laughing and expressing that he understands in order to prove to the other group members that it is okay to be conscious about the recommended levels. this example of interaction is quite indicative of one of the major public health challenges to alcohol; that considering and/or living by the national recommended levels is not the norm. and if you do, you have to explain why. the use of laughing during the negotiations may also indicate a non-serious understanding of alcohol use. besides highlighting the importance of paying attention to the accounts and negotiations between participants for analytical purposes, the above extract also accentuates the role of the moderator. the moderator role in this case involved thoroughly considering their own responses to the participants’ interactions and responses in order to achieve the rich data set: i.e. bracketing public health knowledge on alcohol and remaining in the researcher role, instead of, for example, moving into the role of a health professional and interrupting the interaction by informing participants of the recommended low risk drinking levels. it was crucial for the moderator to signal approval and remain open e.g. by keeping eye contact and nodding; listening and not commenting on the details of the discussion, and, if necessary, elaborating on aspects relevant to the study: for example by asking participants to expand on their views rather than questioning them. in this case, asking participants to consider their consciousness about the recommended levels. it was also necessary for the moderator not to seek consensus as participants have divergent views which require analysis and reporting in their own right. consensus and/or disagreement in this study on alcohol use, participants displayed diverse perceptions about alcohol use being healthy or not. here follows an extract from the group aged 45 to 64: michael: i’ve never thought that it was healthy to smoke … you have also said a few times that a glass of red wine is healthy… tove: … well yes, we are told… michael: … cholesterol decreasing and so forth and i guess that … hanne: yes, but we don’t stick with that. none of us do. michael: but we . . . because i guess it [alcohol] is not that healthy. it may be in relation to cholesterol, but in relation to accidents, you can’t continue to claim that . . . lene: . . . that it is healthy. michael: yes, that it is healthy. hanne: i think you could eat a lot of different things that are just as healthy as red wine. 22 tove: well i believe it is healthy if you drink a glass or two a day. just like the tvdoctor says. why wouldn’t you believe that? erik: i certainly don’t think so. not every day. i don’t think so hanne: no, alcohol is metabolized in the liver. it is not good for the liver to work overtime either. tove: well is that overtime, one or two glasses? one or two standard drinks? this extract illustrates an example of disagreements between participants and the impact the interaction has on the content of the discussion. michael opens the sequence by questioning the health benefits of alcohol by comparing it to smoking and directs his reaction to tove who previously said that a glass of red wine is healthy. in this adjacency pair, tove overlaps michael’s utterance and elaborates on her previous statement by creating an account (well yes, we are told). michael continues his initial utterance using knowledge on alcohol’s effect on cholesterol levels to create an account. hanne changes the direction of the conversation; leading michael to negotiate the idea that alcohol might not be as healthy after all. this is followed by tove who obviously disagrees with their opinions and uses the tv-doctor, a health authority from national television, as assistance in making her account. erik provides a dispreferred response; indicating that he strongly (‘certainly’) disagrees. hanne reacts with a preferred reaction in that she agrees and provides a physiological explanation as an account. despite hanne’s account, in this case scientific knowledge about alcohol’s effect on the liver, tove continues to question the argument; a dispreferred response to hanne’s claim. thus, the participants’ diverse understandings of alcohol and health functions as a catalyst, not only in keeping the discussion going, but also in moving their perceptions from uncertainty to certainty about the health benefits of alcohol. the sequence above is characterised by active interaction; the participants obviously disagree and they question one another. the discussion concerned the so-called alcohol preventive paradox indicating that there are both beneficial and harmful effects of alcohol on health (gronbaek, 2001). being characterised through lack of consensus, this interaction sequence is important for several reasons. the accounts used in the exchange of adjacency pairs reflect some of the public’s understandings of alcohol and health/ill-health. it illustrates an uncertainty (‘i guess it is not that healthy’) that during the discussion becomes negotiated to certainly not being healthy. the conflicting opinions reveal that alcohol’s preventive paradox is vital in people’s perceptions. the use of the tv-doctor and continuous questions to the group members’ accounts (‘well is that overtime…?’), manifest a confidence in the beneficial effect of alcohol on health. the disagreement in the group, and the accounts that participants used to argue their case, illustrated how group interaction closely relates to the contents of the data. moreover, it reveals diverse and important understandings of alcohol and health that need to be incorporated in the public health discussions and initiatives on alcohol use. in this case of obvious disagreement, the role of the moderator involves paying close attention to the interactions: firstly in being able to understand the meanings of the disagreements and secondly, to promote the group dynamics and a friendly atmosphere despite the disagreements. this can be carried out by acknowledging participants’ diverse views in the case of disagreements and emphasising to participants that the study is interested in different views on the research topic. in this case, it was important to convey to tove that by disagreeing with the rest of the group, her views were just as important as theirs. 23 homogeneity and its impact on interaction and content homogeneity in focus group construction is considered essential for group interaction and dynamics, and thus important for the moderator to consider. in this study, age was used to ensure some degree of homogeneity. the following extract illustrates the role homogeneity can play (in this case age homogeneity) for group interactions and thus for the contents of the discussion. this discussion took place among those aged 65 to 82 years: moderator: . . . you mentioned the price of alcohol, and that it is less expensive [today] to buy a case of beer? can you . . . knud: yes, not in relation to then . . . [earlier days] per: and if there is not enough wine on the table, we’ll just open another one connie: yes, we’ll just get some more... per: … we’ll just do that… connie: … because we all have it. you have wine cellars, right. all: yes, yes. connie: it is in store. per: it must not affect the cosiness…. [to not have wine] knud: no, there has to be something. ellen: i guess it [wine] is a hobby for a lot of people. connie: yes, to invest in the right wines. ellen: . . . yes, and read about it and things like that. people didn’t use to do that. connie: yes, wine clubs and so forth, right. ellen: uh the synthetic wine back then. do you remember? what was is called? connie: ahh, yes palanca from brugsen [food store] and then there was pierre medard and … jens: the one with the bull … connie: that was awful wine. now i understand why i didn’t like wine then. per: the kids were complaining because they couldn’t have a bath because there were always three balloons in the bathtub [referring to homemade wine] [everyone laughs] ellen: yes, it smelled like . . . it was fermenting. connie: uh yeah, that was awful. moderator: okay, well… let’s move on to … in contrast to the previous examples of negotiations and lack of consensus, this sequence illustrates interaction characterised by consensus and its impact on the content. in this extract, the group is initially discussing the price of alcohol by comparing it with earlier days and now. the exchanges of adjacency pairs illustrate agreement between participants when they talk about wine; for example when ellen talks about synthetic wine and connie accepts the invitation by agreeing and elaborating with descriptions about the wine they drank when they were younger. they end up sharing their experiences from when they either drank synthetic wine or made the wine themselves. because they belonged to the same age group, participants were able to recall the price of alcohol years ago and share anecdotes from back then. this sequence of interaction is characterised by an easy flow between group members. the exchanges of adjacency pairs display acceptance of the participants’ utterances. this is illustrated by the many instances where participants take over and/or complete each others’ sentences; they are eager to share their points and understand each others’ utterances. thus, it is easy for them to complete what 24 the other is about to say. the extract also contains very few descriptions that account for diverse opinions on the topic of discussion, which possibly indicated a general agreement between the participants. this indicates that people’s perceptions of alcohol are to some extent associated with age and reflects how age as a factor of homogeneity may influence the participants’ group interaction and content. in the above case, where the interaction was characterised by agreement and easy flow, the role of the moderator is, again, to pay close attention to the interaction. it may also be necessary to challenge the participants’ accounts to add new dimensions to the discussion or to interrupt discussions in order to increase discussion or change the focus. in such cases it is important to consider the fact that participants have consented to their participation and are using their valuable time in making a study possible. as such, some participants may feel uncomfortable or offended when asked to change direction or let others continue talking. this highlights the challenge and delicate balance between considering both the respect for the individual group members, the need to elicit diverse views and the aim of the research. this balance impacts on group interaction, and so it is important for the moderator to have the skills and ability to sense the situation. they need to “lean back” as appropriate and let the interaction flow with the aim of obtaining essential data, and when appropriate, end or change the direction of discussion. coming to and making sense of a dead-end the next extract illustrates how the turn-taking in the interaction between participants can come to a dead-end, and the resultant challenge in making sense of it. it also illustrates the importance of the moderator to be able to reflect and make some sense of the participants’ responses during the group discussion. the following extract is from the group aged 35 to 44: moderator: other focus group members have mentioned that it is not okay to say no to a drink... palle: but i actually think that this [tendency] starts in the younger years. it is a bit like a challenge: don’t you dare to drink? maybe you have adapted this from then. that it is latent in you: ahhh, come on [have a drink] ulla: no damn it, i don’t dare that. the first time i was pissed [drunk] i thought i was going to die because i threw up and it was blood. then i was told afterwards that it was a red soda and i haven’t drunk it [red soda] since. pause moderator: alright, we have talked about the social aspect of alcohol, about cosiness and so forth. now i would like to talk about…. in this extract, the moderator’s opening question is aimed at helping the group consider preliminary results from other focus group discussions and therefore elaborate on preliminary findings. palle provides an account by suggesting that other people’s expectations that you should drink may come from challenges they experienced in their younger years. ulla’s response is a description of her experiences from the first time she was drunk. this leads to a pause followed by a change of direction from the moderator. this extract is interesting because it seems that ulla does not follow the discussion path if she felt it was okay to say no to a drink or not. instead she (explicitly) responded to palle’s account (‘don’t you dare to drink?’). ulla’s response may be an indication that daring to drink is an important topic for her to discuss or convey; or it may be that she misunderstood the question. it may also be a way for ulla to express or exemplify her view on this discussion on saying no to a drink. instead of elaborating on ulla’s response, the moderator closes the discussion by summing up and changing the focus. 25 this could be perceived as a dispreferred response in that ulla is “cut-off” and does not receive a response to her utterance. in fact, not replying to her utterance and changing the topic may be quite a violation of the normative relationship between adjacency pairs. in this case, coming to a dead-end may very well be due to the moderator’s ability to pursue the meaning of an implicit response. in hindsight, it would have been relevant to either offer repair by delicately suggesting ulla may have misunderstood – or at least offering an invitation to elaborate on her statement instead of closing it down. the extract above can also illustrate the risk of hierarchical issues or power relations due to the asymmetric relation between moderator and participants. as such, ulla may become intimidated by the lack of response to her statement by the moderator. the risk of hierarchical issues can also be exemplified by the various words and phrases used by participants. for example; ulla’s response above illustrates a descriptive sentence construction whereby she uses everyday language and swearing. in comparison, some other participants were very eloquent; they expressed analytical statements and critically reflected on others’ utterances in their groups. some also knew a lot about the topic under investigation and were at times theoretical in their expressions. they provided information on the latest statistics and theorised about various ideas and perceptions revealed in their group. these participants’ “expert knowledge” may have overly influenced the power relations within the group, resulting in other participants feeling intimidated and deciding to withdraw from the discussion. the examples above illustrate how the moderator role needs to involve a continuous assessment of the interactions between various participants, how their choice of words and phrases might be affecting other members’ participation in the group, and what impact homogeneity or heterogeneity might have on the group interaction. this illustrates the need for the moderator to ensure that all focus group participants are able to be heard, including those who may not be as eloquent or comfortable, yet equally important in conveying their messages. krueger & casey (2000) have suggested a moderator conducts a pre-session of small conversation so as to identify the more dominant speakers, and identify participants’ body language during this time. the moderator may shift their own non-verbal attention by for example removing eye contact from the dominant talker to the rest of the group and saying: “thank you for your comment. how do you [the others] feel about this?” or elaborating on an utterance that potentially possesses implicit or multiple meanings; as for example ulla’s response above. discussion and conclusion the influence of the social interaction between members of focus groups is often used to argue for the use of focus groups for data collection in particular qualitative research projects. the social interaction has, however, often been neglected in analysing and reporting focus group data; including its impact on eliciting the contents of such data. the literature has emphasized the uniqueness of participants’ interaction in focus group research (duggleby, 2005; wibeck et al., 2007; halkier, 2010) and this paper contributes to the discussion by exemplifying interaction data sequences from recent a research project on alcohol use in denmark. using elements of conversation analysis, the authors have analysed a series of interactional events that took place during data collection in five focus groups made up of different age groups: negotiating and constructing normality in interaction, disagreement and/or consensus, homogeneity and the impact of interaction and coming to and making sense of a dead-end 26 (including the risk of hierarchical issues). each event has been presented followed by considerations regarding the role and responsibility of the moderator in this context. the analysis of adjacency pairs, including preference organisation, identified how perceived normality regarding drinking alcohol can be negotiated and constructed, i.e., the focus group participants’ perceptions of what is normal alcohol use. the analysis revealed deficits in understanding risky and low risk alcohol consumption concerning health, and that considering and/or living by the national recommended levels for low risk alcohol use is not the norm. this supports and elaborates on existing alcohol research (mandag morgen & trygfonden, 2008; grønkjær, vinter-larsen, curtis, grønbæk, & nørgaard, 2010) suggesting the importance of public health challenges with regard to the way danish people account for their perceived normality of drinking. it also shows that they have to prove their case and explain themselves if they choose to drink alcohol as recommended by the health authorities. this accentuates the importance of paying attention to focus group participant interaction when undertaking analysis of focus group data, recognising that individual viewpoints should not be isolated from the interaction that takes place between the participants. our analyses demonstrated how disagreements between participants can function as a catalyst to keep the focus group discussion going, while also moving perceptions from uncertainty to certainty about the health benefits of alcohol. in contrast, homogeneity in the groups (in this case age) resulted in general agreement and acceptance of the participants’ utterances. although some degree of homogeneity is favoured in order to create a positive atmosphere and promote group dynamics, the more homogenous, the greater the likelihood of polarisation (sim, 1998). therefore, the examples of how participants construct normality and disagree, and their important influence on the contents for this research, demonstrate that homogeneity must be challenged by ensuring a degree of heterogeneity to obtain data with sufficient variety. in order words, a group may be too homogeneous; thus influencing the range and variety of the data that emerges. this accentuates the role and responsibility of the moderator in being able to challenge the participants’ accounts and ensure that all participants have the chance to express their views. it also highlights the delicate balance in composing a group that has enough in common to make discussion seem appropriate, yet sufficiently varying characteristics, experiences and perspectives to allow for divergent data to emerge through differences of opinion and debate (barbour, 2007). barbour (2007, pg. 81) further argues that rather than viewing disagreement as problem, the researcher needs to turn this into an advantage and use it as a resource in the analysis – in this case, obtaining a greater understanding of the different participants’ perceptions about people’s alcohol consumption and health. our analyses identified how interaction can come to a dead-end, including the risk of hierarchical issues. based on the analyses from this study, the moderator’s ability to pursue the participants’ utterances may be the reason for coming to a dead-end. hierarchical issues may also have emerged because of an interest in ensuring heterogeneity in the group construction. however, one aim of using focus groups is to bring together a diverse group to maximize exploration of different perspectives within the focus group setting (kitzinger, 1994; morgan, 1997). morgan (1997) highlighted that the goal of focus group construction is homogeneity in background, e.g. age, and not homogeneity in attitudes. thus, based on this discussion, and with the purpose of the study in mind, it was considered advantageous to consider both homogeneity and heterogeneity in the focus groups. in the case of dominant or expert participants in the groups, moderator control is encouraged. 27 the interactional events stemming from our analyses led to considerations about the role and responsibility of the moderator. although the role of the moderator and group interaction have been emphasized in the literature (krueger et al., 2000; morgan, 1997; puchta et al., 2004; bloor et al., 2001; barbour, 2007), this paper links the interactional events to the influencing nature of the moderator’s role. our analyses demonstrated disagreement between participants in focus groups and how negotiations and lack of consensus impacted constructively on the content of the data that emerged. we emphasised the importance of paying attention to the interaction between participants for analytical purposes, but also for participants to feel comfortable in such cases where the interactions were characterised by dispreferred reactions. thus, the moderator role involves thoroughly considering their responses to the participants’ reactions and responses to others’ conversations, and to signal approval and remain open to the interaction continuing, e.g. by keeping eye contact and nodding; listening and not commenting on the details of the discussion, or instead elaborating on aspects relevant to the study. this is particularly important when there are potential misunderstandings that could lead to deadends in discussion and the need to maintain the normative relation between adjacency pairs. in interactions characterised by a large degree of homogeneity; easy flow in the conversation and preferred reactions to other participants’ utterances, the role of the moderator, may, besides paying close attention to the interaction, encompass challenging the participants’ accounts to add new dimensions to the discussion or interrupt discussions in order to allow another viewpoint to emerge from a different participant or change the focus altogether. in analysing focus group data from this research project, we chose conversation analysis as a source of inspiration. by choosing only elements of this analytical toolbox, we acknowledge that we have omitted substantial material. for example, conversation analysis, in its pure form, requires that transcripts of focus group data be produced according to a set of conventions, utilizing time-taking and a range of symbols to indicate specific features of talk (puchta et al., 2004; barbour, 2007). this, however, was not possible because the need for, and interest in, a more rigorous analysis of the group interaction emerged during thematic analysis of the data; after the focus groups had been transcribed. thus, this paper does not take e.g. length of pauses into consideration. bloor et al. (2001) claim, however, that some of these conventions can be omitted, and barbour (2007) argues that even though a rigorous conversation analysis approach is not followed, the general focus group analysts can still learn from the attention given to the details of speech and interaction. we therefore argue that it has been appropriate to use only elements of conversation analysis in understanding group interaction in this research. because data are analysed in sequences, it can be argued that conversation analysis is a technical tool that does not take into consideration the “liveliness” of social interaction. moreover, the fact that transcribed materials of focus group interactions is analysed (as opposed to for example video recordings of verbal and non-verbal language) may limit representation of forms of interaction (halkier, 2010). however, analysing sequences of group interaction using adjacency pairs, preference organisation, accounts and so forth, allows and intensifies a different and comprehensive view of the data – allowing for perspectives that may not have emerged in the more traditional form of thematic analysis. for example, the interactional event of coming to a dead-end and making sense of it did not reveal itself as important for the content before analysing the exchanges of adjacency pairs. thus, scrutinising data with a specific purpose, in this case group interaction, revealed a variety of interactional events that impacted on content, despite any limitations. 28 we are aware that other analytical approaches could have been relevant in shedding light on group interaction in the empirical examples. for example, if we had used discursive psychology, the focus would have been on the discursive repertoires rather than solely the conversational situation itself (potter, 1996; puchta et al., 2004). one of the strategies in discourse psychology is factual descriptions in which participants construct their accounts as fact-like as possible. an example of factual descriptions from the empirical material is the interaction characterised by disagreement where participants for example use scientific knowledge about the liver to argue about alcohol and health. thus, the interaction data of this research project could have been analysed using alternative tools; however, it is essential to ensure that the methodological tool is coherent with the knowledge interest of the research (halkier, 2010). the broad array of literature addressing focus group research indicates the usefulness of its application as a data collection method for qualitative research. although the literature deals with focus group interaction as part of moderator questions, group composition and introduction to focus groups, less is available on the analysis of the social interaction in the group itself and the analytical outcome for the content of the data. because focus groups are increasingly popular as a method of data collection, it is necessary that researchers critically reflect on and discuss the methodological advantages and limitations. this paper contributes to the body of knowledge on focus group interaction by exemplifying how interaction influences the data contents that emerge by using conversation analysis as inspiration. it builds on existing knowledge by illustrating four commonly occurring interactional events and considers the role of the moderator in case of such events. the paper emphasises that focusing on group interaction in the conduct and analysis of focus group interaction is essential to gain the full potential of the focus group method. references barbour, r. s. 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(1992). the strategy of preventive medicine. new york: oxford university press. silverman, d. (2006). interpreting qualitative data. london: sage. sim, j. (1998). collecting and analysing qualitative data: issues raised by the focus group. journal of advanced nursing, 28, 345-352. warr, d. j. (2005). "it was fun... but we don't usually talk about these things": analyzing sociable interaction in focus groups. qualitative inquiry, 11, 200-225. who (2004). global status report on alcohol 2004 geneva: world health organization, department of mental health and substance abuse. 30 wibeck, v., dahlgren, m. a., & oberg, g. (2007). learning in focus groups: an analytical dimension for enhancing focus group research. qualitative research, 7, 249-267. authors mette grønkjær works at the clinical nursing research unit, aalborg hospital, aarhus university hospital, aalborg, denmark. tine curtis works for implement consulting group hørsholm, denmark. charlotte de crespigny works at the school of population health and clinical practice at the university of adelaide, australia. and charlotte delmar is employed at the clinical nursing research unit, aalborg hospital, aarhus university hospital, aalborg, denmark. email for corresponding author (grønkjær): mette.groenkjaer@rn.dk untitled 118 inquiries of discomfort: cancer experiences in young adulthood bibi hølge-hazelton abstract. young adults with cancer are regarded as an emerging field for research. because of the particular life phase they are in they are particularly vulnerable, as they are often both marginalised and individualised and their experiences are seldom described due to their small numbers. by using an on-line free association narrative inquiry and an experimental writing format, the purpose of this paper is to explore the subjective perspective of what it means to be a young adult living with cancer, and to discuss whether this approach contributes something new to the emerging field. seven condensed poetic products emerged from the analysis: 1) it came from nothing, 2) it sets off a chain reaction, 3) being a bit into adult life, 4) no one shares your experiences, 5) go on with your life, 6) my new me and 7) maybe the lucky ones die? the results empirically support the emerging body of research regarding young adults with cancer. they stress the need for more specific research, clinically and politically appropriate services to this group of cancer patients. thanks to technology, young people living with cancer, now have an opportunity to actively participate in providing information regarding their subjective experiences. this will challenge the traditional hierarchy of knowledge, where healthcare professionals and researchers reign over the power of knowledge and decisions. key words: young adults, cancer, narrative, qualitative research, on-line study, postmodern please cite this article as: hølge-hazelton, b. (2011). inquiries of discomfort: cancer experiences in young adulthood. qualitative studies, 2(2): 118-130. introduction young adults with cancer have long been described as an overlooked or invisible patient group in the literature and in practice (haase, phillips, 2004, woodgate, 2005, aramaki et al. 2005, johansen, 2007, christensen, hølge-hazelton, 2009). however, in the past few years a growing attention has been seen and what is presently called adolescent and young adult oncology, is recognized as a new field appealing to practitioners and researchers from many existing fields (thomas, albritton, ferrari, 2010). it is now recognized that young adults with cancer often have to deal with unique medical, mental health and psycho-social issues (hølge-hazelton et al., 2010a, treadgold, kuperberg, 2010). having cancer in young adulthood, like other serious and chronic illnesses (hølgehazelton, 2002a), has a distinct affect resulting from what has been called “a disrupted biography at a critical transitional moment in the life trajectory that can have a chronic effect after the acute stage of illness is passed” (grinyer, 2007, p. 265). empirically based research focusing on the subjective experiences of what it means to be a young adult cancer survivor has so far been studied using well-known research approaches and standardised measures. but these methods may unintentionally restrict the responses and reproduce medical discourses of cancer. in this article an experimental approach was chosen to investigate whether this kind of inquiry could contribute with new perspectives. 119 background new medical evidence suggests that the biology of cancers among adolescents and young adults is different from those in younger and older persons, not only in the spectrum of cancers, but also within individual cancer types and within the patient (thomas, albritton, ferrari, 2010, bleyer et al., 2008). despite considerably improved cancer treatment possibilities and results, epidemiological studies show a disturbing and inexplicable increase in the incidence of cancer among adolescents and young adults between 13 and 40 years, as well as a poorer treatment response, compared to younger children and adults over the age of 40 (thomas et al., 2006, bleyer et al., 2008). in a biological as well as developmental psychological perspective, however, it is difficult to address young adults with cancer as a group and even though the literature is inconsistent, the group can be divided into adolescents (13-17 years) and young adults (18-40) (christensen, hølge-hazelton, 2009). this article focuses on the latter group. all life stages have challenges but young adulthood invokes a particular attention and effort from the health profession. the youth identity includes several demands and choices regarding education, working life, relationships, family and friends, parenting young children and citizenship in society. an unusual approach problematic issues regarding young adult cancer experiences raised in the existing literature, are often based on well-known research approaches and standardised measures, such as surveys (zebrack, mills, witzman, 2007), qualitative interviews (olsen, harder, 2009, miedema, hamilton, easley, 2007), focus groups and participant observations (woodgate, 2006), including education, careers, life plans, friendship, networks, appearance, sexuality and fertility. however, as shown by suzuki and beale (2006), such methods may unintentionally restrict the responses, whereas an internet-based form of communication may afford greater freedom in how young people describe their cancer experiences. virtual ethnographic studies have shown that e-mails are suitable to approach sensitive issues of living with chronic and other serious illnesses in young adult lives (hølge-hazelton, 2006, 2002b). hence, as an experiment, an internet-based interview series was conducted between the researcher and 13 young adults with cancer aged 17 to 33 with the explicit aim of exploring the subjective experiences of living with cancer. the contact with the researcher had either been established at a special course for young adults with cancer where the researcher facilitated a workshop, or via participants who recommended peers with cancer to join. in contrast to other studies where recruitment can be difficult, this was not the case here. rather, several young adults seemed eager to share their experiences, as they themselves had had difficulties finding relevant material for their generation. the results of these studies have been described elsewhere (hølge-hazelton, 2010b, 2008, 2007). for the purpose of this article, a single case is chosen among the 13. because of its complexity and richness it is identified as having the force of the example (flyvbjerg, 2006). it contains more than 50 single e-mails, exchanged over period of almost 2 years, focusing not only on 120 single issues, but on the progression of experiences of being a young adult living with cancer through all the phases from remission, to control to relapse to palliation to facing death. methodological and theoretical background the methodological point of departure takes place from a free association narrative interview approach (fani) (hollway, jefferson, 2000) informed by postmodern epistemology. the fani has a radically different conception of meaning because it follows an emotional rather than a cognitively derived logic. according to hollway and jefferson, once that logic is followed, the result is a fuller picture than would otherwise have emerged, offering richer and deeper insights into a person’s unique meanings (ibid). free-association in this context is a concept borrowed from psychoanalysis referring to the situation where the researcher ask the informant to say the first thing that comes into her mind, hereby eliciting the kind of narrative that is not structured according to conscious logic, but rather let the associations follow routes defined by emotional motivations, and not by rational intentions (ibid: 37). postmodern researchers who claim that no method has a privileged status (richardson, 1998) have for many years worked with ways to give a “voice” to those who have been “voiceless”, both the researched and the researcher (lincoln, 1997). one way of doing so is via writing as a dynamic, creative and experimental method of inquiry, or “writing as a method of knowing” (richardson, 1998). rolfe states that it is “in writing more so than in the data collection or data analysis that knowledge is constructed from data” (rolfe, 2006, p. 13). thus trustworthiness is not an issue in terms of the interpretation and presentation. paradoxically, any attempt to present the research findings as objective or truthful, as the best or only interpretation, will be seen as untrustworthy (ibid). richardson (1998) makes an important point about poems as a genre for academic texts: that “the metaphor is the message” (ibid). because poetry is a culturally well-known genre, the reader expects to read an evocative text, if this text, although academic, uses the form of poetry. thus the academic-text-as-poetry is open to an evocative reading, where emotions become an important part of understanding what the text ‘is about’ (richardson 1997). poetry is a genre with ‘open endings’ – that is with no particular right or wrong way of reading it (krøjer, hølgehazelton 2008). a particular postmodernist thinking is poststructuralism suggesting that qualitative researchers reflectively understand themselves as writing from particular positions in specific times (richardson, 1998) and that no text can tell the whole story (lincoln, 1997). objective working from these premises, the objective of this paper is to: write an experimental text to explore a subjective perspective of what is means to be a young adult and live with cancer and to discuss whether this approach contributes something new to the field. analysis the interpretation style is inspired by what poststructuralist patti lather calls situated methodology (lather, 1997, richardson 1998), which understands theory as analysis/ interpretation and sees no break between empirical activities and theorising (denzin, 1998). 121 it has something to do with a deconstruction of the theory/practice binary that gestures toward a third space of both/and and neither/nor of theory and practice, a space i presently call a theory of situated methodology. (lather, 1997, p. 235). this approach includes a humanistic and emancipatory perspective and includes text condensation (krøjer, hølge-hazelton, 2008, hølge-hazelton, 2002a).the following steps were taken: 1. reading all the emails to obtain an overall impression and bracketing previous preconceptions. 2. identifying units of meaning representing aspects of subjective experiences of being a young adult cancer patient. 3. condensing each of the units into poetic products. 4. editing the themes brought forward in the poetic products concerning the subjective experiences, following an editing analysing style where existing research and theory supports the analysis, rather than being an inflexible frame. ethics the project did not call for any different ethical codes than those applying to face-to-face interviews (hølge-hazelton, 2002b). however, there are some differences that e-mail researchers have to consider (ess, 2002). all human interactions are situated (giddens, 1993), and interactions on the internet are situated in a slightly other way (hølge-hazelton, 2002b). the internet is a non-physical space where it is possible to deal with issues of everyday life as well as matters of great delicacy across countries and national borders, social class and gender. the messages are written not spoken. cues that are nonverbal, gestural, and articulatory are missing. in this case the issue of living with cancer is sensitive, and the responsible researcher must be aware of the thin line between data gathering and the therapeutic interviews, something e-mail research makes it even easier to cross (hessler et al., 2003). results the results of the analysis are presented as seven condensed poetic products. following this, in the discussion section of the paper, each of these will be related to available relevant research and theory. 1. it came from nothing all good advice on how to prevent cancer is based on a long life so why ??? it came from nothing it might come back from nothing 122 2. it sets off a chain reaction when you tell your family, friends and colleagues about it the chain reaction is set off: oh my god! but you are so young …. …..that will surely get you through! 3. being a bit into adult life being a bit into adult life means i have to take care of my own life and my own illness too 4. no one shares your experiences hospitalization is like becoming at retirement resident no one shares your experiences one feels so alone as a young person with cancer 5. go on with your life cancer is something you should just be over and done with: go on with your life! no one prepared me for all the things i now have to carry i try to do my work, become fit again but i am simply so unspeakably tired 6. my new me the question is simply: who am i? what can i do in order for this to give meaning to my new me? it is so hard to accept a disease that has left me with so deep scars 7. maybe the lucky ones die? i have a question: is it true that some young cancer survivors commit suicide? sometimes i think that we survivors are not the lucky ones… maybe the lucky ones, are the ones who die? discussion much of the available research on subjective experiences in young adulthood indicates that issues regarding loss of independence and normality, the disruption to life trajectory, impact on friendships, families, appearance, sexuality and fertility are dominant (grinyer, 2007). this is no 123 doubt because these issues are highly relevant and of major concern to young adults facing these challenges. however, in this study, the intention is to examine whether the described approach would broaden the spectrum of subjective experiences of being a young adult living with cancer. ad. 1: it came from nothing most research and accessible information regarding the aetiology of cancer is targeted at older age groups and the highly publicized lifelong cancer risk factors, such as smoking and alcohol consumption (benedetti, parent, siemiatycki, 2009). it is stated on the homepage of the american cancer society under the subject prevention “what you eat and drink, how active you are, and other lifestyle behaviours all can affect your risk for cancer” (american cancer society 2009). this message seems to have come through clearly to young adults, who seem to find no help in their search for an understanding of their situation in information material and campaigns targeted at other age groups. according to grinyer (2007) there is a cultural resistance to the diagnosis of cancer in young people; perhaps this is one of the explanations as to why young adults construct their own view of illness and treatment and that it is this view that influences their commitment to treatment regimens as research indicates (haase, phillips, 2004). ad. 2: it sets off a chain reaction most people who get cancer are older and progress has certainly been achieved in treatment, as indicated by the increased survival rates. however these improvements are not experienced at the same levels by adolescents or young adults: on the contrary, the incidence of cancer has risen faster in this group than in other age groups. according to bleyer et al. (2009), among 2039-year-olds, cancer causes more deaths than any other disease, apart from depression culminating in suicide. hence, the “chain reaction” is partly based on what is known from this kind of research, most people who get cancer are older, but it is also based on a general discourse of youth as a time of positive progress and future development that can help the individual to cope with and get through life better. that this is not always the case is shown in grinyer’s newly published work on life after cancer in adolescence and young adulthood. here it is shown how cancer at this particular stage in life has far reaching and lasting impact on the rest of life. not as a constant linear effect, but an impact where events can “catapult a survivor back into a stage resembling pts” (grinyer, 2009, p.167). ad. 3: being a bit into adult life becoming independent and personally responsible are clear indicators of the passage from childhood to adulthood. these especially reflect what is called the individualised patient culture of the 21st century (hede, andersen, 1999) – a culture that puts specific and increased demands on the individual to take responsibility for their own wellbeing and illness. this responsibility can on the one hand create space for inclusion in important decisions regarding treatment and care, but on the other hand can establish an overwhelming feeling of being responsible for issues related to life – and that that is a heavy burden to carry alone (hølgehazelton, 2002a). ad. 4: no one shares your experiences being the only young cancer patient among mostly very old people makes many young adults feel isolated and alone with their problems. as addressed on a canadian webpage for young adults with cancer: 124 would you talk about sex with your grandmother? most every young adult with cancer has had the experience of dropping in on the local cancer support group only to find they are a few decades younger than the average age, it’s much the same as their trips to the chemo room, surrounded by people their parents and grandparents age (young adult cancer canada, 2010). in a study conducted by zebrack et al. (2006) young adult cancer patients ranked opportunities to meet other young cancer patients as highly important – even more important than support from families and friends. even though there is a growing number of adolescent cancer units (olsen, harder, 2009) the majority of young adults with cancer seldom receive care in settings designed to meet their unique needs (ibid, haase, phillips, 2004). ad. 5: go on with your life young adulthood and late adolescence is a period described as manifested by high idealism and rigid concepts of right and wrong (hendricks-ferguson, 2006). the challenges facing young people are to be part of society, to plan careers, establish families and find their adult roles. for health-care professionals one of the main tasks in caring for and treating young cancer patients is to get them back on track as quickly as possible, in order to limit the disruption to the young people’s lives. oncology nurses describe “bending the rules” if they can, when the patients are young, in order to minimise administrative and time obstacles (hølge-hazelton, 2008). however, as mattingly points out, recovery rarely means returning to the life one once had: rather, it means the remaking of a life (mattingly, 1998). consequently, the good intentions of helping young people to get on with their lives post treatment may overshadow the experience of having been through such an emotional and physical thunderstorm to the extent that there is a risk of isolating the individual with feelings of unpreparedness for the physical and psychological challenges that follow a cancer diagnosis and treatment (grinyer, 2009). ad. 6: my new me woodgate (2005), in her study about adolescents’ perceptions of how cancer affected their sense of self, found that the bodily changes impacted their sense of self and way of being in the world. this led on the one hand to a description of still being “pretty much the same” and at the same time significantly changed by the effects of having had cancer. corbeil et al. (2009) describe in their study how young adults with cancer explain how they feel they get to know themselves better and at the same time look at life differently. the experience of having had cancer changed them forever. hope is consistently cited as an important resource for adults and young people with cancer and, according to hendricks-ferguson (2006), hope, understood as the degree to which young persons with cancer believe a positive future exists for them, can be seen as a protective factor or resource. in this particular case it seems that there is almost nothing left of what used to be, so even though there is a sense of self, this is a new, deeply scarred self that seems difficult to understand, recognise and orient hopefully towards the future. ad. 7: maybe the lucky ones die? rosendale (2009) calls for recognition of the phenomenon survivor loneliness described by breast cancer survivors who felt alone with the awareness of mortality and the experience of ongoing symptom burden. 125 by using a narrative inquiry form where both researcher and the young woman who contributed were able to reflect and pose questions, the question: maybe the lucky ones die? came up by the end of the correspondence, signalling an almost unbearable loneliness. it was obviously a difficult question to raise and receive, but also an important one. wolgemuth & donohue (2006) suggest that narrative research is a potentially transformative process that can change participants’ and researchers’ way of viewing and being themselves. in this process, stories containing painful, complicated, contradictory and ambiguous elements are often shared, leading to the development of the concept narrative as an inquiry of discomfort (ibid). this calls for a necessary ethic of empathy and friendship to provide a safe place for participants and researchers to examine and challenge beliefs and assumptions, and for the researcher to be constantly attentive to the research relationship (ibid). wolgemuth & donohue pose the argument that “what we stand to gain from an inquiry of discomfort is a complex, nuanced, and honest knowledge of participants and researchers as they mutually engage in an exploration of values and beliefs” (ibid, p. 1037). as suggested in themes 1-6, it is not only a physical and psychological thunderstorm to go through cancer treatment, it can also be a lonely and painful process to reorient oneself as a survivor. it is known that cancer is associated with an increased risk of suicide, especially in the first years after diagnosis (stenager, stenager, 2000) and although some studies have found a relation between post-traumatic stress disorder (ptsd) and unaddressed treatment distress (ozone et al., 2007, lee, santacrose, 2007) there seems to be a major lack of knowledge and services regarding illness-related distress among young adult cancer survivors. the experimental approach an experiment like the one presented in this article calls for discussion: what can it be called, can others use it, and what are its possibilities and limitations? in an article describing a methodological experiment on poetic representation, the authors switched empirical data (qualitative interviews). the background was an interest in understanding what it means for textual representations that researchers are present, have met and spent time with the research participants. what do researchers add to and detract from the material they work with, and can texts like poetic accounts in this article represent more than a representation of the relationship between the researcher and the persons met in “empirical time”? (hølge-hazelton, krøjer, 2008). a paradox of poetic representations can be described as “on the one hand (in research) there is no (access to) absolute and complete truth and on the other hand trying to or implying that it is important and possible to get close to something original or authentic” (krøjer, hølge-hazelton, 2008, p.27). the experiment showed similarities and differences, the latter mainly related to feelings and relationships of being physically present. in the present work, the author was not present physically, and never in the same “empirical time” as the young woman with cancer, because the emails were written in staggered time. it is possible that poetic products created from emails or other written material will be even more similar if reproduced by other researchers, but it is neither the intention nor belief of this author that there is such a thing as “getting it right” but rather to construct new, less false stories (wolf, 1992, p. 126). 126 significance of research the easy access to homepages, blogs and chat rooms has been welcomed by many people affected by cancer around the globe. here they seek information, knowledge and support. for millions of people this borderless world provides an opportunity to be updated with the latest research on specific illnesses and treatment and allows communication with other people in similar situations, not least allowing them to tell their stories and share their experiences. for people living with cancer, one of the consequences of this is that they now, on a scale never seen before, have the opportunity to actively participate in the course of their treatment in ways that challenge the traditional hierarchy of knowledge, where the healthcare professional reigns over the power of knowledge and decisions. traditionally, qualitative research approaches to capture subjective experiences of illnesses such as cancer, have used face-to-face interviews or observations. however, an increasing number of patients and family members are using blogs or “online expressions of the narrative of illness” to describe the experience of illness (heilferty, 2009). even though very little is known about this phenomenon it is obvious that its use is pushed forward by teenagers and young adults who are also called the “digital generation”, being significant users of new information technologies (ntia and the economics and statistics administration, 2002). the young woman who contributed to this article describes her own blog like this: yes, it was natural for me to share my experiences, thoughts and not least my frustrations of the side effects and inconveniences cancer give. that is why i have set up a blog where i describe those things and clearly also use it as a way to deal with all the thoughts i have like fear of recurrence, changes in my personality, stress et cetera. and in one way it’s barrier-breaking to write about those things, partly because it shows my weak sides. this “naturalness”, combined with a previous face-to-face meeting reassuring her that the researcher was in fact whom she claimed to be, was probably also the reason why she did not question the use of e-mails for the qualitative exploration of her subjective experiences living with cancer. rather she described the process like this: i think it is very interesting and a good way for me to get some things sorted, writing together like this. it is a kind of talk and your replies can be rather illuminating for me. and then it just proves how important it is to focus on this subject! keep up writing ☺ the 7 condensed themes represented in the poetic products correlate well with the emerging research in the field of young adults with cancer. what the free association narrative inquiry approach has contributed is the subjective focus of living with cancer in young adulthood, giving direct and honest responses of how much one must carry alone as a young adult with cancer. getting this insight is an invitation to take on the responsibility for researchers, practitioners and policymakers to create more knowledge, be aware of the special and vulnerable situation it is to live with and survive a life-threatening illness when one is only a bit into adult life and to secure the necessary funding for appropriate education and relevant settings designed to meet the unique needs of young people with cancer. acknowledgement this research has been supported by the danish agency for science, technology and innovation, by the research unit for general practice in copenhagen and by the novo nordic foundation. 127 references american cancer society (2009). http://www.cancer.org/docroot/ped/ped_1.asp (accessed january 6 2011). aramaki m., kawano k., sasaki a., ohno t., tahara k., kai s., iwashita y. and kitano s. 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(2007). health and supportive care needs of young adult cancer patients and survivors. journal of cancer survivorship (1):137-145. author bibi hølge-hazelton, rn. mscn, phd is research director at hospital north, region zealand & associated research professor at the multidisciplinary research unit, region zealand & the research unit for general practice and section of general practice, department of public health, university of copenhagen, denmark. email: bibh@regionsjaelland.dk or bibihoe@sund.ku.dk untitled qualitative studies, 1(1) 33 parkour og den mobile teknologi: en etnografisk undersøgelse af fænomenet parkour i dimensionerne krop, by og medialisering maja klausen abstract: parkour betegnes af udøverne som en ”bevægelseskunst”. den grundlæggende idé er at bevæge sig i et flow gennem omgivelserne kun ved brug af kroppen for at komme fra punkt a til punkt b så hurtigt og effektivt som muligt. udøverne, som kaldes ”traceurs” og primært er unge mænd, traverserer byrummet i højt tempo og flydende bevægelser: de glider over gelændre, husmure, hegn, bænke og parkerede biler. ofte filmer de deres løb med digitalkameraer og uploader materialet på nettet, hvor det kommenteres af og inspirerer andre traceurs. hvordan nærmer man sig metodisk en kultur som parkourkulturen, der både er en krops-, en byog en mediekultur? artiklen refererer til en nu afsluttet undersøgelse af parkourkulturen og diskuterer et metodisk-teoretisk design, der imødekommer dette spørgsmål. der peges på, at det snarere end at nærme sig feltet, handler om at følge det og dets transformationer gennem både kropslige, rumlige og medierede aspekter. denne tilgang laver en heterogen og ”mere-end repræsentationel” mapping og prioriterer det relationelle og flertydige ved at fokusere på mulige forbindelser mellem teori, metode og empiri. key words: parkour, bevægelseskunst, flerstedsetnografi, ant please cite this article as: klausen, m. (2010). parkour og den mobile teknologi: en etnografisk undersøgelse af fænomenet parkour i dimensionerne krop, by og medialisering. qualitative studies, 1(1): 33-47. historien om parkour tager sin begyndelse i den franske forstad lisses først i 1990’erne. her begynder de to venner, david belle og sébastien foucan at eksperimentere med at blande elementer fra gymnastikkens og kampsportens verden med det militære træningssystem ”méthode naturelle”, der blev anvendt under vietnamkrigen, når soldater hurtigt skulle igennem junglen. de to venner udvikler et unikt bevægelsessytem til at overvinde forhindringer på en for kroppen naturlig måde – og parkour er født. traceuren kan siges at stræbe efter en tilstand af permanent fluiditet i sin udøvelse af parkour; kroppen skal flyde let og ubesværet og være i konstant bevægelse gennem rummet. målet for traceuren er at blive ”fluid like water”, en talemåde der florerer i parkourmiljøet, og som flere af informanterne brugte, i deres beskrivelse af parkour. i dag praktiseres parkour i byer verden over, og parkour er blevet en global subkultur. parkourbevægelsen tog imidlertid for alvor fart gennem web 2.0, der faciliterer kontakt brugerog bruger imellem. på mediedelingssiden www.youtube.com (fremover youtube) ligger uploadet mere end 150.000 parkourvideoer1.2en undersøgelse af parkour må derfor bevæge sig mellem og inkludere aktørernes færdsel i både det virtuelle og det fysiske rum uden samtidigt at læse online som fænomen og offline som kontekst, eller omvendt. artiklen fremlægger pointer fra undersøgelsen af parkourmiljøet og diskuterer metoder og overvejelser, som opstod i arbejdet med den indsamlede data. undersøgelsen foregik efteråret 2008 og kombinerede mediegeografi og aktørnetværks-teori (fremover ant) i analyser af feltet. denne kombination af to poststrukturalistiske teoriapparater gav mulighed for at undersøge 1 resultat af søgning på ”parkour” på www.youtube.com d. 27.08.09 qualitative studies, 1(1) 34 feltet på tværs af kategorier som krop og teknologi og gav samtidigt anledning til at diskutere, hvilken kombination af kvalitative værktøjer, der bedst imødekommer denne specifikke teoretiske sammensætning. artiklen taler for en metodisk mappingstruktur, der tematiserer det hybride og relationelle, og som følger aktørerne gennem netværket. gennem onog offline observationer, kvalitative interviews samt inddragelse af metodiske værktøjer fra flerstedsetnografien og den virtuelle etnografi opsporede undersøgelsen netværket ”parkour” på en måde, der kom de anvendte teorier i møde. krop, rum og teknologi parkour foregår i byrummet og på internettet, og parkouroplevelsen kan siges at konstituere sig i traceurens hermeneutiske pendlen mellem de to rum. traceurs anvender digitalkameraer under træningen og filmer sig selv og hinanden, et aspekt af parkour jeg selv oplevede, da jeg observerede, hvorledes københavnske traceurs træner. mange traceurs laver videoer af det optagne materiale; det redigeres, tilsættes musik, får en titel og rulletekster og bliver små film, som efterfølgende uploades på youtube. her kommenterer brugere og traceurs såvel den parkour, der udøves i filmen, som de mere filmtekniske aspekter som musikvalg, kameravinkler og klipning. parkourkulturen og dens æstetiske ideal om at blive ”fluid like water” er vokset op sammen med kameramobilen og digitalkameraet, hvor de mobile teknologier med deres optagefunktion bliver medskabere i produktionen af film, der viser traceurkroppen i flow gennem rummet. også begrebet ”flow” har en særlig plads i parkouruniverset. flow handler ifølge en af informanterne om oplevelsen af, at kroppen smelter sammen med rummet, når rummet overkommes i en flydende bevægelse. flow betegner dermed både et særligt æstetisk udtryk og den oplevelse, som traceuren får, når han opnår flow i sit løb. derfor filmer traceurerne meget oftere, end de fotograferer: et fotografi formår ikke i samme omfang som en film at repræsentere og vise den mobile og flydende krops flow, og fotografiet fanger dermed ikke de aspekter af parkour, der er vigtigst for traceuren; nemlig den flydende bevægelse. i digitalkameraets optagefunktion får traceuren et værktøj, hvormed han kan dokumentere kroppens flow og rejse gennem rummet. traceuren med pseudonymet hans fortæller i et interview: ”vi havde en kort periode lige i starten, hvor vi tog billeder med telefonerne. men det er bare – problemet er, at det er svært at fange ét punkt i et move i parkour, hvor man siger; ”herfra går det bare nedad igen” eller lignende, altså; ”dét her er toppen af selve movet,” for hele det move, du laver, har en betydning: afsættet, handlingen, der sker midt i det hele, og så landingen. så derfor tror jeg bare, at det er svært at tage billeder af parkour på den måde, at fange oplevelsen, hvorimod at du jo får alt med, når du optager.” undersøgelsen af parkour indebar en bevægelse mellem udøvernes færdsel i byen, når de trænede, og deres brug af digitalkamera og internettet, herunder især konsumptionen og produktionen af de mange parkourfilm på youtube. denne bevægelse fulgte både traceuren og den mobile teknologi, digitalkameraet. i parkour konstitueres det fysiske rum og det virtuelle gensidigt og henviser løbende til hinanden gennem traceurens parkourpraksis, hvorfor det i undersøgelsen var essentielt at undgå at reducere online-offline til forholdet mellem fænomen og kontekst. en undersøgelse af parkour, eller andre praksisser, der udfoldes mellem onog offline, må bevæge sig med feltets aktører og søge at begribe den undersøgte praksis som et hele orkestreret på tværs af flere rum på samme tid. flerstedsetnografi, eller ”multi-sided ethnography” (marcus, 1995) kombineret med pointer fra virtuel etnografi (hine, 2005, orgad, 2005) samt observation og kvalitative interviews qualitative studies, 1(1) 35 imødekom undersøgelsesspørgsmål som: hvordan oplever traceuren sin krop og verden gennem parkour? lagres parkour i traceurens krop som en særlig erfaring? disse spørgsmål vedrører parkour som kropskultur og dermed de fænomenologiske aspekter. i overvejelser om forholdet mellem praksis og rum spurgte undersøgelsen: genererer parkour en særlig viden om byrummet for traceuren? hvordan kan parkour tematiseres som urban praksis og samtidsfænomen? heri karakteriseres parkour som et urbant fænomen. svarene på disse spørgsmål tegnede en del af billedet, men de adresserede ikke parkours mediascape2, 3 der udgøres af både materielle teknologier og flows af immaterielle medieringer. i tilnærmelsen til parkour som mediekultur lå spørgsmål som: hvilken rolle spiller den bærbare, digitale teknologi i parkour? hvilke produktioner resulterer brugen af denne teknologi i? kombinationen af mediegeografi og ant imødekommer disse spørgsmål. gennem mediegeografien sættes der fokus på de rumlige tvetydigheder, som eksempelvis en mobil teknologi som digitalkameraet accelererer ved at producere film og billeder, der kan opleves her-og-nu på kameraets skærm. mediegeografien spørger, ”how communication produces space and how space produces communication” (jansson og falkheimer, 2006, p. 9) og er vokset frem qua den rumlige vending, der til stadighed binder medievidenskab og teorier om rum og kommunikation tættere sammen. i parkour er digitalkameraet en aktør, der skaber rumlige og kropslige tvetydigheder, som traceuren forholder sig til og fortolker i sin parkourpraksis. gennem en ant-optik satte undersøgelsen yderligere fokus på teknologien som aktør i netværket. gennem ant defineres det kollektive i parkour i relationerne mellem traceur og teknologi, og ikke alene imellem traceur og traceur. med andre ord peger mediegeografien på forholdet mellem rum og medialisering og på, hvilke transformationer medialiseringerne genererer, og gennem ant ses disse transformationer som et resultat af netværket og dets handlinger. i beskrivelsen af parkours mediale aspekter opstod videre et behov for at klarlægge traceurens hermeneutiske virke: hvordan navigerer traceuren i det flow af medieringer, som udgør en del af parkour? hvordan skaber han mening i feltet mellem mediering og fysisk setting? og videre; hvordan kan kropsoplevelsen tematiseres i en praksis, der på én og samme gang er bundet op på kroppens væren i det fysiske rum, på den mobile teknologi og på medieringer? disse undersøgelsesspørgsmål berører både fænomenologiske, hermeneutiske og performative aspekter, som blev undersøgt i feltet mellem krop og teknologi. undersøgelsens heterogene mapping var én af konsekvenserne af at følge aktørerne, både menneskelige og ikkemenneskelige, som med deres handlinger, beskrivelser og egenskaber sendte analysen omkring fænomenologiske, hermeneutiske, mediegeografiske og ant-relaterede spørgsmål. undersøgelsen blev derved en teoretisk og metodisk mapping, der privilegerede det flertydige og relationelle på bekostning af det afgrænsede og entydige. med kulturgeograf hayden lorimers ord blev undersøgelsen ”more-than-representational” (lorimer, 2005), når den tog 2 begrebet mediascape er hentet hos andré jansson, der imidlertid ikke medregner materialiteter og teknologier i dette begreb, når han definerer det som :”the multitude of texts surrounding people in their everyday lives” (jansson, 2002, p. 12). et mediascape består dermed for jansson af repræsentationer og udgør en del af den imagekultur, som ifølge jansson karakteriserer det senmoderne (jansson, 2001). i og med undersøgelsens fokus på det mere-end-repræsenationelle udvidedes begrebet til også at indbefatte de teknologier, der producerer medieringerne. parkours mediascape består således af: videoer og andre former for medieringer og de teknologier, der producerer og distribuerer dem, det være sig kameramobil, digitalkamera, film-redigeringsprogrammer, computere og mailog fildelingssystemer. qualitative studies, 1(1) 36 højde for og anerkendte, som john saville pointerer, at repræsentationer ofte mødes og forbruges på en ikke-repræsentationel måde (saville, 2008, p. 894). nærmere betegnet: parkourvideoerne på youtube genererer handlinger og følelser hos den enkelte traceur, der blandt andet performer en traceuridentitet ved at gå i kritisk, fortolkende dialog med disse videoer og med digitalkameraets muligheder. kropslig fantasmagoria undersøgelsen af parkour blev bygget op omkring en tematisering af feltet gennem de tre dimensioner: krop, by og medialisering. efter observation onog offline samt et uformelt interview med en traceur, tegnede der sig et billede af en praksis, som bevægede sig mellem on og offline og mellem krop og teknologi. for at diskutere parkour i de tre dimensioner trak undersøgelsen teoretisk blandt andet på merleau-pontys kropsfænomenologi (merleau-ponty, 1945), der problematiseredes gennem ant, amin og thrifts new urbanism (amin og thrift, 2002) samt kombinerede den svenske kommunikationsog medieforsker andré janssons mediegeografi, herunder hans imagekultur-begreb (jansson, 2001) med ants nymaterialistiske konstruktivisme. således etableredes et felt for at nærme sig den affektive og erfarende traceurkrop, der blev læst i sammenhæng med det rum, den opererer i, byrummet, og de teknologier, den omgav sig med. traceurkroppen blev på baggrund af kvalitative interviews karakteriseret som en levende udkrystallisering af byen, hvor byen forstås som en ”mechanosphere”, et begreb amin og thrift har hentet inspiration til hos deleuze og guattari (deleuze og guattari, 1980). amin og thrift definerer en ”mechanosphere” som: ”a set of constantly evolving systems or networks, machinic assemblages which intermix categories like the biological, technical, social, economic and so on, with the boundaries of meaning and practice between the categories always shifting.” (amin og thrift, 2002, p. 78). i traceurkroppen akkumuleres særlige erfaringer omkring byrummet. parkour giver traceuren en anden viden om byen, end den almindelige fodgænger har adgang til. parkour kan betegnes som en kritisk intervention i byrummet, og som traceuren med pseudonymet ivan beskriver, lagres parkourerfaringerne i kroppen og bevirker en specifik præ-refleksiv interaktion med byrummet: ”når jeg går op og ned ad gaden, når jeg sidder i et s-tog, så kigger jeg efter steder helt automatisk, hvor der kunne være fedt at træne – jeg kan ikke lade være. jeg har haft nogle situationer […] hvor jeg får øje på en fed trappe, og så sidder kæresten og bliver sur, fordi hun tror, at man vender sig om efter en pige, og så er det bare fordi, der var en totalt nice trappe – altså – hallo, hvad kan man gøre?!” (uddrag af transkriberet interview med ivan) traceurfiguren forstået som en ”machinic assemblage” blev betegnet gennem hybriden kameratraceuren. traceurkroppen blev videre forstået som medieret og materiel på én og samme gang. dette kom sig af, at traceuren relaterer sin parkour og oplevelsen af fysisk at udøve parkour i byrummet, til spring og øvelser han har set i videoer på youtube. medieringerne på nettet rammesætter altså en del af praksis og udstikker scripts (lagerkvist, 2006, p. 66) for mulige måder at performe parkour. videoernes indhold mimes dog langtfra ukritisk af traceuren. snarere fortolker han dem kreativt i sin udøvelse af parkour i byrummet. den medierede udgave af traceurkroppen optræder imidlertid ydermere på en anden skærm end computerskærmen, nemlig digitalkameraets. når traceuren optager sig selv og andre traceurs, opstår muligheden for at opleve sig selv og sin parkour på skærmen – her-og-nu på stedet. traceurens materielle krop og hans fænomenologiske oplevelse af kroppen i rummet forbindes qualitative studies, 1(1) 37 med den medierede, immaterielle krop, der optræder på skærmen. et eksempel herpå er, når traceurs optager hinanden og diskuterer resultatet på stedet, mens de samles om digitalkameraets skærm, når de er ude at træne. denne situation illustrerer videre, hvorfor undersøgelsen måtte forbinde forskellige teoretiske positioner i en mapping: situationen rummer både kropslige og rumlige tvetydigheder, som digitalkameraet skaber, hvorfor undersøgelsen trak på både mediegeografien og ant. den dialog, som opstår mellem den fysiske og den medierede krop, betegnede undersøgelsen gennem begrebet ”kropslig fantasmagoria”, der er inspireret af andré janssons brug af begrebet ”spatial phantasmagoria” (jansson, 2002). kropslig fantasmagoria er en proces, og begrebet søger at fange en del af de rumlige tvetydigheder, der opstår i medieringsprocesser, skabt og accelereret af en teknologi som digitalkameraet. i parkour betegner den kropslige fantasmagoria mere specifikt en proces, hvor traceurkroppen skiftevis materialiseres og dematerialiseres gennem traceurens fysiske udfoldelse af parkour samt hans relationer til og fortolkninger af de medieringer og flows af billeder, der gennemtrænger parkourkulturen. kropslig fantasmagoria er dermed et resultat af traceurens interaktion med parkours mediascape. kropsoplevelsen i parkour orkestreres dermed i lige så høj grad af kroppens fysiske stedsbundethed som af medieringer skabt af kamera-traceuren. kropslig fantasmagoria anerkender i forlængelse af latham og mccormack materialisering og dematerialisering som gensidigt konstituerende processer. latham og mccormack taler for; ”[…] a notion of the material that admits from the very start the presence and importance of the immaterial, not as something that is defined in opposition to the material, but as that which gives it an expressive life and liveliness independent of the human subject.” (latham og mccormack, 2004, p. 703). traceurens parkouroplevelse kommer dermed dels i værk gennem kroppens væren-i-verden: den aktuelle krop, der er i verden igennem konkret bevægelse (merleau-ponty, 1945, p. 59), samt gennem en form for væren-på-skærmen, som undersøgelsen valgte at betegne det: denne tilstand karakteriserer en del af de præmisser, som fænomenologien må defineres i forbindelse med i eksempelvist et mediascape som parkour, hvor bærbare medieteknologier tillader subjektet at opleve sig selv på skærmen på stedet. gennem ant bliver fænomenologien og ideen om den ”rene” krop problematiseret, og undersøgelsen søgte gennem begrebet kropslig fantasmagoria og gennem at tale om en væren-på-skærmen at imødekomme den aktørnetværksteoretiske hybrid kamera-traceuren og dens effekter. traceurens krop er altid allerede flere steder, og parkour konstitueres på tværs af krop, rum, teknologi og repræsentationer. traceuren med pseudonymet hans fortæller om youtube og parkour, og hans beskrivelse peger på forbindelserne mellem onog offline og mellem mediering og kropslig erfaring: ”altså, jeg har da tit set ting på youtube, hvor jeg tænker: ”hey, det der, det kunne jeg sgu også godt lave”. og så går man ud for at prøve det af […] så kommer man måske på noget nyt derude, så kan man filme det og poste det på nettet, og sådan kan det jo så fortsætte.” sådan kan det netop fortsætte, hvilket det også gør: parkours kredsløb vedligeholdes af en række aktører eller ”rekrutter” med thrift og binghams ord (thirft og bingham, 2000, p. 285), der blandt andet producerer parkourfilmene, der konsumeres, fortolkes og inspirerer til nye film og ny parkour. den teoretiske mapping etablerede forbindelser mellem krop, by og medialisering – og dermed mellem materialiteter og immaterialiteter – gennem fænomenologi og ikke mindst mediegeografi og ant. som konsekvens heraf måtte der ligeledes arbejdes ud qualitative studies, 1(1) 38 fra en metodisk mappingstruktur, der adresserede empirien åbent og forholdte sig til de anvendte teorier. flersteds-etnografi undersøgelsen trak på klassisk etnografi gennem brug af kvalitative interviews og observation. der blev lavet tre interviews à cirka tre timers varighed, hvoraf det ene blev foretaget på baggrund af et uformelt interview. i interviewene, der primært var strukturerede gennem kvales tilgang til det kvalitative interview (kvale, 1994), udgjorde det at se parkourfilm, hvor interviewpersonen enten medvirkede selv eller havde stået bag kameraet, en del af dataindsamlingen. herigennem søgte jeg at få et begreb om nogle af de ikke-repræsentationelle effekter, som repræsentationer har ifølge saville (saville, 2008, p. 894). således oplevede jeg som interviewer medieringerne sammen med traceuren, hvilket genererede en særlig viden omkring parkours mediascape både vedrørende produktion, uploading og om hvad, traceuren værdsætter i en video; hvad der rører ham, irriterer eller inspirerer ham. det var blandt andet gennem denne form for dataindsamling samt interaktion med informanterne, at grundlaget for at tale om kropslig fantasmagoria blev lagt: når traceuren ser en parkourvideo ”kribler det i benene”, som ivan beskriver det: ”det giver mig altid en eller anden form for inspiration at se ting på nettet, jeg får altid nye ideer. så kribler det i benene, og jeg går ud og arbejder på det, […] og hvis det fungerer, det jeg laver, så kan jeg filme det og uploade det. jeg synes, at mange i miljøet er gode til at være kreative på en god måde, og så er det fint, at man kan dele det med hinanden på nettet.” (uddrag af transkriberet interview) kropsoplevelsen i parkour konstitueres gennem både den materielle krops udførelse af parkour, og når traceuren oplever og visuelt konsumerer den virtuelle traceurkrop på skærmen. derfor blev studiet af parkour foretaget på tværs af kroppens og byens materielle rum og medieringernes virtuelle sfære. undersøgelsen fulgte aktørerne gennem flerstedsetnografiske metoder ved at møde og være med aktørerne i forskellige settings; til træning på islands brygge eller på online på youtube for at se parkourvideoer. ”sted” i ”flerstedsetnografi” forstås altså i denne undersøgelse bredt, og ikke kun som en given fysisk lokalitet: at være med traceuren på youtube og se parkourvideoer er at være et sted sammen med ham – et andet sted end til træning på bryggen. at være med aktøren på youtube og opleve parkours flow af medieringer sammen med ham gav indsigt i, hvordan traceuren bruger nettet som en platform til at underbygge og udbygge sin traceuridentitet. at pendle mellem flere forskellige rum sammen med aktørerne imødekommer flerstedsetnografien, når george e. marcus opfordrer: ”follow the people” og ”follow the thing” (marcus, 1995, p. 106). ved at opspore forbindelser mellem flere sites bevæger etnografien sig dermed fra det traditionelle single-site studie, der ifølge marcus blev kontekstualiseret af en større social ordens makrokonstruktioner, som eksempelvis det kapitalistiske verdenssystem, til i stedet at behandle ”multiple sites of observation and participation that cross-cut dichotomies such as the ”local” and the ”global”, the ”lifeworld” and the ”system.” (ibid. p. 95). i og med kollapset af disse traditionelle skel bliver etnografien både ”in and out of the world system.” (ibid. p. 95), når den føjer det globale ind i det lokale i stedet for at begribe det som en holistisk kontekst for det lokale. herved imødekommer flerstedsetnografien ants opfordringer til at følge aktørerne, og i kollapset mellem mikroog makrostrukturer korresponderer flerstedsetnografien med ant, der betegner det sociale gennem netværkets karakteristika: ”may be the social possesses the bizarre property of not being made of agency structure at all, qualitative studies, 1(1) 39 but rather of being a circulating entity” (latour, 1999, p. 17. fremhævning i original). flerstedsetnografien er interdisciplinær i sine undersøgelser af, hvordan identiteter, objekter og kulturelle betydninger transformeres i cirkulationer og bevægelser mellem forskellige sites. etnografien må nødvendigvis forlade det traditionelle single-site studie, når den søger at kortlægge terræn på tværs af rum. i mappingen af parkour blev observationsarbejdet dels udført on location og online. førstnævnte foregik ved, at jeg à fire omgange i to-tre timer overværede traceurs træne på islands brygge i københavn til deres ugentlige søndagstræning, sunday jam. jeg valgte at tage fotografier af træningen i stedet for at føre feltdagbøger og tage feltnoter. dette valg tog jeg, da jeg fulgte med de trænende rundt på bryggen, hvorfor jeg ikke havde mulighed for at sidde ned og notere mine observationer ned. de billeder jeg tog, udgjorde dermed en del af undersøgelsens analysemateriale. at jeg dokumenterede og undersøgte træningen og traceurens brug af krop og digitalkamera med mit eget digitale spejlreflekskamera forekom naturligt i kraft af de mange kameraer, der i forvejen var til stede under træningen. den teknologi, jeg havde allieret mig med, var blot med til at skabe kontakt, og enkelte traceurs ville vide, hvad kameraet kunne i forhold til deres små digitalkameraer. at jeg fotograferede etablerede en naturlig kontakt med de tilstedeværende traceurs, og flere spurgte, om jeg ville maile dem de billeder, hvor de selv var på. at indsamle data gennem fotografering kunne i andre sammenhænge være både upassende samt genere en afstand mellem etnografen og aktørerne, der kan føle sig udstillet. dette var imidlertid ikke tilfældet, da traceurs i forvejen er vant til teknologiens tilstedeværelse og til at performe foran og gennem teknologien. observationsarbejdet online blev gjort i undersøgelsens startfase, hvor jeg dagligt i en måned brugte én til halvanden time på nettet. jeg læste debatter, blogs, så parkourvideoer på youtube og google og søgte at danne mig et overblik over feltets karakter online. jeg oprettede mig ligeledes som bruger på det danske parkoursite le-parkour.dk.dk, og herigennem blev jeg bekendt med sprogbrug, specifikke øvelser, træningssteder samt de diskussioner, der føres traceurs imellem. et eksempel er diskussionen om, hvorvidt noget er ”parkour”, ”tricking”, ”urban tricking” eller ”street movement”, som alle er bevægelsesformer udviklet med udgangspunkt i parkour. online observationsarbejdet gav indblik i en subkultur, der som mange andre subkulturer var kritisk overfor indblanding udefra. de traceurs, der blogger og diskuterer på le-parkour.dk.dk, er opmærksomme på, at det ikke er ”kloge hoveder og professorer”, som de skriver, der definerer, hvad parkour er. dette pegede på feltets ønske om at bevare sin autonomi, og viste mig, at jeg som nysgerrig udefrakommende skulle træde varsomt i min interaktion med informanter, da jeg let kunne komme til at fremstå som et ”klogt hoved”. parkourmiljøets modvilje mod at blive klassificeret udefra, bekræfter altså thornton, der påpeger, at det er karakteristisk for subkulturer at modsætte sig klassificering: ”classlessness is a strategy for transcending being classed” (thonton, 1995, p. 192). de observationer jeg gjorde online formede en del af undersøgelsesspørgsmålene. herefter tog jeg kontakt pr. mail til tre traceurs gennem to forskellige parkourfora på nettet. dernæst fulgte en periode med fokus på observationsarbejdet på islands brygge i københavn. sluttelig blev de tre kvalitative interviews gennemført. således blev interviewene udformet og udført på baggrund af observationer gjort både on location og online samt på baggrund af mailkorrespondancer med de tre informanter. denne proces var dog langtfra lineær. undersøgelsen bevægede sig frem og tilbage mellem data indsamlet i de forskellige rum, da der løbende kom nye indsigter og problemstillinger til. det er væsentligt, at etnografen så vidt muligt undgår at lade hypoteser guide observationen: netop åbenheden for, at interaktionen, qualitative studies, 1(1) 40 der studeres, kan gå ad ukendte veje og tage overraskende drejninger, er vigtig: ”etnometodologer […] fastholder, at man ikke på forhånd skal lægge sig fast på bestemte måder at beskrive en given praksis på. man må derfor være åben overfor hvordan interaktion rent faktisk udspiller sig, og være parat til at anvende en mangesidet tilgang.” (markussen, 2007, p. 129). undersøgelsen af parkour havde blik for digitalkameraets og den menneskelige aktørs bevægelser og samspil i både en onog en offline setting. de to aktører indgår i kameratraceuren som et handlende netværk både i byens rum og i det virtuelle, når traceuren uploader. i begge rum åbner den mobile teknologi unikke muligheder for en performance af parkour og af en traceuridentitet: at være ude at træne fysisk giver blandt andet mening for traceuren, fordi han på andre tidspunkter er online på youtube eller på le-parkour.dk.dk og vice versa. og, det er den mobile teknologi, der forbinder de forskellige steder med hinanden og giver kamera-traceuren mulighed for at være til stede og performe begge steder. derudover fungerer digitalkameraet som en art protese, der tillader traceuren at kende og opleve sin krop på måder, der ellers ikke ville have været mulige. traceuren ivan sagde blandt andet følgende om brugen af digitalkamera: ”jeg kan sagtens finde på at optage det, jeg laver, mest for at fejlrette mig selv og se, hvordan jeg kan gøre tingene, ik’? [interviewer]: så du kigger på displayet, efter du har fået filmet ét af dine spring? [ ivan]: ja […] jeg kan optage det, og så kigge på skærmen bagefter og se springet og sige: ”dén arm, den burde ikke være dér, den burde være dér”, og på den måde fejlrette mig selv på stedet […] det er en god måde at blive bedre på.” (uddrag af transskriberet interview) virtuel etnografi traceurs’ aktiviteter på nettet udgør en stor del af fænomenet parkour. at skulle bedrive observation og indsamle data både onog offline, er en udfordring, der møder den sociale videnskab i dag. christine hine pointerer, at ”[…] there are few researchers in the social sciences or humanities who could not find some aspect of their research interest manifested on the internet” (hine, 2005, p. 1), hvorfor overvejelser omkring interaktion med informanter online er væsentlige. hines tilgang til virtuel etnografi påpeger først og fremmest vigtigheden i, at forskeren er refleksiv omkring sine greb og metoder og overvejer, hvordan den viden, der opnås, påvirkes af denne eller hin metode. hine og shani orgad, som i meget høj grad er inspireret af hine, udgjorde grundlaget for tilgange at være både onog offline med informanter. særlig vigtig er hines understregning af nettet som både kulturel kontekst og kulturel artefakt: ”the internet as cultural context is established […] through application of ethnographic methods to online settings. that the internet is also a cultural artefact is apparent from the extent to which it is manifested as a varying and variably used set of technologies that have different meanings for different groups of people” (hine, 2005, p. 9). brugen af internettet er altid en situeret oplevelse, siger hine. det betyder, at den etnografiske tilgang til nettet nødvendigvis former den viden, etnografen får om et givent aspekt på nettet. citatet ovenfor understreger også, vigtigheden i at være særligt opmærksom på informanters forhold til og brug af nettet. i undersøgelsen af parkour, viste det sig, at der var delte holdninger til, hvorledes nettet kunne og burde bruges. hans og ivan filmede og uploadede eksempelvis ofte parkourvideoer og havde begge en brugerprofil på youtube, hvorimod søren var mere skeptisk overfor mediernes og qualitative studies, 1(1) 41 teknologiernes rolle i parkour: ”parkour er i virkeligheden ikke de jack ass-videoer, som du kan se på youtube. men det er det ved at blive. […] parkour handler om bevægelser og om at få kroppen til at udnytte sit potentiale i optimal bevægelse. jeg ser da videoer på nettet, det er klart, men for mig er det en lille del af at være traceur. sådan burde det være for alle [traceurs], hvis du spørger mig.” (uddrag af transkriberet interview) da undersøgelsen blandt andet søgte at tematisere traceurens oplevelse af at bevæge sig mellem onog offline i sin parkourpraksis, var det naturligt at møde informanterne begge steder for, med orgads ord, at fange ”both sides of the screen” (orgad, 2005, p. 51). i denne pendlen frem og tilbage må der være fokus på, hvordan kommunikationen ændrer sig: hvordan skabes viden pr. mail i forhold til den viden, der genereres i et kvalitativt interview ansigt-til-ansigt? generelt oplevede jeg, at interviewets karakter af nu-og-her interaktion medførte indsigter og beskrivelser, som jeg ikke kunne have opnået gennem mailkorrespondance, hvori alt kan omformuleres og rettes til, inden der trykkes på ”send”. dette tab af kontrol over situationen, krævede imidlertid, at jeg havde forberedt mig godt og gerne lært interviewguiden udenad. oplevelsen af interviewet som værdifuldt, betyder imidlertid ikke, at ansigt-til-ansigtsituationen blev anset for mere autentisk end den situation, som den computermedierede kommunikation skabte. jeg søgte netop bevidst at undgå at se forholdet mellem onog offline som forholdet mellem fænomen og kontekst, hvor offline-situationen skal kaste lys over onlinebrugen. det var hensigten, at bevægelserne mellem de to interaktionsformer skulle nedbryde dualismen mellem onog offline: de to størrelser konstituerer hinanden i såvel traceurens parkourpraksis som i undersøgelsens tilgang til casen, hvor online kommunikationen kunne kaste lys over dimensioner i ansigt-til-ansigt situationen og omvendt. således taler de forskellige metodiske greb med hinanden og overskrider online-offline dikotomien – en bevægelse, der mimer traceurens bevægelse mellem det virtuelle og det fysiske. orgad pointerer: ”the knowledge we generate, and the story we tell as researchers about the context we study, whether based on online interactions, offline interactions, or both, is crucially constructed by the means and the kind of interaction in which we engage” (orgad, 2005, p. 63). for at få forbindelse med mulige informanter oprettede jeg mig som nævnt som bruger på det danske website le-parkour.dk, som kalder sig for ”det officielle danske parkour community”. dette site har omkring 1.600 brugere. hine anfører, at online interaktion kræver særligt fokus på, hvorledes man præsenterer sig selv på nettet: ”establishing one’s presence as a bona fide researcher and trustworthy recipient of confidences is not automatic, and varies depending on the cultural context under investigation” (hine, 2005, p. 20). dette underbygges af orgad, der taler om, at den tekstuelle og anonyme interaktion, som man har online, netop stiller svære betingelser for opbyggelsen af det nødvendige tillidsforhold mellem informant og forsker (orgad, 2005, p. 55). det var derfor nødvendigt at gøre meget ud af præsentationen af mit projekt i de første mails, jeg sendte til informanterne. herigennem kunne de bedre bedømme mig og mine hensigter. derudover var jeg opmærksom på subkulturens overfølsomhed for udefrakommende, der kunne formidle et ”forkert” billede af parkour videre til omverdenen. hans skrev for eksempel til mig i sin første mail, at han gerne ville hjælpe mig, da han fornemmede ud fra min mail, at jeg havde ”rene intentioner”. jeg fulgte aktørerne rundt i netværket i så vid udstrækning som muligt. uden på forhånd at lægge mig fast på hvilke aspekter, der skulle være i fokus, søgte jeg at strukturere mine qualitative studies, 1(1) 42 bevægelser i netværket ud fra et overordnet ønske om at klarlægge traceurernes interaktion og oplevelser med den mobile medieteknologi og var så i øvrigt åben for, hvilke associationer, vidnesbyrd, praksisser og performances dette fokus opsporede. for traceuren er brugen af nettet en del af det at være traceur og praktisere parkour, hvorfor den virtuelle etnografi fungerede som et nyttigt metodisk redskab i undersøgelsen af parkour. dermed hjalp den virtuelle etnografi dels undersøgelsen med at imødekomme ants opfordringer om at følge aktørerne. derudover strukturerede den virtuelle etnografi indsamling af data online, der videre hjalp med at tematisere traceurens brug af nettet og tegne billedet af parkour som en medieog teknologibåret kultur, der gennem brug af medier og teknologier skaber nye rumlige og kropslige oplevelser. traceurens online praksis relaterer som nævnt til hans offline parkourpraksis og omvendt, og derfor måtte jeg møde traceuren i begge rum for at kunne lave en mediegeografisk undersøgelse af, hvordan traceuren pendler mellem disse rum, og hvordan rummene skabes og transformeres i parkours mediascape. den virtuelle etnografi etablerede dermed forbindelser mellem ant og mediegeografien. mellem ant og mediegeografi ant og mediegeografien har overordnet til fælles, at de gennem etnografiske metoder studerer, hvordan mennesker producerer, indgår i og rammesættes af netværk af forskellig karakter. både ant og mediegeografien arbejder også ud fra den præmis, at medier og teknologier har givet mennesket nye muligheder for at handle og for at opleve, og det er disse muligheder, de hver på sin måde undersøger. mediegeografi og ant bindes yderligere sammen gennem mediegeografiens anerkendelse af en fysisk dimension i oplevelsernes og følelsernes immaterielle sfære: rummets materialitet indvirker på og guider oplevelser og forholdet mellem oplevelse og repræsentation, jf. andré janssons tekstur-begreb, der konstituerer rummet i dets symbolske og materielle aspekter (jansson, 2006, p. 87). dette blik for en fysisk dimension går godt i spænd med den nymaterialisme, som ant kan siges at repræsentere gennem dens inddragelse af objekter og materialiteter af en hver art som aktører i konstruktionen af det kollektive. disse fællesnævnere faciliterer en kobling mellem de to teoretiske retninger. i ant tales der om ”aktanter” eller ”aktører”, betegnelser, der anvendes synonymt (olesen og kroustrup, 2007, p. 84). gennem ants aktørbegreb er det handlingen, situationen, der studeres, hvorfor observation som metode er egnet. men, når en undersøgelse også ønsker at tilnærme sig et følende, oplevende og reflekterende subjekt, er det kvalitative interview en oplagt metode. i observationsarbejdet på islands brygge lå et naturligt fokus på handlinger: hvad gjorde traceuren? hvilke øvelser lavede han? hvad og hvem filmede han? observationerne egnede sig til koblingen med ant, som undersøgelsen lavede. ant undersøger, hvordan netværk handler, nærmere betegnet gennem hvilke forbindelser mellem hybride aktører, at handling opstår. af denne grund tenderer ant mod at blive meget deskriptiv, hvilket den også kritiseres for. latour modsvarer imidlertid denne kritik ved at påpege, at kun en vag teori tillader aktørerne at komme til orde i forskningen (gad og jensen, 2007, p. 99). hvis den observerende har blik for det, tillader observation i høj grad alle netværkets aktører at komme på banen, hvilket ikke i samme omfang er tilfældet med det kvalitative interview: her bliver den menneskelige aktør, subjektet, naturligt privilegeret. han/hun spørges ud, fortæller om sine oplevelser og sættes automatisk ind som talsmand på vegne af netværkets øvrige aktører, der blot er til stede gennem de repræsentationer, subjektet taler frem. qualitative studies, 1(1) 43 mediegeografien, som den ses hos andré jansson, bruger netop det kvalitative interview til at skabe viden omkring hermeneutiske og fænomenologiske aspekter i forholdet mellem medier, rum og oplevelser. dette kalder jansson for ”qualitative media sociology” (jansson, 2001, p. 147). i feltet mellem ant og mediegeografi handler det på den ene side om at opspore og beskrive handlinger og belyse disse gennem en ant-optik og på den anden side om at få disse handlinger og de oplevelser, som de genererer for den menneskelige aktør, traceuren, tematiseret gennem en mediegeografisk indfaldsvinkel. i kombinationen af de to teorier abonnerede undersøgelsen både på ants definition af ”det kollektive” som et handlende netværk bestående af mennesker og ikke-mennesker (latour, 2005, p. 35) og på en mediegeografisk tilnærmelse til subjektets oplevelser af at være en del af et mediascape. dette resulterede i den omtalte mappingstruktur, som gav plads til at afprøve metoder og teorier overfor hinanden, og som videre tillod en undersøgelse af en praksis, der blandt andet blev meningsfuld for den menneskelige aktør gennem inddragelse af en bærbar teknologi som digitalkameraet. den producerende kamera-traceur ant ”begrænser […] ikke sig selv til menneskelige, individuelle aktører, men udstrækker ordet aktør – eller aktant – til ikke-menneskelige, ikke-individuelle størrelser”, skriver latour (latour, 1996, p. 48. fremhævning i original.). ant definerer altså begrebet aktør semiotisk som noget, der handler og får aktivitet fra andre. at handling opstår i relationen, i netværket, var en givtig indfaldsvinkel for et studie af parkour, der blandt andet søgte at svare på, hvordan teknologier blev aktører i opretholdelsen af parkours mediascape. ant var altså med til at vise parkour i fænomenets hybride natur af det teknologiske og det sociale. et eksempel på, hvorledes traceurs og teknologier samles omkring hinanden i parkour, er et video-projekt, som traceuren hans stablede på benene. han kontaktede traceurs landet over pr. mail og opfordrede til at filme to minutter af deres parkour, som så skulle sendes til hans efterfølgende. hans klippede de mange to minutters bidrag sammen til en parkourfortælling med titel, rulletekster, plot og begyndelse, midte og slutning og lagde den endelige video på youtube den 24.december 2006, som en julegave til de medvirkende traceurs og det danske parkourcommunity. hans fortæller: ”jeg fik bare ideen en dag og tænkte, at det ku’ være fedt at være nogle traceurs, der samledes og lavede en video. fordi jeg føler ret meget, at man er bundet ret tæt sammen i parkour, selvom man bor forskellige steder i landet – og over hele verden, ik’? så tænkte jeg bare: ”hey, det gør vi da bare”, altså, og så sendte jeg mails ud til de traceurs, jeg kender her i danmark, og folk var jo bare helt klar på at være med.” (uddrag af transkriberet interview) filmen, der fik titlen tasken! kan ses på youtube. den kan læses som et fællesskabsgenererende projekt hybride aktører imellem: de forskellige teknologier som mailsystemer, digitalkameraer, videoredigeringsprogrammer og en mediedelingsside som youtube indgår som en del af opretholdelsen af parkours kredsløb. hans, som var idémand, performer teknologiernes muligheder og binder aktører sammen på tværs af tid og rum. tasken! viser netop, at parkour ikke blot er en udforskning af kropslige og rumlige grænser – spørgsmålet om, hvad kroppen kan gøre i rummet – men at parkour også er en udforskning af, hvad medier og teknologier kan, når de inddrages, og deres muligheder fortolkes kreativt. tasken! blev dermed ikke læst som en repræsentation. den blev læst i sin mere-end-repræsentationalitet ved at sætte fokus på de betingelser hvori, den var blevet til. spørgsmålet om, hvilke produktionsvilkår den havde haft? hvilke aktører var gået sammen på hvilke måder for at skabe dette specifikke produkt? i forbindelse med at læse filmen som noget andet end blot en repræsentation så jeg den sammen med hans, der fortalte om dens tilblivelse, komplikationer, efterspil og ris og ros som var fulgt i qualitative studies, 1(1) 44 kølvandet på videoprojektet. ant handler ikke om ”opsporede” netværk, men om ”en netværks-opsporende aktivitet.” (latour, 1996, p. 61; fremhævning i original), og det var en sådan, jeg blandt andet gennem observation søgte at lave i parkours landskab ved eksempelvis at komme bagom en produktion som tasken! og observere træningen på islands brygge. observationsarbejdet skal i ant opspore det, der gøres, samt ”følge aktørerne” (gad og jensen, 2007, p. 101) gennem netværk og cirkulationer i kraft af, at der ikke på forhånd er givet nogen grænser for, hvor empiri kan findes. dette stiller store krav til personen, der undersøger et felt, og jeg var selv nødt til at acceptere, at det ikke lod sig gøre at følge aktørerne overalt i netværket. af denne grund var det hensigtsmæssigt at supplere den gennem observation indsamlede data med viden genereret gennem interviews, hvor traceuren, kunne redegøre for og fortælle om dele af sin praksis, jeg ikke var vidne til under mit observationsarbejde. i ant ses den menneskelige aktør som ”mediator” frem for ”formidler”, hvor sidstnævnte kan transportere betydning uden transformation. med en mediator kendes output aldrig qua input; mediatorens transformationer er uforudsigelige. ”mediatorer transformerer, oversætter, forvrider og modificerer den betydning eller de elementer, som det er meningen, de skal transportere.” (latour, 2005, p. 62). ifølge latour er ant: ”simply another way of being faithful to the insights of ethnomethodology […] a very crude method to learn from the actors without imposing on them an a-priori definition of their world-building capacities.” (latour, 1999, p. 19. fremhævning i original.) . i etnometodologien er analyseenheden ikke individet, men selve interaktionen, der finder sted (markussen, 2007, p. 123), da social orden fremkommer som en effekt af menneskets mange interaktioner. dette perspektiv og ants tilgang til aktøren er med til at placere ant udenfor klassiske hermeneutiske og fænomenologiske fortolkningsuniverser. i min tilgang til interviewarbejdet arbejdede jeg ud fra ants pointer, og så traceuren som blot én af netværkets aktører. informantens beretninger fra netværket, sendte mig steder hen, jeg ellers ikke ville være kommet. ant kunne med sine pointer om det handlende netværk strukturere en del af mappingen, da ant var med til at vise at parkour i fænomenets urene natur bestående af blandt andet kropslige og teknologiske størrelser. i ant findes der ingen subjekter, fordi fænomener kun kan forstås i sammenhæng med de netværk, de indgår i: ”da disse netværk består af både subjektivt og objektivt givne fænomener, betyder det, at hverken social struktur eller subjektiv intentionalitet kan være forklaringsgrundlag. der findes ikke subjekter – kun aktanter […] og der findes ikke sociale strukturer – kun hybride netværk.” (arnoldi, 2003, p. 11). et andet aspekt, der måtte tages højde for i kombinationen af ant og mediegeografi, var, at ant fokuserer på teknologiens praktiske performances: fokus er rettet mod hvilke praktiske handlinger, en given teknologi muliggør i relation til en given aktør. jonas larsen påpeger, at ant overser teknologiers ”kulturelle og emotionelle performances, og hvorledes mange tilbyder æstetiske og ekspressive muligheder for at udtrykke smag, stil og identitet” (larsen, 2006, p. 41). undersøgelsen tog larsens pointe til sig i analysen af traceurens performance af en traceuridentitet og af teknologiernes muligheder. i ant samles det kollektive blandt andet af objekter og teknologier, men ant spørger ikke, hvordan denne kollektivitet opleves, hvilke sansemæssige potentialer, der ligger i den. ant understreger, at teknologier tillader handlinger, som den menneskelige aktør ikke kunne have udført på egen hånd – men en pointe i undersøgelsen blev, at teknologier også sætter den menneskelige aktør i stand til at opleve, qualitative studies, 1(1) 45 erfare og mærke både ting, steder, andre aktører og sin krop på nye måder. “a critique of the real by the possible” ved at arbejde med en teoretisk og metodisk mapping, der havde som mål at undersøge mulige forbindelser teorier, metoder og empiri imellem, kunne parkour defineres som både en krops og en mediekultur i en analyse, der rummede mediegeografien og dens hermeneutiske og fænomenologiske projekt samt ants nymaterialistiske konstruktivisme. ved at følge aktørerne i lyset af forskellige teorier, gennem forskellige rum og ved brug af forskellige metoder, får den etnografiske undersøgelse mulighed for at tematisere fænomener qua deres hybride, urene natur bestående af noget menneskeligt, noget teknologisk, noget følt, noget gjort, noget materielt og noget immaterielt. dette er en åben tilgang til netværket, der lader andre aktører end den menneskelige træde frem. i denne tilgang ses den refleksive og oplevende menneskelige aktør som blot én af netværkets aktører; men imidlertid en aktør, der kan videregive erfaringer og oplevelser fra netværket, som ellers er uden for etnografens rækkevidde, og som har værdi for en etnografisk undersøgelse. at tematisere de erfaringsog oplevelsesuniverser, som blandt andet mobile teknologier er medproducenter af, er en opgave, der kan besvares ved kombination af forskellige kvalitative metoder. undersøgelsen af parkour og af hybriden kamera-traceuren, tog udgangspunkt i kropslige, rumlige og mediale aspekter og søgte at etablere forbindelser mellem disse gennem brug af forskellige metoder på forskellige steder i netværket. undersøgelsen definerede det kollektive i parkour ved at se på, hvad der forbandt og engagerede traceurerne, og digitalkameraet var netop et sådant forbindelsessted og dermed en del af det sociale, hvorfor kamera-traceuren er et knudepunkt, der stabiliserer parkours netværk. fænomenet parkour blev ud fra denne definition af dets kollektivitet videre undersøgt for, hvilke oplevelser og erfaringer af krop og rum, muligheder for performance og identitetskonstruktioner, det indeholdte. undersøgelsen holdte fast i ant og kamera-traceuren som handlende netværk, men det blev også en væsentlig del af undersøgelsen at se på de produkter, som hybriden skabte, nemlig parkourfilmene. disse blev ikke analyseret som repræsentationer, men blev tematiseret ud fra deres ikke-repræsentationelle effekter, som blev undersøgt metodisk ved at se parkourfilm sammen med traceuren. mediegeografien søger blandt andet svar på, hvorledes de omnipresente medier generer en ”mediatised sense of space” (jansson og falkheimer, 2006, p. 19). ved at arbejde med hybriden kamera-traceuren diskuterede undersøgelsen, hvorvidt der i parkour kan være tale om en ”mediatised sense of body”. denne optik gav anledning til at tale om kropslig fantasmagoria og en væren-på-skærmen i parkour. parkour er på den ene side en ren kropslig praksis, der udfolder sig, når traceuren leger sin krop gennem byrummet, og parkour er på den anden side samtidigt konstitueret mellem onog off-line, på digitalkameraets skærm og gennem en performance af teknologiers muligheder. i feltet mellem krop, rum og medialisering mødte aktørnetværksteoretiske og mediegeografiske overvejelser hinanden, og i dette møde prioriteredes det relationelle og heterogene. traceuren er forbundet med teknologier. den materielle krop er forbundet med den virtuelle krop på skærmen. online er forbundet med offline. repræsentationer har ikke-repræsentationelle effekter. materialitet implicerer immaterialitet, og de to bliver gennem et begreb som kropslig fantasmagoria blot punkter i en forløbende proces. at tale om det materielle er derfor, ifølge latham og mccormack, ”to have invoked the excessive potential of the immaterial” (latham og mccormack, 2004, p. 795). kamera-traceuren accelererer processen, hvor traceurkroppen løbende materialiseres og dematerialiseres. ved metodisk at møde og følge aktørerne gennem byen og på nettet, gennem qualitative studies, 1(1) 46 interview og observation, kunne undersøgelsen karakterisere parkour i fænomenets heterogenitet og gennem åbne begreber, der ikke definerede parkour gennem eksempelvis en klassisk sociologisk analyse af en urban subkultur eller en diskursog repræsentationsanslyse af debatter og videoer på youtube. ved at følge aktørerne ud over det repræsentationelle og se på, hvorledes aktørerne forenes, handler og skaber repræsentationerne tegnede der sig et billede af parkour som konstitueret i et komplekst netværk af grænsesøgende relationer mellem krop, rum og teknologier. parkour handler for traceuren netop om at overskride grænser, afprøve muligheder og om at gøre det, ingen troede var muligt, hvorfor undersøgelsen betegnede parkour som ”a critique of the real by the possible” (lefebvre in bell, 2007, p 44). traceuren leverer denne kritik gennem sin krop og kroppens interventioner i byrummet samt gennem hans inddragelse af en mobil teknologi som digitalkameraet, der fanger og viser os på den anden side af skærmen, hvordan kroppen ser ud, når den bliver ”fluid like water”. litteratur amin, a. og thrift, n. 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(2008). ”playing with fear: parkour and the mobility of emotion” in social & cultural geography vol. 9, no, 8, 2008: 891-914 thornton, s. (1995). “the social logic of subcultural capital” in gelder, k. og thornton, s. (2005). the subcultures reader. london, new york: routledge. thrift, nigel og bingham, nick, (2000). “some new instructions for travellers: the geography of bruno latour and michel serres” s. 281-301 in thrift, nigel og crang, mike (2000). thinking space. new york: routledge. forfatteren maja klausen er cand. mag. i kultur og formidling fra syddansk universitet og forskningsassistent ved knowledge lab, syddansk universitet. e-mail: majaklausen@gmail.com untitled qualitative studies, 1(2) 75 schoolcraft vs. becoming somebody: competing visions of higher education among working-class college students allison l. hurst abstract: by exploring the meanings working-class students attribute to college and academic success, this article uncovers important and surprising disjunctures between the official view of college as a pathway to social mobility and students’ own needs and aspirations. while some working-class college students do use college as a “ticket out of the working class,” others reject this view, arguing that the twin functions of college as educative and credentialing should be delinked. it is important for researchers, as well as educators and policymakers, to recognize that working-class college students are not homogenous with regard to occupational interests and expectations of social mobility. key words: class, working class, higher education, social mobility please cite this article as: hurst, a. (2010). schoolcraft vs. becoming somebody: competing visions of higher education among working-class college students. qualitative studies, 1(2): 75-90. introduction1 “raise your aspirations,” [they] said. educators especially. they love that word. aspirations. all over the state you can hear that long word rolling off their tongues. it’s something the lowincome people don’t have enough of, they say…doesn’t he realize that the higher the white-shirt pastel-people raise their aspirations for us who are already failing their idea of success, the more we lose sight of our own true aspirations and the deeper into complete failure they leave us …“lowincome people have got to escape,” they say. escape what?” do they mean leave home? leave town? like they did? do they mean escape that life we have here in maine with out family ties and hometown ties and go to…to…harvard or yale, like they did? live in a faraway city? be a yuppie? is that the only acceptable choice? why was it so easy for them to leave their homes, these leaders, these experts, these professionals? were their homes dysfunctional in a way social workers aren’t trained to recognize?” – carolyn chute carolyn chute, a novelist from the working class, tells this story of herself at a cocktail party. when a professional disparages his workers as “just a pair of hands” she reminisces about working at a poultry plant, and thinks about how workers are disparaged for their lack of ambition, as measured by educational attainment. college students from the working class are engaged in a process of social mobility, or at least so say the experts. in today’s economy, a college degree has become indispensable. study after study shows the great differences in lifetime earnings between those who go to college and those who do not. according to the us department of education (1999), 25 1 this article is part of a longer project studying the experiences and identity reconstructions of working-class college students. for a more detailed discussion of those issues generally, please see the burden of academic success: loyalists, renegades and double agents (2010). the argument developed here, however, is specific to this publication. qualitative studies, 1(2) 76 to 34-year-olds who dropped out of high school in 1999 earned an average yearly income of less than $18,000. high school graduates earned an average of about $25,000. college graduates with a bachelor’s or higher degree earned an average of $40,000. over a lifetime these differences can add up to hundreds of thousands of dollars. at the same time, college is often a psychic minefield for working-class college students, who experience college as alienating (zandy 1995), psychologically stressful and isolating (hoggart 1957), and at odds with some core working-class values such as cooperation, “making do,” and equity (macleod 1995: steinitz & solomon 1986; weis 1985). some students may even see attending college as a form of betrayal (clancy 1997). success in college, after all, is premised upon individual achievement in what is an increasingly competitive culture (sacks 2007). one person’s academic success does nothing for the greater community from which he or she was born, and more often than not can serve to reinforce ideas that those who are poor have only themselves to blame (“if she made it, why can’t they?”). this article addresses the meanings of college and academic achievement for a small but diverse group of working-class college students. why, we may ask, have these students chosen to go to college? surprisingly, many do not believe that college will “pay off” in an economic sense. they have known too many people who are carrying too much student debt, or who have failed to find good-paying jobs upon graduation, to be completely convinced that a college degree will be financially rewarding in the long run. many of these students have friends and family members who are in good-paying working-class jobs. given the time that college takes, especially if one is working full-time while attending classes, many do not believe they will ever catch up to peers who began their working-class jobs out of high school. but many of these students are also, curiously at first glance, without ambition. struggling to get themselves to college in the first place, a huge achievement on many grounds, these students then eschew social mobility. like carolyn chute, they retain a powerful sense of “us versus them” and have no desire to trade in their working-class identity for a middle-class career. they are in college because they enjoy it. or, because they recognize that college is now a necessity even to keep even. others, in contrast, expect college to be a place where they learn to “access” middle-class norms, behaviors, and resources. they have little interest for the educative side of college, seeing it as a ruse or “hurdle” through which they must jump if they are to gain entry into the ranks of the successful. such radically different views of college, what it is for, and what can be gained from it, are highly instructive. amidst ongoing debates about the importance of college, declining access for the masses, and the necessity of a strongly educated workforce (attewell & lavin 2007, sacks 2007) listening to the stories of those who are on the frontlines can give us a different picture of where college is failing us. i argue that college is failing us because it is too implicated in the class system, and this role as gatekeeper to the middle class is having perverse effects on its educative role. furthermore, encouraging everyone to go to college and then blaming those who do not do so, erects a massive charade. our alleged meritocracy, based upon class-biased measures of academic ability and achievement, separates the winners and losers largely on grounds that parallel class distinctions. many working-class students are aware of this, some more consciously than others. they thus oppose the dominant framing of themselves as more intelligent than their working-class peers, instead highlighting the role luck played in their educational paths. we also need to remember that college cannot by itself be a cure for class inequality. if everyone did get a college degree, we would still have the same amount of working-class and middle-class jobs. holding qualitative studies, 1(2) 77 college out as the primary (or even exclusive) pathway to a better life undercuts serious attention to alternative collective-based forms of improving working-class jobs. social mobility is certainly a large component of college participation today, but it is not the only or even most important part for many working-class students. what literature on working-class college students exists is of two kinds. first, there is a growing body of research and autobiography that indicates the difficulties (alienation, isolation, disparagement) that working-class students face in what is a predominantly middle-class culture (dews & law, 1995; hooks, 1993, 1994; lubrano 2004; mahony & zmrocek, 1997; muzzatti & samarco, 2006; ryan & sackrey, 1984; tokarczyk & fay, 1993; villanueva, 1993; welsch, 2005). second, researchers have focused on issues of access and aspirations, assuming for the most part that college is a key instrument of social mobility (attewell & lavin, 2007; avery et al., 2003; bowen et al., 2005; golden, 2006; kahlenberg, 2004; heller 2002; st. john, 2003). there is something of a dr. jekyll & mr. hyde element to these two sets of literature – the first highlighting very problematic issues students from the working class face in college and the second assuming that college is an unmitigated, culturally neutral, benefit. this article attempts to combine the two by exploring the meanings of college attainment as described by working-class college students themselves. the stories presented here were taken from a phenomenological study theoretically based upon the notion that class cultures exist and have bearing on how people understand and make sense of their current and projected class positions.2 i conducted an ethnographic study of twenty-one workingclass college students at a large, moderately-selective public university between 2003 and 2005. the sample was a non-representative snowball sample. i attempted to find students who were quite different from each other so the sample was diverse as to age, race, gender, and general experiences. i was primarily interested in how their class identities were being constructed or reconstructed in the process of becoming college-educated. all of the students interviewed for this study were academically successful students with expectations of graduation and high hopes based upon what that might mean to their economic futures. in addition to substantial interviews, ranging from two to four hours (frequently in multiple sessions), i participated in the same campus culture as the students, albeit from a different position as a graduate student. i sat in on many classes and watched students at work. i also attempted to follow up with the students as they graduated, as i was interested in what would happen to them after college. i received some emails but did not receive enough responses to report on this reliably, although i did one extensive postcollege interview, excerpts of which are included here. following all the students after college will have to await future study. 2 because i was primarily interested in the meanings that these students ascribed to both their educations and their class identities (and how these two intertwined) it was appropriate to approach the question qualitatively. qualitative methods can “illuminate the meanings people attach to their words and actions in a way not possible with other methodologies” (lareau, 2003, p. 219). i am here not interested in the frequency of behavior but in the meaning of behavior (lareau & schultz, 1996, p. 4). this approach can also be described as phenomenological, in that it “is concerned to provide insight into how, through the human situation, phenomena come to have personal meaning, a lived-through significance that may not always be transparent to consciousness. the focus is upon involvement in a natural-cultural-historical milieu within which individuals discover themselves as subject to meaning. this tradition stresses that we can only understand human phenomena, such as language, in practice, or use” (charlesworth, 2000, p..3). qualitative studies, 1(2) 78 in the course of my research i discovered that working-class college students were not all alike. although all similarly recognized a difference between themselves and their middle-class peers in regards to resources, attitudes, and cultural capital, they differed substantially in the meanings they ascribed to their educational trajectory. keeping in mind the accounts of working-class academics in which ambivalence towards social mobility was highly developed, i began to classify the students according to the way they chose to navigate between the cultures of the working and middle class. some, whom i identified as “loyalists,” were committed to retaining a strong working-class identity. others, whom i identified as “renegades” were equally committed to disposing of their working-class identity in favor of “accessing the middle class,” as one of the students described it. i chose these terms because they neither expressed approval nor disapproval. loyalists and renegades are always evaluated differently based on the relationship of the evaluator to the groups in question. a member of an original culture will esteem a loyalist whereas a member of an adopted culture will similarly esteem a renegade.3 loyalists and renegades are not types, but rather examples of strategic orientations. loyalists’ identification with the working class is a strategy that helps them navigate between home and school cultures, just as renegades’ identification with the middle class provides the conceptual meaning for going to college. these strategic orientations played a role in how working-class college students understood the role of higher education and the connection between college and social mobility. loyalists, loath to leave friends and family behind, were aware that a college degree was necessary to get a good job. they were also aware that they were “good at school,” the way others were “good at mechanical work” or “good at construction.” college meant access to betterpaying and more secure jobs that would make use of these special academic skills. loyalists thus saw themselves as “academic craftsmen (and women).” renegades, on the other hand, did not see academic work as another craft but as something quite different and superior, and were much less likely to talk about the economic value of a college degree. the primary reason renegades gave for going to college was to “prove” themselves a worthy person (to family, to society, to self). college was seen as a pathway to the middle class, where being middle class was perceived as being a “normal american.”4 strategic orientation also affected responses to the question of whether college is meant for (or good for) everyone. loyalists didn’t think it was and that was just fine. in fact, many loyalists expressed a preference for an idealized academy. they fervently wanted college to be more meritocratic and less tied with one’s economic position. in other words, they believed that going to college should be for those who loved learning and should have nothing to do with one’s class position. in this world, mechanics and academics would be equally respected and rewarded. thus, going to school would 3 i also discovered a third group, whom i designated “double agents.” these were charismatic students whose desire and ability to move comfortably between social groups marked them as conceptually distinct, although each double agent was more or less working-classor middle-class-identified. because of this identification, in the interests of space, i will not include findings on this group here. they are developed more fully in my the burden of academic success: loyalists, renegades, and double agents (2010). 4 we can see a parallel here with the distinction between the “deserving” and “undeserving poor,” first discussed by gans (1990). qualitative studies, 1(2) 79 in no way raise status (nor would not going to school decrease it). in contrast, renegades acknowledged that going to college was a normative ideal. in other words, having a degree marked one as a decent person. without that degree, one was more likely to be seen as “less than”, stupid, and lazy. thus, they were very eager for everyone to go. nor did they think it was very hard to do so. third, strategic orientation affected responses to the question whether having a degree would make one “middle class.” loyalists did not believe it would while renegades very fervently did. in a related manner, loyalists were very adamant that having a college degree would not make them “better” than those without degrees. just as adamantly, renegades thought it would. the loyalist vision: schoolcraft most loyalists were very honest about their desires to make more money. this, they told me, was the reason they were in college. helping family out (“the purpose for me to get through school is, i think, by bettering myself i’m able to bring back something to my family, so, my long-term goal is that i want to help my family to find a better positions financially”) and overcoming a bad job market (“you need a college degree to get any sort of job. a job that will put you above the poverty line”) were the two main stories told here. despite this attention to the “bottom line” and the economy, loyalists also expressed a true love of school and became visibly excited when discussing their coursework. criticisms of “careeroriented” college students thus miss an important point – students can be both aware of the importance of a college education for future earnings and be good academics. how is this possible? i believe the answer lies in the particular way that some working-class college students interpret academia as one of many skilled endeavors. for example, jay, a transfer student from the local community college, made explicit comparisons between his academic work and the work his brother did as a mechanic. jay was “all thumbs” but enjoyed reading, where his brother was just the opposite. jay was a skilled craftsperson like his brother, but his craft was schoolcraft. it must not be forgotten that going to college is a very big exception for the average working-class child. these students had excelled most of their lives, and were doing quite well at the time of the interviews. most of them expected others to feel the same way they did about education and were disappointed to find so many students who seemed to take no interest in their studies (or pride in their craft). they were chagrined that so many more privileged students seemed to be simply “treading water,” uninterested in what was actually being taught. they often ascribed this to the fact that more privileged students did not have to work so hard to get to college in the first place. they were impatient with students who spent their college years “partying” rather than getting the most out of their coursework. loyalists did not want college to be a “party place” and social rite of passage for young adults. instead, they invariably described an ideal academic setting that would be truly challenging and only available to those who really desired it. to make this work, of course, college had to be completely delinked from the economy. college would ideally be free and available to all, but would not economically reward those who participated. in other words, college should have absolutely nothing to do with one’s class position (either coming in or going out). this ideal college is not for everyone – nor should it be: qualitative studies, 1(2) 80 “i really do not think it is for everybody… i don’t think it’s for everyone. i think school of some sort should be accessible to everyone, and i think there is a niche for everyone, just like my friends in technical school or massage school. i think college can be for everyone but four-year college and graduate school, definitely not. at all.” again, loyalists recognize schoolcraft as one of many alternative crafts. thus, college was but one path of many equally valid choices. this meant that loyalists did not look down on those who chose other paths. max, a retired trucker completing his bachelor’s degree in sociology, had a seventeen-year old son who had dropped out of high school to work on cars. max was clearly proud of his son’s skills in this area: “my oldest son quit school because he said they were raising mill workers there and he didn’t want to be a mill worker. so he quit school. he sees all these people going into the mill around him. what do they do? they push boards around. he doesn’t want to do that. now he actually has a skill, skilled labor i guess? i guess you would classify as? [q: what does he do?] he builds custom cars [says with pride]. he knows how to cut and stretch, you know, paint, well, he doesn’t quite have the painting yet. spray painting. [q: yeah, the painting can get pretty elaborate]. yeah!” for similar reasons, bethany was enraged in class one day when the instructor suggested, “everyone should go to college.” i was taken aback by her vehemence and asked her why this statement upset her so much. she recognized that by saying that everyone should go, those who don’t go are going to be devalued. she also took offense that this was couched in moralistic terms (which is an interesting contrast to how renegades understand school, as will be discussed below). although bethany enjoyed academic work, she was sure that this was not the case for everyone. she was also quite critical of the fact that college tended to teach the values of the middle class, and in particular stressed skills useful for management. i don’t believe bethany had clearly sorted out her critiques at this point (who has at the age of twenty-one?), but her emotional responses were nevertheless quite clear. loyalists did not believe that having a degree would make them “middle class. most of them appeared to be using a cultural definition of middle class when answering this question. that is, they stressed the permanence of working-class affinities and loyalties even in the face of occupational mobility (“i will always be, i don’t know if my class will be working class, but i will always be a working-class person, you know? like my morals and my experiences and i will always think that people who dry their laundry in the summer are wasting energy. and money.”). a few also pointed out, however, that having a degree would not guarantee them a middle-class job, either. they hoped that they would at least be economically secure – “i would like to see myself not have to stress over the lack of resources and even further to perhaps use my resources to help people that i care about but no, i won’t be middle class! yeah, that’s it, i don’t think anyone wants to be poor.” many were also confused about the question, “i think when i moved here with my family i was living a middle-class lifestyle but i never actually felt it, does that make sense? now i am in that spot, now i don’t know what to call myself. i am, i have an education, and i want to continue with it, but i really don’t know how to classify myself.” qualitative studies, 1(2) 81 loyalists were often quite clear about not wanting to become middle class if that meant taking on an occupational role that would be antagonistic to the working class. anti-boss statements were often expressed vehemently. it was clear that, unlike the general question about class position for which many students were unsurprisingly ill-prepared, these students had given serious thought to what it meant to be a boss or a worker, and where they stood and wanted to stand in the economic hierarchy. jay, a white man in his late 20s who considers himself a marxist, had very negative stereotypes of the middle class, often derived from his years working as a hvac installer. given these negative feelings, his ambitions in some directions have become blunted, “knowing how i feel about capitalists there was nothing there for me to work towards.” interestingly enough, he believed he would more likely be a professional if the working class were not devalued. in other words, choosing a middle-class occupation or lifestyle was morally wrong to jay, a working-class loyalist. no position alone would sway him from his allegiances. he told me he “didn’t buy” the theory that having a college degree made one middle class, “even if i were to get a professional job -i think the difference between doing a job and feeling a job, i think there’s a difference there. and if i were working in an office and i saw the boys come through who were out working on houses i think i would feel guilty. guilty that i wasn’t out there working. making the money. doing the work. yeah, i do have a hard time trying to figure out what class is. i’m not sure there is or isn’t one, the working-class, but i know there are people out there who break their backs to do the work so other people don’t have to.” like jay, calder would refuse to accept certain occupational positions based on his class loyalties. thus, he hoped to make a decent salary (one that some might call middle-class) but he categorically refuses to become a “professional/managerial person.” these people have interests oppositional to those of his people. they require the “loss of heart” “you have to kind of have a cold heart to do that and i want to be the type of person that doesn’t judge anybody, if they know who they are, and i respect people, and i don’t wanna be no arrogant type person. or a mean person! or anything! and so it would be hard for me to take a job where i was making a lot of money. because i don’t see money as, it’s just paper!” loyalists were also in agreement that having a college degree did not make you “better” than those without one. this is in keeping with their responses to the question of whether college is for everyone. they were quite adamant about this point and gave several examples of friends and family members who did not go on to college but were “smarter,” “more talented,” or “better people.” or, as calder points out, perhaps just more fun to be around: “i don’t see a certificate automatically making someone anything…so you can hold up your degree and you shouldn’t be knocked for it, but it doesn’t mean that you are better than the guy holding the shovel over there. i mean, no way. because that guy over there he is probably a lot more funnier, and better to be around then you!” bethany, who remembered watching her father go out on strike with his union, admitted that she used to believe you were “weak” if you didn’t go on to college. by the time i interviewed her she had changed her mind. she was acutely aware of class oppositions, and, as discussed above, understood that college prepared students for managerial and supervisory jobs. when asked if she would take such a job at her father’s company her response was immediate – “oh my god. i qualitative studies, 1(2) 82 couldn’t do it. no, no way. i couldn’t…my dad would feel so betrayed. he really would. yeah. it would never be about the money…like, i couldn’t work for [name of major mnc]. there are some corporations that i couldn’t work for having nothing to do with my dad.” in summary, loyalists tend to see college as necessary for economic security, especially given the state of the job market. they would prefer that this was not the case, however. in a perfect world, college would be free and open to anyone, but only those who were academically inclined would go. they would not be rewarded any more for this than any other skilled laborer. although loyalists may hope that college improves their class position, they do not want college to change their working-class identification.5 finally, loyalists do not believe that having a college degree makes you any better than someone without one. the renegade vision: you’re nobody without a college degree students employing renegade strategies appreciated college in a much different way. for these students, going to college was a way of proving their worth, not just intellectually or economically but morally as well. college was pursued to dispel class stereotypes of ignorance and laziness, to remove social stigmas, and to heal class wounds, (“i kind of pride myself on that kind of stuff because i feel like i am always looking to break the stereotype.”) academic success for workingclass children does break a very powerful social stereotype that sees the working class as ignorant, stupid, lazy, and morally inferior. renegades like bob, a white man in his late 20s and son of a millworker, are acutely aware of this stereotype: “it is the level. it’s not the work. you know, it’s the level that you are perceived at doing that work, not the work… yeah, even your perceived intelligence level. you know, if you said you worked at safeway as a checker, and then you said you were a grad student, people are going to perceive you differently. maybe to me part of my identity is how other people perceive me, i think it is to everybody, and i think it’s just, you know different. society looks at people who pump gas and that work in grocery stores and that work in mills as people with no ambition and people who have nothing, not people who are smart but just people who are doing a job. they look at people like lawyers and doctors and actors and baseball players as people with an exceptional skill or ability that should be put above the rest.” sometimes these class stereotypes are also racialized. about half of the chicano/a students i interviewed were using college as a way to escape both class and racial shame and humiliation. john, for example, carried an identity as “the darkest-skinned” of all of his parent’s children. he felt stigmatized as a child by his mother, who, he believed, treated him as “less than” his siblings. doing well in school was his way of showing his mother that he mattered – that he was not just the equal, but the superior, of her other (lighter-skinned) children. renegades believed that everyone should go to college. by failing to do so, one remains marked as socially inferior. to a large extent, renegades believed, this was entirely one’s own fault (“everyone should go – it isn’t that hard. if you don’t go, it’s your own fault.) all that it took was the will and the desire; or, more accurately, the belief that a different future was possible. it was thus imperative 5 as reported by many working-class academics, it is quite possible to have a middle-class occupational position and retain a working-class-identification. qualitative studies, 1(2) 83 to reach working-class children at an early age and instill the desire in them to go on to college. many renegades took this as a personal mission of theirs. and they primarily blamed workingclass parents for failing to instill this desire, “the thing that is the key, i’ve seen it in working-class schools, it’s huge, because you can tell which kids think or have parents who think that school is the key. and that it is a great place. and then you can tell the kids who have parents who they go home every night and they say, whatever, school’s stupid. so the people who had successes in school are going to breed people who have success in school i think.” nor do renegades believe college is that difficult. their discussions of college hardly ever focus on academics. college is a hoop through which to jump, coming out on the other side as a validated person. unlike loyalists who stress the educational process, renegades stress the social side of college, college as a classed terrain. bob had one of the most complete analyses of this. bob was the one student who i was able to interview after his degree completion, when his failure to get a middle-class job was causing him to reconsider a lot of his earlier assumptions about college and his own identity. he argued that social networking was really the key to social mobility, “if i would have done it again, i would have met a bunch of rich people, and i would have made them all my buddies.” bob saw the classing nature of college first and foremost – “i don’t think college is about learning. i think college is about money. i think when it comes right down to it this is a business. this place makes a ton of money and i know that the upper class people need it to keep their people upper class so the more they can charge and the more they can make the better it is for all of them.” on the other hand, “even if you come out of college and you don’t do well i would still say, anyone should go to college. and not just for the education. because it changes you.” while both loyalists and renegades saw the classed nature of college they reacted to it differently. where loyalists advocated a radical decoupling of education and the class system, renegades, perhaps more realistically, tried to take advantage of college as a mechanism of social mobility. as a result, renegades did believe that earning a college degree would make them middle class. this is the promise that education has always held out to them. they believe they are thereby leaving the working class behind – “the class i’m in, of course i totally think i’m leaving it.” rather than focus on jobs or work, renegades focused on the acquisition of certain cultural skills. thus, for talia, a young white woman who was periodically homeless during her 20s, having a drive to succeed distinguished her from the rest of the working class, although she also acknowledged that middleclass patterns of behavior didn’t come naturally to her: “on the basis of goals [i am middle class]. this is what i’m doing right now, but these are the places i am moving on to my goals and my dreams and my future versus a person in a lower class who is like “oh, i got 50 extra bucks, what should i do with it? let’s go spend it on this that and the other thing.” it’s very much a here and now, you can’t see past type of mentality that i feel like i guess now that you ask me is a big difference between classes. so, on that basis i would definitely say i’m a middle-classer, definitely not a serf. but i guess innately when i’m around people and families that are middle class or upper class i don’t necessarily feel like i fit in. i feel like i have to work at it a little bit. because i have to remember to have certain manners.” qualitative studies, 1(2) 84 renegades were not driven by avarice or selfishness. many renegades made very real sacrifices in order to prove themselves worthy in a class-conscious society. these sacrifices (of family, relationships, time, happiness, and in some cases families of their own) were undertaken with the expectation that they will come out on the other side, in a better place, and with more respect. john, for example, pointed out the importance of having a degree even if he eventually decided to follow his dream of being a boxer, “[college] is something that i can always fall back on. no one can ever take that degree away from me. no one can ever take away what i’ve learned. and it’s something to put down on your resume. you know? but if i had just gone straight to boxing, people probably would have said, ‘that kid never even went to school’.” because they see academic success, social mobility, and moral wealth as tied up together (much as the greater society does), renegades do feel that they are better than those who did not make these sacrifices. this can further separate renegades from their families, as isabel points out – “i guess college has made me a better person -not one that my family necessarily likes because it is not the one that they grew up with. but i like it, i love it.” the renegades’ arguably more realistic understanding of the costs and payouts of college is more in tune with societal understandings of social mobility through education, but this does not necessarily mean that they will succeed. having access to fewer material resources than their peers, less national social networks and often insufficient social capital, and having to acquire middle class cultural capital later in life than their peers, accessing the middle class is not quite as easy as getting a college diploma (which in itself is not easy at all). whereas i worried that loyalists would not take full advantage of the opportunities college affords them for fear of “selling out,” i feared that renegades would be disillusioned after college if they were not afforded all the opportunities they clearly expected. bob, the son of a millworker, was bitter and humiliated after college when he could not find a job that was commensurate with his education. he ended up using the only social networks he knew, that of his family, and found a job at the mill, earning less money, of course, than his friends and family who had started there right out of high school. having internalized many class stereotypes, he was having a hard time dealing with the fact that he was now working an industrial job. college taught him he was “better” than the jobs he now holds: “the first job i was offered out of here was for $45,000 a year but it was a blue-collar job and college had taught me that i was above that…i didn’t go to college to unload laundry and floor mats! i don’t want this job. six months later i can’t find a job. and i go to hs industries6 making $9.50 an hour. i thought i was above that, i did. that’s ego right there, that’s stupidity…it was just that i thought i should get out of college and wear a suit and tie to work. i didn’t go to college to do this. coming out of college, i wanted to be able to go home and say look at what i’m doing now. look at what i have achieved. i have accomplished something.” conclusion the preceding accounts convey the complexity of “going to college” for students from the working class. college can mean many contradictory things, including becoming a “better” (i.e., morally superior) person, getting credentialed, learning to be a good citizen, experiencing diversity, and becoming middle class. it can also be an alternative to unemployment or the military. underlying 6 this, and all names of employers, have been changed for the sake of anonymity. qualitative studies, 1(2) 85 these accounts is a subtle critique of college’s social mobility function, a nascent awareness that something is wrong with the american fixation on “getting ahead” through education. this is as true for loyalists who reject assimilation into the middle class as it is for renegades who see college as just another hurdle designed to keep them from achieving parity with children born into privileged families. what is so often lost in discussions of expanding access to college is the question, what is college for? is it truly meant to educate everyone to be better citizens and active participants in democracy? or is it a “stamp of approval” on those who participate certifying them as acceptable for positions of management and supervision? a basic problem that many working-class college students will face upon graduation is the surprise attendant on not finding the type of job they expected to get (fraser 2001; smith and powell 1990), or finding that available jobs do not pay enough to repay student loan debt (fossey & bateman 1998; kamenetz 2006). as discussed earlier, in our current economy, having a college degree does not ensure secure employment (archer & hutchings 2000; bowen et al. 2009; taub 2006; volkwein & cabrera 1998). college degrees actually “pay off” less for people of color, women, and the working class (sacks 2007; smart & pascarella 1986; walpole 2007).7 but a more basic question might be, for what future exactly are colleges preparing students? if colleges prepare students only for the twenty percent or so of “middle-class” professional-managerial positions that our occupational system holds, how can we seriously advocate college for all? if college is to have meaning for the working class beyond those who want to access those key positions of power, the meaning and content of higher education must change. certainly most colleges do a poor job teaching agency, collective action, and other issues pertinent to our growing working class. working-class students must be encouraged and assisted in reclaiming their agency. colleges should inculcate an understanding and appreciation of collective agency (loeb, 1994, p. 65). this can be achieved by discussing the role of unions and class-based social movements in american society and by decreasing the use of the “great leader” approach to history that is so common in our educational practices. college curricula should include workingclass histories, perspectives, and realities. this might allow working-class students to feel a deeper connection to higher education, and might also allow them to draw links between what they learn in school and what they do and who they are in their home communities. all of this would go a long way towards creating organic intellectuals among the working class, rather than “unattached individuals” (apple 1979, p. 166). college does play a role in constructing and reconstructing class identities and allegiances. it need not continue to suppress working-class identities and loyalties. we must challenge the assumption that we educate people so that they can enter the middle class (cappello, 1995, p. 132). the implicit acculturation model adopted by colleges is exactly the wrong approach. in his work with working-class native american students, tierney (1992, p. 615) writes, 7 this may in fact have something to do with social and cultural capital differences, which college may actually exacerbate. zweigenhaft (1993) found striking differences between the social and cultural capital of students at harvard who had gone to prep schools versus those who had not. those who had attended prep school spent much more time accumulating social capital than their peers, and less on academic achievement. this may have contributed to superior occupational outcomes. qualitative studies, 1(2) 86 “instead of implying that being ‘drawn back’ to one’s own culture is a shortcoming, one might accentuate that ripping one away from his or her native culture is detrimental and harmful. rather than think of college as an abrupt transition from one world to another, we might try to conceptualize college life as reinforcing and incorporating what one has learned from one’s extended family.” many working-class students do not foresee the inevitable conflicts “between their values and those of institutions like universities”, and thus “they are not prepared to fight for recognition of the legitimacy of their values and their struggle to move up while they maintain their nurturing relationships” (steinitz & solomon, 1986, p. 241). at a minimum, colleges can better prepare students for these “inevitable conflicts.” our present conceptualization of college as a path of individual “upward” mobility is flawed, biased, and harmful to the working class. to the extent that we force schools and colleges to play a major role in classifying people through educational credentials, we lose sight of the true values of education. the point of going to college cannot be restricted to allowing some (fortunate) individuals to pass over/into the other side. education in a democratic society should be about preparing people for full and active participation in civic life (bowles & gintis, 1976, p. 250); in a class-based society this would include preparing students to become leaders of their working-class communities (in the same way that college now prepares middle-class students to become leaders of their communities). paulo freire’s work is instructive here. he “was not interested in helping border crossers make it over safely. he was interested in helping the poor recognize the social and economic interests that bind them together as a group, to take strength from their group identity and begin to struggle to further their interests through democratic means, and to recognize that they confront, not individuals outside their group, but other groups whose interests are often antagonistic to theirs” (finn, 1999, p. 172). making and examining links between past, present, and future, is imperative. too often workingclass students are expected to leave their pasts at the door. colleges must help these students understand and make use of their pasts in their present and future lives. after all, this may be our best hope for a true democracy of the future. this is a question of more than access, but of justice. references adair, vivyan c. & sandra l. dahlberg. 2003. reclaiming class: women, poverty, and the promise of higher education in america. philadelphia: temple university press. apple, michael w. 1979. ideology and curriculum. boston: routledge & kegan paul. archer. louise and merryn hutchings. 2000. “‘bettering yourself'’ discourses of risk, cost and benefit in ethnically diverse, young working-class non-participants’ constructions of higher education.” british journal of sociology of education 21:4, 555-574. attewell, paul a. & david e. lavin. 2007. passing the torch: does higher education for the disadvantaged pay off across the generations? new york: russell sage foundation. qualitative studies, 1(2) 87 avery, christopher, andrew fairbanks and richard zeckhauser 2003. the early admission game: joining the elite. cambridge: harvard university press. berkner, lutz and susan choy. 2008. descriptive summary of 2003-2004 beginning postsecondary students: three years later. washington, dc: us department of education. bowen, william g., martin a. kurzweil and eugene m. tobin 2005. equity and excellence in american higher education. charlottesville: university of virginia press. bowen, william g., matthew m. chingos and michael s. 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villanueva, victor 1993. bootstraps: from an american academic of color. urbana, ill: national council of teachers of english. volkwein j.f. & a. f. cabrera 1998. “who defaults on student loans? the effects of race, class, and gender on borrower behavior,” in condemning students to debt, edited by r. fossey. new york: columbia university press. walpole, marybeth. 2007. economically and educationally challenged students in higher education: access to outcomes. san francisco: jossey-bass. weis, lois. 1985. between two worlds: black students in an urban community college. boston: routledge & kegan paul. welsch, kathleen 2005. those winter sundays: female academics and their working-class parents. lanham, md: university press of america. zandy, janet 1995. liberating memory: our work and our working-class consciousness. new brunswick, nj: rutgers university press. zweigenhaft, richard l. 1993. “prep school and public school graduates of harvard: a longitudinal study of the accumulation of social and cultural capital.” the journal of higher education. 64:2, 211-225. qualitative studies, 1(2) 90 author allison l. hurst is assistant professor of sociology at furman university, sc, usa. trained as both a lawyer and sociologist, she is interested in issues of class inequality and class consciousness. she is currently researching the impact of student debt on college students’ lives and opportunities for mobility. email: allison.hurst@furman.edu qualitative studies vol. 8, no. 1, 2023, pp. 282-313 issn 1903-7031 wandering feasts: relational orientations in academic writing lisa grocott1 , stacy holman jones2 , anne-lene sand3 , helle marie skovbjerg4 & shanti sumartojo5 1 emerging technologies reserch lab, monash university, caulfield campus 900 dandenong road, caulfeld east vic 3145, australia 2 monash university, sir zelman cowen school of music and performance. building 55, performing arts center, wellington road, clayton vic3800, australia 3 design school kolding, ågade 10, 6000 kolding, denmark. 4 design school kolding, ågade 10, 6000 kolding, denmark. 5 emerging technologies reserch lab, monash university, caulfield campus 900 dandenong road, caulfeld east vic 3145, australia based on a number of phd workshops called wandering feasts, in collaboration between monash university and design school kolding, this article explores academic writing as both a mode and a method of inquiry. the article both points to and performs five creative-relational orientations to alternative academic writing: performativity in challenging dominant ways of knowing and representing knowledge in the academy; emergence as mindfully holding open ideas of purpose and destination in favour of notknowing; reciprocity in collectively creating charged encounters that spark new ways of knowing; improvisation in building social space where we felt comfortable jamming and givenness as a fundamental playfulness in which an academic community nurtures the courage to give–of ourselves. the article is in itself a manifestation of exploration writing in a playful and loosely defined process. keywords: writing, performativity, emergence, reciprocity, improvisation, giveness, playful. https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0009-4767 https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8752-527x https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0617-8913 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7409-9600 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8609-7493 l. grocott, s. h. jones, a.-l sand, h. m. skovbjerg & s. sumartojo. wandering feasts qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 282-313 ©2023 283 hello all, we would like to invite you to participate in an online pilot workshop series to collectively explore sensory, embodied, creative and practice-based methods and modes of representation. starting in august 2021 and running over 4 x 3-hour zoom sessions, this series of wandering feasts workshops will bring together phd candidates from monash’s emerging technologies research lab (australia) and design for play at design school kolding (denmark) to experiment, share and advance our own research using playful methods and modes of representation. we will work together to develop a range of approaches that treat paradox, tension, ambiguity, messiness and uncertainty as generative rather than problematic. this workshop is the first of a range of international collaborations we are developing to support and enhance phd training we really hope you can join us! in fall 2021, scholars from design school kolding in denmark and monash university in australia brought together 16 phd students to experiment with genres in academic research and writing titled wandering feasts. the gathering was seeded by an earlier invitation by helle marie to shanti to speak to kolding phd students, after which they knew they wanted to continue the conversation. the circle grew as helle marie invited anne-lene, and as shanti invited lisa, who invited stacy. the organic generation of the group was simply based on each person inviting another who they enjoyed thinking with, and who they thought would welcome an exploratory exchange with their phd students and each other. the email that opens this article communicates a sense of the collaborative and open-ended approach we adopted. l. grocott, s. h. jones, a.-l sand, h. m. skovbjerg & s. sumartojo. wandering feasts qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 282-313 ©2023 284 whilst there was no overall plan to include particular disciplines or perspectives, the participants represented an interdisciplinary community rooted in design, play, geography, music and theatre and performance because of the academic leaders’ orientations. we met on zoom and used miro.com to communicate, engage and reflect on a series of playful activities, some of which we had used before, and some of which emerged from the group’s interests, including: “making a salad” as a conversation about research methods, “having a dialogue with a piece of paper” to reflect on design processes, and “affinity hunting” to generate embodied attunements to the unspoken and sensory dimensions of research practices. these activities were followed by writing sessions that focused on new forms and multiple modalities for sharing academic insights, dialogues and texts by “experimenting all the way” as bang & eriksen (2015) phrase it. being deeply involved in playful activities as a provocation to consider research methods and processes across disciplines created opportunities to write across modalities, to use forms and discourses outside traditional academia, and to be associated with others doing those exercises1. furthermore, the playful activities generated a social space which, according to the phd students, eliminated the structures of hierarchy, power and logic that conditioned how they normally write. in this article, we engage writing as both a mode and method of inquiry (richardson & st pierre 2005) and as a means of manifesting on the page the affects and effects of wandering feasts. we write playfully and curiously about our encounters and embodiments in search of the emergent, the unexpected and the unknown. we are in good company in seeking a break from the “the routines of representation” (pollock, 1998, p. 75) in academic writing, joining those who take performative (pollock, 1998; pelias 2018), autoethnographic, autotheoretical and autofictional (denzin, 2018; holman jones, 2016; fournier, 2021; dix, 2017; zwartjes, 2019; lévesque-jalbert, 2020), fictocritical (gibbs, 2005; taussig, 2018) and affective (berlant & stewart, 2017; stewart, 2007) approaches (among others) to both the doing and the representation of scholarship. 1 we have all experienced how the academic tradition of writing is deeply rooted in habituated ways of not just writing, but also setting up meetings, planning content, making introductions and responding to one another [all of us]. l. grocott, s. h. jones, a.-l sand, h. m. skovbjerg & s. sumartojo. wandering feasts qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 282-313 ©2023 285 in what follows, we seek to align the valence of the writing with the nature of the experience of working together. instead of presenting a systematic or complete account of alternative approaches to academic writing, we allow ourselves to pay close attention to the unnoticeable but important aspects of making a trustworthy, fun and productive workspace online, across national borders and interdisciplinary fields. we continue the exploration of working-writing together in a playful way, not only applying writing as a way to document what we have done, but to keep the practice going. like the wandering feasts workshops, our writing enacts a “critical mode of affirmation” (rather than an evaluative mode of thinking and being)2 that pays attention to “the forms and forces of moving bodies and events [and] invites experiments with description and with the conceptual” (stewart, 2017, p. 197). in particular, this article develops five conceptual orientations to academic writing, each of which attune to the creative-relational aspects of doing scholarship—the encounters and embodiments that take us “beyond ourselves, into the other, into becoming other, into the more-than” (wyatt, 2019, p. 43). these orientations are performativity, emergence, reciprocity, improvisation and givenness: performativity in how we challenged dominant ways of knowing and representing that knowledge in the academy, focusing our attention on materialising here, on the page, wandering feasts as a play-ful community of doings and beings. emergence as mindfully holding open ideas of purpose and destination in favour of not-knowing this was an animating play-force of building ourselves as a community with common interests, even as we worked out what those interests were. reciprocity in how we collectively created charged encounters that sparked new ways of knowing, doing, being and learning. improvisation in 2 eve kosofsky sedwick (2002) termed this orientation to thinking and making paranoid; it is anticipatory, mimetic (committed to replication), supported by ‘strong’ (generalising, even totalising) and pessimistic theory determined to avoid surprise and pleasure. ‘paranoid’ approaches to scholarship and academic writing are reductive and suspicious, aim to scale down inquiry and representation to the quantifiable by searching for negative effects, place faith in exposure and falsification and seek the “doable and teachable” (stewart, 2017, p. 143). by contrast, reparative orientations seek pleasure, hold together contradiction, are interested in the local and specific, are invested in plenitude and amelioration and are motivated by love (sedgwick, 2003). as an approach to academic writing, wandering feasts are both constitutive—they make us (we don’t make them) and propositional—they compose new worlds and relations. in this way, our writing constitutes and composes a queer and feminist refusal of traditional approaches to research and academic writing. this is something we elaborate below. l. grocott, s. h. jones, a.-l sand, h. m. skovbjerg & s. sumartojo. wandering feasts qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 282-313 ©2023 286 how we built a social space where we felt comfortable jamming, taking turns, listening and building on other’s ideas while remaining open to the unforeseen. and giveness as a fundamental playfulness in which an academic community nurtures the courage to give–of ourselves, of our curiosities and unknowingness–without asking for anything in return. in relation to this special issue on making and breaking genre conversations in academia, in the rest of this article we illustrate how it is possible to experiment with setting up an online academic workspace and scaffolding approaches to writing as the process develops. we do so by each addressing an orientation, and also by extending and bouncing off each other’s accounts. performativity – stacy holman jones the invitation to come “collectively explore sensory, embodied, creative and practice-based methods and modes of representation” comes just as the 6th lockdown in melbourne is announced. the invitation to come play is a thrilling prospect on the eve of yet another lockdown. through wandering feasts, we come together around our shared commitments to “to play3, to design, to work collaboratively, and to go along to try things with as-yet-unknown outcomes and not-yet-explicit insights” as shanti puts it. this coming together without defined outcomes and anticipated insights feels “a bit radical, maybe even naughty.” i wonder if it feels that way because while we don’t yet know what we will discover or what that knowledge will tell us about practice or modes of representation, we do know who we want to engage with and how we want to play. such necessary and appropriate uncertainty reminds me of what dwight conquergood says about dominant modes of knowing in the academy: “knowing that,” and “knowing about.” this is a view from above the object of inquiry: knowledge that is anchored in paradigm and secured in print. 3 what stacy is saying about play and design it is important to add that i thought of the process as we were designing for play, setting up a way of being together which made playing possible. and a part of that setting was a space where “what if…” was possible, and it was enacted bodily, socially and through materials among all of us, not planning for others to play, but designing for everybody to be able to play. [helle marie]. l. grocott, s. h. jones, a.-l sand, h. m. skovbjerg & s. sumartojo. wandering feasts qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 282-313 ©2023 287 this propositional knowledge is shadowed by another way of knowing that is grounded in active, intimate, hands-on participation and personal connection: “knowing how,” and “knowing who.” this is a view from ground level, in the thick of things. (conquergood, 2002, p. 146). to focus on the active, intimate, hands-on participation and personal connection of coming to know in the thick of things is to focus on doing even when we don’t know what we are doing. it is to focus on the performativity of the event as it unfolds. what a perspectiveshifting idea. what a playful invitation! performativity challenges the very notion of a stable, coherent, choosing subject that precedes and directs our actions and movements in the world (butler, 1990). a performativity of practice challenges a fixed, objective and paranoid process of inquiry and academic representation. it shows us how scholarship and knowledge production in the academy are effects of repeated acts “that harden into the appearance of something that has been there all along” (salih, 2002, p. 58). figure 1: reflections on lines of inquiry. l. grocott, s. h. jones, a.-l sand, h. m. skovbjerg & s. sumartojo. wandering feasts qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 282-313 ©2023 288 what are the repeated acts that harden around us? around you? what doings become rote or worse, wear you down? do us in? we know these repetitions—they are cramped and coiled in our bodies after another day spent in front of the screen on zoom. figure 2, 3 and 4: shanti’s embodied a dialogue with/as a piece of paper. they are the rush of anxieties that drive us into hiding after a hard meeting or harsh feedback on work we are trying to love into the world. these repeated acts get us further away from—rather than closer to—the constitutive and body-full force of being together in the world. we know they do. l. grocott, s. h. jones, a.-l sand, h. m. skovbjerg & s. sumartojo. wandering feasts qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 282-313 ©2023 289 figure 5: during a thunderstorm in melbourne, pedro performs the rush of anxieties and repeated acts that move us away from each other. in focusing attention toward affinities and paradoxes, we stop making statements and looking for answers. we set aside work—as knowledge production, as ‘making progress’ on the way to completion (of a phd or a research project) — and take up play as performative. play as performative materialises affinities and atmospheres, resonances and reciprocations, given and gifts. in play, we give away our time, our curiosities and ourselves–gestures we could claim as ours (alone), as helle marie writes below. but we don’t. instead, our coming together materialises us as a play-ful community of doings and beings. we engage in the repeated norms of workshop (gathering together in space-time to engage in conversation and l. grocott, s. h. jones, a.-l sand, h. m. skovbjerg & s. sumartojo. wandering feasts qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 282-313 ©2023 290 activity) and the performance of workshopping (doing by wandering and feasting). we do workshopping with (a) difference4. i’m thinking again of shanti’s as-yet unknown and the not-yet explicit. lisa says our coming together as learners both giddy and grateful is a gift of reciprocity that is–or can be– forever in circulation. she says becoming together as learners (and not academics and research candidates) is an “unspoken choice” that is hiding in plain sight. anne-lene writes that our improvising on what we don’t speak about, know, or see–the “unforeseen, unexpected and sudden”–is central to the exploratory work space and uncertain process we’ve created. writing of jacques lacan’s ‘threshold of the visible world” (lacan, 1977, p. 3), which he conceptualised as an “empty space or gap” between self and other, subject and object, knower and known, kelly oliver asks us to re-consider the visible as a threshold to relation. she writes: “what we cannot see . . . are the elements that connect us” (oliver, 2001, p. 190). she encourages us to map the unimagined connections in our artistic and scholarly conversations (holman jones, 2014, p. 89). what connects us—even when we don’t know exactly what we are doing— is our commitment to cross the thresholds of our respective ways of seeing (as designers, musicians and theatre makers, as academics and research candidates, as givers and receivers) create “new joint practices of sharing and writing in academia”, in the unforeseen space of play, as anne-lene sand puts it. 4 and maybe it actually doesn’t matter if we come curious, happy or somehow ‘ready to play’. what matters is that we show up and that we perhaps ‘fake it till we make it’ that we perform the playfulness until we enter the creative flow state where ideas, feelings and bodies start to spark and connect in new ways. [shanti] l. grocott, s. h. jones, a.-l sand, h. m. skovbjerg & s. sumartojo. wandering feasts qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 282-313 ©2023 291 figure 6: zoom as a mixed contact zone for the playful and the performative. one of the most surprising discoveries i made in our wandering feasts gatherings was how these joining practices of writing and sharing the unforeseen happens at—and because of— (a) distance. it happens in the distance between denmark and melbourne, the distance between rushing out and staying put, the distance between being in person and gathering online. it happens in the distance between design, play, music and theatre performance. and it happens in distance as the constitutive act that makes a world “charged with affect. . . a mixed-use contact zone in an ongoing state of transition” (stewart, 2017, p. 194). it happens in the playful and performative invitation to make becoming manifest by doing. emergence shanti sumartojo the first time we met as a group was in august 2021. the early spring evenings in melbourne were slowly getting longer, but the long covid lockdowns that we had endured meant the promise of better weather and brighter sunshine felt like the clement conditions couldn’t be trusted. l. grocott, s. h. jones, a.-l sand, h. m. skovbjerg & s. sumartojo. wandering feasts qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 282-313 ©2023 292 but still, we had agreed to do something together, me and lisa, stacy, helle marie and anne-lene, even if it was not quite clear in my mind what exactly we were doing. it was not a ‘normal’ research process, with clearly articulated aims or a project design determined in advance as anne-lene reflects, there was a traditional model of academic research hovering in the background, a framework against which we found ourselves evaluating whether what we were doing was ‘proper academic work’, which for me was a somewhat souless transaction between time invested and value gained. this ambiguity went along with the lack of an explicit goal or planned output but instead we were trying to hold space for something to emerge, a strongly scaffolded lack of direction, as lisa puts it. this both worked against my productivist instincts to account for my time in terms justifiable to the academic industry, and felt like a minor form of resistance to those strictures. isn’t play sometimes transgressive, a middle finger up to the normal rules and routines we work by? however, we did have shared conceptual commitments: to play, to design, to work collaboratively, and to go along to try things with as-yet-unknown outcomes and not-yetexplicit insights. this in itself felt a bit radical, maybe even naughty5. how could i justify the time, i asked myself? i trusted that something interesting would happen, but at the end of a long day, in the evening flicker of a laptop screen, it was only my commitment to the people and curiosity about the process that saw me click the zoom link and enter the morning light in offices and homes on the other side of the world. what were we doing? -- it is only in hindsight that the whole story can be told, the endings connected to the beginnings; that insight can be extracted, composed from disparate parts; that a framework can be thought through and papers written. but this is not how it happened. instead, even the 5 and i know from play research that often the dark side of play is the most difficult to design for in an educational context, even though it is often the most powerful one as a driver for passion, intensity and meaningfulness [helle marie] l. grocott, s. h. jones, a.-l sand, h. m. skovbjerg & s. sumartojo. wandering feasts qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 282-313 ©2023 293 name emerged, the titling and defining of what we were doing made, tested, accreted as each idea sparked multiple others. step one: we don’t know what we are doing, or where we are going. but, like solnit’s notion of purposefully getting lost (solnit, 2000) we are wandering. as lisa says, this was scaffolding to allow us to somehow arrive somewhere (or to again be found) but it was very important to hold open any idea of where we would arrive, and this not-knowing was an animating play-force that enabled the conventional student-teacher hierarchies to loosen and for the five of us to enjoy the journey together. stacy puts it so beautifully: we coalesced as a ‘play-ful community of doings and beings’, and it reminded her of another of solnit’s insights: musing takes place in a kind of meadowlands of the imagination, a part of the imagination that has not yet been plowed, developed, or put to any immediately practical use…time spent there is not work time, yet without that time the mind becomes sterile, dull, domesticated. the fight for free space — for wilderness and public space — must be accompanied by a fight for free time to spend wandering in that space (solnit, 2000, p. 289). step two: we are sharing with each other, each bringing something to the collective table, not knowing how it will combine with the other things. we could have kept these things off the table, as helle marie says, we could have chosen to share other things, things that told other stories. how did each person select their contributions, and what meanings did they take on in relation to the other images on the table? it is a rich table, covered with fascinating and mysterious offerings, each a gift from someone with a different perspective. delicious! we are at a feast (see figure 7). l. grocott, s. h. jones, a.-l sand, h. m. skovbjerg & s. sumartojo. wandering feasts qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 282-313 ©2023 294 figure 7. the feasting table laid on a miro board with contributions from all the participants. the images have been chosen to spark conversation about a paradox in our research. as lisa says, we undertook reciprocal acts of bringing something to the table and perhaps taking something away that we did not even know we wanted or would consider valuable. this was how we built a sense of ourselves as a community. fellow-wanderers, seeking, activating and performing our ‘unimagined connections’, in stacy’s words, through emerging processes of sharing, reflecting and thereby shaping our shared endeavor. the feasting table was a powerful way to use metaphor one of lisa’s favorite techniques to design something new that tapped into playful urges and forces. the foundation of wandering feasts was a commitment to working out the resonances, dissonances, augmentations and parallel runnings. this meant knowing through doing (or, performativity), and not before, not seeking to predetermine outcomes by defining goals, but rather, making it up as we went along. we were wayfarers, enacting ingold’s (2015, p. 59) “living line, which must perforce find its way as it goes along, has continually to attend to its path, adjusting or ‘fine-tuning’ the direction of its advancing tip as the journey l. grocott, s. h. jones, a.-l sand, h. m. skovbjerg & s. sumartojo. wandering feasts qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 282-313 ©2023 295 unfolds”. emergence6 here relied on our own sense of ourselves as inquisitive and creative individuals, and how we performed that creativity, but not in a laboured or pre-determined way, but by responding to and reflecting on each other’s accounts and thoughts. we were each engaged in a common project ‘to cast my experience in ways that can join with yours, so that we can in a sense travel the same paths, and in doing so, make meaning together’ (ingold, 2017, p. 4). from this effort, what we were doing continually emerged, through conversation, activity, consideration and reflection, all aimed at a general direction, but without a planned route or explicit destination. the doing was nothing more and nothing less than an ongoing agreement that we would, together, make, talk, laugh, listen, wander, feast and just see what happened. writing this article is a form of continuation of the ‘incomplete un-whole story’ (in stacy’s words) of wandering feasts, a story that continues to emerge and move forward, a doing that continues to happen. recriprocity – lisa grocott my screen is a canvas of faces. i am in a zoom breakout room. i have been here before. yet, the atmosphere is not one of a meeting. true, this is work and these are colleagues but there is no agenda and no declared objectives. people are talking over each other yet the feeling is one of being respectfully listened to. we are just animated in conversation. we share, gesticulate, laugh7, nod, protest and laugh some more. it is a gathering of colleagues (again, definitely not a meeting) and i am engaged and present. more importantly i am not being taught but i am learning8. 6 we understand the emergence of wandering feasts in the what (were we doing?) as relational— complex, contingent and open-ended. we also write into the where of emergence, focussing on wanderign feasts as a place where the relationality and potentiality of working differently together ’takes place.’ as marijn nieuwenhuis (2016) puts it (p. 313). 7 the laugh is an important part of the playful attitude, i would state, when we are together because we want to be together and for the sake of that, searching for ways to laugh. as goffman pointed out in his framing analysis exploring play it can happen anywhere, and with great play mates even in academica. laughter because a way to answer in our staying playful together. [helle marie] 8 not being taught contrasts multiple dimensions of academic work. not being taught but learning is a paradox since academic work often is scaffolded within a well-defined aim and seldomly unpredictability is treated as something with potential. [anne-lene] l. grocott, s. h. jones, a.-l sand, h. m. skovbjerg & s. sumartojo. wandering feasts qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 282-313 ©2023 296 this breakout is a stolen moment in the middle of a three hour zoom session. we are five academics hosting an exchange with doctoral candidates from performance studies, design and play. for now, the research candidates are in their own digital bubbles and for 15 minutes it is just us five. the norm in this situation might have us default to discussing the session objectives, progress or logistics. yet, that is not how we have come to use the gift of this space. in creating a learning ethos grounded in emergence and improvisation we have greedily, gratefully allowed this space (or chosen this time) to be about our own becoming. hiding in plain sight is our unspoken choice to position ourselves as learners: to undertake the same activities as the students and to come together and learn from each other. did we make this decision explicitly? i don’t recall. it seems that from day one we recognised in the performative gestures and the playful activities a chance for this learning exchange to not just be for the students but for us too9. behind the scenes we made conscious decisions that put in place the preconditions that invited us to not subjugate our own learning over others. in not shaping the feast around learning outcomes, in not predetermining where each session would end and in not positioning ourselves as experts, we signaled to those gathered that we were in this together. we very intentionally created ways to come together across hemispheres and disciplines. it might be a necessary paradox that the lack of direction was strongly scaffolded? we wanted people to experience being lost, yet we wanted them to know the feeling of being found. the fleeting monthly meetings were designed with care to embrace uncertainty and promote serendipitous moments of connection10. why then am i bemused that in this breakout i am wondrous, animated and giddy. why am i surprised that when i put my computer to sleep at the end of the long evening, i do not feel spent? 9 these ‘stolen moments’ were a relief from the familiar productivist treadmill, which in the midst of covid lockdowns in melbourne seemed particularly ludicrous to me. a playful sensibility, a feeling of transgressing the norms of intellectual engagement, the pleasure of getting to know fascinating new people, slipping out of the strictures of so-called expertise, to be naive, to not know what better foundations on which to build something worth doing? [shanti] 10 i'm struck by the interplay and entanglement of conscious decisions, setting preconditions, strongly scaffolding and intentionality and how these conditions are achieved in what we don’t do–in not subjugating, shaping, or predetermining. the push-pull of structure and play is how we come together, embrace uncertainty and improvise. [stacy] l. grocott, s. h. jones, a.-l sand, h. m. skovbjerg & s. sumartojo. wandering feasts qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 282-313 ©2023 297 as i seek words to describe the emotions and atmosphere i sense in this breakout room, i pull out to see what we have created. in bracketing this care-full container we have designed i recognise that i am disciplined at noticing how we have charged the encounter. drawing on our collective expertise we designed a playful, performative space for conceptual exchange. the activities and the facilitation braided together to invite new ways of gathering so we might learn together differently. each session has called for personal introspection, a playful exploration of how our research and ourselves engage with our past and future in the present. each feast begins with us going around the metaphoric picnic blanket and sharing an image or insight to the miro board. this humble gesture became the way we performed that we are here and we are listening. in the first week, we went clockwise around the blanket. each of us stumbled through the notknowingness of the invitation to place something, anything down and talk to it. over time the impulse to sound prepared and clever gave over to the open invitation to trace a connection to something already said or to shamelessly own an improvised response in real time. less earnest and more playful, we began to disrupt the formality of moving from person to person, and instead jumped around the board. the person who finished sharing would express their curiosity to learn more about an image on the board. with this new rhythm came a different engagement. in erasing the cognitive distraction and social anxiety that can come with knowing your turn is coming, people were now able to be present. whose would be chosen next? how would curiosity be framed? and of course, the framing of the invitation shifted how a person answered. in physically placing these subjective, partial, personal insights on to the metaphoric picnic blanket we created a reciprocal space for sharing what we wanted to reveal. there is a reciprocity baked into how new ways of knowing, doing, being and learning are set alight. as the affinity seeds are scattered to the wind, we trust that they take flight and land when the terrain is tilled and ready. indigenous languages often have a dual first-person pronoun, which tyson yunkaporta translates to english as “us-two.” (yunkaporta, 2019, p. 22). there is in the connective force of us-two sharing the opportunity to be heard by others even when you are the one listening. for many indigenous peoples, the value of a gift is based on the reciprocal exchange of giving and receiving. robin kimmerer l. grocott, s. h. jones, a.-l sand, h. m. skovbjerg & s. sumartojo. wandering feasts qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 282-313 ©2023 298 in braiding sweetgrass describes the gift as forever being in circulation (2020). as i say goodnight to people, i have only digitally feasted with i turn again to wonder how we created a zoom home free of detachment and fatigue. across time zones—somehow—the connection holds. the reciprocity11 of learning with and from each other circulates. the students are with us and us with them. we are energised by the full gallery of faces. not just our faces, our whole knowing/doing/being selves. i sense in the lightness, a gratitude, a resonant connection. i am online and yet i am present. improvisation – anne-lene sand during one feast we invite the phd candidates to a joint exploration on ethics in research as one theme related to methodology. we want to expand our notion on ethics and foster a dialogue which touches upon a type of ethics, which seldom is provided space in academia. but how do we actually invite people to reflect and write about ethical dimensions, which are difficult to talk about, on zoom, across continents, time zones, within an academic culture and without putting the phd candidates in a vulnerable situation? we could have structured the feast in a classical academic way: presenting ourselves, an aim, a text and discussing it, but instead the feast was organised through improvisational structures and opened up through a playful and slightly silly invitation12. playful in the sense that helle marie and i used the voice changer app (voice of a male robot) in order to play with the idea of discussing ethics anonymously or having the courage to generate openness about sensitive ethical questions. all participants brought a photo resembling an ethical reflection and read a paper by guillemin and gillam (2004) on ethically important moments. furthermore, playing with a 11 reciprocity can also be understood as a refusal of settler colonial (and colonizing) approaches to research; eve tuck and k. wayne yang (2014) write that refusal in research makes “visible invisibilized limits, containments, and seizures that research already stakes out,” (p. 225), a “redirection to ideas otherwise unacknowledged or unquestioned,” (p. 239) including generating, expanding and championing “representational territories that colonial knowledge endeavours to settle, enclose,[and] domesticate” (p. 242). 12 stacy mentions the tendency within academia where people almost search for people to make mistakes. how does that cultural tendency influence the practice of writing? [anne-lene] l. grocott, s. h. jones, a.-l sand, h. m. skovbjerg & s. sumartojo. wandering feasts qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 282-313 ©2023 299 serious academic topic raised a curiosity towards how we can generate a safe space for ethically sensitive subjects within academia. it was fun recording the introduction with the voice of a robot and at the same time i felt silly. i recall thinking: is this appropriate? how will the others respond to this untraditional academic way of opening and dealing with a serious topic?13 but thinking back on the other feasts: the loose space, the atmosphere and the playful practices pushed my questionings about a radical genre aside and the playful approach in the foreground. in similarity to lisa’s reflections on ‘being taught’, we scaffolded an improvisational space which generated a social space where we felt comfortable: jamming, taking turns, trying to understand each other’s sound and carefully building upon others’ tunes and beats. figure 8: a screenshot of the feast on ethics. the table with uploaded photographs, which somehow were related to an ethical consideration. the feasts were organised in a certain type of way. entering the feasts, we bring to the table a photograph related to the theme. by choosing photographs and not people, we shift focus 13 but an ‘opening’ is exactly what this unexpected intervention provided! listening to the bizarrely transformed voices, i was struck by how this change gave the rest of us permission to approach this welltrammeled topic with a new vulnerability. it was akin to lisa’s identification of reciprocity by giving us this creative prompt, you changed the rules of the game, granting everyone else creative licence. [shanti] l. grocott, s. h. jones, a.-l sand, h. m. skovbjerg & s. sumartojo. wandering feasts qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 282-313 ©2023 300 from the individual in academia to the academic theme. it is a way to establish an exploratory work space and at the same time deal with an uncertain work process. doing together. but how? the latin word improvisus refers to the unforeseen, unexpected and sudden. but improvisation should not just be understood as a practice of spontaneity (pløger, førde and sand, 2021). as repetition within performance, improvisation relies on structures, repetition and rules14, which we provided for through: continuous use of the miro board, picnic tables, photographs as opening dialogues, practical research stories, shorter thematic talks from the organisers, shifting between break out rooms and plenum conversations and writing practice narratives. improvisation also happens in how we as organisers are open to the unforeseen. figure 9: shanti’s mother’s couch on zoom. 14 improvisation requires a flexible and changing—plastic—approach to these structures, repetitions, and rules; in other words, improvising means we don’t learn and apply a skill or orientation to doing research or academic writing “once and for all” (bertinetto & bertram, 2020). we also actively tried to ‘unlearn’ familiar, even ‘perfected’ ways of doing research; so much so that unlearning served as “a conscious and explicit artistic resource” (bertinetto & bertram, 2020) in our work together. l. grocott, s. h. jones, a.-l sand, h. m. skovbjerg & s. sumartojo. wandering feasts qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 282-313 ©2023 301 during the feast i say that it is time for a five-minute break. shanti, who is in portland on a family visit, where it is midnight, says: “okay then i will just take a five-minute nap.” we see her falling in slow motion and disappearing sideways out of the zoom screen and towards the floor. i laugh. people laugh. i am a bit surprised and that makes me laugh more. we all allow ourselves to laugh15,16. small improvisational acts happening frequently during the feasts and in retrospect i see how these types of social acts are important to what we did together as a way to approach academic themes through reciprocity, reflexive conversations and play. according to david brown (2006), improvisation is a re-disciplining of the body and the musician obstructs continuing beats and learns to perform differently. working through play and improvisation in academia confronts an established disciplined way of working and writing. during the feasts i sense a specific way of doing and writing sneaking up upon me trying to force me to do and write within a certain genre. during the feasts, dialogues and processes of writing i confront myself with this paradoxical dilemma and force myself to engage with a re-disciplined, an un-discipline and a new-disciplined way of writing. lisa described this paradox as a strongly scaffolded lack of direction. as emphasised by stacy and lisa, we do together, we do us through new forms of reciprocal knowledge production. as within improvisational practices composing happens in situ, by sensing movement and tunes of the others (brown, 2006, p. 45). to improvise means not only to be able to move outside the pattern, but to be critical of it. provocative competence17 through improvisation is a skill that means challenging conventional forms of practice, searching for unknown terrain and experimenting on the shores of the unknown 15 if i relate this to play research and the mood perspective (skovbjerg, 2021), playing in this situation is possible because somebody is answering with laughter to shanti´s playful act. the answer and somebody answering other people's whim, getting back with another one. [helle marie] 16 laughter is about play here and also it is about how humour makes us vulnerable but was also enabled in this case by feeling safe. is laughter a route to affinity (mason 2018)? does it spark a more potent connection, one that exceeds words? [shanti] 17 i am the queen of footnotes: i just have to add to lisa´s point about the provocation that an important power of a play community is the ability to exceed the established practices, and for the community to expect and accept those exceedings. acceptances are established by another provocation if we follow research on play. if nobody is laughing when somebody is making a joke, another joke will not follow. the rhythm of play is this back and forward as gunvor løkken states [helle marie] l. grocott, s. h. jones, a.-l sand, h. m. skovbjerg & s. sumartojo. wandering feasts qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 282-313 ©2023 302 (steinsholt and sommerro, 2006, p. 18). can improvisation generate new joint practices of sharing and writing in academia? during the feast, the following comment was written in the zoom chat function by one of the phd candidates: i am especially intrigued by everything that can’t be predicted or controlled, the things we can’t write up nicely in a paper to pretend we have “covered all the bases” and ticked all the boxes. i somehow always end up making a mess of things now i feel like talking about “messy ethics”, all the stuff we’re not aware of, all the mistakes we make in the field, our own inattention things that are hard to write about, because it demonstrates our own inadequacy and vulnerability, and it contradicts at least some academic ideals and expectations. what i take from today is an intention to insist on messy ethics, to insist on talking and writing about it on an ongoing basis. thanks! (mathias poulsen, phd-candidate, design school kolding, denmark). according to mathias, “something” triggered the eagerness to do in a certain way and talk about certain uncertainties. is it a new modus operandi a way of working within academia that mathias points toward? that “something” is not a coincidence, but emerges through reciprocity, improvisational performance, playing, doing, and daring. a process which has been developed over time from feast to feast but with an outcome that is clear and strong looking back. within organisational improvisation this is called retrospective sense-making (barrette, 1996), and maybe following what emerges and making sense afterwards is what academia needs in order to develop new genres of writing. l. grocott, s. h. jones, a.-l sand, h. m. skovbjerg & s. sumartojo. wandering feasts qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 282-313 ©2023 303 share, care, dare: giveness as a playful approach – helle marie skovbjerg every time i am going to meet for the feasts, i feel that i am going to give something to someone or to something, and i do not know what it is, and at the same time i also hope for something that is given to me, and i do not know what it is. the german philosopher fröbel (2008) speaks of play materials as gifts. that is, the things that we play with in the game, we must consider as gifts. there are materials that can help to evoke the play as fröbel points out, the ball, the cylinder18 and the cone that have these play gift qualities. the materials are exchanged between the players, and they have a special power to bring players together, but also to evoke all that is commonly human in those players. i find it interesting to dwell on the idea of gifts as something fundamental about being in a context where i am we are together for playfulness, hoping for playfulness. and that is the importance of giving something to “the play”, something that you yourself could have kept, because it is in the generous act that “the play” can be made possible. and that one can hope that the others also give something to “the play” that they themselves could have kept, 19 without being able to claim it. share, take care. we share because we care about “the play”, and we give bravely, for we do not know whether the others will accept, nor whether we will get anything back. this metaphor seems to be crucial for the playful togetherness that we were together during a number of phd workshops. we used the share, care, dare metaphor as a playful way of thinking to frame our togetherness as a dinner table which we called a feast, where everyone brought something to the table. 18 they are the structures that open up the space for play as doing and becoming. [stacy] 19 tangent warning! 'could have' (and should have, would have), which are 'past tense modal verbs' or “modals of lost opportunities [that] work like a grammatical time machine. the simple past just tells what happened. past modals tell what could have, would have, and should have happened" (learning english). i am thinking about shanti’s writing in 'hindsight' or telling the whole story and not being how it happened. i like the move the 'could have kept' makes--here, it isn't a model of lost opportunities, but instead a model of playful possibilities. we're not writing a feast 'time machine' about what happened in the past but doing our playful togetherness now, on the page. it's even better than 'future perfect' tense where we tell what will happen in the future--we create 'legacies' of giving in the now. grammar nerd tangent finished. [stacy] l. grocott, s. h. jones, a.-l sand, h. m. skovbjerg & s. sumartojo. wandering feasts qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 282-313 ©2023 304 figure 10: a picture of the 5th feast with the phd candidates and the organisers’ visual contributions. we shared photos we shared stories we shared a salad and we gave something that we ourselves could have kept. and maybe you think: but according to marcel mauss (2001) giving a gift to somebody is coded with expectation and codes for recieving, filled with power relations and positionings, exclusion processes. did we share in order to have, to show, to position ourselves? it made me think. as stated before, the playful attitude and environment was present as a way for us to be together, improvising and performing. playing also has power structures, mauss would probably say, but also, i would say, it is possible with great playmates to play around with those power structures, positionings and codes, and i think we made it possible to give, receive and share, playing with those codes of how. i remember that during one planning session, shanti suggested another photo sharing at feast iiii we had many of those and i replied that i was happy to share another photo, l. grocott, s. h. jones, a.-l sand, h. m. skovbjerg & s. sumartojo. wandering feasts qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 282-313 ©2023 305 “helle marie skovbjerg”, i said: “you are not allowed to share another photo of pedro (shanti’s dog). now it is enough!” and everybody was laughing. and at the feast itself, shanti said that she had been told she was not allowed to share another photo of pedro, and everybody was laughing again. shanti shared a photo of pedro at every feast, and even if she wasn't supposed to, she did it anyway. lisa then reminded me that another person actually ended up sharing a photo of pedro anyway at the feast where shanti had been told she should not20. this teasing around, the givenness and sharing made it possible to explore the codes of giveness within the group in a way that was playing with the codes as a part of establishing them21, as anne-lene also points to. when a phd student makes a salad, shares the salad with the rest of the group and talks about how it relates to fundamental methodological issues in the phd project, it turns out that this is not merely sharing a salad, but as the french philosopher marion puts it, there is a connection between giving and giving oneself: 'that everything that shows itself must first give itself' (marion, 2013). that generosity, fröbel emphasizes, is precisely a condition of opportunity for “the play” to become possible. as stated by lars after he made his salad: in the back of my mind remembering and longing for the sensation of dancing without zoom, miro board and salad ingredients. i had a feeling, a desire for destroying something. i didn’t plan ahead but just started cutting one of the ingredients into small pieces and ended up cutting them all. looking at the small pieces of food suddenly something made sense. being able to transform something – being able to warm up your body or mind ready to interact. 20 this makes me reflect that i shared photos of pedro as an invitation to play, or as a material to help invoke play, as you say. good dog! [shanti] 21 and i remember the first feast. we were about to get to know each other, and at the first break out room, one of the phd students suggested a 7-minute break out, and shanti joked with the relation between time and danes. “it is not a break out it is a 7-minutes break out room”, she laughed. the daring teasing as a way to give something of yourself and improvise the codes of giving, even though it could be filled with risk as we did not know each other that well [helle marie] l. grocott, s. h. jones, a.-l sand, h. m. skovbjerg & s. sumartojo. wandering feasts qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 282-313 ©2023 306 the feeling of the desire to destroy is not a conversation that i have very often in academia, but in this case, lars shared this feeling with the rest of the group, showing something about himself. in our workshops, the gift, the sharing, became a central practice that made it possible to give not only to the play community, but also give something of ourselves that we could have kept. so, we created legacies that we gave and received and in that way the play community nurtured a courage to give, without demanding to get anything in return. conclusions initially planned as a series of four workshops, our wandering feasts continue. rather than returning to well-worn and often lonely academic writing practices, we keep coming back to our playful space and multimodal ways of thinking, working and communicating. we have developed five conceptual orientations to academic writing, each of which emphasise creative-relational aspects of doing scholarship and academic writing: performativity, emergence, reciprocity, improvisation and givenness. we have illustrated how each orientation has an important role in making a relational online space, interdisciplinary academic dialogue and writing process between us as scholars and 16 phd candidates from monash university and kolding design school. we have paid close attention to the often unnoticeable but important aspects of making a trustworthy, fun and productive workspace in academia online and across borders and disciplines. the process has been exploratory and therefore this article takes its departure in our felt experiences of working and writing through a playful and loosely defined process. in this article we reflect on emergence as an orientation to wandering feasts and also enact it in our approach to this article, which we see as a continuation of the workshops. our performatively layered approach to writing this article afforded us a space in which to conjure the freedom and surprise of wandering feasts on the page and to respond to each other’s accounts. we trusted the improvised, giving and reciprocal process to allow insights to rise to the surface of our writing encounters. using a playful attitude in academic writing, practices-initiated insights where we gave something of ourselves, even though we did not predict or agree in advance on something specific to give or get. this allowed the emergence of new insights about academic writing that included the affective ebbs and flows of pleasure, l. grocott, s. h. jones, a.-l sand, h. m. skovbjerg & s. sumartojo. wandering feasts qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 282-313 ©2023 307 frustration, realisation, and more that infuse all writing, but that is usually not the explicit focus of such labor. using the notion of improvisation in academic writing contributes with a possibility to work within defined structures and at the same time allow for things to emerge and let people explore and scaffold their own type of writing. we have illustrated how social improvisational acts can both be gathering and provocative and challenge traditional ways of writing. often writing academically is done through a well-defined aim, but we emphasise how retrospective sensemaking can be useful within academic writing, as within improvisational practices. exploring methods and modes of working and writing that move outside the academy’s conventional and hierarchical “routines of representation” (pollock, 1998 p 75) helps us write and share the creative-relational encounters of wandering feasts. paying careful and loving attention to performativity, emergence, reciprocity, improvisation and givenness (among other things) helps us–and all of those who seek to actively stray from the ‘beaten track’ of academic writing–to affirm and celebrate all we might otherwise miss: the unimagined connections, how people carefully build upon others’ tunes and beats, and the way everyone bringing something to the table makes play possible. email in-between feasts “hi stacy just a quick note to say how much i enjoyed the session you led last night. i am still reflecting on it and why it made such an impact on me. i am struggling to find a language to express the value of our wf (wandering feast, ed) experiment. i feel it is significant but am not sure how to squeeze it into an academic productivist framework. it resists this! l. grocott, s. h. jones, a.-l sand, h. m. skovbjerg & s. sumartojo. wandering feasts qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 282-313 ©2023 308 i suppose i am proud of what we have collectively made, and how we have made it gradually and gently i hope that september will be a chance for us to all think about this together and in person :)” best, shanti --- reply from lisa the(delete the): “i share this image not for circulation but because it warmed my heart to see how lit up lotte was by the experience. made me think of how it would be an interesting visual assignment to closely observe people's emotions in wf and capture their embodied reactions rather than words for the value of what we are all doing together. and yes stacy — you definitely created some magic :-)”(delete “) from lisa.” l. grocott, s. h. jones, a.-l sand, h. m. skovbjerg & s. sumartojo. wandering feasts qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 282-313 ©2023 309 references bang, a-l & eriksen, m.a. 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(2019). autotheory as rebellion: on research, embodiment, and imagination in creative nonfiction. michigan quarterly review. https://sites.lsa.umich.edu/mqr/2019/07/autotheory-as-rebellion-on-researchembodiment-and-imagination-in-creative-nonfiction/ https://doi.org/10.14506/ca32.2.03 https://doi.org/10.14506/ca32.2.03 https://doi.org/10.1080/14790726.2019.1566373 https://sites.lsa.umich.edu/mqr/2019/07/autotheory-as-rebellion-on-research-embodiment-and-imagination-in-creative-nonfiction/ https://sites.lsa.umich.edu/mqr/2019/07/autotheory-as-rebellion-on-research-embodiment-and-imagination-in-creative-nonfiction/ l. grocott, s. h. jones, a.-l sand, h. m. skovbjerg & s. sumartojo. wandering feasts qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 282-313 ©2023 312 acknowledgement thanks to phd-candidates georgina harriss, mathias poulsen, sisse winther oreskob, ali colwell matsuura, anna corick, myfanwy doughty, nicola hearn, jonathan allan graffam, kate mcentee, lotte laursen, lars dahl pedersen, robert lundberg, chloe smith, nicole johnson, hannah kosrmeyer, martha lagoni and eugene ughetti. about the authors lisa grocott is a professor of design at monash university where she is the future of work and learning research program lead within the emerging technologies lab. lisa’s relational approach to designing transformative learning is informed by collaborations with learning scientists while drawing on her co-design practice expertise. the invitation to resist the conforming impulse of academic writing came from her critical friendship with stacy holman-jones and is grounded by indigenous storytelling. her sons are brooklyn born boys, her whakapapa are ngāti kahugnunu from the east coast of aotearoa, new zealand. stacy holman jones is a researcher, educator, writer and director in the sir zelman cowen school of music and performance at monash university, australia. her research focuses on performance as socially, culturally, and politically resistive and transformative activity. she has published more than 100 articles, book chapters, reviews, and editorials and has authored, co-authored and edited 13 books, many of which practice personal, creative and otherwise off the beaten track writing. her work and friendship with lisa grocott has redoubled her commitment to writing otherwise and toward the unforeseen. this commitment has been strengthened to the power of four with this collaboration with new friends and colleagues shanti surmartojo, anne-lene sand and helle-marie skovbjerg. anne-lene sand is associate professor in the lab for play and design at designschool kolding, denmark. she has a special interest in design anthropology and is positioned to develop a field of applied design and pedagogy she researches how children play and youth improvise with social, material and spatial forms. she is engaged in methodological development and discussions on ethics and design. her fieldworks in urban space made her l. grocott, s. h. jones, a.-l sand, h. m. skovbjerg & s. sumartojo. wandering feasts qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 282-313 ©2023 313 capable of navigating within uncertain terrain and explore alternative social orientations. during her friendship with helle marie skovbjerg, she learned to initiate and choose academic collaborations which are enjoyable. helle marie skovbjerg is a play professor in lab design for play, design school kolding, denmark. she is particularly interested in creating new concepts and theories about play through design, and then applying them to designing for play. it has become the mood perspective on play. her research practices are deeply rooted in the embodiment of play and practices of play. she believes that research relations are about sharing, caring and daring together, building routines and experiences together, just as having good play mates. she is dreaming about a dog for joining her and her play mates on her play journey, and pedro – shanti´s dog is doing a great job for holding on to that dream. shanti sumartojo is a researcher in the emerging technologies research lab and the faculty of art, design and architecture at monash university, australia. she researches how people experience design and technology in their everyday contexts, which is starting to include experimenting with methodologies, forms of representation and approaches to bodily thinking. she is nourished by learning, thinking and writing with others including the coauthors of this paper. untitled 1 resisting stigma, embracing solidarity: an ethnographic study of shopaholics anonymous rachel demerling abstract. in recent years, an increased interest in the phenomenon of compulsive buying, which is better known as “shopaholism”, has occurred. this behaviour has been conceptualized as being an uncontrollable urge to purchase things which is pleasurable for an individual or relieves their distress and which results in negative consequences for that individual. this article examines the experiences of individuals within a shopaholics anonymous group to understand why individuals decide to join a support group and explore the dynamics of interaction among participants and how that shapes the outcome of their addiction. key words: compulsive buying; stigma; solidarity; addiction please cite this article as: demerling, r. (2011). resisting stigma, embracing solidarity: an ethnographic study of shopaholics anonymous. qualitative studies, 2(1): 1-15. introduction in recent years, an increased interest in the phenomenon of compulsive buying, which is better known as “shopaholism”, has occurred. this behaviour has been conceptualized as being an uncontrollable urge to purchase things which is pleasurable for an individual or relieves their distress and which results in negative consequences for that individual (dittmar, long & bond, 2007; faber & o’guinn, 1992; frost & steketee, 2004). what is more, this phenomenon is attributed to being primarily a “female issue.” this was prevalent in the 2008 film confessions of a shopaholic, where rebecca bloomwood is depicted as an adoring twenty-something year old whose quirks and charm make her shopping addiction funny and light hearted. previous work on compulsive buying suggests that this behaviour stems from emotional difficulties and people engage in these behaviours to avoid feeling intense and unresolved emotions (gallen, 2002). thus, the question becomes, why do compulsive buyers join shopaholics anonymous and what do they gain from the group? to explore this question, i studied a shopaholics anonymous group to uncover why individuals join support groups if they fear stigmatization. does the group in fact help members improve their compulsive buying? a considerable amount of work has been done on psychological factors associated with compulsive buying; however, there is no work to date on compulsive buying support groups. this article examines the experiences of individuals within a shopaholics anonymous group to understand why individuals decide to join a support group and explore the dynamics of interaction among participants and how that shapes the outcome of their addiction. literature review shopping as a form of compensation sociological literature on the topic of compulsive buying continues to be scant as compulsive buying is an issue, which is dominated by physiatrists and psychologists alike. many attempts have been made to construct particular models, which can uncover and predict compulsive buying (kellett & bolton, 2009; ridgway, kukar-kinny & monroe, 2008; kahler et al, 2008). early developmental experiences and family upbringing have been associated with an 2 increased attachment to belongings. it has been found that compulsive buyers report childhoods with a greater frequency of parents who used money and gifts as a means of positive reinforcement for desired behaviours, were less frequently encouraged as children to save and discouraged from expressing their opinions (o’guinn and faber, 1989). this form of upbringing can result in two causal processes. firstly, it can lead to an over-emphasis regarding personal desirability and a distorted body image. both of these traits require reinforcement of self-worth and self-esteem (desarbo & edwards, 1996). however, research shows that there is no significant correlation between happiness and money once household incomes are beyond $50,000 per year (chatzky, 2003; easterbrook, 2005), but the immediacy of positive feelings pertains to the buying process rather than to the receiving or consumption of the product (ridgway, kukar-kinney and monroe, 2008). although compulsive buying is not formally recognized as a mental disorder, it is being considered for inclusion in the fifth edition of the diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (dsm-v). there has been a surge of research signaling that this “habit” is not merely a lifestyle choice but an illness, comparable to gambling and alcoholism, which is a “persistent and recurrent maladaptive behaviour that disrupts personal, family or vocational pursuits” (american psychiatric association, 2000, p. 671). thus, there is a strong body of evidence, which suggests that compulsive buyers develop the “habit” as a result of how they were socialized to view money. this perception has inevitably led such individuals to believe that money will provide personal fulfillment and satisfaction without detrimental long-term effects. however, this form of self-medication, once thought to be harmless, is slowly becoming viewed as a serious addiction worthy of medical treatment. avoiding stigma: perpetual myths about shopaholics there are many beliefs about compulsive buying, which depict the essence of the disorder and at the same time perpetuate stereotypes. it is believed that buying objects will compensate, reward or neutralize negative feelings and that objects provide emotional security and emotional attachment. moreover, it is believed that objects are unique with a marked opportunity cost should they not be purchased. lastly, it is believed that compulsive buyers have a sense of heightened personal responsibility for objects (kyrios et al., 2004). as a result of the negativity surrounding compulsive buying, many compulsive buyers experience shame, guilt and regret (o’guinn and faber, 1989). thus, compulsive buyers try to conceal their behaviours to avoid stigma (lee, lennon, and rudd, 2000). with that, many compulsive buyers have turned to the internet as a means of fulfilling their desires because they can shop and buy unobserved and avoid social interaction (ridgway, kinney, m, monroe, 2008). “the devil in plastic”: detrimental effects of compulsive buying compulsive buying does not only affect the shopaholic, but is also a major source of conflict for couples and their families (oggins, 2003). in a survey conducted of 1001 adults, more than half considered money to be a sensitive topic in their households. forty percent surveyed reported that they had lied to their spouse about the cost of a purchase and forty percent expressed that they felt it was acceptable for their spouse not to share financial information with them (medintz, 2004). furthermore, research shows that disordered money behaviours have a significant negative impact on personal well-being. being overly loose or tight with money, being overly concerned with financial success and being materialistic are all associated with lower ratings of well-being (tatzel, 2002). in addition, financial problems have also been shown to negatively affect job performance. research shows that adults who experience financial stress are less productive at work (grensing-pophal, 2002). consequently, it is evident that compulsive buying is not an isolated act, but leads to a host of psychological, emotional and 3 physical distress. what is more, since compulsive buying is negatively perceived, shopaholics feel unable to confront their family members and close friends about their disorder. although the literature on disordered money behaviour provides ample information as to how compulsive buying begins and how it negatively affects individuals and their social networks, no literature to date has empirically studied shopaholic support groups. this is crucial in understanding the dynamics of the group to uncover how individuals decide to join a support group and what they gain from attending. method the data used in this article were obtained through ethnographic research conducted over the course of four months (january-april 2010) in a shopaholics anonymous group in southern ontario. i attended and participated in the group on a weekly basis as well as conducted semistructured interviews with 7 of the 12 members, which were approximately one hour in duration. the reason i did not interview all of the members in the group is that some individuals simply did not feel comfortable talking about their struggles with compulsive buying in greater depth. the mcmaster university research ethics board granted approval for this study and informed consent was obtained from individuals who participated in the semistructured in-depth interviews. all of the member’s names were replaced with pseudonyms and all other identifiers were removed to ensure anonymity. when i attended the weekly meetings, i would sit in my car immediately following each meeting and write fieldnotes so my recollection of the meeting would be clearer. when i conducted the interviews, none of the participants felt comfortable being tape-recorded so i took notes during the interview and immediately after. structure of shopaholics anonymous the shopaholics anonymous group i attended is a weekly support group where members come and share their experiences, struggles and successes with compulsive debting. the weekly meetings are hosted by a volunteer who took on the responsibility because the previous location of the meetings required that all members pay a fee for attending, so now the costs is free for all members. every meeting begins with members sharing their experiences of the past week, which helps the group gauge how each member is progressing from week to week. following that, a volunteer is selected to read a passage from the literature “a currency of hope.” each story is a personal narrative about how one came to be a compulsive debtor and the struggles they have incurred as a result. from that, members each take a turn discussing their relation to the theme of the passage. this portion of the meeting tends to be very emotional because it is the opportunity members have to delve into their past experiences and revive painful memories brought about by their struggle with compulsive debting. after each member has an opportunity to share their story, members then offer each other helpful tips as to how they can better manage their situation. it is obvious that individuals over time become emotionally invested in the lives of the other members and would like them to succeed in their ongoing struggles. however, to the best of my knowledge, none of the members have contact with one another outside of the meeting, as i heard no discussion of interaction or communication taking place beyond the weekly meetings. in the last portion of the meeting, members join hands and recite a prayer asking god to give them strength and guidance so they may on remain on the path to ridding their addiction. this support group is advertised in local newspapers and welcomes any individuals who wish to control their compulsive buying. to be a member of this group there are a number of expectations that are placed on newcomers. members are expected to stop incurring any 4 unsecured debt beyond what they have already incurred. members are expected to attend the meetings on a weekly basis and before deciding if the group is suitable to their needs, members are told to attend at least six meetings before making a decision. the group encourages members to record their expenses and income. it is strongly suggested that everyone carry a notebook and throughout the day write down everything they spend and any income they receive. members are also encouraged to read the literature provided in the group, which includes a currency of hope, alcoholics anonymous, twelve steps and twelve traditions of alcoholics anonymous. lastly, all members are expected to follow the twelve steps prescribed in the exact order of prescription. in this shopaholics anonymous group, compulsive debting is referred to as a disease that never gets better, only worse as time passes. they argue that this disease, which is progressive in nature, can never be cured but only managed. this shopaholics anonymous group is comparable to alcoholics anonymous in that they follow a twelve steps program. the first step is admitting powerlessness over debt in that life has become unmanageable. the second step is to believe that a power greater than oneself can bring restoration of sanity. the third step is making a decision to turn your will and your life over to the care of god. the fourth step is making a fearless moral inventory of yourself. the fifth step is admitting to god, to yourself and to another human being the exact nature of your wrongs. the sixth step is being entirely ready to have god remove all defects of character. the seventh step is humbling asking god to remove your shortcomings. the eighth step is making a list of all persons you have harmed and be willing to make amends to them all. the ninth step is making a direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others. the tenth step is continuing to take personal inventory and when you were wrong to promptly admit it. the eleventh step is to seek prayer and meditation to improve your conscious contact with god and praying only for knowledge and will. the twelfth and final step is to have a spiritual awakening as the result of the previous steps and to try and carry out this message to other compulsive debtors and to practice these principles in all your affairs. review of findings “hi my name is…and i’m a shopaholic.” reasons for joining shopaholics anonymous none of the members in this shopaholics anonymous group attend this support group for financial advice. the group acts as a moral support system and a safe environment for people to discuss their issues free of judgment. all of the members of the group joined shopaholics anonymous because they needed to discuss their financial woes and felt as though they could not do so with any close family or friends. joan, a 53-year-old social worker and mother of two daughters explains her reasons for joining the shopaholics support group: my debt just kept accumulating every single day and i was unable to face the music myself. i would try and ignore the problem but it’s kinda hard when creditors are calling you several times a day. i felt trapped, like i had no one to turn to. i felt like everyone who knew about my debt was judging me, and at the same time i was not willing to share my problems with my close friends or family because i knew they would be critical. so one day i was surfing on the web and typed a bunch of key phrases with the word debt in them and all of a sudden this support group popped up. at first i dismissed the possibility of attending the meetings, but i honestly felt like a bottle of pop that has been shaken far too much and is going to burst any second. i needed to go somewhere i could talk about my issues and get relief. 5 similarly, matthew, a 53yearold computer analyst explains: well i got to a point in my life where my situation kept getting worse and worse and i had no one to talk to because i did not want anyone to find out. so one day, i was online searching for support and i found a meeting right near my house. i felt as if i was going to go insane if i did not talk to someone soon. matthew goes on to explain that joining the group made him feel a little bit better about his situation: i know this sounds bad, but if your situation is so horrible, it makes you feel a little bit better knowing that someone else is in a horrible situation too. it is the only source of comfort you have at that point, to know that you’re not the only one who can’t control their money. attending the weekly support groups provides individuals with a sense of relief from the everyday stresses that their compulsive buying brings. all of the members feel a sense of entrapment because they are uncomfortable disclosing their issues to friends of family in fear of condemnation and disapproval. in addition, for all of the group members, especially matthew, attending the meetings provides consolation because others share their struggle and they no longer feel completely isolated and alone. the individuals in the shopaholics anonymous groups had very different reasons for compulsive buying and incurring insurmountable debt. for two of the individuals, their addiction to shopping did not occur until their mid-thirties when unfortunate life events took place. joan describes how her compulsive buying began with the onset of her divorce. as a single mother of two kids, joan said that she began incurring debt because she could not keep pace with the demands of providing for her children. however, although her children are grown, she has not been able to get out of debt because she does not know anything else. she said, “i get so much pleasure out of buying even a pencil. when i’m buying something, anything, i feel in control and happy.” joan feels like a lot of the issues she faced in childhood resurfaced in her adolescence and shopping has been the way she has suppressed those unresolved insecurities. similarly, melanie, a 44-year-old clerical assistant and mother of three children, explained how her history of compulsive spending began after she got divorced more than 10 years ago. after she paid her legal fees and split her assets with her ex-husband, melanie became depressed and started compulsively shopping as a form of self-medication. over the years, her spending caused her to max out all of her credit cards, which forced her to borrow money from friends and family to pay some of her monthly bills. unlike joan and melanie, joe, a 42-year-old self-employed tradesman, began to incur debt because of the nature of his work and the irregular income that follows. joe said that it is the nature of his work that caused his debt to skyrocket. since he is self-employed, he always used credit cards to pay absolutely everything because sometimes he would not have the money in his account to pay for the purchase and other times, he would have the money but not want to use it in fear that he may not have a large pay check the following week. thus, before he knew it, his debt kept accumulating and he never took the time to figure out a re-payment plan and just waited until it became too much to ignore. 6 for the rest of the group members, compulsive buying began as a result of personal interests and hobbies that turned into obsessions. matthew said that his debt occurred because he developed an obsession with films. this obsession would not only take the form of renting movies and going to the theatre much too often, but he would also spend days traveling to and staying over in toronto to see tiff films. moreover, matthew also began paying off credit cards with other credit cards and never properly dealt with his debt until a few years ago. in like manner, for michael, a 44-year-old mechanic, debt accumulation began when he began fixing up cars and collecting them. as a mechanic, michael is around cars everyday and so he began taking old cars and fixing them, which turned into a hobby. however, michael began spending large amounts of money on car accessories, which accumulated into debt in the thousands: “at first, it was like ok i’ll do this once and that will be it. but then you become good at it and before you know it you start buying special rims, tires and spoilers that cost a fortune.” contrary to the literature on the development of compulsive buying, for all of the individuals in the group, compulsive buying did not begin or fully escalate until they reached middle age. for most, it was brought on by unfortunate life events, which either caused an emotional strain that led them down the path to compulsive buying or a financial strain, which led to the accumulation of massive debt. for a small minority in the group, it was the development of an interest or hobby, which demands excessive amounts of money to maintain that caused the incurrence of debt. unresolved issues, growing debt for the majority of individuals, their compulsive spending continued as a result of unresolved issues that were either mentioned or not. many individuals had not resolved issues of insecurity, pain, or neglect and as a result have been unable, until now, to come to terms with their addictions. moreover, many of the members had begun hiding their addictions from friends and family, which only served to worsen their problem because they were unable to openly talk about it and find a resolution. joe said that for a few years, he did not discuss their financial situation with his wife because it made him feel like he was not a good provider for his family and because he did not want to upset his wife and cause martial strain. however, this secrecy only delayed the road to recovery for joe because he kept spending the same so his wife would not notice there was a problem. he said: i mean i didn’t want to admit to amy that we weren’t doing well financially because what does that say about me? i don’t want her thinking that she should have married someone else and that i can’t support my own family. it has got to be the worst feeling, knowing that you can’t adequately provide financially for your wife and kids. so basically i tried to avoid thinking about it as much as possible because it made me feel horrible. i guess i somehow figured that if i ignored the issue and didn’t tell my wife, things would get better or at least go away. similarly, joan said that for years she did not share her financial troubles with friends or family because as a single mother, she already felt stigmatized by her situation. thus, joan did not want people to think that not only can she not keep her personal life together, but she also cannot keep her finances in check. “after i got divorced, i had the stigma of a single parent, so for people to think i can’t control my shopping, i was worried they would believe that was the reason my marriage fell apart.” lastly, matthew expressed how he hid his debt from his parents for many years because he was too ashamed for them to find out. he always felt guilty that he could not afford to buy his parents nice gifts or take them on trips and always made his parents 7 believe that he was just careful with his spending: “i was too afraid of what my parents would think of me. i mean i am not married and have no kids, so if i dropped this bomb on them, i was worried they would think i can’t do anything right.” for all of the members, what began as a relatively small issue grew uncontrollably because they did not confront the matter. fear of stigma and disappointment from others hindered these individuals from disclosing their struggles with their close family and friends and so they found ways to conceal their addictions, which only served to worsen their financial situation. techniques for concealing addiction over time, the participants in this group developed different techniques to conceal their addiction from their family and friends. as a single mother, melanie has always worked hard to hide her financial situation from her children. although they are often refused many items they ask for, her children do not suspect their mother has any financial troubles. there has been a time melanie has thought about telling her children about the situation, but she feared it would upset them, making them feel insecure. however, one time when her daughter was in the sixth grade, her class was going on a year-end trip to camp. the total cost for this trip was around $60 and melanie did not have enough money at the end of the week. so what she began to do is tell her daughter that the trip will not be any fun and that bugs will eat her. “i told kelly, why do you want to go there anyway? you will get tons of mosquito bites and get really dirty. besides we’ll plan something better for the summer” after a few days, kelly began to believe her mother and eventually decided not to attend the trip. however, all summer her daughter asked where they were going and melanie had to pretend that she could not get the time off work to go on the trip she promised to take her daughter on. when michael first began accumulating debt, he ignored it and continued to live as usual. he always thought he would be able to take care of his debt and so he never let it dictate his life. since michael is unmarried, he was used to a life where he and his friends would be found at the bar on the weekends and would frequently take trips. many of michel’s friends have wellpaying jobs, so michael never felt comfortable talking about his financial problems. however, it got to the point one day where his debt became too much to ignore. he had agencies calling all the time and his credit cards were fully maxed out. around that time michael’s friends were planning a trip to mexico and he knew that if he declined, everyone would question him. to avoid that predicament, michael asked his parents to borrow $2,000. his parents were surprised at the request and began speculating. michael told them the money was to help out a friend and that it would be repaid immediately. months later, michael was still unable to repay his parents and so he was forced to admit his situation. michael felt this was the better option opposed to telling his friends he was in debt. thus for michael, he had to make the choice of either admitting his financial troubles to his family or friends and chose his family because they were the ones who lent him the money for which he could not repay. joan described her struggle to hide her financial troubles with her family for years. “since i got divorced, everyone always tried to get information out of me. i guess they want to know all of the reasons why i got divorced or something.” she said that she knew people always speculated about her finances because she lives in a run-down apartment and has an older car. because of those perceptions, joan would purposely buy new clothes whenever she was invited to a family function because she wanted to appear as though she was doing fine. she would also buy her family members elaborate gifts for christmas and birthdays because they would tell her not to since they assumed she could not afford it, and so that would only cause her to buy more elaborate gifts. “deep down i knew people knew about my situation and that i didn’t have a lot 8 of money. so to make myself and others believe i was doing fine, i would put on this big charade to show them they’re wrong.” lastly, joe began talking about his experience with trying to hide his financial situation from his wife because he was afraid that if she knew the depth of their situation, she would leave him. before joe got married, his wife knew he did not have a lot of money, but joe never actually came out and disclosed every aspect of his finances. he simply assured his wife that if she married him everything would turn out fine. a few years into their marriage, joe’s business did not flourish the way he had hoped. eventually his debt grew to be too much. however, to show his wife everything was fine, joe continued buying her flowers, taking her to restaurants and buying her nice gifts. this worked for a little while until creditors began calling his home and his wife found out. he was fearful that she would leave, but instead she began helping him devise a plan as to how they can get themselves out of this. she actually admitted to joe that she suspected this problem for a few years, but tried to make herself believe it wasn’t happening. for that reason, she also assumed part of the blame. over time, all of the members had come to develop techniques for concealing their compulsive buying and the debt that followed in an attempt to avoid a stigma or in some instances a double stigma. however, for many, by doing so, their financial situation only worsened because instead of facing their debt, they spent more money trying to convince others they did not have an addiction. group accountability during the semi-structured interviews i conducted with some of the members of the group, i asked them if they felt accountable to the other group members with respect to their financial decision-making. anne, a 46-year-old insurance broker replied: yes, for sure. every week everyone is taking time out of their busy schedules to be a part of the group. many people have spouses and children and so i wouldn’t want to be wasting anyone’s time by not making an effort to get the most i can out of the meetings. i want to come back every week and have something good to say about what i did to improve the situation. besides, that motivates others to do their best too. just like anne, matthew also feels accountable to the other members which is the guiding force behind his motivation do the best he can each week: every week when we come back and share how our week has been, you definitely want to have something good to say. sometimes i have the temptation to splurge and then i think that come sunday, i don’t want to tell everyone that, especially if the others have had a good week. also, you begin to know which members are not doing that well and which ones need more motivation and so by sharing your positive experiences, you only hope that you are inspiring the weaker members of the group to change their situation. lastly, melanie also echoes the notion of group accountability. she says: “we all owe it to each other to do the best we can each day to improve our situation. that’s the point of the group. we are all in this together and are all here for the same reason. so it would be selfish for someone not to take this seriously.” consequently, all of the members feel accountable to the other participants to strive to improve their financial situation for the sake of the group. 9 unwritten rules/codes of behaviour within shopaholics anonymous, there are certain unwritten rules and codes of behaviour, which all members are to abide by. joan explains, “i think the most important thing is to never come off as judgmental because that is the whole point of the group. you never want to make someone feel bad about their situation, even if it is far worse than yours.” she goes on to stress that “we all have bad days and bad weeks, so if someone does something stupid or careless, you shouldn’t say anything negative. our only role is to be supportive.” joan also explains that all the members try not to get really personal with one another because it would not be proper to start asking people private details such as how much debt they have or what they spend their money on. matthew also echoes the inappropriateness of prying in the lives of the other members: if someone wants to tell you something, they will. we’re not here to get into everyone’s business; it’s merely a support system. i think also, you don’t want to ever make your situation seem better than everyone else’s. i know this sounds strange, but i don’t consider my situation to be as bad as some of the others in the group because like i said, i’m a single guy. i don’t have a family to support. but i’m not gonna ever insinuate that because that’s not why i’m here. joe stresses the issue of criticism and how members of the group should resist passing judgment, regardless of the situation: well you also should never point out faults in anyone else or criticize them. if someone says something that is really ridiculous or surprising, you shouldn’t ever point it out or make them feel bad. there are times when you hear someone say that they lost control and went to the casino one night and everyone’s thinking, you have kids and wife, why are you clearly putting them last. but you can’t say that, you just have to be supportive. after all, who am i to judge them? no matter how stupid i think someone is being, at the end of the day, we’re all here for the same reason. evidently, all members agree that there are unwritten rules and codes of behaviour that everyone should abide by. although there is no formal enforcement of such rules and codes of behaviour, every member is expected to be supportive of the other members and that entails not passing judgment or criticizing anyone for their actions or thoughts. the goal of the group is to provide ongoing support for individuals with compulsive buying. thus it is inappropriate to pry into people’s personal issues unless they willingly divulge that information. shopaholics anonymous: is there a financial benefit? all of the participants in the group agree that with respect to their financial situations, attending the meetings made them become more accountable for their actions, which encouraged them to improve their overall situation. jeremy, a 48-year-old steel worker explains: well yes, in the sense that i feel an obligation to them as a member of the group to make every effort to try and improve my situation. we are all cheering each other on every week. i like to attend the meetings having something positive to say. so i guess, in that sense, joining the group has made me more accountable for my actions in a way that i have not experienced before. 10 in like terms, michael says, “when you hear some of the positive steps others are taking to improve their finances, it sort of motivates you to want to get things right with your own situation. you know, if joe is saying that he has paid down one of his credit cards, it makes others in the group feel like they’d better get the ball rolling and do something.” moreover, matthew also agrees that attending the group has improved his financial situation in the sense that he does not ignore his situation anymore because the meetings are a constant reminder that he needs to work continuously to improve his finances: well, it’s not like i get any sound financial advice. let’s be honest, i’m coming for support. i wouldn’t exactly take financial advice from people who also can’t control their own money. it’s just emotional support. it makes you feel like your doing something to help your situation. like you’re on a path to finding a solution, even if you haven’t really done anything at all. just knowing that others share your personal struggle makes you feel like you can do something about it and it’s not totally hopeless. for me, the meetings are what keep me in check. before, i joined, weeks and months would go by and i would not really think about my problem or do anything about it. i would put my credit card bills in a hiding spot so i would forget about them. you know, out of sight, out of mind. but since joining the group, it forces me to constantly think about my finances, i don’t ignore the problem anymore. thus, although shopaholics anonymous is not allowed to provide members with financial advice as to how they can better manage their finances, simply attending the meetings has had a considerable effect on the finances of members. attending the meetings each week forces participants to face their problems instead of ignoring them and hoping they will disappear like in the past. the meetings give individuals the support, strength and motivation they need to no longer feel like their situation is hopeless, but that they have the ability to improve their finances because they are not the only ones facing this ongoing struggle. ultimately, for all of the members, emotional support was the missing link that was previously lacking to take matters into their own hands and stop self-loathing. discussion of findings resisting stigma goffman (1968) conceptualizes stigma as an “attribute that is deeply discrediting and that makes the person carrying it different from others and of a less desirable kind.” stigma is a socially constructed phenomenon where there is evidence of an attribute that makes a person different from others and contains terms of undesirable ‘deeply discrediting’ attributes that ‘disqualify one from full social acceptance’ and motivates efforts by the stigmatized individual to hide the mark when possible (goffman, 1963). moreover, hayward & bright (1997) identifies stigma as the negative effect of a label, while schlosberg (1993) suggests that it is the establishment of deviant identities. lastly, corrigan & penn (1999) contend that stigma is another term for prejudice based upon negative stereotyping. when individuals have been ascribed a deviant characteristic by means of a label, individuals can follow a deviation from social norms. thus, it can be inferred that labeling is the prerequisite for the very existence of deviance that justifies stigmatization. research shows that individuals with addictions are aware of the stereotypes that are associated with individuals in their group which causes them to resist mental illness labels and treatment altogether (crocker & major, 1989; owens, 2000; hayward & bright, 1997). it is fear of social repercussions and condemnation that deter many addicts from seeking medical diagnosis and 11 addiction treatment because they believe that admitting they have an addiction will equate to the internalization of such stereotypes. in addition, many addicts fear that if they admit to their addiction and are labeled mentally ill, their family members will receive a courtesy stigma (goffman, 1963). a study conducted by phlean, bromet and link (1998) found that the stigma family members receive is just as severe as the one placed on the mentally ill and is much greater than it has been in the past twenty years. while conducting ethnographic research in shopaholics anonymous, it became increasingly prevalent that members joined the support group as a means of resisting stigmatization by their family and friends. deciding to join shopaholics anonymous was a concerted effort to preserve their financial struggles from those close to them. many of the individuals such as joan and matthew felt as though others already stigmatized them because of previous life events such as getting divorced or being unmarried and thus, essentially wanted to avoid a “double stigma” by concealing their compulsive buying. there is a growing body of research (philo, 1996; byrne, 1997) that supports the concept of stereotypes in mental illness that makes it easier for society to dismiss people and in doing so causes individuals to maintain their social distance. all of the members of shopaholics anonymous, weather previously stigmatized or not, joined the group because they felt unable to disclose their struggles of compulsive buying with their close friends and family. they fear disapproval and social condemnation that would result if members in their social circle gained knowledge about their poor financial state. as a result, for many, their financial situation worsened in the attempt to avoid disclosing their financial despair and keep up appearances. all of the members in the group went to great lengths to develop techniques to conceal their addiction. members such as joan and joe continued buying friends and family elaborate gifts so that it would seemingly appear that their financial situation was fine. other members would make up lies to close relatives to avoid disclosing information. melanie make up lies to her children to avoid explaining her financial situation, and matthew told his parents he needed to borrow money to help out a friend when it was for a vacation he did not want to decline. it is apparent that all of the members in shopaholics anonymous joined the group as a means of resisting stigmatization. they needed an outlet to release the frustrations, anxieties and fears that they have been bottling up for so long. the group serves as a weekly “therapy” session where members can discuss both their successes and failures in battling their addiction without the risk of being labeled or stigmatized. shopaholics anonymous provides members with a safe environment to divulge personal information regarding their addiction to others who share their struggle and do not feel discredited or socially unaccepted. thus, members do not join shopaholics anonymous to access financial information on money management as a means of improving their financial situation, but, rather, they join because the group provides them with the opportunity to discuss their personal struggles that they are unable to do so with their close family and friends. embracing solidarity durkheim (1917) argued that religion acts as a source of solidarity and personal identification for individuals within society. religion reinforces morals and social norms as well as provides social control, cohesion and meaning for individuals (allen, pickering & miller, 2008). hogg, adelman & blagg (2010) argue that religions are social groups that focus people’s spiritual and existential curiosity and provide ideological and behavioural guidelines for this curiosity and everyday life. studies show that people categorized as group members identify more strongly with their group when uncertainty is high (grieve & hogg, 1999; marigold, mcgregor & kanna, 12 2010). the rationale for strong group identification is that it reduces uncertainty because it solidifies a sense of self, how one should behave and how others will react. thus a clearly structured group with clear boundaries, internal homogeneity, common goals, social interaction and unambiguous membership criteria creates a stronger sense of solidarity and reduces selfuncertainty (grieve & hong, 1999). within the literature on mental health and addiction, research shows that participation in addiction support groups leads to an improvement in addiction outcome. many studies have found that participation in aa is related to improvements in alcohol use (humphreys, moos, & cohen, 1997; 1998; timko et al, 2005). a study conducted by humphreys et al. (1997) found that among 628 previously untreated alcoholics, the number of aa meetings attended in the first three years following treatment predicted higher quality relationships, which in turn positively impacted one’s progression in the program. moreover, timko et al. (2005) found that the duration of aa attendance significantly predicted an increase in friend resources in the support group. within shopaholics anonymous, practices of solidarity are not only exhibited, but are fully embraced by all members. group accountability is a major theme that emerged during both participant observation and interviews. members such as anne and matthew stressed group accountability because they feel that they owe it to the other members to do the best they can each week in terms of managing their finances, because all of the members are taking the time out of their busy schedules to attend the weekly meetings. thus, every time they have the temptation to splurge on something unnecessary, they think of the group and the dedication everyone has and that deters them from deviating from their financial plan. also, group members feel that their role is to help motivate and inspire the other members who are weaker. it is their obligation to ensure that everyone is reaching their full potential. moreover, the notion of solidarity is also present when group members discuss the unwritten rules and codes of behaviour. joe and joan highlighted the fact that all members are expected to be a pillar of support, which includes never criticizing, or passing judgment on other members. even if a group member makes a horrible financial decision, it is an unwritten rule that the other members are not warranted in condemning that individual. their only role is to be supportive and provide endless encouragement. furthermore, the theme of solidarity also emerged when group members discussed the financial benefits they receive from attending shopaholics anonymous. michael and matthew were among the many who emphasized that they do not receive any sound financial advice from attending the meetings nor did any of them join the group for that particular reason. the primary reason every member joined the group was for support and guidance from those who are experiencing the same struggles. all of the members stressed the fact that they take comfort in knowing that they are not alone in battling their addiction, which provides them with a sense of hope that they can improve their finances. it is evident that all of the members in shopaholics anonymous joined the group to gain a sense of solidarity that is lacking in their everyday lives. what is more, the solidarity exhibited in this group is especially striking because of the accountability members have to one another. they feel a moral obligation to do their best each week to improve their financial situation because everyone is taking the time to attend the meetings each week. moreover, members also feel obliged to inspire and encourage one other and to refrain from any criticism, which is evident in the unwritten rules and codes of behaviour. additionally, this group mimics the structure religion provides because it gives members security, hope and solidarity. with that, it lowers people’s sense of uncertainty and provides comfort in the face of financial hardship. 13 conclusion in view of the fact that all of the members in this study feel unable to disclose their personal struggles with their close friends and family, they joined shopaholics anonymous as a means of resisting stigmatization and embracing solidarity. given the stereotypes that exist about shopaholics, participants in this group feel unable to discuss their addiction with anyone because they fear being stigmatized. with that, their inability to express their financial problems leaves many participants feeling completely isolated and unsupported. these feelings proved to be a vicious cycle because isolation caused participants to fall further into debt because they virtually repressed their feelings of despair through compulsive buying and ignoring the matter altogether. thus, while shopaholics anonymous does not provide financial education, advice or services to members, it serves as a religious institution providing support, encouragement and accountability, which in turn have proven to positively impact the financial situation of all members. the group provides stability, consistency and emotional security, which is something that is lacking in the lives of compulsive buyers. the mere fact of knowing that others share their struggle provides members with a sense of hope and encouragement to overcome their insurmountable debt. with that, the nature of the group is less about financial management and more about emotional support. given the stigma surrounding compulsive buying, the importance of this support group is ever-present because individuals will ultimately avoid seeking help because they do not want to be labeled mentally ill. thus, shopaholics anonymous has become a form of non-medical treatment because it is provides emotional support without labeling. references allen. n.j., pickering, w.s., miller. w. 2008. on elementary forms of religious life. routledge: uk. 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(2010). defensive conviction as emotion regulation: goal mechanisms and interpersonal implications. in r. m. arkin, k. c. oleson, & p. j. carroll (eds.), handbook of the uncertain self. new york: psychology press. 15 medintz, s. 2004. “secrets, lies and money.” money, 34, 121-128. oggins, j. 2003. “topics of marital disagreement among african-american and euro american newlyweds.” psychological reports 92, 417-433. o’guinn, t, and faber, r. 1989. “compulsive buying: a phenomenological exploration.” journal of consumer research 16, 147-165. phelan, j. c., bromet, e. j., & link, b. g. 1998. “psychiatric illness and family stigma.” schizophrenia bulletin, 24, 115-126. philo, g. 1996. media and mental distress. addison wesley longman, new york. ridgway, n, kukar-kinney, m, monroe, k. 2008. “an expanded conceptualization and a new measure of compulsive buying.” journal of consumer research 35(4), 622-639. schlosberg, a. 1993. “psychiatric stigma and mental health professionals.” medicine and law 12, 409-416. tatzel, m. 2002. “ ’money worlds’ and well-being: as integration of money dispositions, materialism and price-related behaviour.” journal of economic psychology 23, 103-126. timko, c., finney, j., & moos, r. 2005. “the 8-year course of alcohol abuse: gender differences in social context and coping.” alcoholism, clinical and experimental research, 29, 612-621. author rachel demerling is a ph.d. candidate in the department of sociology, mcmaster university, studying sexuality, gender and inequality. email: demerlr@univmail.cis.mcmaster.ca qualitative studies vol. 8, no. 1, 2023, pp. 334-362 issn 1903-7031 lists for many occasions in qualitative research writing elliott kuecker1 1school of information and library science, university of north carolina at chapel hill. 100 manning hall, chapel hill, nc 27599 this article proposes many ways qualitative scholars can use the list as a writing form when composing their academic texts. given that so many people already write lists in daily life, the list as a form contains a democratic quality unmatched by many other forms of experimental research writing, which are more often garnered from other disciplinary contexts or elevated writing practices. embracing the simplicity of form and complexity of interpretation that the list offers, the author describes different styles of lists—such as the to-do and the catalog—particularly emphasizing how they may serve qualitative researchers in their writing process or textual expression. in addition, the author analyzes existing lists written by children, poets, and researchers in the context of qualitative inquiry. each section is accompanied by prompts and pedagogical advice for researchers wishing to practicing composing lists. keywords: qualitative writing; academic writing; poetry; narrative introduction this article considers the use of the list as an experimental writing form for qualitative research writing. it is written for those who are interested in diverging from academic writing conventions in order to incorporate more democratic forms, akin to badley’s (2016) call for blue collar writing. it is also for those who enjoy playing with what the humanistic fields of literary studies and rhetoric and composition can offer academic writing. i assume the list may be of interests to some of the readers of this special issue on expanding genre conventions in qualitative writing. i write this with the general belief that writing is not distinct from, but bound to, the interpretive processes of research, and that what researchers https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5567-3841 e. kuecker: lists for many occasions in qualitative research writing qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 334-362 ©2023 335 write is part of both the how they make sense of their own studies, and ontological unfolding of what will be circulated. lists are mutable, sturdy forms of writing, finding their way into many genres and adapting quite easily. for those who compose with them, the demographics range from published poets to informal jotters to school children. like all writing forms, they are not universal and will not appeal to all, but unlike most other writing forms, they do not require disciplinary expertise from the writer. despite such qualities, lists have rarely been explored as an academic writing convention. lists are, however, often integrated into academic writing as organizational paratext—like bibliography, table of contents, and index— rather than used as core forms within the long-form of the text. perhaps the list has been neglected as a core form of academic expression, and used largely as a fragmented paratext, because lists lack most of the fundamentals we associate with long-form academic writing. for example, narrative forms of writing often contain full sentences sequences of sentences, and are associated with a linear logic. lists do not rely on these facets as much, often containing fragments of sentences and their own ordering systems and categories, which are dictated by the author. there are no strict rules on the stylistics of lists, and they are lawless in terms of length and the use of punctuation. the lack of rules can thus be disagreeable with many notions of academic writing. but if we borrow fung’s (2021) accommodating suggestion that academic writing is any “writing done for academic purposes” (p. 3) that is “carefully elaborated, well supported, logically sequenced, rigorously reasoned, and tightly woven together” (p. 4), then lists fit the criteria so long as they serve these goals. while fung’s (2021) thoughts on academic writing offers space for difference among writers’ tastes and style, qualitative academic instruction and advice can be more particular, often encouraging the idea that good writing is that which tells stories that reflect reality, using strong narrative form. for example, holley and colyar (2009) described that in addition to ethics and trustworthiness (p. 680), the researcher’s “responsibility extends to deliberate choices related to writing that position the text as an informed reflection of the participants’ reality. a greater understanding of the storytelling properties of research allows the author to concentrate on the ways in which texts reflect social reality” (p. 680). similarly, goodall e. kuecker: lists for many occasions in qualitative research writing qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 334-362 ©2023 336 (2008) explained in his qualitative writing guidebook, “the ability to tell a good tale is largely a matter of form: introductions, bodies, and conclusions in essays; dramatic structure in narratives that move the characters and the account from initial conflict to its eventual resolution” (p. 46). the academic writer is thus urged to do with their research writing what fiction writers can do with their novels. while students of qualitative research will receive a variety of methodological and theoretical choices in their methods education, most will receive the same writing advice. a great deal of the emphasis on reflecting reality through the stylistic logics of storytelling also incorporates the concept of thick description, a narrative tool that provides meaning to every little wink witnessed in the research process (geertz, 1973). ponterotto (2006) argued that thick description is actually “one of the most important concepts in the lexicon of qualitative research” (p. 538), which illustrates the way in which qualitative methodological education could use more experimentation. qualitative research methods are diverse in their theoretical and methodological options, but on the other hand, qualitative research writing has a tiny and relentless canon, a fact that illuminates why expanding genre conventions in academic writing is both needed and appropriate in the context of a qualitative methods journal in other words, qualitative research methods and methodology has been expanded enough that there is no singular canon of what we might be taught as we embark on learning qualitative research; conversely, qualitative writing has not been expanded as much, and thus we can point to a precise canon of qualitative writing conventions. while there is nothing wrong with a strong canon, it signals that there is room for more theorizations of and diversified practices for qualitative academic writing. far from the stipulations of narrative form, we find lists, which do not have to include introductions, bodies, conclusions, characters, conflicts, or resolutions. as a structure, they are made up of “ideas once captured” (pullinger, 2017, p. 100). they do not even have a unified goal—some are poetic, operating as “a container” that “confronts the uncontainable” (p. 93), while others function like a wunderkrammer—a “'cabinet of curiosities' … eclectic collections of objects removed from their original contexts and displayed for others to marvel at” (pullinger, 2017, p. 100). some are pragmatic in that they simply catalog sets of known things (p. 89) like parts, pieces, ingredients, or tasks. others are a combination of both, e. kuecker: lists for many occasions in qualitative research writing qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 334-362 ©2023 337 appearing pragmatic in their insistence on telling the reader what to do, but also operating a kind of future-oriented manifestation of what will take place at a future date. they are flexible in their expression and length. in this way, lists might be a friendly form for qualitative researchers who are seeking new writing practices or find the numerous criteria of narratives to be so intimidating that they can barely begin to write at all. importantly, i agree with scholars in qualitative academic writing who claim that the writing of the research is not a thing that comes after, but is instead a part of the research method at large. writing helps thinking, creating “a way to access that personal fund of information—and misinformation” (walcott, 2009, p. 21). richardson and st. pierre (2005) argued that writing is a method of inquiry and data analysis (st. pierre, 2007, p. 5205). in other words, in qualitative research, writing is not merely the act of “writing up” what was observed or found, but rather a creative act of construction and deconstruction (badley, 2009). if we operate with the assumptions of “hermeneutic practice” (eryaman, 2008, p. 2), then whether we are writing our own memos or jottings, or preparing a publishable manuscript, the very practice of writing is also a practice of interpretating. such a notion has often led me to wonder, how do different forms of writing assistant different kinds of writers in their constructions? are some academic forms of writing operating as limitations, posing obstacles to the different ways researchers might make and create sense of their studies? i address the topic of this special issue—writing off the beaten track—with the idea that academic writers may need different forms of writing to help enact inquiry, some of which we may already use in other contexts, such as the list. with that in mind, i present four kinds of lists for qualitative academic writers to consider: (1) the double-sided list; (2) lists for the difficult to express; (3) the catalog list; and (4) the to-do list. while there are certainly more than four types of lists, i felt that this categorization spoke to many of the concerns qualitative academic writers have, and proved as a helpful method of organizing the enormous variety of lists i found during my interdisciplinary research. to help make sense of some of the rhetorical qualities of lists, i share and interpret some well-written lists in each section, describing how these lists do great work toward speaking truths, sharing stories, describing experience, eliciting emotions, or persuading readers, despite their minimal form. i am particularly drawn to lists that come e. kuecker: lists for many occasions in qualitative research writing qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 334-362 ©2023 338 from places outside of academia, such as elementary school writing assignments, hebrew poetry, and the arts. i illustrate that this form is indeed an alternative to how we normally compose academic writing, leading us toward a different creative medium. in keeping up with the notions of writing paralysis and writing as inquiry, i also provide some writing prompts that might inspire writers or could be implemented in qualitative classrooms at different stages of the academic writing process, from research design to written study. 1. the double-sided list i began considering lists as a viable writing form when i found a lively text written by my five-year-old daughter, juniper. she had created this writing on her own and left it on her dresser, where i found it while cleaning up. earlier that same day, i had helped her brainstorm ideas for a children’s poster contest centered on environmentalism that the city government was coordinating. during her quiet time, she created a double-sided list on pastel paper, which provides for both the title of this section, and the concept of this style of list. my daughter’s double-sided list initially caught my eye because of the influence i have gathered from the writing theorist, ken macrorie (1984), for many years. i have read and reread his work since i first encountered him as a graduate student in english, taking a rhetoric and composition class. macrorie spent most of his career as a teacher of adult writers, but celebrated the way children wrote, and even used samples of child writing as examples within his writing theory books. macrorie said that bad writing was writing that was lifeless. “most good writing,” he directed, “is clear, vigorous, honest, alive, sensuous, appropriate, unsentimental, rhythmic, without pretension, fresh, metaphorical, evocative in sound, economical, authoritative, surprising, memorable, and light” (1984, p. 29). macrorie disdained clichés, a trait shared by qualitative writing scholars, too (davis, browne, et. al. 2004, p. 372). he wanted texts that did something new: “no tedious recounting of old stuff. new, strong comparisons.” (p. 3). i found these elusive characteristics the juniper’s doublesided list that day. e. kuecker: lists for many occasions in qualitative research writing qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 334-362 ©2023 339 figure 1 & 2 in juniper’s list inspired by our discussions of environmentalism, she organized one side as what is goob for wrold (figure 1) and the other to be what was bad for wrold (figure 2). bad things are cunfety; smok; carst; not rasicling; not throing away dog popy. good things are oshin; trees; earth; bike. it is immediately noticeable that this list does not contain things that many people would commonly consider bad for the wrold in terms of environmentalism. in fact, the list’s title itself complicates things, suggesting that juniper was thinking more philosophically than she and i had been that afternoon when we brainstormed environmental concerns together. on her own, she had pivoted to thinking about the wrold as a concept, beyond the bounds of the earth. indeed, the fact is proved when we see that the earth itself is one of items listed as something good for the wrold. quite quickly, juniper’s writing contains surprise, as it provoked me to think differently about very important issues related to how we conduct our lives in this shared world. without error, she had gone beyond everyday environmentalism and created a guide for living well in the world, in the universe, at large. e. kuecker: lists for many occasions in qualitative research writing qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 334-362 ©2023 340 most importantly, this list does what i want to do, what i want to teach my university students to do, and what i want to receive as a reader when i do scholarly research: it conjures big thought, but does so in a minimalist form. the list is stark, relying on a few keywords and a few present participles, but it achieves one of the most difficult balances in writing— it guides the reader to ideas while still leaving room for the reader’s own sense-making. when a piece of media tells us exactly how to think, it is considered didactic, a pejorative term for the quality of being patronized. when a piece of media does not tell us anything about how to think, it contains no argument and is thus acritical. the best route is to gently direct the reader, while leaving just enough work for the reader to do. when done well, this balance is made while also supplying the reader with some of the writer’s charm and style, which gives the reader pleasure as the undertake the interpretive work. juniper’s double-sided list does this, providing ideas about how to lead the good life without the traps of the common clichés, which is an incredible achievement for even practiced writers. when we are composing academic writing, we should hope to set our readers up for their own inquiry based on our text, embracing that the academic research community is taking part in a parlor conversation (burke, 1941, p. 110), not the delivery of a monologue. for example, one moment for inquiry while reading juniper’s double-sided list is the issue of figuring out how individual items on the list have a relationship to the other items on the list. how does confetti and recycling and smoke all fit in the same container? why is confetti bad for the world? it is the form of a list, specifically, that makes us think about categories and how items fit within them. thus, the mystery of placing smoke among confetti is prompted by the categorical nature of the form itself, putting the reader to work within the dialogic relationship among writer/text/reader. after pondering the mystery, i concluded that confetti left on the ground could easily choke a curious creature who tries to eat it off the grass, though i never checked with the writer to verify. it is not surprising that a parent might come across a list in a child’s bedroom given that some say lists themselves are a natural human tendency that require no formal teaching. usher (2014) explained that “since we first began walking earth, human beings have been creating lists of one kind or another, calmly content in the knowledge that all things are constantly being assigned, prioritized, ranked, and streamlined to within an inch of their e. kuecker: lists for many occasions in qualitative research writing qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 334-362 ©2023 341 lives” (p.xiii). so too, many older forms of writing contain lists, like epics written in akkadian, a language developed by sumerians in cuneiform script (watson, 1984, p. 351). hebrew poetry is also list-prone, particularly “lists with final total” such as “’demons, destiny-devils, spectres, ghosts, fiends, they are the creatures of enlil’” (p. 352), and “lists of body parts,” or lists that link components by way of listing them together, “from top to toe” (p. 355). if lists come easily to us humans, they are an inviting form for many kinds of researchers. agreeing with writer umberto eco, pullinger (2017) noted that “our liking for lists and their affinity with infinity is an awareness of our own limits, and ultimately our own mortality… the infinity of the list conjures the possibility of escaping thoughts about death, although inevitably returns us to our own finitude” (p. 93). just as adults know this, children are learning it too. a few days after finding juniper’s double-sided list, i asked her if there was anything more to add. she glued the original list onto a new page, and titled it nithre: 1 dans; 2 walk; 3 play; 4 hike. lists are living documents, expanding infinitely, and we might infer that in this case juniper offered some actions that were goob for the wrold. composing this kind of list all writers can create double-sided lists that tell something important, like juniper’s. here are some things to consider if you wish to write one: a. though many graduate-educated individuals shun the concept of binaries, the double-sided aspect of this list is a special feature worthy of exploration. even the most sophisticated of french philosophers, barthes, penned a double-list of likes (pears, pollock) and dislikes (the harpsicord, fidelity), titled j’aime, je n’aime pas (1977/2014, p. 75). these lists could be incorporated into the data analysis portion of writing as either a way to organize data findings that seem to present tensions within a research project, or as part of the process of analyzing the findings. consider organizing data or findings into a simplistic good for e. kuecker: lists for many occasions in qualitative research writing qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 334-362 ©2023 342 the world/bad for the wrold j’aime/je n’aime format to see what comes of these two interacting and opposing categories, potentially forging an emotional connection between the data and the researcher use the double-sided list to create analytical work for yourself as a researcher and for your readers, just as juniper did. it may provoke you to think about the relationships between the things within the single list, and then among the two competing lists, drawing on derrida’s ideas of duplicity often found in discussions of differance. wood and bernasconi (1988) wrote, “if difference is relational at all, and certainly derrida indicates that it is, the peculiar character of this relationality must itself become an issue for us… differance is always more than binding together and separating which is the world of comparisons” (p. 31). when presented as comparisons, we are can see that there are other forms of relationality among the things listed together and separately, challenging our perceptions. b. the double-sided list is rhetorically fun, particularly because it can be used to surprise or strike your reader. in juniper’s bad for wrold list we have some expected items: not recicling and smok. but it is the presence of confetti among the smoke that provides a rhetorical jolt. leave a surprise for your reader by challenging them to figure out the mysteries embedded in your category list . put something unexpected, but fitting, and see if you can achieve discarding cliches for more memorable rhetorical play. this will create the liveliness in the text that so many of us are after, causing someone to laugh, ponder, or study our work until they can make sense of the surprising elements. e. kuecker: lists for many occasions in qualitative research writing qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 334-362 ©2023 343 2. lists for the difficult to express many qualitative researchers work with the difficult task of expressing complex feelings, experiences, and concepts that are difficult to convey in writing. at least for some, the qualitative umbrella is an accommodating field for writing about things that are sometimes hard to fit to language, such as affect, phenomena, or that which seems unspeakable at times, such as grief. these things are experienced, but textualizing them can be difficult. i think of the jennifer carlson and kathleen stewart’s (2014) notion of mood works, or things that are “not easily read, but they are legible and, as such, they can be sensed out and followed” (p. 114). we might add to that, they are not easily written, either the issue of struggling to write academic papers out of qualitative research is common enough to have generated a great deal of scholarship in which qualitative writing scholars urge qualitative researchers to begin their writing as soon as a research idea is beginning to form in their minds. walcott (2009) suggests that there will never be a moment of clarity during which writing can perfectly begin, and thus one should begin writing immediately (p. 19). if not, scholars may find that waiting until more research is complete merely adds more complex layers to their study, resulting in writing paralysis. this advice is probably very good, but i know that in some circumstances—such as a time when i was attempting to write something that had to do with childhood neglect—the more words and formality that was required, the more i struggled to say anything at all about the topic. this relates to a popular notion in qualitative inquiry, expressed by richardson and st. pierre (2005)—among others—that suggests that writing is a form of inquiry itself. st. pierre (2007) explained that “writing forces us to textualize the rigorous confusion of our thinking, and that work is analysis” (p. 5305). while we normally operate under the assumption that we are writing for a future academic audience, tierney and hallet (2010) pointed out that “the primary reader for a text is the author. the text is a dialogue the author is having with him or herself to work out a particular problem or issue” (p. 682). writing is then both a key part of the interpretive process that serves the researcher/writer, and the form most academic arguments take in their final presentation, when they are published and delivered to an audience. not only is writing part of inquiry, but as st. pierre (2007) noted, e. kuecker: lists for many occasions in qualitative research writing qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 334-362 ©2023 344 “form constrains content, and different genres of writing encourage different thinking and produce different knowledge. no particular genre of writing is superior to another” (p. 5304). in other words, writing both stipulates our inquiry and some content stipulates certain forms. because academic writing conventions can be limiting for some, various qualitative methodologists, like st. pierre (2018) and hein (2019), have argued for theoretical alternatives to the common forms of academic writing. hein (2019) surmised that “linearity, meaning, plot... internal coherence (textual unity), binary logic” (p. 84) dominate qualitative writing. in many ways, these characteristics—while seemingly inspired by creative writing— are also stricter standards than any creative writing practice, given how many narratives might have plot but do not follow linear time, for example. similarly, such standards disregard the fact that not all content can be expressed equally across the same form. st. pierre (2007) explained that “a poem can convey as much meaning (and a different meaning) as an academic essay. in fact, to learn as much as they can about their topic, researchers might write up data from a single project using a variety of forms—personal narrative, expository essay, autobiography, fiction, and poetry—in order to engage those data in more and more complex ways” (p. 5304). standards of form should be developed with the content and context in mind, so that these elements can work together in constructing a successful piece of writing. there are examples of poets who have used the list form—known simply as list poetry—to express difficult to describe topics in ways that might appeal to some qualitative academic writers. for instance, the german dramatist and poet, brecht, who used the list poem form to write about the concept of pleasure. consider this excerpt from his 1976 poem, “pleasures”: the newspaper the dog dialectics taking showers, swimming e. kuecker: lists for many occasions in qualitative research writing qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 334-362 ©2023 345 old music comfortable shoes taking things in new music (p. 448) qualitative writing, though often centered on human life, tends to lack human qualities: “too many of us, fail to write like human beings. indeed, we may actually have been taught to write like disembodied professionals” (badley, 2019, p. 180). perhaps brecht’s (1976) poem serves as an example of what it looks like to write as a human being. the concept of pleasure is a difficult one to express in writing because it exists within the realm of human experience more than something we can easily observe, predict, or recreate. writing in the form of the list may help create the conditions for this kind of expression, given that lists fulfill humankind’s “distant poetic impulse” to name objects, empowering “us by momentarily allowing us to order our surrounding world, verbally or symbolically putting everything into a sequence and an arrangement we desire, if only for an instant” (belknap, 2014, p. xii). functioning as a core mode of human expression, a list sequences ideas together to convey difficult concepts like pleasure. brecht’s (1976) stark list contains no full sentences, no lengthy descriptions, and no qualifying information other than the title, yet it is a rich portrait of how one person likes to spend his time and what makes him feel pleasure. unpredictable and devoid of cliches, he explains a practical man who wants comfortable shoes and likes all kinds of water. he likes the comfort of old music he knows, but is adventurous enough to discover new music. he is a dog person and a marxist. he is a good combination of earthy and also high-brow at the same time. all of this is expressed, and this is not even the full text of the poem! this is what is produced when instead of trying to overly explain the complexity of pleasure as a concept, the author makes a simple list of things that elicit pleasure and hopes the context is carried along with it. describing the universal qualities of list poems, pullinger (2017) instructed that it “offers a friendly, undemanding model for encouraging children themselves to write poetry. e. kuecker: lists for many occasions in qualitative research writing qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 334-362 ©2023 346 but usefulness as an introductory exercise seems hardly adequate to explain its popularity amongst the work of established, accomplished poets” (p. 87). pullinger surmised that it may be that lists like these are the choice of many poets because when used skillfully, they allow for a simplicity of form, so that complexity can exist in other aspects (p. 87). in a similar fashion to brecht (1976), the american artist nicole lavelle creates visual art using lists. she presents these handwritten lists on pieces of solid-colored paper, void of any illustrations, numbering, or anything else. in each of these, she uses repetitious phrases, such as her work “inspired by my mom” (n.d.). here is an excerpt from her list, which was originally 26 lines: inspired by the shapes of houses inspired by weak winter snow inspired by old folk songs inspired by the reek of aged books inspired by handmade quilts inspired by the story of the moon this list accomplishes nuanced specificity without the use of narrative form and is full of memorable images and phrases. thinking in terms of academic writing, this list could operate as a portrait of a participant in a qualitative study, or as a portrait of the researcher who is keen to share personal details related to their positionality. lavelle’s style of list describes human qualities of an individual without the need for narration or even basic demographic data. of note, there is no clear ranking among the 26 items on the list, no need elaborate writing skill, and there are no boundaries to what could go on the list. the unifying feature of the list is a refrain that begins each line: inspired by. narrative writing can certainly accommodate a topic like inspiration, but thinking back to st. pierre’s (2007) claim that some forms better express some meanings, it is also true that some writers are attracted to different forms for various expressions. i have seen this quite directly in the classroom when assigning students to write about their inspirations using lists, paragraphs, or other forms that might e. kuecker: lists for many occasions in qualitative research writing qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 334-362 ©2023 347 come to mind—in every case, some students directly choose the list, some come to it after struggling with a paragraph, and some never consider using it. the most important thing here is the choice of form for expression. lists like these have no length boundaries and could easily operate as living documents, perhaps even as a practice over a period of days, weeks, months, or years when expression in other forms is not coming easily. while grieving loss, flint (2020) wrote about facing a “new silence” (p. 58) and using listing as a method of hope. her lists of things that are good accumulated over time and within the published excerpts there is even repetition of things that are good on different days–tea and being barefoot, for example. pullinger (2017) noted that lists like this are always bound to be incomplete. they are “open-ended, which means that they are acting as a sample” (p. 89). the point at which the list has enough is when it is big enough to express the complexity of the hard-to-describe thing, working as a representative sample. these do not tell someone how to do something, what to buy at the store, or any such thing. in these, “no action is implied,” (p. 89) but rather they connect items in new different ways, pulling them together to because in combination, they successfully express something that they could not express when they are simply strewn about with no container. composing this kind of list creating a list offers an alternative to narrating something that is difficult to express; the difficult to express is what many qualitative researchers investigate. this kind of list is merely suggestive of something or someone, not direct or finished. in the case of flint’s (2020) things that are good, the list is an expression of period of life in which, ironically, vividly tells a story of that time without the need for all the details. a. to write a list like brecht’s pleasures (1976), you must begin with a major concept that will unify all the associations on the list. the beauty of this exercise is in seeing how the items on the list come to suggest the concept that is hard to express. i list a few ideas below, but you will have others on your mind as well. a. pleasure b. joy e. kuecker: lists for many occasions in qualitative research writing qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 334-362 ©2023 348 c. anxiety d. contentment e. nostalgia b. lavelle’s (n.d.) list was similar to brecht’s (1976), but used a repetitious refrain to organize and thematize her writing. consider using a list like this to describe human qualities about yourself or another person; these could operate like subjectivity statements or participant description, for example. . try one of the refrains below, or come up with your own. if you teach, this is a good classroom activity for student writing. a. inspired by b. on my shelf is c. i remember d. i should tell you e. fond of f. never again will i 3. the catalog list unlike lists that are effective using only a representative sample of terms, catalog lists work well when they have hearty accumulations. . rather than conjuring difference and comparison—like in the double-sided list—or expressing that which is hard to say like the ones just discussed, catalog lists depend on thoroughness at their foundation. these lists are useful to qualitative researchers given that they can sometimes help achieve the academic writing goals of evaluation, analysis, setting a scene, and/or immersing the reader (goodall, 2008, 30-46). in the classic ethnography, agee (writer) and evans’ (photographer) (1939) three tenant families: let us now praise famous men, is a book-length study of poverty among southern tenant farmers during the great depression. it uses multiple forms, including narrative, photograph, and lists. this text is rhetorically savvy in that it is both persuasive e. kuecker: lists for many occasions in qualitative research writing qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 334-362 ©2023 349 and emotionally moving, in part because the author and photographer knew when to utilize various forms toward their goals. while evan’s incorporated the iconic black and white photographs of people who appeared both worn out and unsmiling, agee incorporated lists within the text, accumulating everything owned by the impoverished families he studied. the lists within the text became a method for describing to readers what poverty looks like from the macroscopic to microscopic, venturing from the outside of the home all the way into the contents of every drawer. here is an excerpt from the section titled: “shelter: an outline,” in which agee moves from inside to outside: a home in its fields i. the front bedroom general placement of furniture the furniture the altar the tabernacle ..." (agee and evans, 1939, p. 125). as agee (1939) progresses into each room of the house, he lists the furniture, accompanied by what is placed on every surface and hidden within every drawer. in addition to the minimal style of a basic hierarchical list, agee also used listing in sentence form in his descriptions of the nooks and crannies. he writes: in the table drawer, in this order: a delicate insect odor of pine, closed sweated cloth, a mildew. one swooning-long festal baby's dress of the most frail muslin, embroidered with three bands of small white cotton-thread flowers... one plain baby's dress of white cotton; a torn rag; home-sewn, less studiously; folded. (p. 165) this portion of the text is lengthy, creating a tedious reading experience. such an experience mirrors the presumed tedium undertaken by the researcher, who cataloged the contents of the home. these lists achieve the academic writing goals of setting a scene and immersing a e. kuecker: lists for many occasions in qualitative research writing qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 334-362 ©2023 350 reader that goodall (2008) noted were important (p. 36-40). but further, it gets at goodall’s idea that good academic writing is also one of evaluation and analysis (p. 36-40). agee’s listing builds the case that he has truly unveiled the lives of these tenant farmers, evaluating everything--in terms of their quality, degradation, amount, and placement—they have in such a way that contemporarily, it reads as uncomfortably intimate. his lists seem to know too much, including hidden details in a form of ethnographic fieldwork that leaves little to the imagination. all the while, a reader cannot help but see a piling on of evidence, the proof of poverty, by listing the minimal belongings and their decaying conditions. these lists are thus a highly persuasive form within the larger text. belknap (2004), a scholar of lists, noted that it was agee’s (1939) text that made him pay attention to lists in the first place, planting the seed for his subsequent scholarly book on lists. he writes, “i was drawn particularly to the spare itemizations of possessions agee recorded for the families he studies...the idea that everything an entire family owned, socks and all, could be counted out and still sum to so little, virtually nothing, left a deep impression on me (p. x). if the poverty is a point to be made in the text, the lists speak for themselves in making this point. indeed, if everything a family owns can be listed in a few book pages, poverty is not only described, but literally demonstrated, not only through the content of the text, but within the very form. it is common for writers outside of the academy, like fiction writers, to use catalog lists in their writing to supplement the narrative or help the writer orient themselves to big accumulations of things, such as characters. as brian richardson (2016) explained, “starting with the catalogue of ships in the illiad, lists and narrative are found together, almost always with a list of a series of lists nesting within a narrative proper” (p. 328). richardson proposed that though many other scholars of writing style have said lists disrupt a narrative (p. 327), he sees that lists work in tandem with the narrative and “at times, merge closely together” (p. 327). they serve some purpose that the narrative cannot fulfill on its own, at least not in the same way—like revealing the dates and times of events, or all the known qualities of a character (p. 327). within fiction, catalog lists are commonplace and exist in some of the most revered texts, including milton’s writing, proving that when they are written to serve the overall purpose of the text, their “disengagement from syntactical structures” (alber, 2016, p. 345) does not come across as inappropriate or unlearned. e. kuecker: lists for many occasions in qualitative research writing qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 334-362 ©2023 351 unlike agee and evans (1939) melancholic lists describing poverty, henry david thoreau also integrated lists into walden (1854/2004) in order to do the opposite: revel in minimalism and preach its practicality (choosing a life of austerity as a single man is quite different than trying to feed a family through farm labor). thoreau listed every item purchased and its costs for his home on the pond (p. 47). he also annotated his list here and there, making a note next to his two casks of lime he used to make plaster, saying, “that was high” at $2.40 (p. 47). his lists of materials also serve the purpose of persuasion, proving to readers that his experiment was not terribly expensive. given that readers are prone to doubting the trustworthiness of authors, thoreau’s listing also proves a kind of depth of knowledge, suggesting he really did this thing because he can express every piece and part of it. catalog lists fulfill several purposes, such as demonstrating issues related to volume, like austerity or wealth and proving the authenticity of an experience by proving thoroughness and depth. unlike many quantitative methods, many qualitative methods have no standard accepted norm for how much data one needs in order to demonstrate a point. data saturation is widely interpreted depending on many factors, though some have used a concept called “‘saturative instantiation,’” which uses the logic of the “the piling on of examples, as a way of demonstrating the ubiquity” (lee, 2000, p. 8). this piling on of examples helps convince readers of the importance, universality, or otherwise, of whatever thing is being listed. in this way, “enough” evidence accrues simply through saturating readers with instances. large catalogs also work as immersive, providing so many details that they eventually set a scene, like agee’s (1939). in other words, catalogs are complex rhetorical forms that function in several ways, benefiting both proof, examples, and writing style. e. kuecker: lists for many occasions in qualitative research writing qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 334-362 ©2023 352 composing this kind of list catalog lists are tedious to write and may not always be relevant. many have already written some version of a catalog in the form of things like annotated bibliographies, in which every reading related to a topic is discovered and summarized. writing a catalog list is no harder than writing an annotated bibliography, but in this case, what kind of list is written greatly depends on what kind of research is being performed. for those interested in trying out catalog list writing, i suggest using a spreadsheet to begin with so that more details can be added in different columns, and the author may play with sorting functions before integrating the list into a larger writing project. these are best started at the beginning of a research project. i suggest one example of a catalog list prompt to help explain how one might begin such a task: a. use simple headings within a spreadsheet so that the catalog to be written has boundaries. open extra columns for more details, including an annotation area to leave personal comments, like thoreau lamenting the cost of lime. here is an example of forming a catalog list during the research process: a. in field research, catalog lists work well for building strong observational notes for the researcher themselves, as well as useful notes for setting the scene for readers once a study is written up. the lists could contain all materials available in the classroom; the names of each student being observed and every activity or lesson they take part in throughout the day; and all the things on the walls of the classroom. if tasked with creating a catalog like this, one is likely to attend closely to the material and aesthetic qualities of the room, which would translate well into many observational studies. that said, there is no reason why a catalog list should not contain other things, like smells, feelings, or overheard snippets of conversation. e. kuecker: lists for many occasions in qualitative research writing qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 334-362 ©2023 353 4. to-do lists finally, another common list that may be helpful to qualitative researchers in their academic writing is the to-do list. these procedural lists often make the most sense within methods papers, research proposals, or research notes. to-do lists may seem unattractive to qualitative researchers given that many in the field have been rightfully weary and critical of qualitative methods becoming too procedural, resembling some of the out-of-the-box methodology of quantitative research. lincoln (2001), a foundational methodologist and advocate of qualitative research, described how qualitative research has had to defend itself against quantitative research norms, recreating the concepts of ethics and validity (pp. 30-35) away from highly formulated methods and reproducible circumstances—human behavior simply does not follow such a framework. st. pierre (2021) also pointed out that if our research is indeed inspired by theories from sources like poststructuralism and posthumanism, then we can never simply “know what to do” (p. 6) in a formulaic way. she cites foucault, saying, “’it isn’t because i think that there is nothing to be done; on the contrary, it is because i think there are a thousand things to do’” (cited in st. pierre, 2021, p. 6). in other words, if we are to take on a to-do list in our qualitative methods papers, our research proposals, or even just our private notetaking in preparation for research, the concept of the to-do list must be liberated from a purely procedural set of instructions. there are many sources who present alternatives to this, such as the new york school of poets who, during the 1960s and 1970s, frequently used the to-do list format. rather than write a procedure to follow, their to-do lists were attempts “to master time by imagining, confronting, and determining the tone, value, placement, and emphasis (or lack there of) of one’s end. in poems like ‘things to do in new york,’ ‘things to do on speed,’ ’10 things i do everyday’” poets experiment with “envisioning the future” (soong, 2020, p. 69). the to-do list can thus be used to create a temporal relationship between our moment of writing and our imagined future. perhaps, by writing it down, we are manifesting the future like one might write a spell. in putting it on paper, we call forth what we hope to have already done in the future, an act that soong calls (2020) “prospective memory” (p. 92). e. kuecker: lists for many occasions in qualitative research writing qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 334-362 ©2023 354 the to-do list poem draws on the old form of writing that fills 18th-century diaries and similar texts, in which authors listed the tasks completed and to-be-completed as part of their daily journaling routine. the more contemporary versions, like the new york school of poets’ work, simply incorporated “the economic method of making lists in works like benjamin franklin’s autobiography” (soong, 2020 p. 92) into their own lives, thereby merging procedure and poetics. for example, a portion of ted berrigan’s (2011) to-do list poem, “10 things i do every day,” reads: wake up smoke pot see the cat love my wife think of frank (p. 77) in this list, there is not a clear distinction between what is already done and what will be done. the title indicates that these are things that happen every day, like a regimen. on the other hand, to-do lists are particularly fascinating in how they function to implicate the future self into actions. to-do lists play with time and can be read as “prospective memory… unlike retroactive memory, which involves the traversal and measurement of past time, prospective memory involves remembering ‘to carry out intended actions at an appropriate point in the future’” (soong, 2020, p. 92). in such cases, the writer “presumes a future but also entails an implicit imperative or promise to oneself” (p. 92). this list functions to fight off forgetting, while also creating a promise to oneself. it calls into the future, “pointing to things located outside one’s present or past realm of perception” (p. 92). to-do lists can also be directed at audiences or given to others. chrissie hynde, a musician most famous for her time in the band the pretenders, wrote a list for others like her, called “advice to chick rockers.” her list includes things like: “7. don’t try to compete with the guys; it won’t impress anybody. remember, one of the reasons they like you is because you don’t offer yet more competition to the already existing male egos” (hynde, 1994/2014). a list like hynde’s is intended to be pedagogic and is typically written by an e. kuecker: lists for many occasions in qualitative research writing qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 334-362 ©2023 355 expert for an audience of novices. thinking of hynde’s list in light of soong’s concept of prospective memory, hynde offers her readers not a single future, but “futurity as a set of options” (soong, 2020, p. 95). this is even emphasized by her last bit of advice, in which she directs: “10. don’t take advice from people like me. do your own things always,” reminding us that procedure is always just a suggestion. such a list, then, explicates “alternatives and sights of potentiality more than … facts” (p. 95). because of this quality of potentiality and prospective memory, the to-do list fulfills some of the goal many scholars have in qualitative research design, which is frequently the first bit of writing on a project. by writing our research design down, we set our intentions; but given that qualitative research may involve people, experiences, affect, sounds, relationships, networks, or other unpredictable elements, we are not able to articulate everything in advance. our research is mutable by default, and thus many qualitative researchers struggle with imaging and writing down their design. they must create a workable plan for something that has not yet been done, which requires putting stipulations on things that often remain uncertain to the researcher. alternatively, the idea of designing future actions, as imagined within to-do list poetry form, reminds us of our potential future more than it does to sediment rigid frameworks. to-do list poems can be seen as a composition of things that are “potentially discovered (and potentially lost) through living itself” (soong, 2020, p. 96). in the qualitative research and writing context, this sentiment may aid a researcher who is challenged by the need to describe a study before it has actually been lived—sometimes this is required for irb, book proposals, recruiting collaborators, or otherwise. the happenings of the future can be a burden to write, but in another light, this kind of list is an interesting exercise about projecting things onto the horizon, describing what the future self will do at another time. there is a weird comfort in the to-do list, given that in performing the writing, we are evoking a prospective memory of what might potentially fill our time, or simply a space of “displaced futures that never came into fruition” (soong, 2020, p. 98). what we intend to do and what really ends up happening can only become known in the living of life. to-do lists and their makers are aspirational, and such lists can be used in our qualitative academic writing as such. the famous science fiction author robert heinlein e. kuecker: lists for many occasions in qualitative research writing qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 334-362 ©2023 356 (1952) created a list he called “free-swinging predictions” because he thought “cautious predictions are sure to be wrong,” whereas free-swinging ones had some chance of turning out right. though not a strict to-do list, a list of predictions is not so different. heinlein’s list claimed many incorrect things and a few correct ones, like: “8. freud will be classed as a prescientific, intuitive pioneer, and psychoanalysis will be replaced as a growing, changing ‘operational psychology’ based on measurement and prediction”; “11. your personal telephone will be small enough to carry in your handbag. your house telephone will record messages” (13-22). even charles dickens (1851/2014), at a time in his life when he did not yet own enough books to fill his shelves, invented book titles, and commissioned that fake books be bound, including jonah’s account of the whale and heavysides conversations with nobody. he made up the titles for over 40 books, simply to fill in the shelves for the moment, until a future time when real books could be procured (p. 214). to-do lists, then, can be “freeswinging” and not just simple enumerations of what to do in a precise order, but rather the conjuring of future aspirations and acquisitions. composing this kind of list incorporating to-do lists into qualitative research design writing can help with manifesting actions and things we wish to see done, or such lists might be used as advise for others within a methodology paper. readers, looking for new ideas for their potential futures, may appreciate a to-do list that helps them set their own intentions. in order to speak to both the possibility of writing for the self or for another, i offer two prompts below. a. consider writing a to-do list for yourself about a research project you are hoping to accomplish. you may wish to structure in chronological order of tasks to be accomplished, or you may wish to simply list things that will need to happen in any kind of order, particularly if your research has a less linear trajectory. here are some things to include on an aspirational research to-do list: e. kuecker: lists for many occasions in qualitative research writing qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 334-362 ©2023 357 a. what kinds of readings will need to be done for this project? set your intentions by listing the keywords, disciplinary areas, theoretical explorations, and other guideposts for your future reading. this will help set the intentions of this research and define some boundaries in your search—you will likely add to these as you go on. b. would you need other humans to do this research? some may be participants, and some may be collaborators. include on this list who you must contact and how you might contact them. c. if you do not need humans, perhaps you need archival sources, photographs, artwork, existing data sources. list where these might come from and what tasks you could do to complete them. d. if you need money to do this, include that need on the list. e. if you need to travel to do this, include the places on the list. b. another kind of to-do list functions more pedagogically and can be helpful as guidance for others who are seeking help setting their intentions. their minimal qualities allow for more interpretative room than more lengthy textbooks and articles, making them a nice tool for those who want to speak meaningfully to an audience of people from many disciplines with diverse research interests. for example, you might create a to-do list like berrigan’s (2011) “10 things i do every day.” beyond waking up and smoking pot, some more academic topics might center on: a. how to publish a manuscript b. how to form a research question c. how to do a type of research methodology d. how to find sources e. ways for finding funding f. ways to connect with other researchers g. ways to evaluate one’s own writing e. kuecker: lists for many occasions in qualitative research writing qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 334-362 ©2023 358 conclusion just as qualitative research embraces the imbroglio of methodological differences and manifold content areas of study, this special issue attests to the way the field pursues experimentations with form and genre in academic writing. i propose the list as a democratic form that can easily be integrated into qualitative studies and methodology writing in ways that may enhance the rhetorical functions of the writing or aid the writer in composing a text in the first place. clough (2000) argued that the worst thing that could happen in qualitative writing is a “return to methodological policing, putting an end to theorizing the future” (p. 290). in that spirit, it is invigorating to think about how the genre of academic writing can be enhanced with lists like the ones found in children’s writing or as published poetry. often, qualitative scholars have experimented with academic writing to help rescue the struggling writer who is paralyzed by the confines of academic writing or simply eager to experiment across forms. holliday (2007) said that “getting from data to written study can be a traumatic time for the researcher” (p. 92)—if that is the case, writing is far more troubling than it needs to be. many, like bridges-rhoads (2015), encouraged others to “take up the page as a site of experimentation with/against/through paralysis” (p. 704). experimentation with writing becomes the method by which one may overcome the obstacles to writing. such experimentation often takes place by resisting the typical academic writing structures and trying something different. many of the experimental writing tactics qualitative researchers propose lean into the concepts of chaos, messiness, and failure. in these, writers find relief from the requirement of a clean, refined, and finish text. embracing such concepts resist academic writing structures, but it also occurs to me that writing forms that break away from traditional academic writing do not necessarily have to also be chaotic and messy, nor do they have to fail. perhaps it is not the orderliness of academic writing that is the problem, but rather it is the dullness of topic, tone of authority, boredom of literature review, unhuman distance between reader and writer, formulaic organization of social science prose, and so forth. not only can we find inspiration for genre-breaking writing tactics by searching across the arts and other academic disciplines, , but also within our everyday life, in forms of e. kuecker: lists for many occasions in qualitative research writing qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 334-362 ©2023 359 writing we have known and practiced for a long time. like the list-writer walt whitman, who “exploited its capacity to accumulate elements and yoke together phenomena” (belknap, 2004, p. 2), the list can be a generative form that “spark[s] endless connections and inclusions in a multiplicity of forms” (p. 2). these qualities will resonate with some qualitative researchers who want to write up an accessible and meaningful text that plays with many forms of rhetorical expression. consider writing a list when you want to imply expanse and perpetuity; call upon the human tendencies to collect; create a living document that needs tending to, like a little pet; integrate multiple writing forms within one genre-breaking piece; expose the hermeneutical elements of reading a catalog; invite children and new writers to say something; surprise the one who finds it; and alleviate all the fuss over language. e. kuecker: lists for many occasions in qualitative research writing qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 334-362 ©2023 360 references alber, j. (2016). absurd catalogues: the functions of lists in postmodernist fiction. style, 50 (3) 342–58. agee, j. and evans, w. (1939). three tenant families: let us now praise famous men. houghton mifflin. badley, g. f. (2009). academic writing as shaping and re-shaping. teaching in higher education, 14(2), 209-219. badley, g. f. (2016). blue-collar writing for fruitful dialogue?. qualitative inquiry, 22 (6), 510-517. barthes, r. (2014). j’aime, je n’aime pas. in s. usher (ed) lists of note (p. 75). chronicle books. (originally published 1977). belknap, r. e. (2004). the list: the uses and pleasures of cataloguing. yale university press. berrigan, t. (2011). the selected poems of ted berrigan. university of california press. brecht, b. (1976). bertolt brecht: plays, poetry and prose. eyre methuen ltd. bridges-rhoads, s. (2015). writing paralysis in (post) qualitative research. qualitative inquiry, 21(8), 704-710. burke, k. 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(2007). writing as method. the blackwell encyclopedia of sociology, 5304 -5306. e. kuecker: lists for many occasions in qualitative research writing qualitative studies 8(1), pp. 334-362 ©2023 362 st. pierre, e. a. (2018). writing post qualitative inquiry. qualitative inquiry, 24(9), 603 608. thoreau, h. d. (2004). walden : a fully annotated edition. yale university press. (originally published in 1854). wood, d., & bernasconi, r. (1988). derrida and différance. northwestern university press. usher, s. (2014). introduction. in s. usher (ed) lists of note (p.xiii). chronicle books. about the author elliott kuecker is a teaching assistant professor in the school of information and library science at the university of north carolina at chapel hill, where he teaches archival research methods and professional practices. he has taught rhetoric and composition classes and published on issues related to the crafts of reading, citing, and writing within academia. an active member of the qualitative inquiry community, he also publishes studies on academic labor, children’s creations, and critical theory. untitled 50 etnicitet mellem produktion og skole tanja kirkegaard, klaus nielsen & kasper østergaard linde abstract. på baggrund af et interviewog observationsstudie af produktionsskoleelever på tre forskellige produktionsskoler vil vi i denne artikel pege på, hvorledes praktiske arbejdsfællesskaber giver andre deltagelsesmuligheder for etniske minoritetselever sammenlignet med undervisningssituationer tilrettelagt på mere traditionel skolastisk vis. vi vil pege på, at den traditionelle undervisning, hvor sproglig interaktion fungerer som det organiserende princip, ikke altid formår at matche etniske minoritetselevers dansksproglige forudsætninger, hvilket kan bidrage til at fremstille etniske minoritetselever som knapt så intellektuelt velfungerende. dette kommer både til udtryk gennem undervisningsformerne og undervisningsmaterialerne. de mere praktiske arbejdsfællesskaber, som er dominerende på produktionsskolerne, synes i højere grad at positionere etniske minoritetselever som mere velfungerende, idet sprogbrugen her i højere grad nærmer sig dagligdagssprog, og de etniske minoritetselever får langt større muligheder for at bruge deres læringserfaringer fra andre kontekster end skolekontekster. keywords: observation; produktionsskoler; etniske minoriteter; sproglig interaktion. please cite this article as: kirkegaard, t., nielsen, k. & linde, k. ø. (2011). etnicitet mellem produktion og skole. qualitative studies, 2(1): 50-62. introduktion læreren spørger: ”hvordan kan man se, om en person trækker vejret?” han henvender sig til samira1. hun ser forvirret ud og siger: ”det ved jeg ikke”. læreren: ”det er jo ikke jordens sværeste gåde”. hun kigger ned i bordet og forsøger at gentage nogle af ordene for at forstå sammenhængen. alle har rettet deres blik mod hende. en af de andre rækker hånden op og svarer på det. hun kigger undskyldende på de andre elever. vi vil i denne artikel tematisere etnicitet i uddannelsessystemet med særligt udgangspunkt i en undersøgelse, som vi har gennemført om læring i en produktionsskolepraksis (kirkegaard & nielsen, 2008). artiklen vil primært beskæftige sig med de erhvervsrettede ungdomsuddannelser med udgangspunkt i produktionsskolen. i den forbindelse er spørgsmålet om etnicitet blevet centralt, fordi antallet af unge med anden etnisk baggrund på produktionsskolerne og erhvervsuddannelserne er stigende. antallet af unge med anden etnisk baggrund end dansk, der påbegynder en erhvervsuddannelse er fordoblet de seneste ti år (uvm, 2007), og antallet af etniske minoritetsunge udgør en voksende andel af de unge, som ikke færdiggør en ungdomsuddannelse (gudmundsson & jensen, 2005). på baggrund af en empirisk undersøgelse vil vi pege på, hvorledes undervisningssituationer, som baserer sig på traditionel sproglig instruktion, i visse sammenhænge kan bidrage til at positionere etniske minoriteter som mindre velfungerende, mens undervisningssituationer funderet i mere praktiske arbejdsfællesskaber derimod synes at positionere denne gruppe som mere velfungerende. vi ønsker at pege på, at forskellige organiseringer af undervisningen kan 1 alle personog stednavne i artiklen er pseudonymer. 51 give forskellige deltagelsesmuligheder for eleverne og dermed forskellige muligheder for at positionere sig. baggrunden for denne forskel i deltagelsesmuligheder vil vi argumentere for til dels skal findes i sproget som organisatorisk princip, men også i de etniske minoriteters muligheder for at inddrage læringserfaringer fra andre kontekster. artiklen søger således at pege på, at den måde undervisningssituationer organiseres på har betydning for, hvordan eleverne fremstår som eksempelvis mere eller mindre velfungerende. det er vigtigt at understrege at vores fokus i denne artikel er på elever med etnisk minoritetsbaggrund, som grundet deres sprogforståelsesproblemer bliver marginaliseret som deltagere i undervisningssituationer, der er organiseret med udgangspunkt i en akademiseret sprogpraksis, mens de i højere grad kan opnå status som legitime deltagere i mere praktiske arbejdsfællesskaber. endvidere er det vigtigt for os at pointere, at vi naturligvis ikke finder, at elever med etnisk minoritetsbaggrund er mere praktisk anlagte end danske elever, eller at danske elever er mere bogligt anlagte end etniske minoritetselever. i forhold til sproget illustrerer ovenstående eksempel, hvorledes etnicitet bliver sat i spil i en undervisningssituation. samira kommer i den ovenfor beskrevne undervisningssituation til at fremstå som mindre velfungerende, end hun faktisk er, da den sproglige organisering af læringssituationen, hvor der stilles et særpræget og indlysende spørgsmål, får spørgsmålet til lyde mere kompliceret, end det i virkeligheden er. samspillet mellem spørgsmålets banale karakter og samiras svage dansksproglige forudsætninger medfører, at hun føler sig positioneret som dårligt fungerende i læringssituationen. megen moderne uddannelsestænkning bygger på en tanke om, at sproglig instruktion skal være omdrejningspunktet for at kunne kvalificere til at kunne betegnes som undervisning (schön, 1983; schön, 1987). det er ganske enkelt blevet en selvfølgelighed, at pædagogiske interventioner er bygget op omkring sproglighed. diskussionen af sproglighed og den akademisering, der følger med sprogliggørelsen af en given uddannelsespraksis, har været genstand for en del diskussion (se eksempelvis wackerhausen, 1999). i de senere år er der kommet en del etniske minoriteter ind i det danske uddannelsessystem, hvoraf en vis andel har vanskeligheder med at beherske det danske sprog. det er paradoksalt, at der på den ene side sker en voldsom akademisering af uddannelsessystemet i dag, også omfattende de erhvervsrettede ungdomsuddannelser (sigurjonsson, 2002), og på den anden side, at man forsøger at integrere store grupper elever med anden etnisk baggrund end dansk i uddannelsessystemet. det betyder, at i en række situationer i uddannelsessystemet, hvor undervisningseller prøvesituationer primært hviler på en ofte akademiseret sproglig formidling, tages der ikke altid højde for de etniske minoritetselevers ofte svage dansksproglige forudsætninger, og dermed står de etniske minoritetselever i en vanskeligere situation end danske elever. det vil sige, at der er nogle situationer, hvor det bliver særligt tydeligt, at mennesker med en anden etnisk baggrund fremstår som mindre intellektuelt velfungerende. frem for at betragte personer med anden etnisk baggrund som personer, der har vanskeligt ved beherske det danske sprog i almindelighed og derfor også har vanskeligheder med det akademiserede sprog i uddannelsessystemet i særdeleshed, så kommer de til at fremstå som elever, der ikke er så intellektuelt velfungerende som danske elever. omvendt synes eleverne i situationer, der er opbygget omkring praktiske arbejdssituationer at fremstå som elever, der har færre problemer og flere ressourcer at trække på. praktiske arbejdssituationer organiseres i mindre grad omkring et akademiseret sprogbrug, men i højere grad omkring brugen af dagligdagssprog og en kropslig og mimetisk praksis, hvilket gør at 52 nogle elever med anden etnisk baggrund kan udvikle deres erfaringer i disse sammenhænge, samt trække på konkrete erfaringer, som de selv eller andre gør sig i arbejdssituationen. i denne artikel vil vi særligt fokusere på frafaldsproblematikken, netop fordi en af konsekvenserne af at blive positioneret som mindre velfungerende i uddannelsesmæssige sammenhænge driver mange unge i retning af at opgive deres uddannelse (alexander & entwistle, 2001). i artiklen benytter vi os af en situeret tilgangsvinkel til læring og uddannelse, hvor det er en kongstanke, at vi deltager og er medskabere af en række praksissammenhænge, som er medbestemmende for, hvordan vi lærer, og hvad vi lærer (lave & wenger, 2003, pedersen, 2006). fra et situeret perspektiv er det ikke tilstrækkeligt at fokusere på individerne og deres læring, men vi må også se på, hvordan praksis er tilrettelagt for at forstå læringsressourcer og læringsbarrierer (nielsen & kvale, 2006). man kan sammenligne en social praksis med at bebo et gammelt hus, hvor man ikke længere lægger mærke til rummene, husets opdeling, trappen der knirker osv. man lægger kun mærke til de mennesker, som bor i huset og de, der kommer på besøg (varenne & mcdermott, 1999). lidt det samme kan siges om uddannelsesinstitutioner, hvis vi sammenligner dem med sociale praksisser. vi glemmer, at de er lagt tilrette således, at det passer særligt på elever med en dansksproglig grundkompetence, og vi tilrettelægger undervisningssituationer primært på baggrund af sproglig formidling. etnicitet og frafald en del af den hidtidige forskning omkring etniske minoriteter inden for uddannelsesområdet har overvejende fokuseret på de problemer, der opstår, når unge med anden etnisk baggrund møder det danske uddannelsessystem i forhold til uddannelsesvalg og frafald. langt de fleste publicerede undersøgelser af hvordan elever med anden etnisk baggrund klarer sig i det danske uddannelsessystem arbejder ud fra et kvantitativt sociologisk perspektiv (se eksempelvis colding, 2005; jensen, p. & tranæs, t, 2007). der findes relativt få publikationer af større danske kvalitative undersøgelser, der beskæftiger sig med, hvordan det går elever med anden etnisk baggrund i det danske uddannelsessystem. i det følgende vil vi nævne et par kvalitative undersøgelser, der sætter fokus på området. i en undersøgelse, der fokuserede på etnicitet og køn, fulgte staunæs (2004) eleverne i to syvende klasser på to kommuneskoler i en forstad til københavn. staunæs (2004) viste i sin undersøgelse, hvordan kategorierne køn, etnicitet og seksualitet gennemkrydser og gensidigt påvirker hinanden i elevernes subjektiveringer og subjektiveringstilbud. i sin analyse fremhævede staunæs (2004) ”hvordan køn og etnicitet på forskellig vis bliver til i skolen hver dag, som en del af de tolkningsrammer, skolens aktører forstår sig selv og hinanden igennem” (p. 30). i analysen fungerer etnicitet og køn som ’performance’, ikke som noget, man er, men noget, man gør og bliver hver dag. endvidere analyseres også læreres holdninger og skolernes politikker af de subjektiveringsmuligheder, eleverne har til rådighed. mørch (2003) viste i en interviewundersøgelse af personer med etnisk minoritetsbaggrund, der går på erhvervsskole, hvordan marginaliseringen sættes i værk i en uddannelsesmæssig hverdag, og hvordan den fastholdes og udvikler sig til en selvforstærkende cirkel. i analysen gives der gode eksempler på, hvordan to lærlinge delvist søger at overskride marginaliseringen ved at udvikle særligt forholdemåder (”at udholde ydmygelsen”, ”at fornægte sig selv” etc.) i forhold til den marginaliserende praksis, som de konfronteres med. begge undersøgelser er interessante, men de sætter kun i begrænset omfang fokus på, hvordan de forskellige kontekster er organiserede og hvordan denne organisering influerer på deltagernes handlemuligheder og sociale positioneringer. en tematik, som er central for denne artikel. 53 i denne artikel vil vi ligeledes sætte fokus på frafaldsproblematikken. der er en klar tendens til, at etniske minoriteter i højere grad falder fra ungdomsuddannelserne. det er specielt inden for erhvervsuddannelserne, at frafaldet er stort blandt etniske minoriteter. det største frafald findes blandt mænd med anden etnisk baggrund end dansk, hvor frafaldet her er oppe på 60 % inden for visse uddannelser (koudahl, 2005). for kvinder med anden etnisk baggrund end dansk ligger frafaldet afhængig af uddannelse inden for erhvervsuddannelserne på mellem 20 % og 52 % (ibid.). forskning om årsager til etniske minoriteters frafald fra erhvervsuddannelserne er sparsom. derimod er der adskillige rapporter omkring årsager til frafald på erhvervsuddannelser (koudahl, 2005), hvor der er en tendens til at fokusere på strukturelle og individuelle forhold, mens samspilsmæssige forhold i mindre grad er undersøgt. af de strukturelle årsager til frafald peger forskningen på, at uddannelsesorganiseringen er medvirkende til at skabe frafald, hvor organisering af undervisningsform (ministeriet for flygtninge, indvandrere og integration [mfii], 2005), undervisningsindhold (ibid.), dårlig kontakt mellem erhvervsskole og praktikvirksomheden (andersen, 2005) samt mangel på praktikpladser (analyseinstituttet instant answer, 2004; smith & jacobsen, 2000; mehlbye et al., 2000; mfii, 2005) bliver nævnt som årsager til frafald. specifikt i forhold til etniske minoriteter synes manglen på praktikpladser og undervisningsindholdet at udgøre det største problem. de unge peger selv på, at det faglige niveau i erhvervsuddannelserne er for højt i nogle af fagene (mfii, 2005). de individfokuserede årsager til frafald knytter sig bl.a. til personlige problemer (analyseinstituttet, 2004), eksempelvis at de frafaldstruede elever har en ”kort lunte” i forhold til problemer på uddannelsen (brock & gonnsen, 2004). specifikt i forhold til etniske minoriteter nævnes, at de etniske minoriteter har dårligere faglige kvalifikationer såsom dårligere danskkundskaber (schmidt & jacobsen, 2000; mehlbye et al., 2000; andersen, 2005; mfii, 2005), hvilket bruges som forklaringsbaggrund på frafaldet. derudover er der peget på, at etniske minoriteter i højere grad har svært ved selvstændige arbejdsformer, og at de stillede opgaver skal være meget konkrete og tilbagemeldingen til dem skal være konkret og præcis (mfii, 2005). der er blevet udledt en række forhold som synes at have betydning for, om de etniske minoriteter får en erhvervskompetencegivende uddannelse eller ej, såsom at unge med anden etnisk baggrund skriver for få uopfordrede ansøgninger, mangler socialt netværk, bliver nødt til at arbejde, er skoletrætte eller at de prioriterer børn og familie (schmidt & jacobsen, 2000). endvidere er det blevet fremhævet, at det især er de etniske minoritetselever, der føler sig isolerede i forhold til de danske elever (mfii, 2005). i vores undersøgelse har vi ønsket at se på de mere specifikke sociale samspilssituationer, der foregår på produktionsskolerne, og derfor har en del af vores dataindsamlingsmetode været deltagende observation på skolerne. den deltagende observation er kun et element af dataindsamlingen i forskningsprojektet om læring i produktionsskoleregi. i forbindelse med forskningsprojektet er der gennemført 110 strukturerede interviews med elever fra tre forskellige produktionsskoler. ud fra disse interviews blev 5 elever udvalgt og herefter fulgt over en periode på 2 måneder med observation og semi-strukturerede interviews. det var både elever såvel som lærere, der blev interviewet. den deltagende observationsmetode er velegnet til at fokusere på interaktionen mellem forskellige aktører og den giver et godt indblik i de forskellige aktørers positionering, identiteter og handlestrategier i forhold til hinanden (järvinen & mik-meyer, 2005). i undersøgelsen sætter vi fokus på samspillet mellem nogle elevers manglende mestring af det danske sprog og bestemte typer sprogligt organiserede læringssituationer, og det ville derfor være paradoksalt, hvis vi alene benyttede os af 54 spørgeskemaog interviewteknikker, der netop forudsætter gode sprogkundskaber. derudover havde flere af de etniske minoritetselever en udpræget defensiv og mistroisk indstilling til interviews og spørgeskemaer, som i kombination med mulige sprogproblemer og usikkerheder yderligere ville have problematiseret vores bestræbelse på at indsamle viden. produktions–skole i danmark er der 99 produktionsskoler, og på landsplan var antallet af årselever2 på produktionsskolerne i 2004 6.929 elever, og der var 14.224 deltagere3, hvoraf 60 % af deltagerne var mænd (uvm, 2004). produktionsskolen er organiseret på en ganske særlig måde, som det fremgår af orddelingen i afsnitsoverskriften. produktionsskolen er på den ene side tilrettelagt således, at eleverne både indgår i produktionsværksteder, som er organiseret mesterlæreorienteret og rettet mod, at eleverne lærer at håndtere bestemte praktiske færdigheder. på disse værksteder arbejder erfarne håndværkere, og det er målet, at de produkter, der frembringes, skal sælges. på de forskellige produktionsskoler er der forskellige typer af værksteder alt efter produktionsskolens profil. på den anden side er produktionsskolen også en skole, hvor eleverne kan/skal deltage i bestemte former for traditionel undervisning. nogle steder er der obligatorisk undervisning og andre steder er der valgfri undervisning. på alle skoler er der teoriundervisning, men det foregår ikke nødvendigvis som traditionel undervisning. det vil sige, at produktionsskolen rummer skismaet mellem traditionel undervisning og praktiske oplæringsformer. skismaet mellem hvad eleverne skal kunne og deres dygtighed fanges i følgende ordveksling mellem undertegnede (tk), en leder på produktionsskolen og en lærer, der bryder ind. samtalen drejer sig om en elev med anden etnisk baggrund: forstanderen på produktionsskolen randumsholm spurgte, hvordan jeg synes det var på mekanikværkstedet. jeg sagde, at det var spændende at være der, og at jeg var meget imponeret over, hvor dygtig razim var til arbejdet. forstanderen var enig og sagde, at det var utroligt det, han kunne med sine hænder. en lærer der underviste i dansk og matematik på skolen afbrød og sagde:” ja, det er godt nok, men han kan ikke sætte 3 bogstaver sammen”. eksemplet peger på skismaet mellem at være dygtig til det faglige i en meget praktisk forstand på den ene side og være dygtig til det mere boglige på den anden side. som det vil fremgå af vores eksempler i det følgende, er dette skisma særdeles centralt i forbindelse med etnicitet og er på forskellig måde med til at positionere eleverne som mere eller mindre velfungerende. produktionsskolerne repræsenterer en sammentænkning af arbejdspladsoplæring og institutionaliseret skoleundervisning og er ganske unikke i moderne uddannelsestænkning. de eksempler, vi i det følgende benytter os af, bygger på disse observationer og interviews og peger på skismaet mellem sprogligt formidlede instruktionssituationer og praktiske instruktionssituationer. sproglig instruktion og etnicitet i vores materiale viser det sig, at i en række situationer bliver manglen på sproglige evner eller kulturelle forudsætninger forvekslet med manglende intellektuelle evner hos elever med en anden etnisk baggrund. i vores materiale er der en del eksempler på, hvordan de pædagogiske situationer 2 med årselever menes elever, der har været indskrevet på skolen i 40 uger 3 med deltagere menes elever, der er indskrevet på produktionsskolen i mindre end 40 uger 55 næsten udelukkende er bygget op over sproget som central instruktionsskabelon. i det følgende giver vi tre eksempler på, hvordan samspillet mellem forskellige typer af sprogligt baserede instruktionssituationer og elevernes forskellige sproglige vanskeligheder medvirker til at positionere deltagerne som dårligt fungerende. det første eksempel peger på en problematik, hvor en forvirrende og ustruktureret sprogligt formidlet instruktion i samspil med en elevs dårlige almene dansksproglige forudsætninger er med til at skabe en forståelse af eleven som mindre velfungerende, end hun måske i virkeligheden er. vi er på et syværksted på søby produktionsskole, hvor hjælpelæreren forklarer eleven fatima, som har været i danmark i tre år og derfor ikke forstår dansk særlig godt, hvordan hun skal skære stof ud. hjælpelæreren siger til fatima: ”nu er det din tur, så du skal gøre det samme som mathilde (en anden elev)”. jeg (tk) stod og tænkte, at jeg var blevet ret forvirret over den tidligere episode og ville ikke selv vide, hvad jeg skulle gøre, så jeg var spændt på, om fatima, som kom fra en modtagerklasse og havde svært ved det danske sprog, havde forstået noget af det hjælpelæreren havde forklaret. men hun begyndte at måle 42 cm op. hun blev hurtigt afbrudt af læreren, de havde til daglig: ”du må ikke begynde 2 cm oppe. det er spild af stof. du skal starte forneden. sådan noget stof er meget dyrt. 400 kr. meteren”. hjælpelæreren træder til: ” ja det er meget dyrt. se så meget stof der går til spilde ellers”. fatima bliver nervøs og kigger usikkert på lærerne. så går hun helt ned til kanten af stoffet og begynder at måle 42 cm op og trækker en streg helt nede ved kanten af stoffet. hun bliver igen afbrudt af hjælpelæreren: ”du skal ikke trække en streg forneden. det kan ikke betale sig. du skal bare måle op”. hun holder op med at trække stregen og kigger forvirret op på hjælpelæreren. ”du skal bare måle op”. fatima måler 42 cm og sætter en streg ved 42 cm. hjælpelæreren stopper hende igen. ”du skal ikke måle 42 cm op her. du kan godt se, at hvis du måler 29 cm op i stedet for, kan der være 2 af dem. så du skal måle 29 cm op to gange”. jeg (tk) er selv ret forvirret på det tidspunkt. fatima måler to gange 29 cm op og kigger usikkert på hjælpelæreren. ”ja, og så skal du måle 42 cm opad. hun måler 42 cm ud og sætter en streg. så skal du gøre det igen herhenne. det gør hun så. ”og så skal du sætte en lang streg her”. jeg (tk) tænker, at hun ikke på noget tidspunkt får en længere forklaring på, hvorfor hun skal gøre det, hun gør, og det gør det svært selv at tænke sig frem til, hvordan man skal gøre. fatima lægger linealen og begynder at trække en streg, men pludselig trækker hun stregen meget skævt og flere centimeter over linealen. både hjælpelæreren og læreren råber et meget højt ”uh!” og begynder at grine. fatima bliver forskrækket og ser flov ud. hun kigger undskyldende på mig og griner genert. hjælpelæreren går ned i den anden ende af lokalet og kalder mig ned til sig. ”ja, du kan godt se, at det er nogle svage elever, vi har med at gøre. når de ikke engang kan måle simple mål op eller trække en streg på et stykke stof, så er der lang vej.” (...)”den der med, at alle skal i uddannelse den går bare ikke, for der er elever, der er for svage til at få en uddannelse. alle de ufaglærte jobs er forsvundet, og så er der ikke noget at gøre for dem.” i denne observation viser det sig, at den elev, som lærerne her betegner som en svag elev, har vanskeligt ved at forstå den instruktion, der gives fra lærerside. der er altså ikke tale om en intellektuelt mindre velfungerende elev, men derimod tale om en elev, der har et begrænset dansk ordforråd og er usikker i forhold til at udtrykke sig på dansk. det er altså ikke, som antydet af lærerne, på grund af en mulig intellektuel svaghed hos fatima, at hun har vanskeligt ved at forstå, hvad det er, hun skal gøre og hvorfor, men nærmere på grund af det uhensigtsmæssige samspil mellem en uklar sproglig instruktion, som ikke møder fatima på 56 hendes sproglige præmisser. den forvirrende og ustrukturerede verbale instruktion fører til uklarheder, og det ender med, at eleven med svage danskkundskaber bliver positioneret som dårligt intellektuelt fungerende, fordi hun har vanskeligt ved at forstå de instruktioner, der gives i situationen. i vores empiriske materiale er der en del eksempler af samme karakter, hvor lærerne former den pædagogiske situation således, at den alene hviler på, at elever med anden etnisk baggrund skal afkode situationen på baggrund af forskellige typer af verbal instruktion, der dog ofte ikke matcher elevernes dansksproglige forudsætninger. der er naturligvis ikke tale om ond vilje fra lærernes side, men der er derimod tale om pædagogisk rygmarvstænkning, hvor lærerne per automatik opbygger den pædagogiske situation næsten udelukkende på baggrund af en sproglig formidling. det er ikke kun i den verbale kommunikation, at den pædagogiske situation er baseret på sproglige instruktioner. det er også tilfældet, når det drejer sig om mere officielt skriftligt materiale. det andet eksempel er således hentet fra en situation, hvor læreren søren er sammen med tre drenge af anden etnisk oprindelse end dansk i en prøvesituation. søren læser prøvens spørgsmål op, men de er formuleret på et vanskeligt og akademisk dansk: ”hvilke arbejdsmiljøforanstaltninger skal implementeres ved svejsning og termisk skæring?” der var helt stille. så forsøgte søren at oversætte spørgsmålet, men det var stadig svært at forstå. der var for mange udtryk, der skulle oversættes og forklares, så det blev forvirrende. jeg kigger på muhammed. han ser opgivende ud og gemmer sig i sin hættetrøje, mens han kigger ned. søren prøver igen, men alle ser desorienterede ud. muhammed begynder at løfte bordet lige så stille, så tingene er ved at vælte af det. ”hold nu op muhammed”, siger søren. muhammed sukker og kigger ud i luften. han spørger, om de ikke kan holde en pause. søren kigger på uret og siger ”jo”. eksemplet peger på, at prøven i arbejdsmiljø er formuleret i et akademiseret sprog, og det er vanskeligt for de etniske minoritetsunge at forstå, hvad der egentligt spørges til. det viser sig efterfølgende, at når muhammed og de andre unge får forklaret rationalet bag spørgsmålet ved at søren henviser til den daglige praksis på værkstedet, dvs. når spørgsmålet formuleres i et mere fleksibelt dagligdagssprog, så kan eleverne relativt nemt svare på spørgsmålet. det er således ikke blot i konkrete verbalt baserede undervisningssituationer, at eleverne kan have vanskeligheder. også den akademiserede formulering af et skriftligt prøvemateriale kan være medvirkende til at positionere de her beskrevne elever med anden etnisk baggrund, som mindre intellektuelt velfungerende, end de i virkeligheden er. problemerne udspringer af et uhensigtsmæssigt samspil mellem et akademiseret undervisningsmateriale, der ikke tager højde for elevernes præmisser, og elevernes i den henseende svage danksproglige forudsætninger. denne sammenblanding medvirker, ligesom i indledningseksemplet, til at fremstille elevernes intellektuelle funktion som mindre velfungerende. afslutningsvist vil vi pege på, at det ikke kun er et vanskeligt og ofte akademisk dansk, der positionerer de etniske minoritetsunge, som svagt fungerende. vi observerede i flere tilfælde, at det var problematisk, at en del af det materiale eleverne med etnisk minoritetsbaggrund arbejder med, er tilpasset danske elever på ganske bestemte alderstrin. det betyder i praksis, at unge med anden etnisk baggrund ender med at skulle læse børnebøger eftersom deres sproglige niveau matcher en yngre dansk elev, hvilket positionerer de etniske minoritetsunge som elever, der er ’mindreårige’, hvilket naturligvis i flere tilfælde gav anledning til, at de valgte at gå i opposition til den position, som blev tilbudt dem. 57 ali sidder uroligt og ser ikke ud til at kunne koncentrere sig. hans bog er en letlæsningsbog skrevet til mindre børn. han rømmer sig og laver spyttelyde for at få de andres opmærksomhed, og det virker.(…) jeg talte lidt med læreren om manglen på passende undervisningsmateriale. han fremhæver, at der mangler noget materiale med en lav sværhedsgrad, som alligevel passer til deres aldersgrupper. eksemplet viser, at ali, som er seksten år gammel, bliver nødt til at sidde og læse en bog for mindreårige børn. det er nedværdigende for ali at sidde med en letlæsningsbog for mindreårige børn, og det er heller ikke noget, der giver ham særlig stor status i de andres øjne. derfor ender det også med, at ali begynder, at lave ’ballade’ for at bryde sin positionering, som ’mindreårig’. i dette tilfælde er undervisningsmaterialet på et ’formniveau’ bedre i overensstemmelse med elevens dansksproglige forudsætninger. men på et ’indholdsniveau’ er lærebogsmaterialet stadig problematisk, eftersom det er rettet mod yngre børn og derfor ikke er alderssvarende for ali. dermed sættes ikke kun alis intellektuelle funktion på spil, men også hans stolthed og værdighed, hvilket han reagerer på med problemadfærd. begge aspekter medvirker til at positionere ham som mindre velfungerende. i de ovenstående eksempler er der således skitseret en række skolesituationer, hvor eleverne stilles overfor en række skolemæssige krav, der har det til fælles, at de hviler primært på en forholdsvis ufleksibel sproglig instruktion og formidling, der ikke formår at tage udgangspunkt i eller højde for de etniske minoritetselevers dansksproglige forudsætninger. disse eksempler på ikke-tilpasset sproglig instruktion og formidling medvirker utilsigtet til at positionere de etniske minoritetselevers mindre intellektuelt velfungerende. i og med sproget får en afgørende rolle i forhold til undervisningssituationen, så har eleverne vanskeligt ved at honorere disse krav og vælger dermed enten at resignere eller bevæge sig i retning af ballademagerrollen. at elevernes frembragte svagheder og problemer imidlertid ikke, som det fremgår af analysen af eksemplerne, kan betragtes i isolation, eller som personlige egenskaber hos eleverne, men i højere grad må ses som resultat af en uhensigtsmæssig organisering af undervisningssituationer medinddrages ikke i forståelsen af de problemer, der opstår. pædagogisk set får det den konsekvens, at de etniske minoritetselevers vanskeligheder ikke opfattes som udtryk for en problematisk organisering af de pædagogiske situationer, men derimod som udtryk for deres personlige svagheder. praktiske undervisningssituationer og elever med etnisk minoritetsbaggrund i en række af de arbejdsfællesskaber, som produktionsskolen er bygget op omkring, viser det sig, at elever med anden etnisk baggrund faktisk klarer sig bedre, end når situationen alene hviler på en akademiseret sproglig formidling. disse situationer kan kendetegnes ved at være struktureret om arbejdssituationer, hvor eleverne gennem deres aktive bidrag er med til i fællesskab at skabe et fælles produkt. disse arbejdsfællesskaber er langt mere åbne i den forstand at eleverne, både danske og minoritetsunge, kan trække på et dagligdagssprog og de mimetiske ressourcer som eksisterer i form af, at de kan se, hvordan læreren eller de andre udfører de forskellige arbejdsopgaver. således kan de unge med minoritetsbaggrund bedre orientere sig, og de er langt bedre til at trække erfaringer ind fra andre sammenhænge. i flere tilfælde fremtræder de som elever, der rent faktisk har noget at tilbyde arbejdsfællesskaberne. mange af eleverne med anden etnisk baggrund synes i høj grad at være engagerede i arbejdsfællesskaber uden for skolen, hvilket de aktivt forholder sig til og bruger på produktionsskolen. de ikke-skolastiske erfaringer, som de har, er ofte uformelle og kan både være knyttet til tilfældige personer og familiære relationer. følgende eksempel er hentet fra 58 køkkenværkstedet på vilstrupgårds produktionsskole, hvor omar er i gang med at bage pizzabunde: omar kommer ind til louise og line. ”jeg skal lige høre, om i putter ost eller kød på først?”. line: ”vi putter ost på først”. ”godt. det er nemlig også sådan, de gør, når de laver pizza nede i byen – det er bedst sådan”. jeg går med ham ind i rummet, hvor der bages. omar ruller dejen ud. det ser meget professionelt ud, og jeg spørger, om han har prøvet det mange gange. ”jeg har aldrig prøvet det før”, siger han og svinger dejen rundt om armen. line er kommet ud: ”du har da arbejdet i et pizzeria ikke”.” nej det har jeg aldrig” siger omar. ”jeg har bare set, hvordan de gør på pizzeriaer nede i byen og så lært det derfra. jeg står altid og kigger på, hvordan de gør, og så er jeg meget selvsikker, så jeg prøver mig bare frem”. han svinger dejen rundt igen og lægger den derefter ned på bordet, hvorefter han drysser mel ud på dejen og ruller dejen ud igen. derefter lægger han den over sin arm og banker på den, så melet drysser af. jeg er meget imponeret over det håndelag, han udviser. han lægger dejen på en plade og skærer dejen til, så den passer. resterne af dejen lægger han over til det andet dej og starter på den næste bund. eksemplet viser, hvorledes omar ud fra en uformel og tilfældig situation lærer et håndelag i forhold til pizzabagning, som han inddrager i skolekonteksten og bruger aktivt. her benytter omar sig også af de læringsmæssige ressourcer, der ligger i arbejdsfællesskabet, hvor han spørger to andre elever om råd. vi observerede i mange tilfælde, at eleverne var gode til at bruge hinanden i forhold til de problemer, der skulle løses i forskellige praktiske arbejdssituationer. det næste eksempel er et uddrag fra et interview med muhammed, hvor han beskriver, hvorledes hans far har lært ham bestemte færdigheder, som vi, via vores observationer forinden, havde set ham udføre. m: jeg har arbejdet lang tid med at montere anlæg og sådan nogle ting. tk: er det sådan, hvor du prøver dig frem? m: nej, det har jeg lært af min far. min far er mekaniker. tk: ok, så han forklarer dig hvordan? m: ja, det er ham, der har lært os det. tk: hvordan synes du, din far er til at lære dig ting? m: ok. nej, fordi han har monteret den mange gange foran mig, sådan der. så jeg sagde til ham: ”er det ikke sådan og sådan, man gør?”. så sagde han: ”jo, det er rigtigt nok”. og siden den dag, der har jeg bare selv monteret den. og min far gør det ikke mere. så er det mig, der gør det. eksemplet her peger på, at elever med anden etnisk baggrund i nogle tilfælde har lært en del inden de kommer på produktionsskolen, som de rent faktisk kan bruge på værkstederne. at de netop er i stand til at bruge disse ikke-skolastiske erfaringer gør, at de i mange tilfælde fremstår som ressourcepersoner. netop i kraft af at eleverne har en del erfaringer med fra ikkeskolastiske sammenhænge betyder også, at de, i flere tilfælde, ved mere om specifikke områder end læreren gør, og dermed bidrager til løsning af opgaver, læreren kan have svært ved. flere gange så vi i forbindelse med vore observationer, at eleverne fik lov til at agere eksperter på områder og instruerede andre elever i, hvordan en problemstilling kunne løses. følgende eksempel er et uddrag fra et interview med en lærer fra én af produktionsskolerne, hvor vedkommende netop peger på denne tematik som en vigtig læringsressource: 59 lærer: ”jamen det kan jo godt være en scooter, fordi hvis vi tager muhammed. han ved næsten alt om en scooter. jamen, vi ved kun halvdelen af, hvad han ved faktisk, hvis jeg skal være helt ærlig, og jeg kan bruge en halv dag på det, hvor han bruger bare den halve tid på det, og hvor jeg siger: ”jamen muhammed du ved simpelthen bare så meget om scootere få den lige til at starte. jeg tror det er tændingen jeg ved det ikke,” siger jeg så. ”det kan også være en kontakt”, og han går simpelthen systematisk frem, og det er han simpelthen bare så god til, og det er da kun en glæde for mig, at han har så gode kompetencer inden for det område, og jeg kan også lære noget af det”. her ser læreren muhammed som en klar ressource for arbejdsfællesskabet og giver mulighed for, at han kan bruge sine læringserfaringer fra andre steder i skolens praksis. samtidigt er han åben for, at muhammed ved mere, end han gør om bestemte områder. en sådan positionering af eleverne ses sjældent i en traditionel skolepraksis, mens de praktiske arbejdsfællesskaber på produktionsskolerne er med til at give elever med anden etnisk baggrund andre og mere konstruktive deltagelsesmuligheder. opsamling og diskussion gennem artiklen har vi peget på, hvorledes praktiske arbejdsfællesskaber giver andre positioner og deltagelsesmuligheder for etniske minoriteter end traditionelle undervisningssituationer. vi har peget på, at sproget som organiserende princip omkring den traditionelle undervisning, især når det anvendte sprog af forskellige grunde ikke formår at matche elevernes dansksproglige forudsætninger, kan bidrage til at fremstille etniske minoritetselever som knapt så intellektuelt velfungerende. dette kommer både til udtryk gennem undervisningsformen og undervisningsmaterialerne, som er organiseret i forhold til elever, der mestrer et akademisk orienteret sprog. de mere praktiske arbejdsfællesskaber synes derimod at positionere etniske minoriteter som mere velfungerende unge, idet sprogbrugen her i højere grad nærmer sig dagligdagssproget, og idet de her blandt andet får mulighed for at bruge deres læringserfaringer fra andre kontekster end skolekonteksten. i forhold til den hidtidige forskning repræsenteret blandt andet af staunæs (2004) og mørch (2003) peges der i denne artikel på betydningen af kontekstuelle faktorer i forhold til, hvordan kategorier for etnicitet fremtræder i forskellige situationer. fra at fokusere på etniske minoriteter som bærere af problemet, har vi i nærværende artikel rettet fokus mod den historiske tilrettelæggelse af undervisning med sproget som organiserende princip og argumenteret for, at den type læringssituationer ofte på forskellig vis er ufleksible og derfor ikke formår at matche de etniske minoritetselevers sproglige forudsætninger, men i stedet utilsigtet medvirker til at de positioneres som intellektuelt mindre velfungerende. imidlertid kan det individualiserende syn på elevernes svagheder problematiseres. de etniske minoriteters vanskeligheder kan ved et nærmere eftersyn betragtes som en relationel egenskab ved organiseringen af den pædagogiske situation. den dominerende individualiserende problemforståelse udelukker i mange tilfælde muligheden for at se de etniske minoriteters vanskeligheder i et relationelt perspektiv. problemet opstår således, når skolerne har sit udgangspunkt i kulturneutralitet og dermed undgår at se de forskellige forudsætninger, eleverne kommer med, og dermed undgår at tage højde for det i undervisningen. praktiske arbejdsfællesskaber synes i højere grad at fungere som bindeled mellem elevernes hverdag og skolens praksis, hvilket gør det nemmere at overføre erfaringer fra den ene kontekst til den anden. skismaet mellem traditionel undervisningsform og praktiske arbejdsfællesskaber træder således frem på produktionsskolerne på grund af deres organisering og har givet mulighed for 60 at se, hvorledes forskellige organiseringer påvirker de samme elever. ud fra vore observationer kunne vi se, at eleverne havde forskellige reaktioner på at komme til at fremstå som dårligt fungerende. de mandlige etniske minoriteter reagerede typisk med ballade for at undgå at fremstå som dårligt fungerende, mens de kvindelige elever med anden etnisk baggrund end dansk reagerede med resignation. men både de mandlige og de kvindelige etniske minoritetselever havde samtidig tilbøjelighed til at godtage rollen som dårligt fungerende via udtalelser som eksempelvis: ”jeg forstår det ikke – jeg kan ikke” eller ”fuck det teori. jeg fatter ikke en skid, mand”. de har således en tendens til at betragte sig selv, og ikke tilrettelæggelsen af undervisningssituationen, som problemet. dette samspil mellem elev og undervisningssituation kan være en del af forklaringen på det store frafald blandt etniske minoriteter i de erhvervsrettede ungdomsuddannelser. derudover observerede vi også, at ikke alene godtog eleverne rollen som dårligt fungerende, men især for de mandlige elever forekom det i flere situationer som om, de nærmest dyrkede den rolle som identitet og søgte bekræftelse for den (se også kierkegaard & nielsen, 2008). elevernes accept og dyrkelse af at være ikke-velfungerende kan betyde, at skismaet mellem traditionel undervisningsform og praktiske arbejdsfællesskaber bliver endnu større for eleverne, og de derfor bevæger sig endnu længere væk fra de traditionelle undervisningsformer. dette kan medføre alvorlige problemer, hvis de senere skal indgå i en uddannelsesmæssig sammenhæng, specielt når flere og flere uddannelser akademiseres og intellektualiseres. udviklingen kan blive selvforstærkende og kan skabe problemer, idet det kan bidrage til konflikter lærer-elev imellem, og dermed bliver der flere negative erfaringer forbundet med de traditionelle undervisningssituationer. litteratur alexander k.l. & entwistle d.r. 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(2004). køn, etnicitet og skoleliv. frederiksberg: samfundslitteratur. 62 uvm (2004): www.uvm.dk/statistik/prodskoler2004.htm?menuid=551015 uvm (2007): www.uddannelsesstatistik.dk/pls/www_ndb/ndb varenne, h. & mcdermott, r. (1999) succesful failure: the school america builds. boulder, co: westview. wackerhausen, s. (1999) det skoalstiske paradigme og mesterlære. i nielsen, k. og kvale, s., mesterlære – læring som social praksis. københavn: hans reitzels forlag. forfattere tanja kirkegaard er ph.d.-stipendiat på institut for kommunikation, aalborg universitet. klaus nielsen er professor i pædagogisk psykologi på aarhus universitet. kasper østergaard linde er rådgivningskoordinator på albahus. email (kirkegaard): tanja.kirkegaard@gmail.com untitled 31 both here and there: diasporic youth in denmark as agents of development: based on two qualitative studies* rashmi singla, anne sophie fabricius & anne holm abstract. this article investigates some psychological aspects of south asian diasporic youth in denmark with focus on the socioeconomic strategies based on two empirical studies. the first longitudinal study explored young adults’ economic strategies in relation to their country of origin. the original investigation was conducted in the mid-1990s. within a theoretical framework combining positioning theory with life course perspective, in-depth interviews were conducted with young adults of indian and pakistani background (n=5). the second study focussed on second generation pakistani descendants in denmark and their remittance to pakistan. the extent and nature of transnational activities among second generation pakistani has been investigated within a theoretical framework of transnationalism and identity construction. the results indicate three emergent forms of socioeconomic strategies among south asian youth in denmark: 1) individual strategies involving professional, business related investment and direct remittances, 2) awareness of parents’ strategies, although few or no selfinitiated strategies and 3) collective strategy through an organisation addressing their position as agents of development in the country of origin. there are considerable temporal as well as qualitative differences in these strategies as compared to the parental generation. keywords: youth; diaspora; transnationalism; interviews please cite this article as: singla, r., fabricius, a. & holm, a. (2011). both here and there: diasporic youth in denmark as agents of development: based on two qualitative studies. qualitative studies, 2(1): 31-49. introduction in the expanding literature on diasporic communities in various parts of the world, there is a growing emphasis on the connections between the communities’ country of residence1 and country of origin, often identified as transnational relations. most research of diaspora is focused on parental generations and the ways in which they preserve contacts to their social networks and families in their country of origin. in recent years, the migrants’ descendants’ engagement with their parents’ country of origin has also been investigated (levitt & waters 2002, rai & reeves, 2009, raghuram & sahoo, 2008). although studies such as rumbaut (2002) suggest that second generations are primarily attached to the country of residence, it is too premature to conclude that transnational practices will disappear among the subsequent generations. the subsequent generations’ attachment and their significance for the sending and receiving countries have to be investigated (levitt 2001). persistence of ties to the country of origin has been focussed in what is known as the “transnational optic”, redressing the lacuna created by the primary focus on the adjustment process in the post migration context (kivisto & faist, 2010). in the danish context, we have recently seen a number of studies dealing with the economic dimensions of migration and especially migrants’ integration in the host communities, or alternatively, with migration and kinship. these studies have shown vital significance of family in the migration process and that kinship networks act as important channels of 32 communication, remittances and recruitment for transnational marriages. diasporic networks are characterized by the simultaneity of (local) places and (global) spaces (qureshi 1999; singla 2004b; rytter 2006). a combination of economic, cultural and psychosocial dimensions, however, is largely left out from these discussions. this article combines these dimensions with the purpose of examining some aspects of the complex situation of a group that is hardly covered in the existing body of literature – the south asians in denmark. our article is based on two recent empirical studies, the first about the life trajectories of young south asian adults (singla 2008) and the second about pakistani youth in denmark as agents of development in the country of origin (fabricius & holm 2007). 2 these studies add to the discussion of the role of diaspora in the economic and social developments in the country of origin. the aim of the second study is to investigate the nature and extent of transnational activities among the pakistani descendant in denmark of significance to development in pakistan. the question asked is how we can see pakistani descendants in denmark engage as development agents in pakistan. we focus on the pakistani descendants’ remittance pattern and how it is affected by their being brought up in denmark. the broader strategy of the pakistani descendants in denmark in relation to development in pakistan is of great significance as the transformations in economic strategy from the first generation migrants to their descendants over time can affect the economical support to pakistan from overseas. however, we are also aware that along with contributing to development, remittances also have negative side effects, as they may add to economic inequality and increase dependency among the receiving families. migrants in denmark we attempt to paint the danish scene with a broad brush in order to comprehend interplay between the macro and the micro aspects. in denmark, ethnic minorities constitute about 9.8% of the total population of 5.56 millions in january 2011, approximately 6,5 % of ethnic minorities are from non-western countries. there are 6621indians, out of which 1171 are descendents that have been born in denmark. there were total 20626 persons with origins in pakistan and 9251descendants of pakistani parents in denmark (danish statistics, 2011). many of the migrants were children when they came to denmark, which means that the pakistani community is relatively young. it is noticeable that approximately 1/3 of the persons with origins in india and 2/3 of persons with origin in pakistan have danish citizenship. significant immigration to denmark began in the late 1960s with the arrival of labour migrants from yugoslavia and turkey, as well as a small number from non-european countries (mainly pakistan and north africa). the largest numbers of migrants are concentrated in copenhagen county and its sub-districts, followed by aarhus, the second largest city, and odense, the third largest. as in other european countries, migrants in denmark settled mainly in decaying inner city areas or in newly constructed high-rise suburbs around the larger cities. in denmark, the majority of ethnic minorities are to be found at the lowest end of the labour market in terms of skills and qualifications or in self-employment. in the present situation, inter-ethnic relations are rather strained as intolerance and right-wing extremism have increased. tougher restrictions have also been introduced on the acquisition of citizenship through naturalisation. family reunification has been tightened to such an extent that today it is virtually impossible for the members of ethnic minorities from non-western countries to be united with their spouses in denmark, unless a range of conditions are fulfilled by the applicants. these factors place denmark rather low in parameters of the migrant integration policy index – mipex, whereas ethnic minorities have relatively higher placing on the political participation parameter. 33 recent research indicates that in current public, media and political discourse, the terms ‘ethnic minorities’ and ‘immigrants’ are unconsciously associated with muslims. muslims constitute the majority of all non-western immigrants and their descendants, as well as the single largest group among all minority faith communities in denmark. at the same time, it is important to note that there are ethnic minorities belonging to faiths such as christianity, hinduism, sikhism and buddhism (singla 2008). indians and pakistanis are perceived as relatively successful in their economic and social integration in denmark, especially as they have higher levels of education and self-employment than other ethnic minority groups, in spite of the generally low position of ethnic minorities in the labour market (qureshi 1999). according to a recent report by united nation’s fund for agricultural development (ifad), 1,500 billion kroner are sent as remittances from western countries to “developing countries,” and out of these, 578 billion are sent to asia. ifad considers this transfer of money as the “human face of globalisation,” while some scholars in denmark consider this a barrier for migrants’ integration (andersen & kjær 2008). in the danish context, migrants send up to 10 billion kroner to their country of origin every year. ballard (2004) notes that these figures cover only half of the total amount of remittances, as there are informal transfers of money going on. in the south asian case, these depend on a value transfer system known as hawala. due to demographic changes and strict immigration laws, the number of first generation migrants is shrinking and the generation of descendants that may take over the responsibility of sending remittances is increasing. this article aims to cover some micro-level aspects of the descendants’ socio-economic strategies partly from the subjective perspective of the young persons, thus addressing interaction between agency and structure. theoretical framework the theoretical framework of the first study combines social psychological and anthropological perspectives. in this framework, the youth appear as active agents and their relation to the context is seen as dialectical. the present study is a follow-up of an earlier study (singla 2004b), conducted in a context characterised by radical modernity, which involved resolving the tension between indiviualism and communality (dencik 2005). furthermore, a life course perspective (levy et al. 2005) is combined with positioning theory (harré & moghaddam 2003). the study recognises that intersections of important forms of social stratification such as ethnicity, age, class, gender, and nationality bear significantly upon diaspora histories (phoenix 2008, sen, 2006), though ethnicity and age are here in the foreground. the second study has a combined focus on transnational activities and identity construction. the purpose of combining insights from these approaches has been to try to bridge a gap between pakistani descendants’ construction of identity within transnational social fields and their actions as development agents. we consider that the lives and everyday strategies of many second-generation pakistani are oriented towards and developed in relation to more than one national context, and that their transnational orientations are not necessarily obstacles to their national feeling of belonging (yuval-davis 2006). there is a complex interaction between national and religious belonging characterised by two emergent tendencies. the first tendency points to being a muslim first, without attaching significance to geographical locations, while the second implies being a muslim along with a national identity such as muslim of pakistani background living in denmark (khawaja 2007). it is thought-provoking to contemplate with brah (2007) that in the late modernity in terms of our identifications (or contra-identifications, 34 for that matter) we are all diasporised across multiple social and psychological ‘borders’ and share a ‘homing desire’ for security and belonging. major discussions to which we contribute, concern transnationalism and diaspora, both of which have diffused widely over the past years. these terms have been embraced not only by mobile people themselves, but also by international organisations and state authorities. a relatively new concept, transnationalism is not limited to migration-related phenomena, but refers to a wider class of actions, processes and institutions that cross the boundaries of states or national communities. in the contemporary literature, the notion of transnationalism has been generally used to refer to migrants’ ongoing ties with source countries. transnational migration can be defined more broadly as a triangular relation between migrants, source and destination countries. guarnizo (2000) delineates variations in the intensity and frequency of transnational practices by defining as ‘core transnationalism’ those activities which are integral parts of the individual’s life. these activities are patterned and thus somewhat predictable. ‘expanded transnationalism,’ in contrast, includes migrants who respond to political crises or national disasters by engaging in occasional transnational practices. the second study is an example of expanded transnationalism, while the first one illustrates core transnationalism.3 like transnational, the term diaspora has achieved significance beyond the realm of migration, and in some discussions it signals a broader postcolonial debate on overcoming eurocentric approaches, for example in paul gilroy’s the black atlantic (kalra, kaur & hutnik 2005). dufoix (2008) proposes a broader conceptualisation of diaspora as a dispersal process which implies distance. thus maintaining or creating connections becomes a major goal in reducing or at least dealing with that distance. on the other hand, anthias (2006) proposes that diaspora could be used to counter the essentialism found in many traditional approaches to ethnicity, as diasporic bonds may weaken transethnic bonds with other groups which are involved more local or national contestations and struggles. in short, while in some contexts diaspora relates to parochial concerns of nation-state formation or secession, in others diaspora figures as a symbol related to new forms of cosmopolitan stance, which represents a capacity to live in multiplex environments and have multiple identities, implying belongings across state borders. in our article diaspora connotes a broad range of connections across borders. in the past decades, the attitudes and actions of sending countries have transformed, which makes such connections possible. sending countries have started to actively support diasporas’ engagement in development cooperation, tapping into the allegedly rich resources of financial remittances, human capital and 'social remittances' transferred, among other channels, through diaspora groups, such as religious communities and hometown associations. in other words, a new development agent is emerging. for example, some states with significant rates of emigration, such as the philippines, vietnam and india, have stopped calling their citizens abroad “traitors” and celebrate them as “our heroes” with the motto of “engaging the diaspora: the way forward” (bamzai 2004; pbd 2008). a series of programmes like know india and scholarship for diaspora children, along with a new focus on the preservation of language and culture in diaspora and the importance of migrants as facilitators and bridge builders further illustrate these tendencies. naidoo (2005) and guzder & krishna, 2005 note that sending countries such as india are attempting to woo their diasporic populations to share their knowledge and experiential and economic capital by emphasising the economic advantages of investing in the country of origin. these practices lead to sort of dual memberships in the country of origin as well the country of residence. levitt (2001) suggests that the proliferation of these dual memberships contradicts conventional notions of immigrant incorporation, 35 migrants’ impact on sending countries, and the relationship between migration and development in both contexts. in this article, we stress the subjective features of diaspora populations, the agency (the meanings held and practices conducted by social actors) and the multiple meanings of diaspora, especially the perception of diaspora as a social form (vertovec 2000). we also conceptualise diaspora as a psychological consciousness and mode of cultural production/consumption. diaspora as a social form is about relations, networks, and economic strategies across borders while consciousness is awareness about multi-locality, both here and there, connection with others who share similar roots and routes. kalra et al. (2005) criticise the idea of migration as a one-way process in which people migrate from one place and settle in another and argue that an understanding of complex transnational identities needs new conceptual maps. they conceptualise diaspora both as a positive embracing of transnational affiliation as well as a defensive posture in the face of a hostile host saying “you do not belong.” the theoretical point of departure is that transnational involvement and incorporation in the country of residence coexist and in some cases mutually reinforce each other (levitt 2001). these border-crossing processes imply the formation of transnational communities that challenge the assumption of the nation state as the natural social and political form of the modern world (see wimmer & glick schiller 2002 on methodological nationalism in social science). research methodology both studies were based on in-depth interviews with people of south asian (indian and pakistani) background, approximately 30 years of age. in the first study, singla conducted interviews with 9 of the 14 young adults who had been interviewed approximately 10 years ago in the first wave of the study in the greater copenhagen area (singla 2004a, 2004b). among the young adults, only one – mita – was hindu/sikh, while the others were muslims. re-establishing contact after a decade was rather demanding and two of the informants could not be traced due to lack of cooperation by gatekeepersin-charge of the youth residential institution, while two were not healthy enough to be interviewed. attention was paid to the ethical issues involved and creating a balance between the insider and outsider perspective in the dynamics of linguistic and ethnic matching between the informants and the researcher (kvale & brinkmann 2009, singla 2004b). a perspectival subjectivity – adopting different perspectives and posing different questions on the same themes – contributed to formation of explicit questions based both on the first wave findings and a theoretically informed questioning including the new literature (between the first and the second wave). the informants were given a choice of languages for the interview as there was ethnic and linguistic matching between the researcher and the informants. out of the 5 informants with south asian background, the choice was english for one, mother tongue urdu / punjabi for another and a mixture of danish and urdu for the rest. the interviews were conducted in the researcher’s ngo, to which all the informants had agreed. they were tape recorded and transcribed in english. in order to investigate young adults as agents of development, fabricius & holm (2007) conducted a case study based on second generation pakistani volunteers in a danish ngo called danish muslim aid (dma). the study looked at pakistanis’ engagement and motivation in relief projects as well as long-term projects that dma has established in the nora sheri 36 district in northern pakistan, hit by an enormous earthquake in october 2005. the case demonstrates the active role of migrants not only long-term but also in emergency aid and their assistance in reconstructing the province. dma is a religious organisation established in 2005. its members have multiethnic social networks based on religion, though according to the organisation’s website, it provides aid across ethnic, religious and political borders. besides emergency relief, other activities include sponsorship of orphaned children in many developing countries, dispatching new and used hospital and school equipment where needed, school and water projects as well as micro-financing projects. fabricius & holm (2007) have picked out this organisation because they see it as a representative of a new way of sending collective remittances. they conducted qualitative interviews in pakistan and in denmark. in pakistan they interviewed 3 officers responsible for projects and 7 volunteers, as well as 3 of their beneficiaries. to compare dma’s development work to other projects in the area we interviewed the danish ambassador in islamabad, 3 pakistani journalists who have reported from the earthquake area and the leader of pakistani center for philanthropy. in denmark, 8 interviews were conducted with second-generation pakistanis. all interviewees had islamic backgrounds. the informants were interviewed in their homes, in a suburb of copenhagen, in danish language. the main analysis in this article builds on meaning condensation of narratives, followed by their categorisation in post hoc categories, noting patterns. to sharpen understanding, the analytic strategy of making contrasts/comparisons was used (kvale & brinkmann, 2009). in interpreting the narratives, the focus was on the spirit rather than on the letter of the interview texts. a theoretically informed reading of interviews, especially a combination of realist and critical reading led to a search for participants’ points of view as well as calling attention to the broader issues seeking a deeper truth underlying the hegemonic discourse of the interview texts (ibid, p. 236). a conceptual framework of push and pull factors is developed to analyse factors connecting second generation migrants to the country of origin as well as the country of residence. in the first study, the longitudinal research design made analyses of the informants’ earlier intentions and their realisation possible (singla, 2005, singla 2008). we focus here on the economic strategies used by the young adults in relation to their country of origin. economic strategies are seen as ways of maintaining contact with the country of origin involving monetary transaction in variety of forms such as direct economic assistance, indirect assistance in procurement of goods, investment in real estate, and payment to employees. results social relations and strategies across geographical borders: the study sheds light on the socioeconomic aspects of transnational relations, consisting of migrants’ relationship to the ancestral country and their relations with the diasporic community in the other parts of the world. the myth of return as an archetype of diaspora is indirectly included. we have placed the young adults in the following post-hoc categories: 1. comprehensive strategies 2. limited contact and strategies 37 comprehensive economic strategies this analysis indicates paradoxes in the psychosocial understandings of the young adults. mita, a young indian woman, illustrates this well: she has comprehensive contacts to her ancestral country because of her marriage to an indian spouse and their business relations to a major city in india.4 she is the only respondent who has been to india eight times in the past decade and also has business and familial relations in the uk. she mentions economic strategies related to the company employees in india and emphasises that there are no economic obligations to the in-laws family as they are economically well off and encourage the couple’s endeavours. mita’s economic strategies are an example of the positive effects of transnational investment through creation of jobs – a ‘productive’ investment in contrast to spending on consumer goods, although her strategy doesn’t entail sending of cash remittances (vertovec 2004). aman [husband] is only paying his staff in india and he would try to put some money to develop his company in india…. the family support is none, as my in-laws don’t want to take any. they say build your own. mita proclaims her connection and gratitude for denmark as her country of birth and upbringing, providing “settlement for life” along with positive feelings for her country of origin that she didn’t have earlier due to limited contact. denmark is my country because i am born here…. but what i gained in denmark is simply my settlement for life. got my education here, came back and the first future and everything i need for progress in life, i got it here… i do belong to denmark. but i love india as well. mita is reflexive about her positive feelings and connection to both countries and seems to be content with the present solution of their business relations between india and denmark. at the same time, she expresses critical views about the stigmatisation and restrictions of ethnic minorities in denmark. so we both are mixing it together and it is going very well for our company. if i can succeed this way, i am not going to feel that i miss anything... have both of the things i want. … tomorrow my dream is to work in india. to give myself such a status in the company that i can go and live there forever. …the danish culture is very restricted … are not very open to foreign cultures. mita is also affiliated through her parents to a hindu religious sect originating from india, and contributes once in a while to the sect, which has branches not only in denmark but also in germany and the uk. mita’s economic strategies have to be seen in the context of changes in her life course as well as the structural changes in india and denmark. she had no plans of becoming established in india or denmark at the time of the original study (singla 2004b) and wanted to get married and settle in the uk. transitions in her life-situation – high educational achievement, self-chosen marriage with a south indian of the same profession as herself, and her father’s illness in denmark have been the pull factors for her economic strategies at personal level. at the same time, economic growth in india, especially in the bio-technical sector with export potential, is the main reason at the structural level. her economic strategies are different from her parents’, who only sent economic remittances during the first phase of their stay in denmark as long as mita’s grandmother was alive. now they have very limited economic activity in relation to the religious sect in india they have been affiliated to. 38 nadia is the only other young adult who has comprehensive economic strategies in relation to her country of origin and paradoxically the only one who has not visited afghanistan and pakistan at all since she arrived in denmark about 15 years ago. political uncertainty in her country of origin pushes her away. some of her maternal family lives in australia and pakistan, while her paternal family, with whom there is telephone and internet contact, has moved to germany and the u.s.a. nadia has a well-defined and motivated economic strategy in relation to the family living in afghanistan, as she sends money to them every month, while another family member from germany also supports her uncle’s family in the country of origin. these economic strategies illustrate the significance of remittances for the extended family in a catastrophic situation in a country at war. she can be positioned as a compassionate family member, having multiple diasporic relations in many contexts. nadia’s parents also support her mother’s family of origin economically, as her father’s family is well to do. her remittances can be perceived as essential for the extended family’s survival, but they can hardly be argued to lead to the negative impact of economic dependence (vertovec 2004), given the situation of afghanistan, and the practice can be called core transnationalism according to guanizo’s conceptualisation. we have my mother’s family in afghanistan. our contact is that we send money to them every month. i send money to my grandmother and to my mother’s sister. i have chosen to send money to them. ... my mother’s sister in germany sends money to my uncle’s family …my father’s family, many of them are millionaires, and they have businesses. in contrast to mita, nadia has no economic affiliations to any religious organisation. on the other hand she contributes to “cosmopolitan” organisations like red cross, refugee help, amnesty international and green peace. she justifies her decision as: i appreciate them. on the whole, mita and nadia’s direct economic strategies differ from the other young adults, who have very limited or no direct economic connections to their country of origin, as can be seen in the next section. furthermore, there is no proportionality between direct social contact, such as number of visits, and the economic strategies, as mita has visited india eight times and nadia has not been on a visit even once, yet both make regular economic contributions. the parental strategies are also highly differentiated. mita’s parents do not send remittances at the moment, though her grandmother used to receive remittances for a number of years. on the other hand, atim‘s parents spend 3-4 months a year in their country of origin and have substantial economic strategies as well as high level of participation in their transnational network. the concept of transnationalism from below may describe these strategies, though with a large variation. limited strategies in contrast to mita’s and nadia’s comprehensive economic connections to their ancestral country, other young adults, abdul, salman and atim, have almost no economic strategies in relation to pakistan. however, they explicitly mention their parents’ close relationship with the country of origin. my parents have kept contact with the country of origin... they have not forgotten where they came from. 39 in the original study abdul was very connected to pakistan, where he had studied in a boarding school. he was also psychologically attached to his father’s older brother. he visited pakistan only twice in the past decade and he singled out economy and property-related conflicts between his father and uncle as reasons for their estrangement. like abdul, salmon has rather limited connections with his ancestral country due to conflictual relations in the extended family and his wife’s afghani background. however, he attended his younger brother’s wedding in pakistan. his narrative of less frequent contacts after the grandparents’ demise can be understood through the life course perspective, while marriage outside the family, in contradiction to dominant norms of muslim extended family endogamy, is another reason for the diminished contact. likewise, family conflicts pertaining to property in salman’s narrative can be seen as a pushing away -factor from the country of origin. these conflictual relationships also illustrate that south asian families can be supportive when it goes well, but when things go badly, the consequences can be disastrous (ballard 2005). rest of our family live in pakistan. my parents keep in contact. we are an extended family with lots of conflicts, partly because my parents chose to get their children’s spouses from outside the family and partly because of some property matters…these are the reasons for the distance within the family. we visit them though. we had a closer relationship with the family when my grandparents were alive. after their death it is not the same. however, as a company owner, abdul travels comprehensively and has an international business network. i have business contacts in countries like italy, america, and korea and germany. i travel twice a year to these countries. these narratives illustrate lucidly that economic strategies are related to an array of complex factors not only at the personal level, such as the spouse’s national background, but also salient interpersonal factors such as relationships within the extended family. additionally, interpersonal dynamics are influenced by life course transitions such as demise of the older generation in the country of origin. congruently, life course transitions can be seen as making intergenerational changes in economic strategies understandable. however, the results from the second study indicate that there can be other grounds for remittances than solidarity within the extended family. migrants’ descendants as agents of development the informants contributed to economic development in pakistan in the context of a natural disaster, which can be seen as expanded transnationalism (guarnizo 1997). but the findings suggest that the informants have a high level of identification with different cultures in both pakistan and denmark in accordance with the second tendency delineated by khawaja (2007). it seems that their capabilities and desires to participate in transnational activities related to development are very individually influenced by the way they are brought up and the connection to the family’s social network in pakistan. these informants contribute less through individual remittance and more through collective remittances. the traditional tax paid by the informants, zakat,5 is used for other purposes than the family. the informants have an opportunity to pay zakat via a giro-card through dma and they support dma projects both in pakistan but also in other counties where dma works, for 40 instance uganda. the aid is not religiously conditioned as such, but the informants describe that their contributions are a religious obligation. the group of informants in fabricius and holm’s study (2007) is a religious group and we are aware that that may have influenced their way of presenting their motives. we try to take into consideration the many aspects and variations in the lives of these second generation pakistani. it is difficult to distinguish between identity-driven and structurally driven causes for their activity, but we argue that their religious identity combined with the national one is one of their main reasons to engage in development in pakistan. the pakistani descendants broach that the difference between them and their parents as agents of development is that the they call for transparency. from their own point of view there is more interest in and concern about the development projects and processes for which remittance are used. they explained that their parental generation largely support their family or a mosque, although driven by the obligation to pay zakat. they derive satisfaction from their payment. in other words, the parents are satisfied with the action rather than the results, whereas the informants themselves emphasise their interest in the actual results. it is not tradition to get feedback from the mosque in the same way as we do it [in dmaid]. i don’t know if it is a typically muslim thing, but it is something like that what counts is that you support a good cause (…), whether or not the money actually ends in the hands of those in need. maybe there are some that cheat or something like that, that is not your problem. you have gained what you wanted out of it. so therefore there is no tradition for feedback. some make demands on what it is used for but the majority of my father’s generation do not. (nadeem) the informants argue that some of their generation and especially their children in the future will channel their support less individually and those who will support do so by sending collective remittances through organisations like dma. i have the feeling that my generation and the generation that follow me. (…) many of them will support through organisations. (nadeem) collective remittances can help to minimise the economic gap between families who have migrant members in foreign countries and others in a local society in pakistan because they support those who need the help most. on the other hand, one can argue that members of the parental generation know more about the needs of the local society than the descendants who are brought up in denmark. thus the parental generation, paying attention to how their remittances were used, might have helped the needy in the local community. from national level to cosmopolitan level we found that volunteers in dma glorify their own way of contributing to development worldwide and do not in the same way value their parental generation’s way of supporting pakistan. some young people mentioned that their parental generation has also sent remittances to development projects similar to theirs; building schools or paying school fees for children. the difference is that collective remittances are not sent with the same local attachment by the younger generation. the informants explained that most of their families were in europe and that the connection to pakistan was somehow disintegrating, except for those who had married a pakistani from pakistan. 41 we are influenced by the danish culture, danish association-culture, a danish way of thinking, a danish way of arguing. in connection to organisations we are inspired and influenced by the danish society also in when it comes to culture and religion. (hussain) five of the informants support dma projects in pakistan and the majority of the informants still feel a connection to their parents’ local society in pakistan. besides the collective remittances, they send individual remittances through the family network. i think that most of them [the second generation] support on two levels – the one we are brought up with and have seen our parents do and then we also support on another level by engaging ourselves in organisations. (humma) three informants underlined that they support the organisation’s projects in africa but the rest support projects in pakistan. some of them describe it as a tendency that will grow in their children’s generation. this religious group (and probably their children) will keep on sending money to a developing country because they fulfil a religious obligation to do so, but the focus might not continue to be on pakistan. additionally, the results show that the youth are supporting development at a broader level compared to the relatively narrow extended family economic support given by their parents. these practices can be understood as cosmopolitism – a broader, more international position with a varied supportive network, transcending the national borders (frello 2006). discussion the analyses based on the young adults’ narratives add nuances to the understanding of the socio-economic dynamics of diasporic groups by combining a social psychological framework with broader social-economic conceptualisations. the young south asians’ narratives illustrate the vast variation in the economic strategies within the diaspora. regular remittances either as payment for the employees of one’s own firm, economic support to the extended family or to development projects in the ancestral country are at one end of the continuum, while the other end is illustrated by young people who do not send any remittances at all to the country of origin. ballard (2008) also concludes that in an unstable world, corporate, collective families deploying strategies involving fulfilment of obligations do enjoy some degree of coherence and stability. however, there are necessary costs: the attenuation of personal freedoms of choice. on the other hand, some young people are sending remittances at a broader cosmopolitan level through organisations to different parts of the world, transcending the narrow national borders. cohesion of the diaspora group hardly interferes with their integration in the country of residence (levitt 2006). congruently vertovec (2004) also regards the polarisation between transationalism and adaptation in the country of residence as a false dichotomy and notes that these developments do not always entail a clash of social worlds. he delineates the impacts of transnational practices on families’ perceptual orientation, and emphasizes the sense of dual orientation well as changes in value systems across whole regions. similarly, guarnizo (1997) sees the transnational habitus as a set of dualistic dispositions – a set of dual references through which comparisons of migrants’ situation in the ‘home’ to their situation in the ‘host’ society takes place, pertaining primarily to first generation migrants. 42 the current analyses show that some youth like mita are active diaspora members as well as constructive members of danish society, while some, like salman, show a relatively low level of transnational involvement. furthermore, attention is directed to the continued social relations and economic strategies of the young adults in the country of origin. intersectionality of informants’ own ethnic identity with the family history, educational and economic level and the ethnic/regional identity of the partner influence the extent and quality of these contacts (phoenix 2006). at the same time, life course transitions such as marriage with a partner from the country of origin and tragic demise of a family member also plays a part. interpersonal reasons, like a business firm/extended family situation, religious/spiritual reasons and structural factors such as business potential, economic hardships and catastrophe in the country of origin seem to be more relevant for understanding these different economic strategies as well as the economic strategies of the parental generation. the parental strategies are also highly differentiated, as some send no economic remittances while others have substantial economic commitments. and some of the parental generation also send remittances to development projects. in spite of these differences, all the young adults point to their belonging to the country of origin in different ways. as discussed by fortier, remittances contribute both to the feeling of being included and in possession, which is an important aspect of belonging (in buciek & juul 2008). moreover, they emphasise the connection between places involving multiple allegiances and belongings as kind of intermediate space between nations and cultures (buciek & juul 2008). based on our analyses and discussion, we can point to three emergent socioeconomic strategies among the youth. the first are individual socioeconomic strategies which could be related to business or support for the extended family, while the second one is not having a personal economic strategy, but mentioning a parental strategy. the third one is the collective strategies through organisations, where aid may be directed to the country of origin and/or some other country. the assumption by guarnizo (2003) that remittances have become the most visible evidence and measuring stick for the ties connecting migrants to the country of origin is challenged by these findings. at the same time, guarnizo’s statement that transnational practices cannot be neatly compartmentalized and nor can their consequences, makes us aware of the arbitrariness and complexities of these strategies. these results are in congruence with hole’s anthropological study of indian gujaraties in sweden (2005), which indicated substantial intergenerational differences in economic strategies in relation to india. the young generation sent almost no remittances to the extended family in contrast to the parental generation. among the reasons delineated by hole are the fact that the young generation is born and brought up in sweden and have very limited contact with the extended family, and the relative positive changes in the economic status of the extended family in india. similar results are found among the south asian diaspora in norway by carling (2004). the concept of filial piety implying obligation to help the older generation, especially in time of need (bachchu 1999; lau 1986) still has significance but does not lead to transnational economic strategies as both generations now live in the country of residence, unlike the situation for the parental generation. the increasing significance of the country of residence as the location of displaying economic status at the personal as well as the community level can be another factor related to the 43 changes in the economic linkages across borders. some youth position themselves as belonging to denmark and they contribute less to individual remittances. however, they still send some collective remittances to the country of origin. this corresponds partly to the conclusion by vertovec (2004) that the post-migration second and subsequent generations will probably not have the everyday orientation and practices of their forefathers, but these orientations and practices continue to have enduring impression on their identities and activities. brown and talbot (2006) illustrate these changes through the south asian diaspora’s development of sacred spaces, like ostentatious temples in localities such as neasden in northwest london and south hall in west london. these sacred organisations also maintain ties to the country of origin through collective economic linkages and visits of gurus and sages, but also by contributing to the creation and sustaining of psychosocial relations and identities. in another context, among indians in trinidad & tobago, diasporic consciousness is perceived as an expression of indo-trinidadians’ agency and is fundamentally political. seeking to alleviate, or counteract the vulnerability that betrayal and ignorance are perceived to foster, indotrinidadians strive for potent visibility in the nationalist ideology through narrative memorializations of injustice and practiced attainments of religious knowledge (khan 2007). these practices are indicative of the diaspora members’ awareness of processes of exclusion in the country of residence. the economic strategies of second generation pakistani are positive ways of facing the “closure” tendencies in scandinavian societies, which are relatively milder than the ones delineated below. what unsettles cultures is 'matter out of place’ the breaking of our unwritten rules and codes. dirt in the garden is fine, but dirt in one's bedroom is 'matter out of place'a sign of pollution, of symbolic boundaries being transgressed, of taboos broken. what we do with matters out of place is to sweep it up, throw it out, restore the place to order, bring back the normal state of affairs. the retreat of many cultures towards 'closure' against foreigners, aliens and 'others 'is a part of the same process of purification (hall 2000, p. 330). in spite of some experiences of “closure,” it is noticeable that none of the young adults had any concrete plans of returning to the country of origin. these findings are congruent with a psychological study of indians in paris, in which parisians were perceived as closed people. some believed that there was subtle discrimination against outsiders and that people with roots outside france could not reach the top positions in jobs. despite the fact that the immigrants felt emotionally for india, though there was marked variation as regards to the emotional affinity experienced and expressed towards the country of origin, few had plans to return (verma 2000). there are, at the same time, economic strategies among the young members of the diaspora, which indicate a cosmopolitan stance, representing a capacity to live in multiplex environments and have multiple identities. one or another of these multiple identities can come to the fore in any particular setting (van deer veer 1999, bamzai 2004, singla 2004a). socio-economic strategies among the diaspora are marked by the three different trends analysed above, confirming connections to the country of origin as well as a trend towards cosmopolitanism, which co-exist in a complex manner in the lives of some youth. these transnational ties are not contradictory to inclusion into a host country; instead, these two processes seem to occur simultaneously. 44 conclusion in the first study (singla 2007), the major findings about the socialpsychological aspects with focus on the economic strategies of the young south asians reveal some paradoxical tendencies, a large variation in the direct economic strategies coexisting with the common feature of a diasporic identity with elements from the country of residence as well as the ancestral country. at the same time, the myth of return to the country of origin is hardly realised for the youth, which indicates that the south asian youth are both here and there, though mostly here. the second study (fabricius & holm 2007) reveals a tendency among a group of young pakistanis to send remittances from a broader perspective than the narrow local perspective of the parental generation. we can thus identify three emergent forms of socioeconomic strategies among the south asian diaspora youth: individual strategies involving professional business-related investment and direct remittances; second, almost no personal strategy but awareness of parental strategy and third the collective strategy through organisation. in the third strategy the religious belongings seem to cement forms of contact and affiliation that are simultaneous global and local. each strategy has of course different objectives, motivations and ways to conduct influenced by the multifactorial interplay in denmark as well as the south asian context, yet the commonality pertains to interconnections between the geographical and/or generational aspects. some of the questions concerning the subsequent generations raised in the other studies of diaspora and transnationalism have been answered positively – there are patterns of continued socioeconomic strategies among the young generation indicating psychological connections across borders, though in different proportions and forms from those of the parental generation. this challenges predictions of the disappearance of transnational practices (levitt 2001, rambout 2002). finally, our study confirms that the transnational practices of the second generation can often emerge in unexpected forms and in unexpected places. perspectives we have discussed the complex interplay between micro and macro levels through the transformations in intergenerational economic dynamics in interaction with socio-economic conditions in the country of residence as well as in the country of origin. yet there are some unanswered questions, which need to be investigated further. we could shed light on the business-related economic strategies among young diaspora members especially in the context of increasing technological development in south asia. furthermore, there could be a development of agencies where transparency could be assured and through which the diaspora could send collective remittances for the broader development of the country of origin instead of the more individual remittances. migration from south asia continues and therefore it is important to investigate what will happen when the young diaspora take over the responsibility of sending remittances, for instance from scandinavia. how will transnational family relationships be affected by transformations in remittance patterns? how will the intergenerational dynamics be affected by these changes in the country of origin and the country of residence? in agreement with anthias (2006), we must be careful that the focus on belongings in terms of diasporic attachments does not foreclose a concern with differences of gender, class and generation within diasporic groups. some groups of young people will probably 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copenhagen 48 van deer veer, peter (1999). cosmopolitanism, secularism and transnational religion presentation in the esrc transnational communities programme seminar, oxford university, 6 may. verma, jyoti (2000). report acculturation experiences of indian immigrants in paris, maison des sciences de l’homme, paris. vertovec, steven (2000). the hindu diaspora: comparative patterns routeledge: london. vertovec, steven (2004). trends and impacts of migrant transnationalism, centre on migration, policy and society, working papern.3, university of oxford, pp.1-78. vertovec, steven (2007). introduction: new directions in the anthropology of migration and multiculturalism. ethnic and racial studies vol.30, no.6 november, pp. 961-978. the world bank/international bank for reconstruction and development (2006). global economic prospects, economic implications of remittances and migration 2006, 34320, washington, dc wimmer, andreas & nina glick schiller (2002). methodological nationalism and beyond: nation–state building, migration and the social sciences. global networks, volume 2, issue 4, pp. 301-334. yuval-davis, nira (2007): nationalism, belonging, globalisation and ethics of care in kvinder, køn &forskning 2-3, 91-100. * this article is based on a paper presented at the 19th annual meeting on socio-economics, cbs, international centre for business and politics, copenhagen, denmark, june 30, 2007, changing political economies: macro trends and micro experiment research network: race, ethnicity and immigration 1 also referred as destination country, receiving country, country of settlement , host country, while country of origin is referred as the source country, sending country or ancestral country. 2 many people in pakistan are depended on remittance. the world bank estimated that the remittance to pakistan in 2001 and 2006 constitute respectively 1,9% and 2% of the country’s gnp, whereas imf in 2002 estimated the remittance to be 6% of the country’s gnp (carling 2005, the world bank 2006). pakistan is number 12th on the list of countries receiving most remittance in the world (the world bank 2006), and these figures are based on remittances that are transferred through official channels. 3 the use of transnationalism as a concept for studying the contributions of second generation pakistani in denmark to development in pakistan should be considered with caution in the present study because there is limited understanding of the ways in which various factors such as level of education, class, gender, caste, or regional origin affect their involvement (al-ali, black and koser 2001). 4 they have established a business firm in the field of pharmacy as her husband had masters in pharmacy and biotechnology. 49 5 zakat is one of islam’s five columns – a kind of tax that is paid by believing muslims. authors rashmi singla is an associate professor in the department of psychology and educational studies at roskilde university, denmark and also affiliated to ngo transcultural therapeutic team for ethnic minority youth and their families (ttt) in copenhagen. anne sophie fabricius and anne holm are both cand. scient. soc. from roskilde university, denmark. email for corresponding author (singla): rashmi@ruc.dk untitled 63 othering, identity formation and agency sune qvotrup jensen abstract. the article examines the potentials of the concept of othering to describe identity formation among ethnic minorities. first, it outlines the history of the concept, its contemporary use, as well as some criticisms. then it is argued that young ethnic minority men in denmark are subject to intersectional othering, which contains elements of exoticist fascination of the other. on the basis of ethnographic material, it is analysed how young marginalized ethnic minority men react to othering. two types of reactions are illustrated: 1) capitalization on being positioned as the other, and 2) refusing to occupy the position of the other by disidentification and claims to normality. finally, it is argued that the concept of othering is well suited for understanding the power structures as well as the historic symbolic meanings conditioning such identity formation, but problematic in terms of agency. keywords: othering; agency; ethnicity; gender; intersectionality. please cite this article as: jensen, s.q. (2011). othering, identity formation and agency. qualitative studies, 2(2): 63-78. introduction from a social science point of view, identities are in some sense always social. this means that ethnic minority identities are always situated within specific social contexts and conditioned by them. one theoretical concept offered to explain such processes is othering, originally coined within post-colonial theory. but can this concept help us understand the processes of identity formation in everyday life? danish public discourses on integration, migration and ethnic minorities constitute a specific case of situatedness for ethnic minorities, including young ethnic minority men. media discourses have to a very high degree problematized the presence of ‘others’ in denmark as well as pathologized their alleged ‘culture’ (yilmaz, 1999; wren, 2001; røgilds, 2002; hervik, 2004), and young ethnic minority men in particular have been subject to pathologization by discourses which link ethnic minority backgrounds to crime and/or problematic and aggressive sexuality (andreassen, 2005; jensen 2007). the non-white and non-danish is then equated with the savage, uncontrolled and deviant as opposed to orderly and civilized danishness (cf. mclaren, 1994, p. 60). these discourses may be understood as othering. following the adaptive theory research strategy outlined by layder (1998), the aim of this article is to confront the theory of othering with ethnographic data about young marginalized ethnic minority men; not in order to test the theory in a narrow sense, but to create a dialogue between theory and data in order to assess the limitations and possibilities inherent in the concept, while at the same time shedding light on an empirical field. the article analyzes empirically how othering is met with agency by these young men. by doing so, the article raises questions about the structuralist understanding of identity formation inherent in the concept of othering on two levels: firstly, the idea that the power to construct identity lies with the powerful. secondly, the idea that identity formation can be grasped as a dichotomous relation between self/first and other. 64 the article starts by outlining some theoretical considerations about othering and identity formation. the next part of the article analyses ethnographic data in order to examine whether these young men are ‘becoming the other self’. first, strategies which capitalize on othering are analysed. next, strategies which can be interpreted as refusal of the category of the other are analysed. finally, the conclusion sums up the empirical results and discusses the limitations and potentials of using the concept. theoretical considerations about othering and identity formation although first coined as a systematic theoretical concepti by spivak in 1985, the notion of othering draws on several philosophical and theoretical traditions. significantly, the concept draws on an understanding of self which is a generalization of hegel’s master-slave dialectic as developed in phänomenologie des geistes. hegel is often – in what heartfield (2005) calls a dispirited version of hegel – read as a theory of self and other in which the juxtaposition towards the other constitutes the self. this understanding of self and other is prevalent in de beauvoir’s the second sex (1997). here, de beauvoir describes how men are regarded as the norm and women as the other. with reference to hegel, de beauvior universalizes a theory of self and other in relation to both gender and other hierarchical social differences (1997, p. 16). she furthermore argues that the otherness of women produces subjectivity since ‘women exist – and are only conscious of themselves – in ways that men have shaped’ (hughes & witz, 1997, p. 49). early postcolonial writing is another theoretical reference point (said 1995/1978). said writes of an imagined geography, which constructs the orient as other in a reductionist, distancing and pathologizing way. at the same time as being exotizised, the orient is incorporated and fixed, as the function of orientalism is ’at one and the same time to characterize the orient as alien and to incorporate it schematically on a theatrical stage whose audience, managers and actors are for europe, and only for europe’ (pp. 71-72, emphasis in original). a third stepping stone is the ideas of psychoanalyst jacques lacan. two important points can be derived from lacan: firstly, that language plays a central role in constituting identity. this understanding of identity later led althusser to coin the notion of interpellation (1971), a notion grasping how individuals are hailed by ideology to occupy specific subject positions, thereby achieving identity. secondly, lacan stresses that identity is fundamentally gained in the gaze of the powerful (gingrich, 2004, p. 11). drawing on the sources outlined above, spivak was the first to use the notion of othering in a systematic way. although spivak uses the concept in a review of derrida as early as 1980, it is not until 1985 that the concept is used systematically in her essay “the rani of sirmur”ii. here spivak analyses three dimensions of othering present in archive material of the british colonial power in india. the first dimension is illustrated by the english captain, who travels around sirmur on horseback to tell the natives, who their masters are. he describes in a letter how he journeys around colonial india to make the people aware ‘who they are subject to’ (spivak, 1985, p. 254). in sociological terms, this dimension is about power, making the subordinate aware of who holds the power, and hence about the powerful producing the other as subordinate. 65 the second dimension is illustrated in a letter from a general who writes about ‘these highlanders’ that ’i see them only possessing all the brutality and purfidy [sic] of the rudest times without the courage and all the depravity and treachery of the modern days without the knowledge of refinement’ (spivak, 1985, pp. 254-5). in sociological terms, this dimension is about constructing the other as pathological and morally inferior. the third dimension is illustrated in a letter from the board of control in the british east india company which argues that the indian army in colonial india should not be given access to knowledge and technology, i.e. ’the master is the subject of science or knowledge’ (spivak, 1985, p. 256). this dimension of othering implies that knowledge and technology is the property of the powerful empirical self, not the colonial other. it is worth noting that othering is described by spivak as a multidimensional process, in the sense that it touches upon several different forms of social differentiation, and that othering as a concept can therefore be combined with what has later been conceptualised as intersectionality (crenshaw 1989; 1991), or interlocking systems of oppression (collins, 1989) in feminist theory (see collins, 2000; brah & phoenix, 2004; gans, 2008). according to spivak, in the case of the rani, the process of othering is classed and raced as well as gendered. importantly, to speak of othering is then not an alternative to speaking of racism(s)/sexism or class, but a way of addressing an aspect hereof (wren, 2001, p. 144). hence othering concerns the consequences of racism, sexism, class (or a combination hereof) in terms of symbolic degradation as well as the processes of identity formation related to this degradation. to sum up, the theory of identity formation inherent in the concept of othering assumes that subordinate people are offered, and at the same time relegated to, subject positions as others in discourse. in these processes, it is the centre that has the power to describe, and the other is constructed as inferior. it should be noted that the concept in spivak’s version does not focus on the fascination of the other, as it does not evolve around ambivalence or the exoticism of the colonial gaze. the other is always the other as in inferior, not as in fascinating. spivak’s conceptualization is in accordance with contemporary uses of the concept: for instance andersson uses the concept in relation to racialization processes that affect first generation europeans (2010, p. 7); lister defines othering as a ‘process of differentiation and demarcation, by which the line is drawn between ’us’ and ’them’ – between the more and the less powerful – and through which social distance is established and maintained’ (2004, p. 101); schwalbe as ‘…the defining into existence of a group of people who are identifiable, from the standpoint of a group with the capacity to dominate, as inferior’ (2000, p. 777), or as ‘…the process whereby a dominant group defines into existence an inferior group.’ (schwalbe et al. 2000, p. 422). othering at the same time produces difference and problematizes it, in the sense that the group which is othered is also in the process defined as ’morally and/or intellectually inferior’ (schwalbe et al., 2000, p. 423). ’the others’ are reduced to stereotypical characters and are ultimately dehumanized (riggins, 1997, p. 9; lister, 2004, p. 102). such processes imply reduction and essentialization in the sense that those who are othered are reduced to a few negative characteristics. consequently i define othering as discursive processes by which powerful groups, who may or may not make up a numerical majority, define subordinate groups into existence in a reductionist way which ascribe problematic and/or inferior characteristics to these subordinate groups. such discursive processes affirm the legitimacy and superiority of the powerful and condition identity formation among the subordinate (see also jensen, 2010a). 66 while the understanding of identity formation inherent in the concept of othering can be productive, it also raises certain objectives. it has thus been argued that the concept of othering is binary as it is based on the dichotomy of the first and the other, rather than that which transcends these binaries (gingrich, 2004). such an understanding of identity is parallel to an understanding of language in which signs become meaningful in opposition to what they are not. or in the words of diken, ‘the marked term is in fact necessary for the primary term to be defined’ (1998, p. 41). generalizing such structural thinking to matters of social identity can be problematic since it sets up a frame of reference which fails to see the in-between, or the ‘thirdspace’, to borrow a term from social geography (soja, 1996). furthermore those who are othered do not appear as active subjects. consequently bhatt criticizes postcolonial theory for being ‘a kind of heroic, narcissistic victimology that cannot name itself as such’, and notes that ‘[i]n postcolonial theory, the subaltern is simply voiceless‘ (2006, p. 101). other writers have, with explicit reference to spivak’s use of lacan, spoken of a ’psychoanalytical fatalism in critical disguise’ (gingrich, 2004, p. 11). hence gingrich argues that in spivak’s theoretization, othering is something done by the powerful majority, and those who become ‘the other’ are objects in a process of colonial interpellation (2004). these critiques call for theoretical considerations about agency, which i here define as the capacity to act within as well as up against social structures. i am in particular interested in what mclaren calls oppositional agency (mclaren, 1994) whether or not it takes the form of explicit political stance. in other words resistance is central to my analysis. one could argue that identifying resistance requires consciousness and explicit purpose among those who are said to resist. as raby has pointed out, this criterion would however hinder us from grasping resistance among young people who often act less from explicit and conscious motives and more from an only partially conscious feeling of injustice (2005). hence a wider understanding of resistance as oppositional agency is applied here. my analysis focuses on two forms of agency, which can both be argued to have a dimension of resistance. the first i have termed capitalization. this form of agency, which is explained further below, relies not on refusing othering discourses per se, but by appropriating (elements of) them in an attempt to imbue the category of the young ethnic minority man with symbolic value. resistance here takes the form of refusing to be devalued. however this form of agency also has a dimension of reproduction as it draws on stereotypical images. the other form of agency i term refusal. this form of agency relies on articulating distance from the category of the ethnic minority young man, explicitly or through irony, and on refusing to occupy the position of the other. while admittedly such a distinction could be theoretically deconstructed it here serves the purpose of grasping empirical variation in reactions to othering. becoming the other self? the rest of this article will use othering as an analytical starting point for understanding cultural processes of identity formation in everyday life. i address how and to what extent othering conditions identity formation by analyzing how a specific group of actors react to the othering they are subject to. while a full documentation of the discursive othering of the category of young ethnic minority men falls outside the limits of this article, andreasen has demonstrated how public danish 67 discourses about these young men draw heavily on cultural racism (2005). hence, these young men are successively being portrayed as highly problematic. andreassen has analyzed how media stories revolve around a representation of dangerous ‘young visible minority males’ involvement in what newscasters and journalists labelled gangs or groups’ and ‘how they gather in city centres, how they commit crimes and violence’ (2005, p. 77, see alexander, 2000 for british examples). andreassen has also shown how minority men are portrayed as having a ’dangerously high libido’ (2005, p. 215), and how ‘the media looked at the visible minorities with a gaze embodied with fear and myths about hyper-sexuality’ (p. 221). such discourses about sexually dangerous black muslims draw on historical western fetishism and sexualisation of the black male body, which ambivalently combine fear and fascination (mercer & julien, 1988). drawing on andreassen, it is therefore possible to argue that these young men are subject to intersectional othering, which is explicitly related to race, ethnicity and gender, and implicitly to generation and urbanity. the following analysis of how these young men react to othering is based on qualitative ethnographic data from a fieldwork among marginalized young men with ethnic minority background in denmark. the data was collected as part of my phd project investigating the meaning of gender, ethnicity and style in the everyday life of these young men (jensen 2007). the fieldwork took place in three youth clubs and a social project for excluded youths in three danish cities. two were ordinary danish youth clubs (one attended may-december 2001 and september 2003, the other october-november 2005), another an youth club assigned a special role in work with troubled visible ethnic minority youth (attended april 2004-september 2005) and the last a social project working with marginalized young people offering an alternative way to finish school (attended october 2003 to april 2004). a total of 126 participant observations were conducted. most observations took place during the evenings (typically 3-4 hours). in addition to informal conversations, a total of 23 young men aged 15-25 were interviewed in 18 taped semi-structured qualitative interviews with the duration of between 30 minutes and 2 hours. in addition to interview and observation data i draw upon material from magazines, music as well as the internet, so that my empirical material makes up what löfgren refers to as an ‘empirical bricolage’ (1987). since it is impossible to present the full material in this article, the fragments offered here should only be considered illustrations of motifs that appear often in my data. given the nature of fieldwork, the timing and phrasing of the invitation to participate in the research varied, but all informants were informed that i was visiting the clubs to do research. the young men were typically informed that the research was about ‘the culture that young people make themselves’ (reflecting an interest in cultural agency and distancing the research from cultural essentialism), and that it was ‘about possible differences between boys and girls’ (reflecting an interest in gender). informants who participated in formal interviews were given a more detailed description of the research. all interviews and observation data were coded in nvivo. the analysis presented in this article cannot, however, be described as simply stemming from the empirical data in any positivist sense. my approach has been inspired by willis’ idea of the theoretically informed ethnographic study (1997) and layder’s adaptive theory approach (1998) implying that analysis develop 68 through a dialogue between theory and data, but also that there can be no obligation of loyalty towards pre-given theories. admitting the risk that such a description can in itself be othering, my sample can be described as follows: the youth clubs and the social project were chosen because of their locality and/or their social work with young people. the young men i interviewed and/or focused on in my fieldwork were marginalized in terms of different dimensions: many had problems with school, most were considered by social workers to have social problems, and many were criminalized to varying degrees. most of the oldest men in the sample had problems finding work/apprenticeships, and all had parents who were on the margin of the labour market. the young men had different ethnic minority backgrounds, with parents from somalia, turkey, kurdistan, palestine, iran, pakistan, the former yugoslavia, iraq, ghana, gambia and other national contexts. all names used in the text are pseudonyms. it should be noted that my situatedness as a white, ethnic majority, middle class man played a role in the in the social logic of my research. i consider field work a meeting of (complex) social positions as well as a meeting between unique individuals. this means that in some situations the young men would speak to, and react to, my position from their position rather than react to me as an individual person. consequently my relations to the young men varied a great deal during the fieldwork. sometimes i was explicitly considered a ‘friend’ at other times i was positioned as member of a powerful majority resulting in more troublesome field relations. i consider this to be largely due to contemporary danish discourses framing the field relations. a full analysis of this problematic falls outside the limits of this article (see jensen 2009), however it should be emphasized that some of the data analysed in this article, most notably the motif of claiming normality, were in my interpretation produced as the result of the relational interplay of social positions in the interview situation (see below). capitalizing on othering as argued above, the category of young men present in my sample are subject to intersectional othering in current danish discourses. my ethnographic material showed, however, that these discourses could sometimes be appropriated in collective, cultural processes, which could be termed subcultural in the neo-birminghamian sense (carrington & wilson, 2004; jensen, 2010b), i.e. processes that in some sense answer a collectively shared situation. sometimes such answers can take the form of constructing subcultural capital (thornton, 1995). below, the term capitalization and the verb to capitalize are used to emphasize that the creation of capital is an active process involving agency. however, such agency is socially situated, and i therefore agree with the critics who advocate rethinking the concept of subcultural capital, situating such capitalization in relation to hierarchical differentiation and power (skeggs, 2004; carrington & wilson, 2004; jensen, 2006). as mentioned above it could be argued that capitalization as a form of agency has a dimension of resistance as well as a dimension of reproduction. in my material, it is by mediating otherness through elements of style taken from hip hop that othering can be capitalized upon, so that the self can be stylizediii and become attractive. in other words, the position of the other can become imbued with value if versioned through a hip hop iconography of black masculinity. in my fieldwork, this was illustrated by the way some of the young men presented themselves on a danish internet chat site called arto. admir had chosen the username thug-gangsta. this name is inspired by the rapper 2pac, who has been pictured time and again with the word ‘thug’ tattooed in gothic letters across his naked muscular torso. hirsi had chosen the name lil’ 69 gangsta’, referring to the fact that he was rather short. abdilatif had chosen the name 8210-cent, a clever amalgam combining the local zip code for århus vest – the stigmatised part of århusiv where he lived – and global hip hop culture in the form of the popular rapper 50-cent. nadim had chosen the name “perker4livet”, meaning perkerforlife. the term ‘perker’ is a strongly derogatory danish term for immigrants from the middle east or north africa sometimes appropriated by the young men themselves in their slangv. the name perker4livet is clearly inspired by the name of the danish perker rap group ‘perkerforlife’, who spell their name p4l. this, again, is a reference to the los angeles based gangster rap group nwa’s second album niggaz for life (ruthless records, 1991). however, nadim later changed his username to ‘hotperker’, which does not entail any specific reference to hip hop, instead accentuating the latent sexualization inherent in the specific othering that these young men are subject to. during my fieldwork, i have seen the profile pictures uploaded by nadim and abdilatif. in the pictures they pose like afro-american rap or r’n’b stars, in street-wear with bandanas under their baseball caps. these usernames and self-made photos illustrate that, given the opportunity to version identities in a virtual space these young men often pick a hip hop identity. identifying with hip hop is quite common in the contemporary youth cultural terrain. however, the identification has two specific dimensions: 1) marginality is important as a basis for identification, and 2) hip hop makes it possible to ascribe value to racialized bodies marked by black hair and brown skin. the combination of usernames and self-made pictures points towards a stylization of self, a situated agency building on elements from hip hop to ascribe positive value to their position as others. similar ways of versioning the self can be observed among young men producing rap music. in recent years, the danish hip hop milieu has seen the emergence of a subgenre often referred to as ‘perker rap’. highly controversial, this subgenre can be said, on the one hand, to reflect marginality while on the other to stage marginality so that marginality is turned into a brand, in an attempt to locally capitalize on othering. one of the representatives of this genre was the rap group pimp-a-lotvi . one of the rappers affiliated with pimp-a-lot was ‘niggeren i slæden’, which roughly translates into ‘the nigger in the ride’. he later changed his name to johnson, referring to his real name marc johnson, but also to a slang word for phallus. when interviewed about the name change in döner – a lifestyle magazine targeting young ethnic minority men – he explains that the name change is related to him ’not getting a hard-on every time i smell pussy’. the interviewer then jokingly asks whether johnson might suffer from erectile dysfunction; something johnson dismisses with an ‘i wish so’, implying that his problem is the reverse (interview in döner no. 1, 2003). by doing so, he stages himself as a young virile black man – a staging that connotes and draws upon the western sexualisation of the black male body present in the current danish representations of young ethnic minority men as sexually dangerous. staging oneself as virile and libidinous is then a form of sexualisation of the self made possible by historical and contemporary discourses about black male hypersexuality. later in the interview johnson also stages himself as a sexual object in a way that is closely linked to dangerousness, when he states that ‘i only meet those girls who look at me, and then they know that i’m a player’ and explain that ‘ they think i look like a criminal and that turns them on.’ (interveiw in döner no. 1, 2003). these accounts illustrate the relation between being dangerous and being sexy. johnson speaks of himself as a man – young and black – who is sexy because he is (perceived as) dangerous. as a person who is read off as dangerous because he looks ‘like a 70 criminal’. looking like a criminal is about style, and about style being perceived in a specific way when combined with certain bodily signs of race and ethnicity. the combination of hip hop style, dark hair and brown skin makes it possible that johnson is perceived as dangerous, and therefore sexy. johnson as an icon or sexual object comes to carry the connotations related to western imaginaries of black men as sexually dangerous and genitally well-endowed, which parts of us hip hop has appropriated. by stylizing the self using elements taken from the subcultural universe of hip hop, johnson accentuates the latent positive dimensions inherent in the western imagery of the black man, and thus capitalizes on othering. it is obviously impossible to know what the young women johnson has sexual relations with think of him – if they exist. however, here it is enough to observe that it is possible for johnson to tell about his self in this way, and that in doing so, he draws upon a historical conception of the black man, with colonial roots. as mercer & julien has pointed out: historically, the european construction of sexuality coincides with the epoch of imperialism and the two inter-connect. imperialism justified itself by claiming that it had a civilising mission – to lead the base and ignoble savages and ‘inferior races’ into culture and godliness. the person of the savage was developed as the other of civilisation and one of the first ‘proofs’ of this otherness was the nakedness of the savage, the visibility of his sex. this led europeans to assume that the savage possessed an open, frank and uninhibited ‘sexuality’… (mercer & julien, 1988, pp. 106-7). in colonial thinking the black man is constructed as hypersexual. this historical idea of the sexy black man can be actualized by stylizing one’s self using elements from hip hopvii. the empirical examples above illustrate a type of reaction to othering, which can be termed capitalization. this type of reaction works not by resisting to occupy the position of the other per se, but by resisting the devaluation and attempting to capitalize locally on being in the position of the other, by accentuating those dimensions within the ambivalent gaze of the majority which can be ascribed value. as sandberg has noted, such strategies draw heavily on public stereotypes (sandberg, 2005). similarly, vestel has pointed out that the sign of the ‘dangerous foreigner’ is one of several available for the staging of self (2004, p. 449). what can be observed is a stylization of self, a form of cultural agency which allows these young men to capitalize on othering, to become sexy and dangerous and to see themselves as having social value, perhaps even as being superior, as opposed to the inferior other. it is worth noting that the strategies analyzed here are distinctively masculine (prieur, 2002), if not masculinist. therefore they are highly controversial, and, in us debates about hip hop and rap, parallel strategies have been criticised by feminists (armstrong, 2001; weitzer & kubrin, 2009). rap is however also a reflection of the marginalization and alienation experienced by its founders at the racialized and socioecomically deprived margins of urban usa. here it plays a role as a medium for critique. consequently, much hip hop – including perker rap – has political and antiracist contents (sernhede, 2009), and hip hop constitutes ambivalence between antiracism and feminism. refusal whereas the form of agency analysed above can be thought of as capitalizing on othering, strategies which can be interpreted as refusal towards occupying the position of the other are 71 also present in my material. such strategies articulate distance from the category of the other explicitly or through irony. one evening i accompanied a group of 10-12 young men and a social worker (manou) from a youth club in århus to the nearby smaller town of skanderborg. we shop at a supermarket: the boys are kidding around and making a lot of noise. (...) we head towards the checkout. the boys start joking by seemingly accusing each other of having stolen. ‘hey, that guy’s taken something’, one of them says in a twisted, squeaky voice. samir and kawan are throwing the american football they brought along back and forth across the refrigerated display counter with this week’s special offers and careful arrangements of fruit and vegetables. the boys get in line at the checkout and continue to seemingly accuse each other of having stolen some of the shops’ products. ‘have you taken something, have you taken something?’ they ask each other in caricatured, high-pitched voices, as if imitating an imagined officious shop assistant. the women at the cash registers take it with a smile and get them through the checkout. memo, 27 october 2005 in this episode, the young men seem, at first glance, to be mocking each other. however, on my interpretation, there is more going on, since the caricature of the officious shop assistant is played out in front of a larger audience: manou (ethnic minority), me (ethnic majority), the women at the cash registers and the other customers (all ethnic majority). to make a caricature of an officious shop assistant can be interpreted as a way of saying: we are well aware that you are probably thinking that kids like us have something that is not theirs in their pockets. hence the mocking carried out by the young men can be understood as a comment, talking back to the othering gaze, resisting and at the same time playing with the image of the criminal ‘immigrant’ young man. there is of course no way of knowing what the staff and customers actually thought. but it is not unlikely that the young men have experienced being accused of criminal activities by police and other social control agencies because of their bodily markers of youth, visible ethnic minority background and maleness (wellendorf & cakmak, 2007; ansel-henry & jespersen, 2003). other examples of refusal were articulated in the interaction between the young men and me. the following interview exchange takes place in the social project: [interviewer asks about the division of labour in tahir’s his family] tahir: … of course my little brother doesn’t help my mother with the cooking, like. sqj: what do you think about this way of living, do you like it, or…? tahir: what do you mean? sqj: that stuff, like some, the women do some things and the men do other things. tahir: it’s also like that in danish families. sqj: certainly, certainly. yes. tahir: it is. it’s often the mother who cooks and the father he…i’ve often seen that, like. sqj: yes. tahir:…it’s not… sqj: no, but i didn’t say. tahir: no-no, no-no, but it’s often like that. it’s pretty normal. sqj: yes. tahir: i don’t see…it’s pretty normal. sqj: yes. i think it’s fair enough. ehm, when you grow older, would you like to live in the same way or... interview, 16 december 2003 72 the excerpt illustrates how the field relations were sometimes conditioned by the ways gender and ethnicity intersect in danish debates on migration and integration. by a subtle underlying mechanism the researcher is positioned as a representative of legitimate culture. simultaneously tahir is positioned as an illegitimate other, and his answers are articulated from this position. it is not only a matter of (mis)understanding each other, but also a matter of positions being shaped by the relational interplay between two actors bodily marked as respectively minority and majority in a specific societal context. this explains why tahir reacts from the position as the ethnified other, illegitimate in terms of gender relations such as division of domestic labour. in other words, questions about gender are asked by a researcher already positioned as white and danish, to a young ethnic minority man already pointed out by public discourse as a representative of inappropriate gender inequalityviii (jensen, 2009). tahir, however, refuses being positioned as the other. he protests against the othering of him and his family. he disidentifiesix with the identity he is offered, and claims normality, while at the same time accepting the implicit premise of not being danish. in other words, he exercises power by refusing the identity the situation offers him. other exchanges touch explicitly upon media representations and knowledge production. the following episode took place in a youth club: abdirahmane and thomas are in the room. suddenly abdirahmane says loudly [referring to me]. ’hey, what is it that he’s doing, that guy?’ (...) ’he’s a writer. he’s written that book, you know’’, abbas answers: ’hey, what are you writing about us?’, ousamah asks […] ’hey writer’, abdirahmane says and continues. ’where do you want to go with that? you’re on the wrong track. you need to become a doctor’ (...) ’that’s where the future lies. not that writer stuff’. he begins walking around the room. ’what do you want to write about us. what is there to write?’ he sits down beside me. ’okay’, he says, ’let’s say this is a talk show. you only get 5 seconds, and i’ll ask you about something: what do you want to say about these young people here in [x-city]. remember, you’ve only got 5 seconds’. ’then you can’t say anything’, i start. ’come on, say something’, he says and continues, ’about the young people, they’re in such a bad place and there’s so much crime’. ’ shut up, abdirahmane’, someone says, laughing. ’you’re confusing yourself ’, someone else adds. abdirahmane continues, still in his mock talk show host voice. ’there is a lot of crime, what do you want to say?’. ’there isn’t that much’, i reply and continue, ’you’re not gangsters or anything like that’. ’yes. it’s true… there is’, says abdirahmane. ’not as much now as there used to be’, abbas adds and continues: ’we used to do a lot, but we’re not doing as much now’. ’yes ’, i say, ’but it’s not as much as it says in the papers’. abbas answers, ’the papers have written about us before, but that was then. then we did a lot’. abdirahmane ends his show. ’no’, he says. ’that writer stuff is no good’. in a slightly more serious tone he adds: ’it is okay, you’re on the right track. but you have to come up with something else’. memo, 4 september 2003 in the episode, abdirahmane is ‘having a laff’ (willis 1978), joking with the researcher at the same time as entertaining the other young men in the room. in a subversive way, he confronts the researcher with the fact that he as a writer has the privilege of producing authoritative descriptions of the young men. in other words, he seizes power and subverts the privilege of description. accordingly, i have difficulties giving a qualified answer when abdirahmane takes on the role of a zealous journalist pressuring me for an answer by repeating the words ‘what do you want to say’. all i come up with is a somewhat quiet pointing out that they are not 73 as criminal as they are often described. at the same time, abdirahmane is mocking the media’s representation of the young men and the neighbourhood they live in, when, assuming the role of a talk show host, he insists that the young men ‘are in such a bad place and there’s so much crime’. abdirahmane’s joking can be interpreted as an ironic comment on the overall discursive context of the research. this is important because, as shown above, spivak addresses the privilege of controlling representation as the property of the powerful. however, abdirahmane resists those who have the power to position him and his friends as criminal others living in ‘a bad place’ by reclaiming the role of the ‘representer’, the producer of knowledge. discussion and conclusion generalizing the substantial empirical findings outlined above to all ethnic minority young men, or even all marginalized ethnic minority young men, would itself be othering. therefore it must be emphasized that the concrete reactions outlined above cover only one specific cluster of reactions to othering among a specific group and in a limited number of contexts. it is also necessary to emphasize that the refusal of othering analysed above can be understood as a specific variant of a common tendency to refuse negative categorizations imposed by others. claiming normality, insisting that one is not that different, can be a strategy for humanization. constructing oneself as a normal, ordinary person is therefore also a way of appealing for sympathy and understanding (sandberg & pedersen, 2006, p. 237). now, to return to an assessment of the limitations and potentials inherent in the concept of othering, the analysis has shown that othering is not a straightforward process of individuals or groups being interpellated to occupy specific subordinate subject positions. on the contrary, agency is at play, and actors far from always accept becoming the other self. othering can be capitalized upon or disidentified from. it is worth dwelling on the type of agency which has been termed capitalization. this type of agency illustrates how othering discourses can, in a paradoxical way, be part of the symbolic raw material of agency. elements of othering discourses may be appropriated, because such elements can be given local value as part of a subcultural style. that is possible because the specific discourses of othering relevant here are latently ambivalent in their gaze upon the other, as they also contain implicit exoticism and fascination of the other. for some young ethnic minority men, the public stereotype of the black male can be used as a resource – an element in the ‘pool of styles, meanings and possibilities’ (willis, 1978, p. 59) at hand for producing styles – offering them a way to capitalize on othering. othering discourses, even if they are experienced as painful, also open a space for agency. in a paradoxical way, agency as capitalization illustrates the continued relevance of the concept of othering: thinking in terms of othering allows us to grasp how power structures condition agency and to reflect on how historical symbolic meanings frame the possibilities at hand for negotiating identity. capitalization has dimensions of both resistance and reproduction, because it can be interpreted as an attempt to challenge the devaluation of the other, although it does not disrupt the category. another type of agency in relation to othering has been termed refusal. this strategy is based on rejecting the category of the other. thus in many instances, informants refuse to occupy the position of the other, whether in relation to the researcher or in relation to third parties. in such situations the young men often claim normality. 74 it is also worth dwelling on the motif of claiming normality, which appears quite often in my material. although these young men often claim normality, there is not one case of informants explicitly categorizing themselves as danes. this can be explained by the character of the danish discourses about migration, as these discourses block the way to ‘danishness’ for anyone not part of the imagined danish kin (cf. fangen, 2007). furthermore, aspiring to become danish would imply aspiring to exchange one particular identity for another, to exchange firstness for otherness. the fact that the young men do not aspire to ‘danishness’, but do claim normality, can therefore be interpreted as an attempt to carve out a space in-between, a thirdspace, which is not defined by firstness and otherness, but transcends the dichotomy: simply as a normal human being not danish, but also not different from the danish. it may have some overlaps with danishness as this third position could sometimes have some of the same attributes as those ascribed to danishness. however, it is not synonymous with (an aspiration to) danishness. this attempt to carve out a third space which transcends majority and minority problematizes the binary thinking inherent in the concept of othering. that, however, does not mean that the concept of othering should be discarded. on the contrary, the concept seems well suited for grasping a specific type of space for agency. its merits furthermore lies in its potential for understanding contemporary discourses in the light of history, its openness towards intersectionality, and its understanding of identity formation as a process. however, when used in an analysis of concrete identity formation, the concept of othering works best when used in a dialogue with concepts more suited for grasping agency. acknowledgement: i thank the anonymous reviewer, whose constructive comments greatly improved the analytical points advanced in this manuscript. references alexander, c. e. 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(1999). konstruktionen af de etniske minoriteter: eliten, medierne og „etnificeringen" af den danske debat. politica, 31(2): 177-191 also used: ’westkyst ind til benet’ (interview with u$o & johnson by rasmus poulsen) döner magazine nr. 1, november 2003: 12-20 author sune qvotrup jensen is cand. scient. soc., phd, and works as an assistant professor in the department of sociology and social work at aalborg university, denmark. email: qvotrup@socsci.aau.dk 78 notes i the word othering was used sporadically in philosophical texts as early as the 1920s and 1930s, meaning change or analytically distancing oneself. ii sirmur is a region in the lower himalayas. the rani is the rajah’s wife, who becomes the formal leader after he is dethroned (spivak, 1985). iii stylization here covers the double meaning: 1) that an aesthetic style is created and 2) that something simple is created from something complex in the sense that a complex and ambiguous person is staged in a somewhat stereotypical way. iv århus is the second largest city in denmark. v in some youth milieus, the term perker has been turned into a badge of honour, in much the same way as the word nigger (often spelled nigga) in some parts of black urban us culture. vi pimp-a-lot is a reference to the us rap record label rap-a-lot. vii some of the young men in my sample are not literarily black. said, however, argues that a similar erotic fascination is inherent in the western gaze upon the orient (1978). viii i argue that such mechanisms do not rest on the characteristics or skills of the researcher, since similar mechanisms occur in parallel research projects, in different institutional settings, by other researchers, but in the same national discursive context (andersen, 2005; hviid, 2007; staunæs, 2007). ix the concept of disidentification, and the verb to disidentify (skeggs, 1997), denotes an intentional and marked distancing from identity categories. it is therefore different from a mere absence of identification. see also goffman on the related concept of disidentifiers (1963, pp. 60 ff.). untitled 98 narrative journalism as complementary inquiry jørgen jeppesen & helle ploug hansen abstract. narrative journalism is a method to craft stories worth reading about real people. in this article, we explore the ability of that communicative power to produce insights complementary to those obtainable through traditional qualitative and quantitative research methods. with examples from a study of journalistic narrative as patient involvement in professional rehabilitation, interview data transcribed as stories are analyzed for qualities of heterogeneity, sensibility, transparency, and reflexivity. building on sociological theories of thinking with stories, writing as inquiry, and public journalism as ethnography, we suggest that narrative journalism as a common practice might unfold dimensions of subjective otherness of the self. aspiring to unite writing in both transparently confrontational and empathetically dialogic ways, the narrative journalistic method holds a potential to expose dynamics of power within the interview. keywords: narrative journalism, complementarity, heterogeneity, common practice, interview data please cite this article as: jeppesen, j. & hansen, h.p. (2011). narrative journalism as complementary inquiry. qualitative studies, 2(2): 98-117. introduction narrative journalists often compare themselves to anthropologists. walt harrington, using the term intimate journalism, lists anthropology in the genealogy of this genre and calls on its practitioners to seek inspiration in qualitative social science (harrington, 1997, p. xvii). in parallel with the obligation of the sociologist and anthropologist, it is the duty of the intimate journalist to place him or herself in a position and state that allows one to hear what the person says, thinks, and believes, he argues (harrington, 1997, p. xxxii). mark kramer finds that narrative journalism relates to the life lived, resembling anthropological and ethnographic sciences only with artistic effects (jørgensen, 2007, p. 38). some qualitative researchers affirm that social science is not the same as journalism, because journalism must not make explicit its procedures for editing and analysis (tanggaard and brinkmann, 2010, p. 511). the eligibility of journalism within social science is due solely to the application of its communicative power, they state. in this article, we reflect on narrative journalism as a method of inquiry that produces knowledge by way of the very potential of communicative power. insights complementary to those of traditional scientific research, quantitative as well as qualitative, are created, we claim, by virtue of the presentational power of publicity of the non-fictitious text narrating its characters as non-anonymous subjects. as recognized with the idea of complementarity, methods might be mutually exclusive, but separately necessary for the understanding of a phenomenon1. in support of our assumption, we present findings from an empirical study. twenty years ago the first author of this article was employed as a professional journalist in a disability organization. his and his colleagues’ job was to write stories about people with a 99 lifelong impairment, and their close relatives. the stories, internally labeled ‘the good narrative”, was a subject of professional reflection among the editorial staff, not least what made them different from stories with similar – or the same – people in the mass media. by carefully avoiding pity, sensationalism, hero worship, or just role modeling, ‘our’ disability journalistic story sought to bring out deviation as heterogeneity, equal to variation as diversity among the non-disabled, both constituting the same, namely subjective otherness. this otherness was an individuality in which impairment was one of numerous circumstances, rarely the predominant one yet indispensable for the story. at the same time these stories were conceived and received within organizational contexts of the membership community, shaping significant practices of how to live with the disease. they became stories of heterogeneity in common. this notion of a narrative heterogeneity in common connects to scholarly efforts of studying relations between narrative, self and social practice. as one such effort asks: meaning itself […] is not pre-ordained by an abstract or ahistorical system of terms but is emergent in the concrete, everyday activities of individuals and communities. this dynamic picture of social life raises new questions. precisely how, that is, through what kinds of common practices, do humans create, resist and modify their social worlds and their own identities? (mattingly, jensen and throop, 2009, p. 6) a multitude of concepts have been listed: narrative, power, complementarity, heterogeneity, self, social practice, meaning, activities, individuals, communities, social life, common practices, create-resist-modify, social worlds, identities. to grasp the complexity between these occurrences, we suggest a conceptualization evolving from arthur frank’s idea about ‘thinking with stories’ (frank, 2004a), laurel richardson’s and elizabeth adams st. pierre’s work on ‘writing as inquiry’ (richardson and st. pierre, 2005), and norman denzin’s precept for the ‘performance ethnography’ (denzin, 2003). from different perspectives, these sociologists have in common both a theoretical and practical interest in narrative as a method of research linking process with power. in the following, we will present key concepts of their thinking with the purpose of creating an analytical strategy to discuss the research question: how can journalistic narrative as a common public performance be a method of inquiry producing complementary insight? conceptualizing heterogeneity in common moral non-fiction according to frank, the story does not have any hidden meaning that needs decoding. “i do not analyze these stories. i advocate trying to think with them, a process closer to letting the stories analyze us”, says frank (2004a, p. 6), who proposes ‘moral nonfiction’ as a name for the genre. analyzing, i.e. to think about as opposed to think with, is to reduce, to finalize the protagonist to a category. the literary character – or the medical patient and his suffering – can never fully be understood, because a person’s otherness is not a container from which we can draw psychological, cultural or physical attributes. thinking with the story is to balance in a constant tension between merger and separation. 100 dialogue is the complementarity of merging and separating: orienting your voice to others, merging with those other voices, then separating again, and never finalizing this process. alterity remains in tension with the desire to merge with the other. the heroic task is to live with tension, perpetually seeking balance. this balance solves but never resolves; it is never a finalized solution. what is solved is how to keep the tension within the bounds of dialogue – to keep dialogue open. (frank, 2004a, p. 133) frank wants to delimit representation. something must be left unresolved, silent and untold, he understands, because it leaves you open to recognize and relate to what you do not understand. exhaustive description is at best an illusion only2. process and product using the term creative analytical practices (cap), richardson and st. pierre widen the scope of what can be regarded as data, as representation, and in consequence the criteria of validity. cap ethnographers can learn about their topics and themselves; about that which was left unknowable and unimaginable using conventional analytical procedures and writing formats (richardson and st. pierre 2005, p. 963). they demonstrate the writing process and the writing product as deeply intertwined; the product cannot be separated from the producer, the mode of production, or the method of knowing. and how the author positions the self as knower and teller becomes crucial. they sum up five criteria: substantive contribution to our understanding of social life; aesthetic merit; reflexivity; impact on the reader; expression of a reality. and they locate one of the origins of cap in journalism, more specifically in the school of new journalism of the sixties and seventies, with the writer – much like the modern auto-ethnographic self – being on stage in her story of the story (richardson and st. pierre, 2005, p. 926). performing journalism narrative theory and method have become part of most qualitative research handbooks, but they seldom include the tradition of narrative journalism. one exception is denzin, who speaks in favor of a “public-journalism-as-ethnography” (denzin, 2000, p. 901). he sees two versions of new journalistic writing: ethnographic realism and cultural phenomenology, the former displaying a social world in rich detail, the latter describing what it feels like to be present in such a world (denzin, 1997, pp. 126-162). reality is anchored in the text itself, challenging readers to read reflexively, mirroring readers’ process of self-formation and self-understanding, and denzin, arguing that these forms of textual constructions undo old dichotomies between journalism and science, literature and ethnography, fact and fiction, encourages ethnographers not to stick to structural dissection, but engage in learning how to write stories. denzin advocates a writer fusing intimate and civic journalism, creating stories that enable changes in the public and private spheres of everyday life. it is a narrative writer, who can fulfill a pressing need for the invention of a reflexive writing form in which the narration is not simply a record of human experience, but also a method that empowers the reader (denzin, 2000, pp. 900-903). 101 the reflexive, interacting, interview format is a forerunner of the performative interview with which researchers are increasingly performing culture because they write it. according to denzin, a previous boundary between performativity (”doing”) and performance (”done”) has disappeared, and he lists various forms of personal performance narratives such as the personal experience story, the self story; the personal story; testimonial. these are didactic forms of narrative, which entertain, direct, maintain and reproduce institutions and discourses in and across generations. four, explicitly journalistic, standards of performative criteria must be met: accuracy, non-maleficence, the right to know, show one’s moral colors (denzin, 2003). transparent presence ethically, the insistence on the transparent presence of a perceptible ‘social scientific self’ is evident with these three narrative theorists. they seem to activate immanent moral implications as inseparable and fruitful parts of the researching process: frank by accentuating the mutuality of generosity, richardson by qualifying the personal in and of writing as thinking, and denzin by emphasizing the commonality of researcher and researched. to expose the construction of knowledge they motivate researchers to exhibit textually how they incorporate that mutuality, personality, and commonality. the affinity to narrative journalism centers on this textual exhibition. by exposing the use of language as personal and subjective, the narrative journalist incorporates the method of writing as part of the story. he stories the way of telling, thereby making room for the characters to be other than an object, and for readers to know how that happens. when applying telling as a way of knowing, ‘the how’ becomes of paramount importance, how ‘the what’ is told. and when qualitative research might be empowered by importing the good story (frank, 2004b), we attempt to go the other way round by importing analysis. by formulating analytical questions grounded in narrative theory, we want to examine how the journalistic story might know. true writing our analytical strategy began with a search for determinations with frank, richardson, and denzin of what indicates true writing3. by extracting and systematizing key concepts regarding what can be understood as true writing, and what cannot, we built, across their thinking, categories of authenticity and unreliability. finally, on this synthesis of determinations, we laid down criteria for the complementary journalistic narrative. key concepts identified as indicators of authenticity and unreliability, respectively, were categorized (table 1). authenticity indicators were grouped in five categories: heterogeneity; change; sensibility; transparency; and reflexivity. unreliability indicators were grouped in three categories: emotionalism; neutrality; and superior knowledge. finally, the authenticity categories were combined crosswise in three positive criteria phrased as analytical questions: 1. how does the writing make room for heterogeneity? 2. how does the story instigate change? 3. how does the author position himself? 102 and the unreliability categories were combined in one negative criterion phrased as the analytical question: 4. how does the author balance between humility and paternalism? authenticity and unreliability categories derived from true writing concepts of arthur frank, laurel richardson/elizabeth adam st. pierre, and norman denzin: true writing concepts frank (2004a) richardson/st. pierre (2005) denzin (2003) heterogeneity a sense of the other’s inner unfinalizability how to document becoming interviewing another is a privilege granted change one story calls forth another story generate new questions take public action on private troubles sensibility a space of consolation affect me emotionally or intellectually create moral compassion transparency a new relation of author to character the self as knower and teller show one’s moral colors a u th e n ti ci ty c a te g o ri e s reflexivity instigate self reflections author’s subjectivity both a producer and a product of the text reader experiences his own subjectivity emotionalism unification with the other not demonstrating a social scientific perspective confessional mode neutrality extracting static themes or listing of characteristics boring access to a private self, which is the real self u n re li a b il it y c a te g o ri e s superior knowledge monologue the scientific goal is representation certain experiences are more authentic than others table 1. 103 chronicles of life with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis authorizing personal experiences as part of an ongoing study investigating journalistic narrative as patient involvement in professional multidisciplinary health rehabilitation, jeppesen writes stories with six people diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (als). the purpose is to develop a method, which authorizes personal experiences as an actively constitutive force in the individual rehabilitation process by voicing views complementary to perceptions of the rehabilitation professionals. als is a rapidly progressive neurodegenerative disease, usually affecting people above 50 years of age and resulting in an extensive need for personal care and assistive devices for mobility and communication. a few years after the diagnosis, those who choose to prolong life must accept permanent ventilator, stomach feeding tube, etc. each participant is interviewed four times during one year, and the subsequent story, constructed with methods of intimate and narrative journalism, becomes part of the participant’s medical record in the national rehabilitation centre for neuromuscular diseases. in addition, the story is mailed personally to the significant professionals involved with the participant at hospitals (neurological and respiratory departments), community services, the family general practitioner, etc. finally, the four stories are published as a narrative chronicle on the website of the national rehabilitation centre. purposeful sampling seeking maximum variation with respect to rhetorical capabilities, compliance with professional rehabilitation norms, educational level, occupation, and marital/parental status was applied in recruiting participants. three women and three men aged 38-62 years were selected. initially, a contact letter was sent to participants, transforming the academic study protocol into the following four questions: 1. what can you tell others who develop als that might help them? 2. how can the medical and rehabilitation professionals become better at understanding your needs and wishes? 3. how do you opt for or select against life prolonging treatments? 4. what would you tell others who have no knowledge of als about the joys and sorrows in your everyday life? in accordance, the interviews would deal with core complex rehabilitation dilemmas of als, such as: how to communicate when loosing the ability to speak; how to live with a ventilator (and a feeding tube, etc) when loosing bodily capabilities; how to accept professional care round the clock when loosing all privacy; how to give and receive love when loosing marital relations; how to avoid loosing parental authority. story materials consist of 1) verbatim transcription of appropriate selections of voice recordings of the interview conversation, and 2) field notes before, during and after interview. the story is crafted using narrative journalistic techniques of scene, dialogue, symbolic details, informal voice, and digressions (harrington, 1997; thorsen, 2003; kramer and call, 2007). 104 stories with hanne stenmose in the following, we will analyze excerpts of the four stories with hanne stenmose, the first participant included (jeppesen, 2011). hanne stenmose was diagnosed in october 2008, at the age of 49. she is married to claus, with two adopted children, eight-year-old thea, and elevenyear-old mads. prior to the diagnosis, she worked as a bank clerk. table 2 gives a brief overview of the stories in relation to her disease progression. hanne stenmose’s stories: titles, chronology, topics, and disease progression: story i story ii story iii story iv title and date worse than the diagnosis january 2010 not only the end of the world may 2010 you are allowed to hope september 2010 i am here every day january 2011 main topics stemcell therapy a journey to vietnam the children telling one’s story emotional lability being a parent hope rehabilitation future life with a tracheostomy creating a memory speech slightly affected slightly affected medium affected strongly affected ventilator no no non invasive non invasive table 2. we examine how the stories perform heterogeneity through the enactment of hope and the management of anxiety (analytical question 1). moreover, we exemplify how the stories may have brought about change (analytical question 2), and how the author positions himself (analytical question 3). finally, we explore the textual balancing between humility and paternalism in dealing with crying, the children, and death (analytical question 4). analytical question 1: how does the writing make room for heterogeneity? clinically, als is most often described as being extremely stressful, causing hopelessness, anxiety, despair, etc., leading to a defeatist approach from the medical establishment (oliver 2006, pp. 19-24). for hanne stenmose, hopelessness is nurtured by what she sees as a nihilistic attitude among some health professionals. in her view, hope is part of imagining how to live with als, and it is not a matter of awaiting a miraculous cure, though hoping for that is never totally abandoned either. enacting hope “false hopes can be the same as self-deception. that i think ‘i’ll never be on tracheostomy ventilation’ or ‘i’ll keep walking’. unless there is some kind of miracle, i know that’s the way it goes. but to give up hope because of that, that’s far out.” so the hope you have is not a hope of being cured? if you believed in a cure, would you call that self-deception? 105 ”i’m still hoping that it might be!” well, you can’t rule anything out. ”no, you can’t.” what i’m mostly hearing you say though, is that you’re hoping to have a good life when you’ll eventually need a ventilator? ”i also have a pretty clear idea of how things are going to be when i can’t do this or that.” how do you want it to be? ”for instance, when it gets too hard for me to go to the bathroom, i want a catheter ’cause i don’t want to spend an hour going to the bathroom. that way, i also won’t need more than one personal assistant most of the time – maybe except from when i’m having a bath and need an extra person to towel me dry. but i can’t see why it shouldn’t be possible to lead a fairly good life anyway.” (i am here every day, story iv, pt. 2) hanne stenmose indicates that being allowed to hope is a precondition for thinking about and incorporating the future, no matter what it leads to. while experiencing stressfulness might be true also for hanne stenmose, she also talks about the advantage of having been given more – and less stressful – time with her children. you said that you can still contribute something positive to your family. what could that be? ”it’s listening to what the kids are saying. showing them how they can make the best of things if they run into problems. of course they also need to figure it out for themselves, but i’m still allowed to show them the way. in general, i think it’s important that there’s at least one family member who is not stressed out and mostly in good spirits.” (you are allowed to hope, story iii, pt. 2) “[…] i have been given the gift of being able to spend a lot of time at home. i’m here every day when they come home. and i have time to listen and to give them some input in their lives. and i actually think that is a gift.” (i am here every day, story iv, pt. 4) managing anxiety hanne stenmose is aware of the anxiety that her illness creates in her children. but again, she also sees the distressing situation as a possibility for them to learn and grow as she is able to teach her children how to come to terms with a human condition of life. she has also talked to the kids about the time when she will inevitably need a permanent ventilator. they have seen pictures of people with als who are tracheostomized. ”in a way they find it a little bit scary,” says hanne. but on the other hand, they understand why it will become necessary. (you are allowed to hope, story iii, pt. 2) can having a mother with als also be a gift? ”n…yeah … yes, in the way that the conditions of life have changed; that i have more time and more freedom; that they are also learning to be considerate.” 106 and also that they see all the physical things that are happening which they can be scared of – we have talked about that before, you used the expression ’that you create anxiety’ – but they also benefit from that when things can’t be changed? you can have your als in many different ways. ”yes that’s true. you can have it the positive way. you can teach the kids that if something is important to them, they need to fight for it.” can you tell your children about that? how do you talk about it? ”mads for instance is not good at doing his homework. but i’ve told him that ‘if you want to be able to make your own decisions in life, you have to do something about it’. we know that some things come very easily to him, but he still needs to do his homework. he actually got his grades right before christmas and even though his english teacher was furious with him, he still got an a. and it’s the same in physics. but he still needs to understand why we want him to do his homework.” but do you think that has anything to do with you having als? ”not really. on the other hand, if i don’t do my homework, which is my exercises, i’ll soon get stuck in my wheelchair.” have you told him that? ”yes, i’ve told him that i have homework twice a week – at the gym. then i also exercise a bit at home. my personal assistants help me do it. i may not draw the parallels fully, but i still think i have developed a better technique for explaining things to them. and i don’t think they are so terribly afraid of being close to me as some kids in puberty can be.” (i am here every day, story iv, pt. 4) in hanne stenmose’s narrative, we witness an understanding of living with als that complements viewing the diagnosis as a lethal disease leaving no kind of hope. in the midst of a devastating disease, hanne stenmose seems to discover new opportunities: time (“i’ve been given the gift of being able to spend a lot of time at home.”); being present (“i have time to listen and to give them some input in their lives.”); energy derived from hope (but to give up hope because of that, that’s far out.”); becoming an empowering memory (“you can teach the kids that if something is important to them, they need to fight for it.”). concurrently, she does not repress the likeliness of dying from the disease, as will be demonstrated below. analytical question 2: how does the story instigate change? the title of story i, worse than the diagnosis, refers to when the diagnosing neurologist broke the news making it clear that hanne stenmose would never be able to travel to vietnam to show her adopted children their country of birth, and to meet the biologic mother of mads. in fact, hanne stenmose actualizes precisely that dream, a realization playing a prominent role in story i. ”you must not deprive people of their dreams when you inform them of their diagnosis,” hanne said an hour ago, as she recounted how the neurologist back in 2008 made it clear, that she would never be able to travel to vietnam carrying a diagnosis of als with her. and i realize what she meant as she went on: “the doctor took away my dream. in the situation, it was worse than the diagnosis.” (worse than the diagnosis, story i, pt. 1) in the succeeding story the issue reappears. 107 the diagnosing doctor, who said that she would not be able to travel to vietnam with claus and the children, hanne has made to read the story too – and got a reply in return explaining why the doctor had said like that. hanne still finds that the doctor made a mistake not keeping the possibility open. at the same time she says it “isn’t on top of my mind that much” any longer. (not only the end of the world, story ii, pt. 4) a mitigation of a traumatizing event has seemingly occurred. possibly, the gravity of the experience has been altered by the process of storytelling. when the memory of the incident became a story, present reality is reformed. it can be viewed as a change instigated by the dialogical interplay between story and narrators transforming into a succeeding story. changing communication opportunities in the final interview, hanne stenmose explicitly reflects on effects with her family, personal assistants, and physiotherapist of reading her stories. she also considers what her own reading produces. “i feel i have got a good help through these interviews. by giving them to new personal assistants to sort of getting an expression of how i am. and my own family has read them as well. one of my sisters-in-law has said ‘what a salutary reading’. she got background knowledge about me, she stated. my physiotherapist also said it was a pleasant experience, as i usually don’t speak that much when i lie having physiotherapy. because, when i lie down, i snuffle even more. actually, i feel it’s a real good thing. i also use it myself to think through things.” so you can talk about them? “yes, but not just that. it’s also a reading for contemplation. when you read, it triggers new thoughts? “yes.” (i am here every day, story iv, pt. 6) judging from these reflections, the stories are a tool to create insight with the people, whom hanne stenmose depends on. personal assistants learn about her way of being, family members obtain a more profound understanding, and a storied text might substitute conversation, compensating increasing difficulties with speech4. the stories bring about a change of communication opportunities that potentially improves social and caring relations. in addition, reading her own story causes hanne stenmose to rethink what she has said, instigating new thoughts about the meaning of her words. analytical question 3: how does the author position himself? in a passage in story ii, the author puts himself to the fore by presenting a flashback taking place during the interview. the conversation i had this morning on the ferry from aarhus to sjællands odde runs through the back of my mind while hanne is talking about telling her story. i accidentally ran into a couple of acquaintances who took the opportunity just to be told the aim of the stories i do with people with als. the ferry was some 10 minutes from arriving at the port. (not only the end of the world, story ii, pt. 4) 108 the reader then witnesses a dialogue in which the author tries to account for his research project. – i’m examining whether a patient’s narrative can be used in his or her rehabilitation. the patient is engaged in lots of treatment interactions in which his or her personality may almost disappear. narrative may be a means of holding onto oneself as someone able to take action; and thereby also becoming part of the treatment surrounding that person – in the lines of assistive devices, surgery, social case work, etc. – you mean like a sort of self-therapy, asked the male part of the couple? – no, that’s not really the correct term, i answered, but naturally the narrative does something to the person, and to those reading it. and thereby it reacts on the person anew. – i guess you also have to measure if it works, he continued? hmm ... this was far from the first time i was asked some version of that question, and as usually i began rambling on, because i imagine the inquirer expects another type of answer than the one i’m going to give – first of all, i want to show if it’s possible to write such stories with a person with als throughout a year of rehabilitation. whether it makes sense for the person and for the readers … at this moment, we were asked to descend to the car deck. if i had had the chance to continue, i would have said that succeeding in making something make sense can also be a way of measuring. (not only the end of the world, story ii, pt. 4) story building the passage is a scene in a scene, positioned in time and space. we experience a flashback-time on board a ferry, and an interview-time inside hanne stenmose’s home. in addition, a writingtime is indicated by the modality of the verbs – ‘had had’ and ‘would have’ in the closing sentence. four characters are on stage: hanne stenmose, the interviewer/author/researcher and his two acquaintances. the scene-building exhibits various positions of the author. he is paying attention to hanne stenmose, while secretly reliving a moment from earlier that day; he is reasoning about his project, while secretly feeling uncertainties. the disclosure of the emergence of such ambiguities allows the author to establish himself as a writer without superior knowledge. and by uniting scene, dialogue, informal voice, and digression the story as an author’s construct becomes evident. analytical question 4: how does the author balance between humility and paternalism? hanne stenmose cried several times during each interview, but outspoken agony is almost absent in the stories. one reason is that elaborating on tears, the story easily risks seducing the reader to feel only sad. another reason is that emotional lability – excessive crying and/or laughing – is a clinical symptom in many people with als. this is the case also for hanne stenmose, which is why demonstrative depiction of weeping may give a false impression of her spirits. of course hanne stenmose experiences sorrow, but that is always just part of the story. pointing out of sadness, or joy, would be one-sided and compromise heterogeneity. 109 crying the issue of crying is represented four times in the complete narrative. first time is at the end of story i and almost reluctantly, though the interview began with several minutes of crying. hanne says: “sometimes when i’m lying in my bed, i discover that right now it doesn’t feel like i have als. that’s a great feeling.” she continues: “but i can’t lift anything. that’s shit. i can’t pour myself a cup of tea. i think arms are harder to do without than legs.” hanne does not begin to cry even though she has just told me something very tragic. when we began our conversation almost four hours ago, we had only spoken for ten seconds before her voice was stifled with sobs for several minutes. ”it’s so frustrating. my facial expression does not correspond with how sad i am. it’s the als that exaggerates my reactions,” hanne explains and illustrates the distance between inside and outside by first placing the right hand index finger one centimeter above the surface of the table and then raising it some 35 centimeters. thirty-five excess centimeters of tears. what were your thoughts about me when you began to cry? ”i thought that you were probably used to it.” (worse than the diagnosis, story i, pt. 5) in story ii hanne stenmose’s crying is mentioned twice in an observing rather than demonstrative style and tone. hanne’s nephew has collected a sum for the treatment and her mother has contributed with 10,000 danish kroner. ”she is 86 years old …” says hanne and breaks off the sentence because she has to cry. it takes a couple of minutes. (not only the end of the world, story ii, pt. 1) ”she can see that he’s still able to smile,” says hanne and says that thea has “asked to see him again”. hanne’s lips are trembling and we take a 30-second break. (not only the end of the world, story ii, pt. 3) the fourth and final recording of crying appears further ahead in story ii, prompting the author to disclose and discuss his emotional state, and to reflect upon what the crying is about. when she is no longer able to go to bed unassisted she wants professional help. ”but i don’t want to go to bed at 9:30,” she proclaims. maybe they can brush her teeth and make her ready, then she can sit in her bathrobe until it is bedtime, she muses. again tears are approaching, but remain on the verge. how do i feel about her crying? is it unpleasant? every time she cries, i say something to make her understand – feel – that i don’t mind her crying. but is it true? must i put on my professional face and remain unaffected by someone else’s grief? and what is lability anyway? crying lability? it sounds like a disease. what if we see it like this: hanne cries exactly at the right time. right when it hurts most. many of us are good at hiding our tears, even the tears we cry inside, even to ourselves. is that always a good quality for the person and for the surroundings? maybe lability can be seen as the intensified ability to feel ones 110 soft spots? an especially sensitive radar zooming in on possible dangers; a mine detector. (not only the end of the world, story ii, pt. 5) leaving children a subject charged with emotion is the children. when talking about them, hanne stenmose would most often be moved (to tears), a sensation easily spread to the interviewer. frequently, a sense of imminent despair would be present, but only as one of more coexisting realities of hanne stenmose’s existence. an ambiguity represented by textually aligning everyday life trivialities with matters of sorrow. the door to the entry hall swings open and two school bags are thrown onto the floor. it is thea and her friend michala. they are talking about the snow lasagna they have made on their way home. snow lasagna? they explain the recipe to us as if it were the most natural thing, but then realize that there are things grown ups just don’t get. the girls whirl into thea’s room, but not without making a detour to the cookie tin on the coffee table. it keeps hanne’s crisp homemade pepper cookies. ”we have told thea and mads that i have a disease which will eventually take away my ability to walk. and that i’ll need help to breathe. but i have also told them that ”i intend to see you grow up and become adults”.” hanne says thea will sometimes cry at school if she finds she did not get to say properly goodbye before she left. when that happens, she is usually allowed to run back home and start over. (worse than the diagnosis, story i, pt. 5) thea’s childlike joy and fantasy is exciting, imagining her running back home to repeat her goodbye is heartbreaking. a gamut of emotions coexist. death when writing about death the text similarly aims at avoiding emotionalism, still capturing the unfathomable. today, hanne is dressed in a bluish woolen dress, which makes you feel warm just by looking at it. a pair of black knit legwarmers keeps away the cold draft from the floor. it is january 4, 2011, 364 days have passed since the first interview, and it does not feel wrong to talk about the future. do you ever think about death? ”yes, of course.” what do you think? ”that it’s something we all know will come eventually. and i have sat down and written down how i want things to be with regard to the ventilator and how i want it turned off; and i have also thought about how i want my funeral to be; and i have written down that i don’t want people to sing ”always dauntless when you leave”, because i hate that song.”5 what would you want instead? ”” in the east the sun rises”.”6 yes, that’s a beautiful hymn. ”and then i have written that i would like them to play ”tears in heaven” by eric clapton. ”tears in heaven”, i see. (i am here every day, story iv, pt. 1) 111 but when you can’t use your eyes anymore, then you won’t be here anymore? ”no,” says hanne with a sorrow in her voice which seems to beg for forgiveness for her not being capable of living like that. (i am here every day, story iv, pt. 2) the awareness of death has been present in all interviews as the medically likely end of the diagnosis als, not as a personal ending. it is an essence beyond words that you can only approach in writing. it is as if there is not much one really can or should say about not being here. discussion our discussion concerns three issues. firstly, we consider the outcome of an analysis based on concepts of true writing. secondly, to expand the notion of ‘thinking with’ stories, we deliberate on how the crafting of a story might be comprehended as an analytical process. and thirdly, we outline some concerns regarding the moral implications of performing stories publicly. true writing analysis we have analyzed how a non-fictitious personal public story can meet requirements for heterogeneity, sensitivity, transparency, and reflexivity, avoiding emotionalism, neutrality, and superior knowledge. through representations of enacting hope, managing anxiety, changing communication opportunities, story building, crying, leaving children, and death, we have examined whether textual authenticity have been performed. the overall aim was to study how journalistic narrative may produce complementary insight. to assess the pertinence and sufficiency of the analytical strategy, we summarize what we regard as possible complementary knowledge in the selected excerpts from hanne stenmose’s narrative: • hope is a multifaceted phenomenon. • hope is necessary to live. • hope is never abandoned. • the fear of leaving one’s children is accompanied by an encouragement to become an empowering memory. • becoming textually a story renews relations with family and may affect interactions with health professionals. • positioning author and characters in time and space renders the story transparent, allowing the reader to review the construction of story. • explicating subjectivity as part of the authoring grants equal narrative importance to all characters. • joy co-exists with despair. • death is uncommunicative. these sentences could be categorized as outcomes concerning either content or form. hope, fear, joy, and death are about what we have learned; becoming, positioning, and explicating are about how we have learned. nevertheless, it would compromise a basic idea of complementary narrative to deduce such a distinction, because what the text says depends on how it is written. it is the self-aware authorial textual posture that produces the insights regarding hope, fear, joy, and death. 112 recapitulating our true writing scheme (table 1), we find that the categories change, sensibility, transparency, reflexivity, emotionalism, neutrality, and superior knowledge have been fruitful to create an analytical ‘how-to-write’ that produces subjective otherness, i.e. heterogeneity. in consequence, the analytical questions 1-4 should be viewed as overlapping and intertwined. all categories are in varying extent represented in each question. to make room for heterogeneity includes affording change, staying sensitive, allowing transparency, being reflexive, and avoiding emotionalism, neutrality, and superior knowledge; and vice versa. possibly, the analytical questions could have been more, or fewer, and in other wordings. the number must be weighed against practical feasibility, and the phrasing should be operational, but either way a sound analysis grounded in true writing concepts is the goal. we think our choices have been adequate and appropriate for this narrative, but future analysis of the other five chronicles in the overall study may sophisticate analytical questions. those chronicles tell five different stories, which may give rise to modifications of the analytical strategy of the complementary journalistic narrative (national rehabilitation centre for neuromuscular diseases, 2011) thinking with when we claim that writing as shown in this article can be a researching activity, the conversion of transcript – together with other accumulated impressions and expressions such as feelings and sensations, memory, recollections and observational notes – into a story should be comprehended as part of an analytical process, which is interpreted as narrative by the synthesizing of form and content. furthermore, it is a continuing process comprising readers’ reception of the narrative as an embodied acquisition, invoking new stories in a continued cycle of ‘story in the making’. in this view, we would argue that the story must be read in full to fulfill itself and to answer the questions: what do i make of it? how does it affect me? (charon, 2006). the stories in the ongoing study of journalistic narrative as patient involvement in professional health rehabilitation are about something, which the stories deal with otherwise. main themes such as stemcell therapy, hope, crying, the children, being a parent, death, etc., refer to an ‘about something’, while in narrative reading the stories seem concerned with what is not articulated and phrased, because it ‘exists’ as inexpressible. in the case of the stories with hanne stenmose, we translate our subjective narrative reading as: i heal partially; i reconcile gracefully with my als; i become an empowering memory to my children. reading the stories with hanne stenmose, we are informed intellectually and emotionally that als is a condition that cannot be comprehended as an entity detached from the person’s identity and daily life. als is a transformative state of living, where you repeatedly lose and gain and lose. the stories are not prime samples of how to cope with the disease. they can be said to solve subjectively and temporarily some of the communicative purposes and needs of the individual person with als, but they never resolve by prescribing how to live with als, paraphrasing arthur frank: “this balance solves but never resolves; it is never a finalized solution. what is solved is how to keep the tension within the bounds of dialogue – to keep dialogue open.” (frank, 2004a, p. 133) our study can be seen as a supplement to the discussion about dialogue and heteroglossia of the research interview (tanggaard, 2009). the findings, we think, clarify that there are multiple 113 dimensions of subjective knowledge as well as diverse authorities to articulate that knowledge. an assumption corresponding with health research theorists jensen, mattingly, and throop stating: ”theories of the self, and in particular narrative theories and representations of acted lives, can bring to light the highly charged nature of moments that might otherwise seem undramatic, just the way things are. they can help us to consider the mysteries of everyday experience and the paradox of emotion.” (mattingly, jensen and throop, 2009, p. 7). moral implications speaking in public is definitional of journalism, and usually narrators are non-anonymous, as is the case with hanne stenmose (adam, 2006). a protagonist will bear in mind the consequences of his or her public statements: hanne stenmose explicitly withholds what she is talking to a psychologist about regarding her relation with her husband and children (i am here every day, part 6). for “loyalty” reasons, she terms it. we do not see this as an inadequacy, as a lack of relevant information. rather, the absence of privacy reinforces what you are prepared to answer for publicly, constituting a socially true personal knowledge. still, a moral dilemma of both protecting and exposing the interviewee arises when you perform stories publicly. on one hand, you should prevent the person from saying more than he or she can abide by in public; you must avoid that the intimate conversation, which may touch upon painful memories, insensibly turns into pitiable concern; you should constantly remember the difference between friendship and inter-human recognition. on the other hand, you need to endure unforeseeable spans of time passing silently, waiting in patience for the person to express him or herself; you have to find courage to ask about things that worry or hurt. the journalist must dig deep at the same time keeping his distance. understand in depth but not pity. nor admire. some journalists suggest the term empathic professionalism to describe the quality with which practitioners of narrative journalism need to supplement their “old-fashioned critical journalism” (dalviken 2005, p. 116). they talk about ‘distanced closeness’. harrington finds that the journalist must give up the professions’ usually rather cynical approach of not accepting anything at face value, not to take a naive approach but to nourish the fundamental human kindness that is necessary to understand another person: “… a wise person must learn to lose your innocence but not your hope.” (harrington, 1997, p. xxvi) steinar kvale has warned against dialogic empathy acting as a social lubricant that causes an intended or unintended intimacy (kvale, 2006). in either case, irrelevant information may be hidden behind an aura of genuine intimacy, serving as a manipulative cover, coaxing people to make confessions that can be used to generate money in the market for stories about real life. but warm and friendly reciprocity might suppress truths that unfold in disagreements and in relationships of conflict. dialogic interviews based on mutuality and solidarity between researcher and study subject are not good and freeing per se, kvale says, calling for empirical studies of the dynamics of power and how they influence the knowledge produced in various interview forms. he advocates a more transparent rendition of the interaction between interviewer and interviewee. the complementary journalistic narrative is an attempt, we find, to reconcile being transparently confrontational and empathically dialogic at the same time, by insisting on explicit textual reflexivity regarding how the author positions himself. 114 narratives are equally well-suited to deception and liberation, yannis gabriel asserts (gabriel 2004). they represent narrative raw materials processed for the purpose of articulating and communicating facts as experience rather than information, he says. there exists an implicit underlying contract concerning allowable exaggerations, omissions and deviations from verifiable realities; the narrator enjoys the privilege of the listener suspending his suspicions in return for a story that conveys authenticity and meaningfulness. gabriel believes that researchers – and narrative journalists we would include – have a special responsibility to examine the origin of personal experience in order to trace blind spots, illusions and selfdeception. narrative as qualified communication must be approached with the same scepticism and suspicion as all other forms of authoritative knowledge. the methodological obligation to pose critical questions is not of less importance to complementary journalistic narrative writing. conclusion we conclude that narrative journalism might add on to social science by supplementing its ways of knowing. it can be viewed as a method of research producing knowledge about being and becoming a subject. in the case of hanne stenmose, we have learned about hope, fear, joy, and death through her becoming a story in which authorial position and subjectivity are explicated. in that way narrative journalism is a method of inquiry both pointing to an otherness of the individual and the contextual construction of selves. we view the subjective narrative knowledge produced as complementary to diagnostic facts of the scientific medical textbooks and clinical traditions, which are inclined and obliged to look for what can be recognized as generalizable and systematizable. serious illness attacks one’s sense of being other than the illness, and because they must look for recognizability to be systematized, professionals tend to see the self as diseased. we suggest that the stories mirror this endangered otherness of the self, exposing an asymmetry between inner experience and external judgment. consequently, such stories might be a method of patient involvement complementary to classic dialogical instruments like user questionnaires, patient advisory boards or citizen hearings. journalistic narrative seems to capture dimensions of the subjective everyday life in different contexts considered by the protagonist to be of utmost importance. in conclusion, narrative journalism may be one way of writing science about what it means to be human taking into the account the complementary understanding of that meaning. acknowledgements the danish national rehabilitation centre for neuromuscular diseases facilitated access to participants in the study of journalistic narrative as patient involvement. the study is part of a phd project funded by the danish neuromuscular patient association and the danish ministry of science, technology and innovation. a draft version of this article was discussed at a seminar with the research unit health, man and society, institute of public health, university of southern denmark. constructive criticism from an anonymous reviewer has helped us explicate analytical issues. mrs. annette mahoney translated excerpts of journalistic stories and proofread the manuscript. 115 notes 1) according to the danish quantum physicist niels bohr a method of observation might affect the object and/or the observer in a way undeterminable by that method. bohr argued that a principle of complementary description was needed to understand life, in particular man (favrholdt, 2010, p. 185 and p. 301-302. see also bohr, 1985). 2) arthur frank builds on the bakhtinian construct of ‘unfinalizability’ (frank, 2005), and the lévinasian idea about alterity (frank, 2004a. irvine, 2005). 3) ‘true’ in the sense genuine or good writing, not as writing the truth. 4) ultimately, the als patient loses the ability to speak with the voice. 5) altid frejdig når du går; 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(2006). palliative care. in d. oliver and g. d. borasio and d. walsh (ed.), palliative care in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (2nd ed.). oxford: oxford university press. richardson, l. and st. pierre, e.a. (2005): writing: a method of inquiry. in n.k. denzin and y.s. lincoln (ed.), handbook of qualitative research (3rd ed.). california: sage publications. tanggaard, l. (2009). the research interview as a dialogical context for the production of social life and personal narratives. qualitative inquiry, 9 (15): 1498-1515. 117 tanggaard, l. and brinkmann, s. (2010). formidling af kvalitativ forskning [the communication of qualitative research]. in s. brinkmann and l. tanggaard (ed.), kvalitative metoder. en grundbog [qualitative methods. a textbook] copenhagen: hans reitzels forlag. thorsen, n. (2003). klangen af et menneske. om at spørge godt, lytte rigtigt og finde sit eget sprog [the ring of a human being. on skilful asking, competent listening, and finding one’s own language]. aarhus: ajour. authors jørgen jeppesen is a phd scholar in the institute of public health at the university of southern denmark. helle ploug hansen is a professor in the same institute. email of corresponding author (jeppesen): jjeppesen@health.sdu.dk untitled qualitative studies, 1(2) 91 establishing the boundaries and building bridges: research methods into the ecology of the refugee parenting experience nombasa williams abstract. this article discusses the suitability of the focus group method for conducting research early in post-resettlement among refugee parents and carers in south australia. this method was employed to uncover the refugee parenting experience in pre-resettlement contexts. there were three refugee focus groups, consisting of a sudanese women’s group, an african men’s group, and an afghani and iraqi women’s group. to illustrate each group’s differential parenting ecologies in milieus of forced migration ecological matrixes were devised which are presented in the results section. an ecological matrix was also developed to unpack, code and analyse transcripts. the matrix was designed to include categories and actions so as to construct meaning units and subsequent condensed meaning units to determine the concluding themes. these provided an analytical framework with which to illuminate the constructed meanings participants attributed to their refugee parenting experiences. the findings provide insights into the ecology of the refugee parenting experience and might be of considerable importance for australian resettlement services and state systems of child protection seeking to develop culturally appropriate and relevant services. key words: refugee parents, ecology, focus group interview, parenting experiences, child protection please cite this article as: williams, n. (2010). establishing the boundaries and building bridges: research methods into the ecology of the refugee parenting experience. qualitative studies, 1(2): 91-114. there is a lack of research that describes the ecology of the refugee parenting experience in preresettlement contexts. the research method, design and rationale of this study were developed to inform why refugee families are presenting within the south australian system of child protection. the purpose of this paper is two-fold: first, to discuss the suitability of the focus group method for resettled refugee participant research, and why this method was employed in this study to access the meanings, language and concepts adopted by refugees to make sense of their parenting experiences in pre-resettlement contexts; and, second, to present the analytical framework devised to shape participant discussions for transcript coding. the findings might be of considerable importance to australian resettlement programs in the planning and development of culturally appropriate and relevant services centred on child protection (see also department of immigration and citizenship, 2007; lewig et al., 2009). past research efforts into refugees have primarily focused on the drivers that determine the political conditions that create a refugee situation; the economic impact of conflict and war; the disruption of cultural norms and values; the displacement of social organisation (such as marital practices) and family structures (including gender roles); shifts in power driven by an increase in the impact of external factors relative to that of internal factors; or on analyses of the efficacy of resettlement schemes (indra, 1999; wiseman & khan, 1995; ye-chin, 1980). there are theoretical and analytical qualitative studies, 1(2) 92 gaps in the literature because of the lack of empirical research around the refugee parenting experience. the research method utilised in this study illuminated the ecology of the refugee parenting experience of focus group participants within pre-resettlement contexts and subsequently identified the meanings and understandings attributed by participants to their experiences. recognising the influence of cultural beliefs, norms and values, as well as that of the particular conditions within each refugee camp, and the mediating role each of these factors plays, this study sought to discern common patterns and themes that reflect and describe how parents cope with the changing spaces of crisis, flight and migration. very little empirical research has been conducted in the area of the ecology of the refugee parenting experience that actually describes experiences through the voices of refugees themselves. practice wisdom, urban myths and unfounded assumptions abound regarding what ordinary people face in extraordinary circumstances, yet very little is known about the day-to-day experiences of refugees or how the environment of flight and migration affects the parenting process for families and carers. the fact that alterations in family structure, cultural practices, beliefs, values and gender roles, as well as loss of parental agency, begin during pre-migration—and not solely as a result of flight and migration—is evidenced by the findings of this study (williams, 2008). additional research in the area of refugee family wellbeing, post-resettlement transitions and cross-cultural parenting supports this finding (williams, 1990; paulino & burgos-servedio, 1997). illuminating the ecology of the refugee parenting experience through the voices of focus group participants captures how these external conditions affect their lives. disruption is a defining characteristic of the refugee parenting experience, which begins in pre-migration and continues in post-resettlement environs. heightened levels of loss of autonomy and control during flight and migration might contribute to parents and carers presenting in the south australian system of child protection. responding to, and seeking to eliminate, violence against children is perhaps most challenging in the context of the family, in so far as it is considered to be the most sacred of sacred terrains. however, children’s rights to safety, integrity and autonomy do not stop at the door of the family home, and states’ obligations to uphold these rights must prevail even within the home. refugee parents and carers are presenting in the south australian system of child protection (lewig et al., 2009). the parenting practices, beliefs and values of these people might share normative spaces in their countries of origin; however, these can become decentred during resettlement in australia (azar & cote, 2002; azar, nix, & makin-byrd, 2005). it is important that child welfare practitioners and professionals are well informed about how best to support these families through the use of culturally relevant child protection, family intervention and community development practices. it is important to offer a conceptualisation of flight and forced migration. it is commonly accepted that forced migrants have a distinctive experience and distinctive needs (castles, 2003; stein, 1981). according to turton (2003) this phenomenon is a product of wider processes of social and economic change, processes that are normally referred to as globalisation and which appear to be creating an ever increasing north-south divide in living standards, human security, and access to justice and human rights protection (turton, 2003, p. 7-8). consequently, the research presented here provides a window into the parenting processes associated with the beginnings of flight and forced migration and offers a way of examining and understanding these experiences on a macro level. qualitative studies, 1(2) 93 grove and zwi (2006) describe the starting place for flight and forced migration journey as beginning at home (country of origin) and concluding with the refugees’ final destination (safety and security). further, grove and zwi (2006) quite aptly describe this process as often involving: “… multiple border crossings, arduous land journeys, and protracted stays informal or informal camps. they are typically marked by ongoing fear of violence and persecution: from militants, from authorities in the host country, from those who control the camps and from other refugees. those charged with protecting such refugees may abuse their role: united nations peacekeepers, ngo workers, and local camp staff may exploit vulnerabilities, demanding sex. [f]or example, in exchange for access to basic supplies. the process of applying for refugee status can be long and drawn-out. the onus to demonstrate circumstances of individual persecution and the fact that only a very few applicants will be accepted for resettlement, increases anxiety and uncertainty. some will wait for many years in ‘temporary’ refugee camps hoping for a visa, a few others with the resources and connections to do so attempt to make their own way to the ‘safety’ of a developed country” (grove & zwi, 2006, p. 1932). it is within the milieu described above that the parenting process unfolds. the environmental stressors described begin to affect the ability of the refugee family to parent (see drachman & paulino, 2004; drachman, 1992, 2005; williams, 2010). theoretical framework an ecological framework provides a method for systematically ordering the large body of data and integrating the various theoretical viewpoints. a major tenet of ecological theory (bronfenbrenner & morris, 1998) is that the developing child is embedded in a series of nested environments that affect her or his development. bronfenbrenner argues that there are four interrelated systems affecting the developmental processes: (a) microsystem, (b) mesosystem, (c) exosystem, and (d) macrosystem. equally, pre-resettlement contexts (flight, migration and the refugee camp) comprise nested environments that affect and shape the refugee parenting experience. although accurate information on the demographics of flight, migration and refugee camps is limited, several authors (hitchcox, 1988; jackson, 1987; sundhagel, 1981) elucidate the characteristics of family units in these contexts. their findings reveal that such families possess the following characteristics: are mostly headed by females; lack one or both parents, and usually an absent father. still less research exists that captures the impact of the refugee environment on the parenting experience (adepoju, 1982; calloway, 1986). some of the environmental factors described by focus group participants as directly affecting their experience of parenting included resource allocation and scarcity within camp confines; communicable diseases; minimal healthcare services; overcrowding; and continued exposure to violence—whether domestic violence, rape or clan feuds (waldron, 1987). ecological theory is often utilised extensively by child welfare practitioners throughout western industrialised countries as it offers an accessible tool for practitioners to undertake family risk assessment for children. ecological frameworks, for some, may be too broad and bereft of class, social, and gender constructs and analysis (see houston, 2002). however, for other child welfare practitioners, policymakers, and researchers (see jack, 1997, 1998, 2000, 2004) the adoption of ecological theory is pivotal to the re-focusing of services towards prevention, family support, the qualitative studies, 1(2) 94 alleviation of poverty, and the development of social capital; which is articulated by houston (houston, 2002, p. 303). the refugee ecological macrosystem offered by williams (2008) draws upon bronfenbrenner’s notion of environmental risk factors (micro, meso, exso, and micro systems) and maps these onto the milieu of flight and forced migration to discern the parental processes of refugee families from that of western families. analytical framework qualitative data can help to build or refine conceptual models (patton, 2002). for this research the intersections of sidebotham’s (2001) ecological macrosystem and sung’s (1998) actions of filial piety were explored to create a new tool for transcript data analysis. the resulting analytical framework stems from a review of the parenting literature from which ecological theory was identified, which was then incorporated as a tool for understanding how families engage with systems of child protection. the analytical framework was further developed and refined through the course of the research as themes emerged from the transcript analysis. the use of this analytical method deepened understanding of the interrelationships among the components within the model proposed which reflect the stages of lived refugee parenting experiences in pre-resettlement contexts. three of sidebotham’s ecological macrosystem categories were adopted as the content areas for this research: cultural beliefs and values; the nature and role of the family; and responsibilities in parenting (sidebotham, 2001, p. 105). sung’s (1998) actions of filial piety were also instrumental and assisted with the development of actions for the ecological macrosystem (see table 1). the meanings of words, phrases, sentences and paragraphs were identified within the refugee focus group transcripts, which were then made to fit into the categories of the actions (graneheim & lundman, 2004). this formulation of actions for the macrosystem was aimed at enhancing understanding of the social and cultural ecology of refugee parenting, which will in turn enable practitioners to develop more explicit conceptualisations of the uniqueness of the refugee parenting experience. the focus group provided a space in which refugee participants could describe their encounters with power shifts (around, for example, gender roles, loss of income or cultural values) based on a move from internal to external control factors (such as from personal agency to environmental factors). the method was also able to capture how participants engaged and disengaged in these seminal contexts—for example, how they coped with different levels of involvement in united nations high commissioner for refugees (unhcr) facilitated activities. qualitative studies, 1(2) 95 table 1 actions for a refugee ecological macrosystem categories cultural beliefs and values nature and role of family responsibilit ies in parenting socialization goals for children preservation of parenting norms under extraordinary conditions actions maintaining family structure & family continuity harmonizing the family expressing love and affection showing respect for parents/family/ kin/ community structures immediate flight, forced departure ancestral worship making sacrifices for parents breastfeeding deference to other elders and ancestors forced separation from family/kin/clan observing religious teachings or animistic teachings in filial duty reunification of family separated by war, natural disaster or conflict weaning replaced by other social attachments (e.g. siblings or aunts) realizing parents' wishes loss of income and way of life, loss of identity rituals, medicinal practices or childrearing rituals financial support code of values, courtesy, and complex kinship behavior maintaining parent & family relationship exposure to traumatic events observation of traditional & religious dress code providing care to parent for loss of or disservice to family member parenting is shared by siblings, cousins, wives, grandparents, and extended kin making sacrifices for parents risk of losing parental agency discipline not giving parents anxiety by taking good care of oneself displacement/tra nsiency qualitative studies, 1(2) 96 design and method the research method was designed to explore and inform our understanding of why refugee parents and carers are presenting within the south australian system of child protection. stage i of the research involved an archival review of the literature that represents a range of issues which have resulted in notifications and substantiations (lewig et al., 2009). stage ii involved identification of both a theoretical and an analytical framework aimed at unpacking the refugee focus group participants’ narratives. stage iii included holding the focus group meetings to identify refugee parenting experiences and narratives. stage iv involved transcript development and application of the analytical framework. stage v included presentation of the data analysis and of the thematic results of the research. saturation and redundancy of recurrent patterns were reached when new information was no longer identified from the transcript analysis. completed transcripts were then examined and discussed with focus group facilitators, and amendment or correction of the data was undertaken in the case of possible data misinterpretation. the focus group method adopted in this research presented an opportunity to engage early (within six months to one year of arrival) with a collective refugee parent or carer narrative of resettled refugees in south australia. this approach effectively captures the nature of the unfolding preresettlement environment, including that of flight, forced migration and refugee camps, thus informing our understanding of the refugee parenting experience. the refugee groups selected were representative of the resettled refugee populations in south australia that are presenting within the system of child protection. it is important that the method employed is reflective of culturally appropriate child protection research and practice which can identify suitable early family interventions and community development practices. the focus group interview is a qualitative research technique primarily used to obtain data about the feelings and opinions of a small group of participants concerning a given problem, experience, service or other phenomenon (krueger, 1998; krueger & casey, 2000). in contrast, the focus group method employed in this research is exploratory, designed to consider the ecology of the refugee participants’ parenting experiences in pre-resettlement contexts. significant features of the focus group method used for this study, particularly with regard to newly resettled refugee populations in south australia, are as follows: (a) the moderator for each group was selected because of his or her fluency in both english and the native tongue of the participants, and the moderators were also integral to the analysis of meaning undertaken before and after each session as they were either members of newly arrived refugee families themselves or community workers for the migrant resource centre of south australia (mrcsa); (b) the physical setting was deemed appropriate and readily accessible as the migrant resource centre was a natural port-of-call for newly arrived refugee participants to receive essential resettlement services, counselling, referrals or other forms of assistance; (c) the psychological climate was conducive to successful group interviewing because the subjects in each group were members of the same clan, often kith and kin, and/or from the same country; (d) instrumentation involved a series of descriptive questions aimed at identifying the ecology of participants’ parenting experiences in pre-resettlement contexts; and (e) for data analysis a framework was developed to analyse how the participants’ narratives reflected the ecology of the refugee parenting experience (see table 1). qualitative studies, 1(2) 97 sample and procedures sample & recruitment techniques approval for the research project was obtained from the university of south australia human research and ethics committee and the south australian families and communities research ethics committee. in research conducted by lewig et al. (2009); the precursor to the research presented here; data collection involved survey, interviews, and focus group methods with statutory child protection practitioners and refugee community members. the migrant resource centre of south (mrcsa) is an independent, non-government peak settlement agency responsible for the settlement and participation of migrants and refugee entrants across all of south australia. the mrcsa under the ihss has primary responsibility for settling humanitarian entrants in the adelaide metropolitan region upon arrival. these comprise new arrivals from a diversity of cultural and religious backgrounds arriving with their family members or joining family members already settled in south australia. the mrcsa was established in 1979. the centre has worked with different waves of migrant and refugee settlement groups in order to assist them to adjust to their new homeland, to become self reliant, and to develop linkages with the broader community and with their local ethnic communities. in addition to its service delivery role and functions, the mrcsa advocates on behalf of its client groups and represents their interests to all levels of government. to that end, it actively contributes to mainstream public policy and service planning which impacts on the health and wellbeing, equitable access to services and social inclusion of australians from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds. according to the australian department of immigration and citizenship (diac) (2008) more than 660, 000 refugees have resettled in australia. in the midto late 1990s until 2003, the majority of humanitarian entrants have come from africa (i.e., sudan), the former yugoslavia (today known as bosnia and herzegovina, croatia, kosovo, macedonia, montenegro, serbia), the middle east, and southeast asia (diac, 2008). as the mrcsa is the peak body for the resettlement of refugees in the state of south australia it was approached to recruit parent participants for this study from the aforementioned refugee populations. based on lewig et al (2009) research these groups are presenting in child protection systems (with exception of families from afghanistan). the staff of the mrcsa selected the focus group participants to represent a cross-section of refugee parents and carers of children aged from 1 to 12 years). all participants were newly arrived, having spent less than a year in south australia, and either had a personal or a once removed experience (for example, knew someone who had been in contact with families, sa) with the south australian system of child protection. the ages represented within each group ranged from 21 to 70 years old. the focus groups were flexibly designed to accommodate participants’ limited english language skills, and most (other than the men’s group) were undertaking english language training courses and/or had family commitments during the day—therefore attendance could vary between 8 and 15 participants at any given session (see table 2 below). procedures the sample consisted of three focus groups ranging in size from 8 to 15 participants per session (with a maximum total of n=35). participation was voluntary and based on a revolving door policy, such that participants were free to attend or leave at any time. a sudanese women’s group (dinka qualitative studies, 1(2) 98 and nuer), an african men’s group (congo, ethiopia, liberia, somalia and the sudan), and an afghani and iraqi women’s group were formed. this sample provided an opportunity to better understand how refugee groups composed of individuals from different cultural backgrounds experience parenting. the participants were homogeneous in their shared status as refugees and consequent experiences of ‘otherness’, and in some cases in their countries of origin. however, they were heterogeneous in their clan identifications; religious affiliations; gender; and experiences of flight, migration and refugee camps. homogeneity is not a strict requirement for exploratory focus group research; indeed, heterogeneity was achieved across the focus group sample in this research, which provided a diverse and rich source of information. separate sessions were conducted for each group and were divided along gender lines. the analytical framework and coding processes were aimed at eliciting the refugee participants’ differential pre-resettlement experiences in order to identify the overarching meta-themes. informed consent obtaining informed consent occurred in stages. stage i involved four informed consent sessions for varying levels of the mrcsa management team, staff, administrators, and family workers preselected by the mrcsa who served as focus group facilitators and translators. in stage ii, two introductory informed consent sessions were conducted per focus group with one upper management mrcsa staff member present for each. participant information sheets were translated for both women’s groups, but not for the men as they were fluent in english. oral consent was obtained in cases of participant illiteracy by both the facilitator and the individual as participants in this category had minimal writing skills. focus groups & facilitators focus group facilitators were selected by the migrant resource centre of south australia. to preserve the anonymity of facilitators and parent participants’ additional detailed information was not collected or presented. focus group questions utilised during sessions were semi-structured and facilitators were given an opportunity to review the questions, revise, or query any of the content for clarification purposes. each facilitator represented the culture and country of origin of participants. the researcher met with facilitators as many times as required prior to the start of the focus group sessions. the facilitators completed consent forms. the facilitators selected participants whom they deemed would benefit and were suitable for the research. an information session was provided for prospective participants. during these sessions attendees were asked to indicate their interest in participating in the focus group research. the facilitators were instrumental for the conduct, translation, and flow of focus group discussion. the researcher was present at each focus group session (see williams, 2008). at the close of each focus group the researcher and facilitator conducted post-session consultations to reflect on observations made during each focus group. each session was conducted by preparing the room allocated by the mrcsa to conduct the research. food, a chat, coffee, tea, and blessings were offered prior to the commencement of each session. each session was conducted in a similar fashion–largely unstructured. the focus group qualitative studies, 1(2) 99 session ended because resources did not permit continuation as well as the research deadline was reached. transcripts were derived from 15 3.5-hour focus group sessions. facilitators assisted with transcript coding. the focus group sessions were audiotaped and notes were also taken by the researcher and the facilitator. sessions ran longer that anticipated due to interpretation at the conclusion of the research follow-up unstructured interviews (unrecorded) and coding sessions occurred with facilitators both in-person and via telephone. table 2: focus group matrix focus group composition number and length of sessions number of participants refugee camp period in australia family composition comments sudanese women dinka nuer 6 @ 3.5hrs 6–10 egypt kenya < 6 months to <1yr married single >2 children >2 adolescents 2 elder sudanese women (great/grandp arents) african men burundi, congo ethiopia, liberia sierra león, sudan 5 @ 3.5hrs 8–10 egypt kenya < 6 months to < 1yr married single >2 children >2 adolescents ethiopian elder >50yrs in age participant lived in australia >10 yrs arab women afghanistan iraq 5 @ 3.5hrs 8–15 iran < 6 months to <1yr married single >2 children >2 adolescents >5 afghani women single mothers personal interviews w/ sa refugee family workers congo (male) ethiopia (male) iraq (female) liberia (female) sudan (male) 4 @ 2.5hrs 2–w/female ------------- 3–w/ male ghana kenya >1yr married single >2 children >2 adolescents 1 grandparent follow-up by telephone and/or in person was required total 20 @ 13hrs 62 4 > 1yr >3 each group desired more sessions qualitative studies, 1(2) 100 the collective participants’ narrative developed exponentially, particularly as trust was established. the focus group questions utilised in the study with refugee parents and carers were semistructured with the aim of creating a discussion where experiences and stories could be shared between participants. questions were designed to explore pre-resettlement parenting experiences within the milieu of flight and forced migration. in the early stages and development of lewig et al. (2009) research questions emerged regarding capturing refugee parenting experiences early. although focus group questions were reviewed by my supervisors, due to the lengthy process often associated with interpretation and the evolving nature of discussion groups (as conducted by facilitators), all of the questions presented were not utilised in their strictest form. all of the questions were not asked during all of the groups (as focus groups discussions were only minimally structured) the following questions are exemplary of those used to generate the initial discussion for each group, after which point the sessions continually evolved in terms of content and theme (such that each session began with a summary of the previous session): (a) can you describe what the word ‘family’ means in your culture? (b) what is the role of the family and who are its members? (c) what is the role of the mother? (d) what is the role of the father? (e) who is responsible for raising the children? (f) can you describe the most important cultural traditions for the family? (g) how does your culture and family address child disobedience? (h) what does child protection mean? (i) how did your parenting experience change once you were forced to leave your home? (j) what has changed for you in australia? the responses to these questions were analysed using qualitative content data analysis (fowler, 1995). the use of focus groups as a qualitative approach to working with refugee participants provided a familiar environment for them—in terms of gender, language, culture and the building of support networks. according to watters (1998a, 1998b; 1999; 2001) a recommended mechanism for consultation with refugee groups is the focus group method. these have proven to be useful forums for addressing issues relating to healthcare provision (watters, 2001, p. 1714). watters (2001) and others (see also my & cunninghame, 1996) argue that the focus group method among refugee communities may be a useful means of prioritising proposals for the setting up of specific services relating to the health, wellbeing and social care needs of refugees (watters, 2001, p. 1714) the focus group method was utilised in the research presented here because it provided a sense of safety in numbers. according to some authors (harrell-bond et al., 1992; kreitzer, 2002; ochocka & janzen, 2008; oke, 2008) such a format gives a voice to disempowered groups or those in fear of negative feedback. after conducting extensive research into identifying the most appropriate methodology to engage refugee parents; the results suggest that, if handled skillfully, this technique offers refugee communities opportunities to be active participants in identifying priorities and delivering services (see also pourgourides et al., 1996). utilising focus groups and subsequent personal interviews facilitated understanding of both the explicit and implicit aspects of the refugee parenting experience in pre-resettlement contexts. understanding refugees’ cultural beliefs and values regarding the nature and role of the family, responsibilities in parenting, and culturally based socialisation goals for children will assist in the development of culturally appropriate child protection policy and practice in post-resettlement family interventions. focus group methodology is ideal for organising small, informal discussions qualitative studies, 1(2) 101 among individuals on select topics and eliciting participants’ own meanings, concepts and language, and is particularly relevant for newly arrived, resettled refugees whose first language is not that of the dominant culture (in this case, english). in this research it was necessary to have each focus group facilitated by the respective community’s family worker employed by the mrcsa, who also translated and moderated each session. although the focus group method is suitable for the aims of this study, it is limited by the inability to draw inferences about larger refugee populations or to allow statistical testing or interval estimations, which require quantitative data. several key challenges emerged during the focus group sessions, including: (a) time lost in the translation of native languages into english; (b) a restriction on the number of focus groups possible because of the cost of providing lunch and morning and afternoon teas for participants; (c) constraints around scheduling and access to the space provided by the mrcsa; and (d) most importantly, because refugee participants were new arrivals they were engaged in receiving resettlement services (such as english language education) during the day, which hindered their ability to participate. the focus group method cannot resolve the many problems involved in cross-cultural parenting, child protection and family wellbeing research. however, its methodological strengths suggest that child protection practitioners and policymakers could benefit from greater familiarity with the particular ecology of refugee parenting in pre-resettlement contexts. in addition, although this method has been under-utilised in the areas of health and psychology research in the past, it is likely to receive greater attention in the future because of its versatility and ability to inform future research, resettlement planning, and the development of services that are culturally appropriate and relevant. reliability & validity a great deal of attention is applied to reliability and validity in all research methods. a challenge to rigor in qualitative inquiry interestingly parallels the burgeoning development of statistical packages and computing systems in currently available quantitative research. some authors (guba & lincoln, 1994; leininger, 1994; morse et al., 2002) suggest adopting new criteria for determining reliability and validity. to obtain reliability and validity, the research process presented here engaged in the following strategies to attain trustworthiness such as peer debriefing, prolonged engagement (i.e., 3 hour focus group sessions) and persistent observation (i.e., audiotaped sessions). also important to the research presented here were characteristics of the facilitators, who were to be responsive and adaptable to changing circumstances, holistic (i.e., mrcsa family workers), having sensitivity, ability for clarification and summarization (see also guba & lincoln, 1994). maintenance of particular standards were present from the beginning of the research (as represented by ethics approval) through to the development of a comprehensive approach to evaluating the research as a whole; which was primarily reliant on procedures or checks developed by the researcher for facilitators to be used following completion of the research. strategies for ensuring rigor were embedded into the qualitative research. when used appropriately, these strategies force the researcher to correct both the direction of the analysis and the development of the study as necessary (i.e., oxford certificate in forced migration), thus ensuring inter-rater reliability and validity of the completed project. qualitative studies, 1(2) 102 qualitative research is iterative rather than linear, so that a good qualitative researcher moves back and forth between design and implementation to ensure congruence among question formulation, literature, recruitment, data collection strategies, and analysis. data are systematically checked—in this case focus group transcription allows for maintenance of focus, and the fit of participants, data and the conceptual framework of analysis and interpretation are monitored and confirmed throughout. verification strategies helped the researcher to identify when to continue, stop or modify the research process in order to achieve reliability and validity and consequently ensure rigor. generalizability the refugee parent participants and experiences are not necessarily reflective of all preor postresettlement experiences. there were time and resource limitations to the study. the research aimed to identify participants from those countries of origin presented within the lewig et al (2009) sample. there are limitations in undertaking cross-cultural qualitative research (i.e., researcher represents a different cultural background). however, simultaneously the researcher was granted greater access and trust because she is a migrant to south australia, a parent, and both her ancestral background and religious upbringing presented a shared foundational scaffold for engagement. results and analysis coding: actions for an ecological macrosystem transcript coding in this research occurred in steps. the first step in the coding process required locating texts within the focus group transcripts that could be placed within the actions to become meaning units. the second step involved condensing these excerpts (that is, meaning units) into condensed meaning units. the third step in the content analysis procedure involved identifying the intersections of condensed meaning units and categorising these into sub-themes and the resulting dominant themes. there is a dearth of research into single parent refugees, refugee caregivers and specifically the ecology of parenting within the environment of flight and forced migration. a descriptive taxonomy of categories and concrete actions was developed in this study to describe the ecological environment of parenting within pre-resettlement contexts. transcripts were analysed using the content analysis method. categories and actions were devised to identify meaning units and condensed meaning units, which were subsequently translated into sub-themes and concluding themes, with the aim of developing a comprehensive understanding of the refugee parenting experience. a similar style of qualitative research was conducted by hsueh, hu & clarke-ekong (2008) in their exploration of acculturation in filial practices among 21 chinese immigrants, who referred to the research process as thematic content analysis. through a process of open coding and categorising, these authors identified key phrases on which to base their formulation of codes and major categories. major categories were grouped and further analysed to determine subcategories to reflect situational perspectives on acculturation in relation to filial values. these procedures were adapted and applied to the present context of refugee-related data. similar to wilkinson’s (1998) review of published reports of focus group studies, this research has enabled improved access to participants’ own language and concepts around their experiences, qualitative studies, 1(2) 103 better understanding of participants’ agendas, and the production of more detailed accounts by utilising meaning units for coding. the categories and actions outlined below allowed for fluid transcript analysis, as the breadth of each transcript ranged from 30 to 60 pages. the transcript analysis process involved movement in, among and between the transcripts, entailing coding, analysis and conceptualisation. this process enabled the construction of distinct meanings for words, phrases, sentences and paragraphs (williams, 2008, p. 12). the overarching categories for the ecological macrosystem are: (a) cultural beliefs and values; (b) nature and role of family; (c) responsibilities in parenting; (d) socialisation goals for children; and (e) preservation of parenting norms under extraordinary conditions. these categories represent fundamental cultural beliefs and values associated with traditional societies. woven into the macrosystem categories are action codifiers for the particular experiences of war, the disruption of lives, pre-flight, flight and migration, and refugee camps. these are reflected in daily life and behavioural patterns; the (re)organisation of society; and the attitudes and beliefs that underlie these cultural manifestations. it is important that the ecology of the refugee parenting experience not be viewed as static, but rather as comprised of layered transparent elements of experience often appearing simultaneously, at times partially obscuring other elements, and occurring as a metadynamic, consequently shaping and moulding child development. examples of actions are: (a) showing respect for community structures; (b) loss of way of life; (c) code of values; (d) harmonising the family; (e) shared parenting; and (f) showing respect for parents. this list is not intended to be exhaustive, but to provide examples that show how different factors can fit within an ecological model. it is important to note that some factors might operate on more than one level. investigating the ecology of the refugee parenting experience involves the study of the progressive, reciprocal interaction between an active, developing human being and the changing properties of the immediate settings in which that person lives, and this process is affected by relations between these settings and the larger contexts (such as war, flight and migration) in which the settings are embedded. qualitative studies, 1(2) 104 figure 1: transcript analysis and process the concept of ‘theme’ can have multiple interpretations. establishing themes is a way to link underlying meanings across focus group transcript analysis into categories, according to polit and hungler (1999). a theme is a recurring representation of meaning developed within categories or cutting across categories. authors such as baxter (1991) define themes as threads of meaning that recur across domains. other authors argue that a theme describes an aspect of the structure of experience (van manen, 1990). a theme answers the question ‘how?’ a theme can be viewed as a thread of an underlying meaning, revealed through condensed meaning units, codes or categories, at an interpretative level (downe-wamboldt, 1992; krippendorff, 1980). for the purposes of the research presented here themes are comprised of sub-themes. the motive for dissecting and (re)presenting the participants’ collective narrative is to illustrate the existence of multiple realities and the diversity of these realities, and to allow the reader entry into these localised spaces. the questions utilised were designed to elicit descriptions of the parenting experience and the preresettlement environment in which parenting occurred. as the focus group discussions evolved and trust was established, the discussions transcended these subject areas and participants desired to send a message—not solely to families, sa or to australia as a whole—but a meta-message. this message, signifying ‘i am’ and ‘my history’, is important in that it allows australians to understand the palette of refugees’ lives, cultures and traditions. the focus group provided a space for the collective sharing and expression of what refugees hold most dear—their memories of the past, culture, tradition, family, and maintaining a state of normality. this coexistence of many selves in many contexts inherent to the refugee experience in general and refugee parenting in particular comes to light by using the focus group medium. participant-based research allows for the location of voice and agency. qualitative studies, 1(2) 105 in most refugee and displacement contexts, the roles and responsibilities of men and women change because of the impact conflict and/or displacement has on family and community structures. for example, women might become the breadwinners and men might assume responsibility for childcare (unhcr, 2006a). there is a need for australian resettlement agencies to engage in assessment and analysis of refugee situations from a gender-based perspective to foster successful gender-specific integration. australian resettlement agencies must carefully analyse the socially assigned roles of women and girls, men and boys, and elders in these communities. according to the unhcr (2006a, 2006b), in most situations women are the primary caregivers for children, the sick and the elderly. the power relations between women and men, and how these impact on women’s participation in decision-making and their access to and control of resources and physical security, need to be better understood. when violations of women’s and girls’ rights, or inequalities between women and men, are identified in any operation, unhcr programs should seek to address these through sustainable action-oriented, community-based initiatives. transcript development and analysis proceeded with facilitators after each session to decontextualise session notes and were available for follow-up meetings and telephone queries as needed. although the idea of saturation is helpful at the conceptual level, it provides little practical guidance for estimating sample sizes prior to data collection, which is necessary for conducting quality research. data collected in this research were used to systematically document the degree of data saturation and variability over the course of thematic analysis—to generate sub-themes and meta-themes (see figure 2 below). the analytical framework and coding processes operationalised saturation. figure 2: focus group meta-themes research utility and messages from the field an ecological approach to working with families and children in the child welfare system is defined as an approach that understands a child as located within the context of his or her family (for example, in relation to parents, caregivers and the wider family) and of the community and culture in which he or she is developing (department of health, 1999). this approach is also commonly associated with the domain of child welfare and social work, and with determining child wellbeing qualitative studies, 1(2) 106 on the basis of the social ecology of parents and children. stemming from human ecology, social ecology examines the ways in which people and their environments shape and influence one another through a process of interaction and mutual reinforcement (garbarino, 1981). ambert’s (1994) work illustrates the effect socioeconomic change and upheaval has on the experience of parenting, which in future in the context of flight and migration might become increasingly problematic throughout the world. if, as ambert (1994) asserts, childhood and parenting are viewed as social constructs that evolve within socio-historical environs then it is equally true that they are impacted by international developments which can be presumed to affect not only the ecology of refugee parenting, roles, beliefs, practices and norms but also research paradigms (barnett, 2008; magnuson & duncan, 2002; teti & candelaria, 2002). researchers who have moved beyond classical interpretations of migration offer both historical and sociological analyses (yans-mclaughlin, 1990; tilly, 1990) such as those driven by ethno-culturally based research on groups within the united states (asians, african-americans and latinos). such ethno-cultural research has been conducted in refugee camps to a lesser extent. however, service provisions (such as healthcare) within these settings have focused on sexual and gender-based violence, harmful practices and domestic violence (bonar & roberts, 2006; menjivar & salcido, 2002). yet research into, and developments in the provision of, ethno-culturally based services within camp settings in post-resettlement contexts are increasing (ajdukovic, 1996; keyes, 2000; pine & drachman, 2005), particularly in relation to adaptation and acculturation (goodkind & foster-fishman, 2002; masten & reed, 2002). there is also a heightened interest in research regarding the consequences for asylum seekers of long-term residence within detention centres (fazel, wheeler, & danesh, 2005). azar and cote’s (2002) examination of the literature within psychology concludes that current research emphasises measuring socialisation goals that are individually driven as opposed to group-oriented or communal goals, such as independence and individuality versus acts of piety. discussion the findings drawn from the focus group research presented here are consistent with the accounts provided by other international authors (ochocka & janzen, 2008) of the challenges faced by newly arrived immigrants. however, the ecological complexity of issues confronting refugee parents and carers in the context of pre-resettlement has not been thoroughly explored. ochocka and janzen (2008) discuss the particular parenting challenges faced by immigrants in canada, which correlate with the results of williams’s (2008) research. for example, these authors concluded that participants in their research experienced a loss of the social structure that supported their parenting values, beliefs, norms and strategies for coping. ochocka and janzen have also highlighted the limitations of existing parenting models (such as those of baumrind, 1971; levine, 1980) in seeking to uncover and conceptualise the process and outcomes of parenting for newly arrived immigrant families. weine et al. (2005) attest to a lack of theory or empirical research concerning refugee families’ and their mental health that might guide practice, policy and research. these authors state that the limited volume of family therapy literature on refugee families consists primarily of clinical reports and theories that tend to focus on problematic interpersonal aspects of the refugee experience such as family disruption, traumatic memories, or gender-based and intergenerational conflict (weine et qualitative studies, 1(2) 107 al., 2005, p. 558). as noted by these authors, refugee families are distinct from general immigrant and migrant populations as a result of their experiences associated with pre-flight, flight and forced migration (see also balgopal, 2000; barnett, 2008). weine et al. (2005) have incorporated multiplefamily groups in their research into bosnian refugee families as part of an approach to intervention they have found to be effective which is focused on family strengths and resilience and is aimed at assisting families to cope with adversity. however, as has been argued by these authors, neither the immigrant nor the refugee literature presents empirical research on family-focused mental health interventions or outreach with refugee families—hence the need for the research presented here. parent management training is another widely used intervention aimed at improving parenting skills (forehand & kotchick, 2002; kotchick & forehand, 2002; moran & ghate, 2005). research models and ecological frameworks that seek to understand child abuse and neglect often do not consider the refugee parent or carer’s own resources (such as social and kinship networks) (cochran & niego, 2002; colic-peisker & tilbury, 2003), ethno-cultural background and demographic history (coll & pachter, 2002; collins, 1996), or the unique characteristics of flight and migration. various early intervention parent training programs exist which are widely used by child welfare services to improve the parenting practices of families referred for child maltreatment. however, a parent-centred education support service that is specific to the needs of refugees is lacking. despite variations in composition and delivery, the elements that determine effective parent training programs have rarely been examined. as there are continuing debates concerning the aetiology of child abuse and neglect it is difficult to mainstream evaluation efforts that are culturally relevant and an appropriate fit for refugee parents and carers. many authors (lim & lim, 2004; roopnarine et al., 2006) concur that an understanding of culture is vital to gaining an understanding of parenting. immigrant parenting styles are not unchanging or homogeneous, but rather develop over time, and this is equally true in the context of pre-flight, flight and forced migration. indeed, ochocka and janzen (2008) argue that there are a wide range of ecological factors which need to be considered. they stress the importance of developing frameworks that explore the multiplicity of factors that impact on parenting practice in the context of ‘ever changing ecologies and new situations’ (ochoka & janzen, 2008, p. 88). the focus group method and the theoretical and analytical framework employed in this research are designed to contribute to previous investigative efforts around the changing ecologies of refugee parenting in pre-resettlement contexts. conclusion in conclusion, parenting ability, competency and support are increasingly becoming a concern for child welfare practitioners, educators and policymakers, as witnessed by a growth in parenting research and interventions for these populations. cultural knowledge informs such professionals about the unique refugee parenting context when working with these families and their children. the experiences of focus group participants in this study of flight and forced migration have shaped their childrearing practices. understanding the ecology of these spaces plays a significant role in increasing communication between the outsider (such as the counsellor) and the client (the refugee), and facilitates consideration of the client’s culture of origin. recognition of how culture informs parents’ socialisation goals for their children will impact child protection practice and service delivery. qualitative studies, 1(2) 108 the guiding research question for lewig et al (2009) is identified as why refugee parents are presenting to south australian child protective services. while focus group participants in the research presented here did not have direct contact with south australian systems of child protection, many did however, have a once or twice removed (i.e., a community member, a child’s friend from school, and/or neighbour) knowledge of persons in contact with child welfare. the research presented here explored what occurs to the refugee parenting process—as affected by the milieu of flight and forced migration (i.e., pre-resettlement contexts); to inform south australian child protection practitioners, policy, and research to assist refugee parents to meet the challenges associated with post-resettlement (i.e., parenting in a new culture). as the focus groups transcription unfolded early themes identified (see williams, 2008) pointed toward the need for child welfare early interventions (i.e., parenting education) within the context of refugee camps on behalf of both the unhcr and humanitarian service providers; which led to broadening the researchers lens to include participating and acquiring a certificate from the university of oxford, international summer school of forced migration, refugee studies centre, department of international development. refugee parents and carers newly arrived in south australia, according to focus group participants; do not possess prior knowledge of australian parenting norms, expectations or systems of child protection. this qualitative research study provided an opportunity for refugee participants to reflect on their parenting experiences during pre-flight, flight and forced migration with others who share a common ethno-cultural or geographic background. the focus group discussions, transcript analysis, and follow-up interviews deepened understanding of refugee parenting experiences, taking into account both culture and context. the community groups involved expressed a desire to receive feedback regarding the research results and asked whether similar activities might become common practice in future. the model offered here is proposed as a useful framework to enable researchers, practitioners and australian resettlement agencies to better understand refugee parenting practices and more importantly to consider the broader ecological environment of pre-flight, flight and forced migration which affects these parenting processes. the findings of this study provide evidence to support the use of the focus group method as an approach to engage newly arrived refugee parents and carers, in order to strengthen refugee resettlement transitions to south australia. continued investigation into the ecology of refugee parenting in pre-resettlement contexts is needed. references adepoju, a. 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(1980). the refugee experience: a resume. egham, england: minority rights group. author nombasa williams holds a phd in psychology. school of psychology, social work, and social policy at the australian centre for child protection, university of south australia. email: nombasa.wilkinson@unisa.edu.au untitled 22 exploring the impact of involving fathers in the treatment of their children: a study using interpretative phenomenological analysis (ipa) anna elisabeth iversen, barbara hoff esbjørn, elisabeth christensen & nina schultz hansen abstract. although fathers have been shown to contribute uniquely to the development of psychopathology in children, they continue to be ignored in research and clinical work. knowledge about the impact of involving fathers in their child’s treatment – for the child, couple and the family as a whole is still sparse. the aim of this study was to explore parents’ experiences of having fathers involved in the treatment of their child. parents, whose children had received cognitive behavioural therapy for an anxiety disorder, were interviewed about this topic. the participating parents had all been involved in the treatment of their child. interpretative phenomenological analysis (ipa) was used to analyze the data in this study. three higher order themes and 11 subthemes emerged from the six interview accounts. the three higher order themes were as follows: strengthening the family system, empowerment of parents, and impact on partner relationship. results indicated that parents’ experiences of the involvement of fathers to be beneficial not only on the child’s treatment but also on other aspects of family life. the parents reported that the family as a whole benefitted from the treatment and that the relationship between the parents was strengthened. a model was created to conceptualize these results. keywords: childhood anxiety; family; father involvement; interpretative phenomenological analysis; treatment please cite this article as: iversen, a.e., esbjørn, b.h., christensen, e. & hansen, n.s. (2012). exploring the impact of involving fathers in the treatment of their children: a study using interpretative phenomenological analysis (ipa). qualitative studies, 3(1): 22-39. introduction ‘are we continuing to neglect fathers?’ is the title of an editorial by a. vetere (2004). the answer to the question is that they may not be neglected, but that they continue to be underrepresented. the editorial therefore encourages more writing about fathers and their role in the family. surveys among clinicians confirm the same trend in clinical practice – that fathers participate less in treatment of their children than mothers do (e.g. lazar, sagi & fraser, 1991; singh, 2003; duhig, phares & birkeland, 2002). furthermore our understanding of the parents’ experiences of involving fathers in the treatment of their children is very limited. however, as pointed out by phares and colleagues (2006), it is not always clear whether this is due to the fathers refusing to participate, or if it is due to clinicians’ practice of not including fathers in treatment. a detailed understanding of the mothers’ and fathers’ experiences of having fathers participate in treatments of the children may guide clinicians when deciding if fathers should be invited to participate in their child’s treatment or not. a review of the clinical child and family research published between 1984 and 1991, found that fathers were also clearly underrepresented in child and family research that focused on clinical issues (phares & compas, 1992). in an update review 13 years later, they concluded that the situation had not changed much, and that fathers continue to be underrepresented in research on fathers and developmental psychopathology (phares, fields, kamboukos & lopez, 2005). 23 zimmerman and colleagues reviewed five journals that focused on child and adolescent development and concluded that the same is true for the field of normal development, namely that fathers are clearly underrepresented (zimmerman, salem & notaro, 2000). however, although fathers have been neglected in research on child psychopathology as well as in clinical practice, they do have a unique influence on children’s normal (e.g. biller & lopez-kimptom, 1997; lamb, 1997; pleck, 1997; sarkadi, kristiansson, oberklaid & bremberg, 2008) as well as abnormal development (e.g. connell & goodmann, 2002; videon, 2005). furthermore, reviews of father involvement in parent training of disruptive children have found that inclusion of fathers in treatment was associated with improved treatment outcome at follow-up (bagner & eyberg, 2003; lundahl, tollefson, risser & lovejoy, 2008). treatment programmes involving fathers will have the advantage over treatments only involving mothers, that both parents receive training in parenting behaviours that will increase positive behaviour towards the child as opposed to programs involving only the mother, who must then explain the parenting principals to the father. these findings indicate the importance of investigating the unique contribution of father involvement further, and beyond the area of children with disruptive disorders. whether these findings extend to children with internalizing disorders, e.g. anxiety disorders, is largely unexplored. furthermore the positive effect of involving fathers may potentially rise as a result of two committed parents working together in treatment, irrespective of the gender of the parents; however, research has focussed mainly on heterosexual two-parent families, as these are more common and numerous questions regarding the role of fathers are yet unanswered. what is known is that fathers play an important role in the maintenance of childhood anxiety disorders. fathers of anxious children have been found to exhibit more controlling and less autonomy granting behaviour than fathers of non-anxious children (bögels, bamelis & bruggen, 2008; greco & morris, 2002). as anxiety disorders are among the most common psychiatric disorders in childhood (cartwright-hatton, mcnicol & doubleday, 2006; costello, mustillo, erkanli et al., 2003), studies of the value of including fathers in treatment of anxious children are also warranted. evidence indicates that cognitive behavioural therapy (cbt) is an effective treatment, both when delivered to the child individually and when involving the parents of the child (creswell & cartwright-hatton, 2007). nevertheless, most of the studies involving parents in the treatment of the anxious child involve only the mother. in contrast to the literature on externalizing behaviour, fathers have in this line of research been largely neglected. when studying the role of fathers in relation to treatment, research has examined both direct and indirect effects. one indirect effect of the fathers’ role in relation to treatment is the personal characteristics of the father. one such factor is paternal anxiety, which has been found to make a unique contribution to treatment outcome, as elevated levels of paternal anxiety has been linked to poorer treatment outcome (liber, van widenfelt, goedhart et al., 2008; rapee, 2000). moreover, paternal somatisation (crawford & manassis, 2001) and rejecting behaviours by fathers (liber et al., 2008) have also been found to predict poorer treatment outcomes in anxious children. this is important, as it is widely known that anxious children are more likely to have anxious parents (last, hersen, kazdin et al., 1991; murray, creswell & cooper, 2009). in addition to dealing with their own anxiety, these fathers may also be affected in terms of how they help their own children overcome anxiety. as pointed out by bögels & phares (2008) fathers may play a different role compared to mothers, as fathers are often the ones who encourage the child to explore the external world, a behaviour that may be compromised if the father has anxiety himself (bögels & phares, 2008). another way, in which the father may play 24 an indirect role on the children, is when the mother’s rearing behaviour is affected by the father’s emotional well-being and behaviours. in fact, bögels and colleagues found that mothers are more negative towards their anxious children, if their partners suffer from anxiety. this may be due to the fact that paternal anxiety makes mothers more insecure as caregivers. the anxious fathers are also reported to be less supportive of their partners than non-anxious fathers in a control group (bögels & phares, 2008). this may in turn affect the mothers’ parenting ability, as mothers who feel supported by their partner show an improved interaction with their child (bögels & phares, 2008; bögels & brechman-toussaint, 2006). mchale & rasmussen (1998) also found that lack of partner support is a strong predictor for child anxiety in young children. given the unique impact fathers have on the maintenance of children’s anxiety disorders as well as on treatment outcome, it is vital that fathers receive more attention in intervention efforts targeting internalizing disorders, and that the impact of mothers and fathers is not assumed to be equivalent. however, in many of the existing studies, fathers either are not involved, or paternal effects are not studied separately. therefore, the impact of including fathers is to a large extent unexplored. the changing roles of fathers within families as well as changing notions of masculinity in the past few decades also underscore the importance of exploring the impact of involving fathers in the treatment of their children. some argue that fatherhood and fathers’ role in the family is not as straightforward and unproblematic to define as it perhaps once was (e.g. yarwood, 2011; finn & henwood, 2009). in recent years the concept of the “new father” has emerged, and the idea of the modern father as a caring, nurturing and emotionally involved co-parent involved in house work and child care has been an issue of some debate (brandth & kvande, 1998; finn & henwood, 2009; yarwood, 2011). although the concept of the traditional breadwinning, perhaps more distant, father continues to be a dominant construct, some studies point out that the role of the father within the family is indeed changing, as are fathering identities, towards a more actively involved, caring co-parent model (e.g. finn & henwood, 2009). the changing role of fathers also implies that the boundaries between mothers’ and fathers’ gendered roles in the family are becoming more diffuse, as fatherhood is beginning to include some traditionally maternal qualities (e.g. caring for children; brandth & kvande, 1998; finn & henwood, 2009; yaewood, 2011). this move towards ‘new’, increasingly involved fathers, who share responsibilities with mothers clearly emphasizes the need for further investigating the impact of involving fathers in the treatment of their children. this study attempts to explore in detail parents’ experiences of involving fathers in the treatment of their children. in-depth interviews with parents of anxious children are carried out in order to provide insights into their perspectives on this topic. as pointed out by richardson (1996), qualitative research is particularly appropriate in cases where the topic of study is characterized by complexity, ambiguity and lack of prior theory and research. this last point certainly applies for this topic, and is also the reason why a qualitative approach was chosen for this study. method methodology interpretative phenomenological analysis (ipa; e.g. smith, 1996; smith, jarman & osborn, 1999; smith & osborn, 2003) was used to analyze the data in this study. ipa was developed for use in psychological research (langdridge, 2004), and shares a number of similarities with grounded theory (glaser & strauss, 1967) in that they both put emphasis on the experience and meanings 25 of the participants (langdrigde, 2004; 2007). however, ipa derives from the phenomenological tradition, and the focus of research is thus on investigating topics or objects as they are represented in and perceived by the participant. thus, the method is concerned with the personal accounts and perceptions of a phenomenon. ipa does not attempt to create an objective account of an object or event (smith & osborn, 2003), but aims to explore the participant’s personal perception of a phenomenon. another premise of ipa is that the research exercise is a dynamic process, as the researcher makes use of his own conceptions when trying to make sense of and interpret the other person’s accounts (smith, flowers & osborn, 1997). research questions in ipa projects are usually framed broadly and openly, and there is no attempt to test a predetermined hypothesis of the researcher. instead ‘the aim is to explore, flexibly and in detail, an area of concern’ (smith & osborn, 2003, p. 53). as the focus in the present study was exploring parents’ perceptions, that is their phenomenological experience, of involving fathers in treatment, it was considered appropriate to make use of ipa. participants and recruitment the sample consisted of parents whose children had received cognitive behavioural therapy for an anxiety disorder. the participating parents had all been involved in the treatment of their child. families, who had commenced and terminated treatment in the period january 2007 until april 2008, where both parents had attended the treatment, were invited to participate in the current study. an information letter was sent to them, in which the aim and procedures of the study were outlined. they were also informed that a decline of participation would have no effect on their future contact with the university clinic, where they had received the treatment. the parents were instructed to return the consent form if they were interested in participating. the families were subsequently contacted by telephone in order to make an appointment for the interview. ten families returned the consent form. in two of these cases it turned out to be impossible to find convenient times for the interviews. thus, eight families ended up participating in the study, two of which took part in the piloting of the interview guide. the six remaining families constituted the sample for the current study. in one of these families, it was only the father who participated, as the parents were in the process of being separated. in another family, the child’s stepmother participated with the father, as she had lived with the child most of his life. in the remaining families, both parents took part in the interview. these were all cohabiting biological parents. mothers and fathers had to take time off work in order to participate in the treatment. this was primarily paid for by themselves. only one of the participants could take the required time off work without having to compensate. all participants were middle-class, caucasian danes. the intervention the treatment took place at a university clinic, which provides treatment free of charge. all families had contacted the clinic on their own initiative and participated on a voluntary basis in the treatment. participation of both parents was strongly encouraged, also in families where the parents were separated. all families received case formulation based cognitive behavioural therapy (cbt) following the standard procedure in this clinical setting. the treatment consisted of individual cbt sessions for the child in combination with parent sessions without participation of the child. the treatment started and ended with a family session where the child and the parents took part. 26 the child and parent sessions focused on minimizing anxious behaviour in the child. the parent sessions were also used to address family dynamics that were maintaining the anxious behaviour in the child, e.g. overcontrolling/intrusive behaviour of the parents. parents were also encouraged to bring other topics to the sessions if they experienced these as relevant for the well being of the child, e.g. how to encourage the child to turn to both parents when distressed. data collection a semi-structured interview guide was created and consisted of a range of open ended questions about the parents’ experiences with having the father involved. the interview questions focused on the period before the treatment commenced, during treatment and after the treatment, at each time period focusing on the parents’ reflections about having the father involved, and what it would have been like without the father’s involvement. the interviews focused on positive and negative aspects of the fathers’ involvement. the interview guide was complemented with structured questions on demographic data and information about the practicalities involved in terms of both parents coming to treatment. the initial interview guide was tested on two families, and subsequently adjusted accordingly. the data from the two pilot interviews were not used in the subsequent analyses, because the questions differed somewhat from the main sample. the interview was administered to each set of parents at the same time. the duration of the interviews was between 23 and 55 minutes, with an average interview lasting 42 minutes. the shortest interview was with the parent who participated alone. all interviews were audio taped and transcribed verbatim. audio records were deleted once the written records had been created. the confidentiality of the participants was secured by changing all names (person and places) in the written records. the written records were stored according to danish regulations on storage of research data. the interviews were conducted by two experienced clinicians who had not been involved the treatment of the families who participated. because both interviewers were female, great care was taken to communicate to the fathers a genuine interest in their contribution. the mothers were also encouraged to consider the father’s role in the treatment. data analysis the analysis was carried out by the first three authors of the article. the coders had not been involved in the treatment or interviewing of the parents. ipa was used to analyze the data (e.g. smith et al., 1999). the first step of the analysis involved a detailed reading and re-reading of the transcripts while initial thoughts and comments were recorded in writing on each individual transcript. in order to ensure trustworthiness regarding the findings, this process was carried out separately by the three coders. subsequently the coders cross-checked their written comments with the two other coders. this triangulation of the analyses was employed in order to increase reliability and validity regarding the identified topics. only topics on which the coders reached consensus were included in the following step. on the basis of this agreement, lists of comments were made for each transcript. the second step involved rereading the transcripts while extracting the salient topics. these were grouped thematically producing a list of themes for each transcript. this step was followed by a process of comparing themes across the different transcripts, attempting to make thematic connections between them. subsequently these themes were clustered and higher order themes emerged, which reflected each cluster of subthemes. a master table was generated, listing higher order and subthemes. 27 consensus agreement was used during all steps of the process in order to increase internal validity. also, great care was taken by the coders to pay attention to positive and negative aspects in the parents’ accounts, in order to minimize the influence of possible biases and preconceptions held by the coders regarding the importance of the fathers’ involvement in the treatment. positive aspects included all types of statements involving a positive evaluation of the topic in question, e.g. “this project would never have succeeded as well as it did had i not been there”. whereas negative aspects involved all types of negative evaluations of the topic in question, e.g.” i was somewhat sceptical, because… well i am always sceptical about this type of treatment.” findings three higher order themes and eleven subthemes emerged from the six interview accounts. the three higher order themes were as follows: strengthening the family system, empowerment of parents, and impact on partner relationship. each of these themes includes a number of subthemes, which are listed in table 1. higher order themes subthemes 1. strengthening the family system a. improved father-child relationship. b. increased sense of being united in the family. c. preventing mothers from having responsibility for information transfer. d. preventing isolation / detachment of the father. 2. empowerment of parents a. unified as parents b. increased parental competence c. congruent views on child’s difficulties d. supporting each other 3. impact on partner relationship a. equality between parents b. improved communication c. improved understanding for each other table 1. list of higher order and subthemes strengthening the family system this super-ordinate theme emerged from the participants’ descriptions of a range of aspects, which they experienced as having a positive impact on the family system as a whole. fathers as well as mothers described that the relationship between the father and the child improved. as one mother expressed it, ‘father and son have found each other.’ the father added: ‘yes, at that point i was forced to focus on his everyday life and i became more attentive to how he was communicating at home, and how he reacted. in that way i was... i was put in the position that i had to get involved in his everyday life... i had to pay more attention to various things. and that was a good thing, because i became more aware of what was going on in his everyday life, how he was doing, and whether it had been a good or a bad day.’ some parents reacted with surprise when told prior to treatment that both of them were expected to participate in the treatment of their child. as one father expressed it: ‘i thought it 28 was strange that we had to spend two people’s time on talking about myself or about us, because it was x [the child] that was the issue.’ and for some of the families it was difficult to find the time for both parents to participate in the treatment, which by some of the participants was perceived as a disadvantage: ‘...it takes two hours to get from where you are [work] until you’re back again, and that implies that he [the father] can’t leave the office early that day. that can be a disadvantage. i just don’t think we thought about it that way, because we were both ready to sacrifice a great deal in order to make this work.’ although the families invested substantial time and energy in participating, there appeared to be a consensus that the time is well invested: ‘you experience that the more time you spend on your child, the more you get in return.’ throughout the interviews, it also became clear that the parents not only experienced an improved relationship between the father and the anxious child, but that there was a secondary effect which went beyond their dyad: ‘i was positively surprised, and it turned out well. today i get along better with my son than i’ve ever done before, also with my eldest son.’ the participants also described how the treatment contributed to a sense of family unity. in some of the families this feeling of unity was a product of the family being involved in a shared project: ‘i think that it kind of makes the family stronger that we’re all involved in it (...) because it is a shared task. if everybody is involved in it, then it is a shared task. if somebody is left out, then they wouldn’t quite feel like they were a part of the task.’ in other families the sense of unity developed because the father became more involved in the family and the family life than he was prior to treatment: ‘i think it has paid off that dad has participated and has been so involved in what was going on, because before we got help and x was feeling that way, i felt that i pretty much was left on my own with it. but that was because dad didn’t get a say regarding x. the fact that he has been able to participate here, i feel has brought together our family, because we have been united in the process.’ in some of the families there even appeared to be a development from dyads to a triad. the participants explained how they expected treatment without involvement of the father to strengthen the mother child dyad even more than was already the case, while the father-child relationship potentially would weaken. in general, the treatment seemed to contribute to a clarification of the father’s role in the family. one father expressed how he has become a part of the family after the treatment: ‘i’ve been given my family, i am in my family, i have kept my family... i have become a part of it, let me put it that way. that is probably the best thing... i’ve become a part of my family.’ another subtheme which clearly emerged from the material was how parents experienced it as an advantage that both parents knew what the treatment was all about, and that they therefore were equally competent to deal with problems or conflict situations when they arise. additionally, the participants experienced it as an advantage that one parent did not have the responsibility for making sure that the other parent was informed about the content of the sessions. one mother described how this scenario would put a bigger pressure on her as a mother, and give her more responsibility than the parent who was absent from the sessions. the fact that both parents participated, and therefore received the same information, also seemed to prevent disagreements about how to solve conflicts with the child. one participant described how treatment without involvement of the father could magnify conflicts between them as parents, as the father would not listen to her in the same way as he listened to the therapists, or that he would question her accounts of the sessions: ‘i liked the fact that we got the same 29 information about what to do, because if i had to communicate it all to you at home, i don’t think you would have listened in the same way (...) and we have also been able to discuss some of the things we disagreed on, and to have other people say “this is how it is”, because we have disagreed a lot along the way, especially before we came here, about how to deal with him.’ the participation of both parents was perceived as essential, especially in terms of preventing the father being detached or left out from the rest of the family. as one father described it: ‘then mother and daughter would have had that in common. they would have had this thing together, and i would have been left out, and it would have been hard relating to x’s development. i guess. in terms of the father-daughter relationship, it would maybe have created a larger distance in the long term, and from a selfish point of view it would have been a sad experience to look at it all from the outside, or not being the one involved in the process and not having the full grasp of it.’ empowerment of parents this super-ordinate theme also emerged clearly from the interview accounts. fathers and mothers seemed to agree that by participating in the child’s treatment, they obtained a new common ground, or platform from which to develop as parents. and by participating together, they went through a joint learning process as parents, where they started out at the same place, gained the same knowledge as well as same problem-solving tools. they also expressed that they experienced feeling more unified as parents, and that they after the treatment have become more interested in understanding each other. the parents also expressed that they feel more competent as parents, both in terms of how to cope with the child with the anxiety disorder, but also in terms of parenting in general. another aspect, which they experienced as an advantage of participating together, is that they by the end of treatment had more congruent views on the child’s difficulties, and how to deal with them. when asked what it would have been like, had the father not been involved in the treatment, one mother explains: ‘then i really think it would have been like “oh no, now she is seeing ghosts again” if i was the only one who had seen the warning signs, that were... it would become a matter of conflict, really, whether or not he was about to go down that road again. because we both have the same information we don’t have to discuss whether it’s true or not.’ there was also a consensus that being two in the process facilitated the parents’ support of each other, and that it put them at ease to know they are two to intervene with the child. this also enables more flexible problem solving, as both parents are trained to deal with potential difficulties. one parent described it as follows: ‘one advantage is that both of us have received information about how to deal with him differently at home, and that we’ve been able to help each other and to support each other in the new way of communicating with him.’ impact on partner relationship another aspect, which the participants drew attention to, is the fact that the participation of the father contributes to equality in the parents’ relationship. they experience the parenting task as more equally shared between them, and believe that the absence of the father in the treatment would reinforce the asymmetry between the parents, as the mother would continue to take a greater responsibility for the children’s anxiety. one of the mothers described it as follows: ‘now he is also a part of the family, now he participates in the decision making about the kids and all that. it used to be only me who took care of those things.’ the participants also experience that the participation of both parents has improved the communication between 30 them as partners, as well as in the family as a whole. they describe a more open dialogue as well as increased reflections about their parenting styles. the following citation from one of the mothers illustrates this point: ‘it [the therapy] has opened up for some dialogue between the father and i about this, or about the way we have organized our lives.’ this mother’s partner expressed that ‘the most important thing... was the participation itself, that we opened up for our thoughts about how we raise our children, and that we both need to raise them.’ the participants also experience a better understanding of each other’s views on the child, as well as acceptance of their differences. they also describe having achieved more respect for each other’s views, in turn minimizing conflicts, for example about how to deal with the child. one father described it as follows: ‘in terms of ourselves, it gave us a good understanding of the ways in which we can understand things differently and interpret things differently and without really having thought about the other person (...) i think that it gave a good understanding of our differences, so you can say... not that it turned into couples therapy, but it was an eye opener in the sense that you take so much for granted and base it on your own perceptions or standpoint.’ discussion rationale for involving fathers throughout the last couple of decades, a variety of paternal behaviours and personality characteristics have been shown to have an influence on the development of psychopathology in children, both as risk and protective factors (bögels & phares, 2008; connell & goodmann, 2002; lamb, 1997; sarkadi et al., 2008). however, documented knowledge is still lacking about the effect of involving fathers in treatment of children with anxiety disorders. most child and adolescent clinicians have experienced the benefits of involving both parents in children’s treatment. this study reiterates this practice. the results indicate that the parents experience that involving mothers as well as fathers in the treatment had an overall positive effect on the child. however, the benefits went beyond that, as the families also experienced positive effects on other aspects of family life. this is in accordance with findings from family systems literature, which highlights that the members of a family exert a continuous and reciprocal influence on each other (cox & paley, 1997; hughes & gullone, 2008). in an attempt to illustrate our findings, a model was created (see figure 1 below). 31 the figure illustrates how the parents expected the relationships between therapist, child, mother and father to be like, had the father not been involved in treatment, versus how they actually experienced these relationships, based on having the father involved. the model is hypothetical and should be investigated in further studies before firm conclusions can be drawn regarding its validity. in her discussion about why fathers are underrepresented in research on child and family functioning, phares proposes several explanations for why fathers are neglected in treatment efforts. one of her explanations is that clinicians and researchers alike rely on theoretical frameworks which fail to take account of the fathers’ contribution to their children’s development. other explanations put forward by phares is the assumption that fathers are not involved in their children’s lives to the same extent as the mothers, or that fathers are unable or unwilling to participate in intervention efforts (phares, 1996). however, the findings from this study indicate otherwise, namely that fathers are both able and willing to participate in the treatment of their child when they are encouraged to do so. this is corroborated by another study, where fathers’ attendance in their child’s treatment was found not to be related to work hours or family rolls but instead to the fathers’ relationship with their own fathers (walters, tasker, & bichard, 2001). studies of families where one of the members suffer from internalizing disorders report greater levels of family dysfunction than families with no disorders, including less confidence in problem solving and conflicts between parents regarding disagreement over child rearing (hughes & gullone, 2008). according to family systems theory, optimal functioning in families requires that the family members are able to access resources from the larger family (cox & paley, 1997). in treatment where only mothers and child are involved, they may not be able to access resources from the fathers, as he will represent the family’s function as it was prior to treatment. as families are held together by rules and relations that pull towards equilibrium in the families, changes in the system create new vulnerabilities. for the change to become 32 adaptive and stable, changes must occur at all levels of the family system. when fathers participate in the therapy, they may be empowered to enter the family in new ways at the different levels (father-child and spouse-relation) thereby increasing the likelihood that a new family structure may be created, applying more adaptive family rules and relations than prior to the treatment (cox & paley, 1997). this is in line with what was found in this study, as the participants see it as a necessity that the father takes part in treatment, as it enhances the quality of the father-child relationship as well as the father-mother relationship. direct and indirect effects of involving fathers in treatment as suggested by bögels & phares (2008), fathers of anxious children may contribute to their child’s development in direct and indirect ways. the direct impact may occur in the domain of play activities, attachment and involvement in the child. the indirect influence may occur through the fathers’ impact on the mothers. when the father is supportive, the mother has more energy to care for her child. this is in line with the findings from the present study. when fathers were involved in treatment, they reported that they experienced a change in the fatherchild relationship as well as in the relationship between the parents. although we did not explicitly explore how this change in father-child relationships manifested itself, one could expect an improved relationship to involve more play and a greater involvement in the child’s everyday life. moreover, the finding that the parents experienced the involvement of the fathers to create a common ground from which they could help the child is corroborated by research showing that similarities in rearing behaviour between parents is associated with lower parenting stress for mothers (harvey, 2000). in prior research, fathers of anxiety-disordered children have been shown to be less supportive toward their partners (bögels & phares, 2008). this reiterates the necessity of enhancing also the relationship between mothers and fathers in order to enable them help their child overcome its difficulties. this finding may also explain why the mothers in the present study were so relieved by the achieved improvements in the partner relationship. support from the partner has also been found to enhance the quality of the mother-child relationship (bögels & brechman-toussaint, 2006), whereas the lack of a common ground for parenting, with parents who put each other down in the presence of the child, are found to maintain child anxiety over time (katz & low, 2004). the inclusion of both parents also enables clinicians to address marital and coparenting issues that may affect the child’s anxiety. coplin & houts (1991) found that maritally distressed couples may have difficulty maintaining and generalizing skills learnt in parent training for oppositional child behaviour. according to lee & hunsley (2006), parenting interventions are strengthened when the coparental relationship is attended to. coparenting is defined as the ways that parents work together in their roles as parents and includes the degree of support between the parents, the extent of childrearing disagreement, the division of childcare and household duties and responsibilities, as well as the alliance between the parents (feinberg, 2002). lee & hunsley are referring to psychological services in general, when they encourage more attention to coparenting. however, to the best of our knowledge, their hypothesis has not been studied in interventions with anxious children. a recent review of the family systems literature of families with internalizing disorders, reported that these families function poorly overall, but also specifically regarding marital relations, parenting styles and parental attachment (hughes & gullone, 2008). these findings stress the need for intervention at different levels in the family, including the marital relations and coparenting, if psychopathology is to be prevented. based on the interviews from this study there is some 33 indication that this also applies to families with anxious children, and that it was useful for the parents to address marital and coparenting issues. as pointed out by bögels & phares (2008), involvement of all fathers anxious, divorced and those who find it hard to get off work is necessary if we are to understand the true contribution of fathers on the development, maintenance and treatment of childhood anxiety. however, our results indicate that the way in which the fathers are involved in their child’s development may play an important role. phares and colleagues also suggested that therapists may consider using mothers to convey information about the treatment to the fathers (phares et. al., 2006). this suggestion is not supported by the findings in this study, which indicate that if mothers attend the sessions by themselves and are left to convey information about involvement of the father to him at home, this may increase the level of conflict between the parents. the mothers in the present study expressed great relief that they did not have to take on this mediating role, but instead could engage in a more equal partner relationship, as illustrated in figure 1. this is not surprising, when taking into account that mothers still have more overall responsibilities in terms of childcare compared to fathers (craig, 2006; leslie, anderson & branson, 1991; renk et al., 2003). it is important to acknowledge that some, if not all, of the above mentioned effects of involving fathers in treatment of their children, may not be gender-specific. some of these effects may arise as a result of two committed parents working together in treatment, irrespective of the gender of the parents. thus, similar findings might have been found if the two parents constituted a gay or lesbian couple. in a recent review of studies comparing heterosexual twoparent families with homosexual two-parent families and single-parent families on a number of parenting measures, biblarz and stacey (2010) found no evidence of gender-exclusive parenting abilities. research indicates that the strengths and abilities typically associated with heterosexual two-parent families are found to the same degree in families headed by two women and presumably, although comparable research on this area has not yet been generated, in families headed by two men (biblarz & stacey, 2010). as this study only included families, who were heterosexual, conclusions cannot be drawn as to whether the findings also apply to homosexual two-parent families or other family constellations (e.g. intergenerational families). further research would be required in order to establish whether the findings in this study are specific to involving fathers from heterosexual families in children’s treatment or if they can be generalized to other family forms. limitations the findings from the current study need to be considered in light of the limited sample size, and the fact there is no follow-up data. in his book about qualitative research interviewing, steinar kvale suggests that one ought to interview as many persons as necessary in order to find out what you need to know (kvale, 1997). we do not believe that the current topic of study has been exhausted with this small scale study. on the contrary, we urge further study of father involvement with larger sample sizes applying a quantitative design, or more heterogenic samples (e.g. other types of two-parent family involvement) using a qualitative design. in this study fathers and mothers primarily see advantages in involving fathers in treatment. however, the findings may have looked different, had we also included families in the study, where only one parent participated in the treatment. also, it is not clear whether those parents who chose not to participate in this study had a different experience in terms of involving the father. those who participated in this study all expressed an overall satisfaction with the treatment, and in 34 general experienced a reduction in the child’s symptoms. it would strengthen the study significantly if parents who failed to experience a noticeable effect of the treatment took part in this study. interviews with these families could help generate richer data about the effect of involving the father. last, but not least, it would be ideal to also interview the children about their perceptions of having the father involved in the treatment. this was however beyond the scope of this study. further research is needed before firm conclusions can be drawn on this topic, and before we know whether these findings can be generalized to this clinical group. it should be noted, however, that generalization is conceptualized rather differently within qualitative and quantitative research respectively. within the field of qualitative research there is a growing tendency to emphasize the contextuality and heterogeneity of local knowledge over the universal generalization of results. kvale (1997) mentions three goals of generalization within qualitative research: what is present, what is possible, and what could be. the study of what is present is the attempt to capture the typical and usual, whereas the study of what is possible highlights ends of the spectrum of possibility – e.g. to generalize what will be typical and usual in the future, but isn’t quite yet. finally the study of what could be is the examination of situations thought to be ideal or exceptional. in this respect, research, besides describing the present and foreseeing the immediate future, can partake in reshaping/transforming the culture of a certain practice. implications and future research because of the limited sample size of this study, the implications for clinical practice are limited at this point. however, based on these parents’ accounts, there is some indication for encouraging fathers to take part in treatment alongside with the mother. for many clinicians who work with children, it is common sense to involve both parents in the intervention. however, our clinical practice also needs to be guided by evidence based practice. another question to arise from this study is whether co-parenting should be addressed more systematically in clinical practice, which has been argued by lee & hunsley (2006). the parents who took part in this study experienced benefits in terms of coparenting, even though coparenting was not explicitly on the agenda in this treatment setting. on that basis it is relevant to reconsider whether coparenting should become a more explicit part of the treatment in this setting, as well as others. further research is warranted, in order to test some of the hypotheses generated in this study as well as other areas of father involvement. a larger scale study would be especially useful, as a larger sample would strengthen the reliability of the data, and also increase the chances of including participants who were dissatisfied with the treatment, or whose children did not get better in spite of treatment. another aspect which could shed more light on the effects of involving fathers is to investigate if there is an association between paternal involvement in therapy and direct effects on the child. added benefits of father involvement, perhaps not surprisingly, have been found in other clinical groups (e.g. bagner & eyberg, 2003; coplin & houts, 1991; webster-stratton, 1985). one would expect the same to be true in families with anxious children. however, in addition to studying the obvious, whether there is a larger reduction in symptoms when the father is involved, it could be interesting to investigate if there are certain types of symptoms or behaviours that change when the father is involved in the treatment. 35 the participants in this study were recruited from a clinic providing therapy for children with anxiety disorders. evidently, the questions raised in this study are also worth studying in other clinical groups. conclusion this study investigated parents’ perceptions of having fathers involved in the treatment of children with an anxiety disorder. although the results are preliminary, they indicate that involving fathers had beneficial effects not only on the child’s treatment but also on the relationship between the parents. the parents reported that the family as a whole had benefitted from the treatment and that the relationships between the parents had become more equal, consequently making them better at supporting each other in helping the child overcome its difficulties. acknowledgement we are very grateful to the parents who took the time to participate in this study. we also would like to express our gratitude to helle dittmann for interviewing the parents. references bagner, d. m., & eyberg, s. m. 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(2004). editorial: are we continuing to neglect fathers? clinical child psychology and psychiatry, 9, 323-326. videon, t. m. (2005). parent-child relations and children’s psychological well-being: do dads matter? journal of family issues, 26, 55-78. walters, j., tasker, f., & bichard, s. (2001). ‘too busy?’ fathers’ attendance for family appointments. journal of family therapy, 23, 3-20. webster-stratton (1985). the effects of father-involvement in parent training for conduct problem children. journal of child psychology and psychiatry, 26, 801-810. yarwood, a.g. (2011). the pick and mix of fathering identities. fathering: a journal of theory, research and practice about men as fathers, 9, 150-168. 39 zimmermann, m. a., salem, d. a., & notaro, p. c. (2000). make room for daddy ii: the positive effects of fathers’ role in adolescent development. in r. d. taylor, & m. c. wang (eds.), resilience across contexts (pp. 233-253). mahwah, nj: lawrence erlbaum. authors anna elisabeth iversen (corresponding author) is a clinical psychologist working at child and adolescent psychiatric centre bispebjerg, copenhagen. email: anna.elisabeth.iversen@regionh.dk. barbara hoff esbjørn is an associate professor at the copenhagen child anxiety project, university of copenhagen, department of psychology. elisabeth christensen is a clinical psychologist working at a private clinic specialized in providing services for families with children with autism spectrum disorders. nina schultz hansen is a master level psychology student at the university of copenhagen and is currently attached to the copenhagen child anxiety project. untitled 1 is living the gender contract really a free choice? a cross-national comparison of preferences or constraints in mothers’ and fathers’ participation in paid and unpaid work yildiz olsson abstract. this article is a cross-national study of the work-family balance in families with dependent children. the countries included are denmark, hungary, italy and the uk. the article aims at investigating the question “why” we still, in all four european countries, seem to live according to a traditional gender role pattern in the division of paid and unpaid work, despites mothers’ entrance on the paid labour market. women still bear the main responsibility of unpaid work. with preference theory as a starting point, the paper investigates preferences and constraints in relation to mothers’ and fathers’ workand family lives. the paper relies on qualitative interviews. by using qualitative interviews, the analysis is based on fathers’ and mothers’ articulation of their work-life balance. the design of the interview guide has been inspired by prue chamberlayne’s biographical methods. thus, the analysis is based upon both fathers’ and mothers’personal (life) stories in the four countries. key words: gender roles; paid and unpaid work; work-family balance; preferences; constraints please cite this article as: olsson, y. (2012). is living the gender contract really a free choice? a cross-national comparison of preferences or constraints in mothers’ and fathers’ participation in paid and unpaid work. qualitative studies, 3(1): 1-21. introduction: gender inequality in paid and unpaid work did you know? more than one in four women work part-time and nearly three out of four part-time jobs are held by women. part-time work by women increases when they live with a partner and increases still further if they have dependent children. men tend to work longer hours than women in paid employment, but women work more hours in unpaid activities – housework and caring for children and elderly parents. oecd brochure 2006, women and men in oecd countries although recent developments show that within the last 40 years the inequality in paid work between men and women has declined, and that a substantial number of women have entered the labour market in europe, we have not yet seen a similar decline in the division of unpaid work. woman still bear the main responsibility for the familyand household obligations, by which they have now acquired a double role. contrarily, men are still viewed as the breadwinners to a far greater extent than women (crompton et. al., 2007; lewis et. al., 2008 and plantenga and hansen, 1999; esping-andersen, 2009). according to different european timeuse surveys, mothers in all european countries spend most time at home and on care obligations. the fathers spend most of their time on paid work (danish time use survey from 2001, deding & lausten, 2004; bonke, 2002; oecd, 2002, eurostat, 2004). despite formally recognised gender-neutral rights, gender inequality persists in practice, particularly with regards to the division of unpaid labour (lewis et al., 2008; lister, 2003). 2 this article aims at investigating the question why we still, in the four european countries included in this article, hungary, italy, denmark and the uk, seem to live according to the traditional gendered pattern in the division of paid and unpaid work. the paper takes its point of departure in a historically rooted gender contract that has been reproduced for generations and asks if the gender contract reflects a truly free choice, or if it is possible to break out of this pattern? the gender contract has been formulated by carole pateman who describes how society is still divided into the private and public sphere (pateman 1988; lister, 2003). the gender contract is synonymous with a traditional – parsonian gender division of men and women in paid and unpaid work, i.e. in the public and private spheres, respectively. truly equal participation in practice – my normative framework the paper focuses on the question of preferences or constraints in paid and unpaid work. it discusses the matter of truly equal opportunities. these are not only seen as gender neutral rights, which we to some extent have acquired, but it is also asked how they have been implemented in practice. here the question of preferences or constraints becomes crucial. according to fraser, we need to be aware of personal preferences and the constraints to it, in order to develop political strategies that can take these constraints into account so that mothers and fathers are not restricted by external social and institutional structures. thus, truly equal opportunities also mean truly equal opportunities in practice, where barriers such as gender specific expectations towards the particular positions of men and women are removed or overcome so that both mothers and fathers can act according to their real preferences. following fraser, we therefore must come up with policies that take these particularities into account in order to secure real participation in parity, also called the state of a truly equal status of citizens. lister has developed this approach and discussed the interaction of the private and public spheres. lister argues that policies must intervene actively in the private sphere, i.e. in the internal dynamics within in the households, otherwise ruling gender norms and gender specific expectations will dictate the positions of mothers and fathers. thus, lister argues that formally gender neutral policies will be gender stereo typed in practice, since such formally gender neutral rights do not differentiate between genders. if policies do not intervene in mothers and fathers’ particular positions, historical gender norms will determine their position, she argues. therefore, this article aims at illustrating the behaviours of mothers and fathers on a micro-level basis. what are their preferences and do they really seem constrained from culturally rooted gender norms and expectations towards gender roles? to what extent are they dictated by this and thus to what extent are policies necessary in order to influence this circle of reproduction of gender norms and to achieve a greater extent of participation in parity? theoretical perspective catherine hakim (2002) has argued that mothers and fathers have a truly genuine choice when coping with the work-family balance and when deciding on the division of labour. work-family balance is understood as managing the cross-pressure and time-squeeze of work, familyand care obligations (lewis et. al., 2008). based on a 1999 national survey in britain, hakim finds that mothers have truly free choices when deciding their household strategy. according to hakim, women’s heterogeneous employment patterns can be classified into three distinct types of women, where different types of mothers give different amounts of priority to paid and unpaid work (hakim, 2002). hakim distinguishes between the home-centred, work-centred, and the adaptive lifestyle. her survey, she argues, confirms that lifestyle preferences are a major determinant of fertility, employment patterns, and job choice. external constraints in the form of institutional and cultural structures play only a minor role (hakim, 2002). women living the 3 adaptive lifestyle combine the work and family obligations, trying to give it the same amount of priority. most women, hakim explains, would be found in this category. they often find jobs that can easily be synchronised with having family obligations such as jobs in the public sector or part-time jobs. in this context, the public sector is to be understood as the service and care sector which is characterised by fixed working hours and the possibility of taking part-time jobs. hakim exemplifies this with the school teacher. the work-centred woman is the career planner and gives the most priority to paid work. this type of woman fits her family around the work. few women are work-oriented, whereas, not surprisingly, most men are. contrarily, many women are home-oriented meaning that they give priority to the family. as mentioned, most women live the adaptive lifestyle. as hakim points out herself, this theory is controversial and has been questioned and subject to much dispute since then. other theorists such as gash (2008), himmelweit and sigala (2004), lewis et al. (2008), gornick and meyers (2003), crompton and lyonette (2006), haas et al. (2006), mcrae (2003), esping-andersen (2002 & 2009), kröger and sipilä (2005) stress the importance of the institutional and cultural framework. mcrae has taken the theory of hakim at face value and analysed whether it could hold true. in opposition to hakim, she, in a longitudinal study, only found little evidence for the preference theory. she did not find any strong distinction in preferences and attitudes between work-centred and adaptive women nor between women living the family-centred or adaptive life style. thus, mcrae found that not only attitudes and preferences were influencing the choice of lifestyle (mcrae 2003), but also that women are forced to sacrifice the career in order to bring up their children and fulfil their domestic work, meaning that they are not at all liberated from constraints in the form of expectations towards the gender roles. she draws the conclusion that choices also reflect external constraints. behaviour is not always a reflection of real personal preferences but also takes the conditions and opportunities available for a family into consideration. additionally, qualitative studies have supported the importance of individual attributes, attitudes, labour market structures and institutions (himmelweit & sigila, 2004; kröger and sipilä, 2005). method this article will analyse the question of preferences or constraints from a qualitative and micro level perspective. the qualitative data have been a priority, because they, in contrast to the quantitative data, give access to nuances behind the fathers’ and mothers’ behaviour. the article encompasses in-dept interviews with families with children from each of the four countries, hungary, italy, the uk and denmark. i include four interviews from each country comprised of two from mothers and two from fathers. thus, the four respondents are from four different families. the mothers and fathers have been interviewed separately, thus the analysis represents four families per country. the interviews have been carried out and transcribed in connection with the workcare project involving eight eu member states and chaired by claire wallace, aberdeen university. the paper relies on the qualitative interviews from four of the workcare countries. by using qualitative interviews, the analysis is based on the articulations of both men and women of their work-family balance. inspired by prue chamberlayne’s biographical methods, the analysis is based upon parents’ personal (life) stories. the interviews have been carried out on the basis of the same interview guide. in the selection of the families, the aim has been to cover different family types and families with different educational backgrounds. the strategy of analysis is based upon the topics developed and included in my previous studies that included other families from the same workcare sample (olsson, 2011 & olsson and boje, 2011). 4 selection of countries the selection of the countries has been based upon boje and ejrnæs’ classification of family policy regimes (2010). the typologies investigate how compatible and effective different family policies have been at improving conditions for combining work and care responsibilities in practice. the classification has been developed on the background of the four variables: 1) childcare among children aged 0-3 as a percentage of the total number of children in this agegroup, 2) effective parental leave in weeks, 3) female part-time employment rate according to the eurostat definition – self-declared part-time, 4) total spending on family policy in percentage of gdp (boje and ejrnæs, 2011). based on these four variables, it has been possible to cluster the eu member states. the clusters are as follows: 1) the extensive family policy model (denmark, sweden, france and belgium) 2) short leave part-time model (uk and the netherlands) 3) the long leave part-time model (germany, austria, luxembourg), 4) the family care model (italy, spain and portugal) 5) the extended parental leave model (hungary, poland and czech republic plus lithuania and finland). this paper includes countries that represent clusters 1, 2, 4 and 5: denmark, uk, italy and hungary. results cultural constraints – gender norms in the interview guide from the workcare project, i have focused on the sections, household and children, household tasks and discussions with partner. in my previous articles, i have focused on the same sections and developed the themes (cf. olsson, 2011 & olsson and boje, 2011). in relation to this article, i have carefully gone through the themes developed in my previous two articles and have been looking at issues on preferences and constraints. thus, i have made some conclusions as to whether the labour division in paid and unpaid work reflect a real personal choice or constraints. my overall conclusion is that mothers are constrained by the family and fathers are constrained by paid work. this article focuses primarily on how both mothers and fathers seem to be dictated by gender norms such as gender specific expectations. despite realising that constraints and the parents’ framework of opportunities are not only shaped by gender norms, but also in interaction with a given institutional framework in the form of family policies, this article aims at outlining how gender culture also contributes to shaping mothers’ and fathers’ choices in paid and unpaid work. thus, the following analysis has found the themes: mothers are constrained by the family and fathers are constrained by work. the article is structured around these themes. this analysis has only been focusing on the structural constraints, which are expressed in the form of gender norms. the article does not focus on institutions and the political framework that may impact and prevent gender norms from being too dominating. institutions may take gender norms into account and overcome these social barriers, but this article focuses on how the gender norms – the gender culture and the contract – also have an effect on families’ behaviour, where the aim is to contribute to a knowledge base that institutional political strategies can be developed upon. mothers are constrained by the family mothers are left with the biggest work-family conflict. by conflict, i mean that mothers have to synchronise the demands of both paid and unpaid work; they are not just met with demands from paid work. women are doubly burdened, where the unpaid work becomes a constraint for 5 women's free choice of behaviour, including their request of being active in the labour market. in hungary and italy, we find little or no conflict in the division of paid and unpaid work, meaning that mothers in these countries seem to be the ones who are complaining least about the dilemma of occupying both paid and unpaid work. especially, mothers in hungary were characterised by a greater acceptance of the gender division (olsson, 2011). this means that they express fewer frustrations and reflections and thus initially seem to have fewer constraints. this interpretation is ambiguous; does it reflect a satisfaction with and an acceptance of the gender order and thus a real freedom of choice or is it merely an expression of a more rooted gender order that is so rooted that it is not questioned? in the case of the latter, the gender order is due to historically rooted gender norms – conceptualised by the historical gender contract. furthermore, the gender order has been maintained with a lack of institutions, i.e. family policies that could have impacted opportunities and thus behaviour. much sociological research has highlighted the fact that welfare policies have a crucial impact on opportunities and thus the behaviour and choices of mothers and fathers in paid and unpaid work. much welfare state literature has highlighted research on how different welfare states and welfare policies impact on individual behaviour. in relation to this, different welfare state typologies have been developed (esping-andersen 1990; 1999; wall 2007; pascall and lewis 2004; boje and ejrnæs 2011). one hungarian mother argues for fewer working hours now that she has two children. the children need to be taken care of, and it is her responsibility and thus her work-family dilemma. constrained by gender norms, she is the one to prioritise unpaid work: “while it was only vivi, the two shifts were ok, but now it is both of them and vivi going to school, i will have to try doing only one shift” (hungarian mother 1, locksmith). it appears that she fits her work around the family. this is despite the fact that she very much likes her job and wants to work, and, as proved by the quotation above, she was also working before having two children, and she likes her work: q: “if you had the opportunity, would you change anything in connection with your job and the time you spend with work? a: i do not think so. i like doing it”. this mother is happy with her work and her colleagues: “i love them. we love one another very much, they are nice. we get on really well. almost everyone is older than i am, mostly middle aged women. i like talking to them, i miss them. i cannot wait to go back to work” (hungarian mother 1). thus, she would want to work, but has to prioritise the children, due to her responsibilities. choosing to work less is not necessarily a free choice since it is followed by some latent frustrations. despite her acceptance of the gender division and her having to work less, there is a latent frustration. this frustration can be interpreted as a reflection of the rootedness of the gender order: “it would be better if daddy spent more time at home but he has to work” (hungarian mother 1, locksmith). 6 this supports my argument of her preferences being a result of some cultural constraints and gender norms. i shall argue that the constraints consist of her having no other alternatives. she is adjusting herself to external constraints; expectations of her being the caregiver result in her preferences of wanting to work less. hungarian mother 2 has also chosen a job that may give her some self-realisation – as a journalist. however, her partner, who is also a journalist and who is working 12-14 hours a day, makes her choose to work less, since it is her that is responsible for the care obligations. before having their child, she had a lot of responsibility at work: “i was working 16 hours a day doing different things as a forced entrepreneur; i was running from one place to another” (hungarian mother 2, journalist). evidence shows that this family is in a financial constraint that forces her to work so much. despite this, she sees the household obligations as her responsibility: “i never grumble that he doesn’t do the dishes. i think that’s my responsibility”. thus, it is an expectation and a matter of course that she does the housework. despite her frustrations, too, she quickly accepts that this is a natural division; she is asked if she is satisfied with the household strategy: “of course not. but if you take into consideration that he works himself to death, then i'd say that it's fair. i have to take a little more” (hungarian mother 2, journalist). she accepts the division of labour because she has to, but, more latently, it appears that she is not fully satisfied with it. not being satisfied reveals her practices as an outcome of external conditions and constraints rather than a truly free choice. her preferences have been adjusted the gender norms, by which the gender norms have become a constraint. she adjusts her preferences according to his job and his role. moreover, hungarian mothers are worried about finding jobs when having children and when they get pregnant. being worried indicates dissatisfaction with this role and practices: ”look, it would be nice for starters, that a woman shouldn't get a shock that she is pregnant and find ways to hide the fact that she is pregnant from her boss” (hungarian mother 2, journalist). this woman was also fired when she was pregnant, which she does not find satisfying either; it implies that giving up her work was not a real preference. being worried about their jobs when they become pregnant indicates that expectations towards her as a care giver become a constraint for the working mother. fewer conflicts and acceptance of the gender roles thus reflect a rooted gender contract. otherwise, these latent frustrations would not have been the case. hungarian father 2, who is a driver for a storehouse, also argues that the work place should be more tolerant with mothers: his quotation underscores, too, the role and expectations of the mother: ”first, mothers should be helped more with work places that allow them to spend more time with 7 their children” (hungarian father 2). this implies that children are still the mothers’ responsibility. these mothers would want to work, but accept the gender division after having had children, due to gender expectations. trying to apply the lifestyles, developed by hakim, it does not seem that these mothers can choose entirely for themselves. rather, they must adjust their choices to their circumstances, including labour market expectations, the role of the father and financial constraints. being forced to work prevents them from living the adaptive lifestyle or the family oriented lifestyle. it seems that the hungarian mothers must live out a fourth type of life style, which is a combination of full-time mother and full-time earner/breadwinner. and it does not seem to be a result of a truly genuine free choice. the first italian mother, who works part-time in a prison, is well-educated and has a masters degree in political science. however, she expresses a request of wanting to work part-time or not at all. choosing part-time or no working hours fits very well with expectations of her as the caregiver. the fact that this preference stems from expectations appears from the following quotation. trying to go against these expectations towards the mother role puts her in a dilemma: “it was hard for me because i felt like the only mother who worked and was obliged to send my daughter to school full-time because among 28 only two went full-time and all the others went to school by modules.” (italian mother 1, teacher in a prison). this highlights a certain mother discourse. the second italian mother, whose profession is a school teacher, was convinced that she couldn't work full-time combined with being married which, according to her, is equal to having children. and her worries seemed to become real, too; her partner is working as a mechanical engineer, and is away during the week from monday to friday. thus, she has chosen to become a teacher which ‘is a job that she can combine with her care obligations’: q: “so you’ve always chosen a job that was easy to reconcile with family life? a: yes, an easy job to reconcile with family life because i was already thinking, how can you cope with a child, the house and the family? it seemed to be the simplest solution because you work half a day; and even half a day has its problems, i don’t know how a woman can work a whole day, because sometimes, when there are meetings to attend, parent-teacher meetings, assignment of the term’s marks, it’s a disaster for me” (italian mother 2, school teacher). it seems that she takes it for granted that she must sacrifice work over care obligations. not only is she living the adaptive lifestyle where she gives the same amount of priority to both the family and work, but she has been forced to living the adaptive lifestyle since she is the only person that is expected to take care of the family. her lifestyle is not at all a mirror of her truly genuine preference, as hakim would claim. this is a clear example of a constraint. she feels constrained by his work and thus by only having to take care of the children: “i’d like to have another child but the problem is that my husband is transferred for work and he comes at the weekends, i’m on my own and i’d have to work altogether: with two children..()..” (italian mother 2, school teacher). the italian families indicate very little conflict in their household division, too, although the 8 conflict is a little more outspoken than the ones observed in the hungarian interviews. among the italian interviewees, we only find small steps towards a more challenged gender contract. expectations of the mothers being the main care giver quickly make the women solve the conflict by working less, and they very quickly accept the situation and the labour division. the first british mother had help from the father, when the children were little: “yeah, the children yes; he was very helpful when they were babies, because it’s quite hard as they are twins, so we would take turns as to who gets up at night. he would change nappy.. he’d do everything” (uk mother 1, waitress part-time). this could, though, be due to them having twins, which demands more care compared to only having one child. “i am happy with that because i look after the children rather than anyone else..().. i wouldn’t trust anybody else properly because you hear stories about certain places, so i prefer that me and dad look after them”. there is a norm here telling that little children should only be looked after by the mother, meaning that this value or norm becomes a constraint or at least something that keeps mothers at home. it has to be noticed that she mentions that both her and dad should look after them and not necessarily only her. however, the outcome is her choosing to work part-time, and he works full-time. her work is fitted around her family. working part-time is an opportunity in the uk: “i don’t think it’s too bad. i ´quite like the situation… i know when they start school which is 93.15, you know, the primary one, so then you can get a job during the day while they are at school, say 10-2 and this is what i used to do for a while before as well”. q: so you would adapt your working schedule according to?. a: yeah yeah”. despite him being involved when the children were little, she experiences conflicts and the work-family dilemma over her double burden. there are situations where she would like him to be more involved in the care-role, indicating that there still are some frustrations for her: “i just tell him: get up! sometimes i lay there and say: who is getting up first? but it doesn’t work much” (uk mother 1, waitress). the gender division has been reproduced again. this mother also likes to work: “(...) i just like having my own independence, that’s why i have like, i have a job as well; i don’t suppose i would really, i would really have to work; it wasn’t forced upon me, it was just my choice to do it”. in this case, she wants to work, and one can argue that institutional opportunities such as the provision of the part-time jobs has made this possible for the women. using the terms of hakim, one could argue that this mother has an adaptive lifestyle. however, one must also remember that living the adaptive lifestyle is only the case because they have the opportunities. in this case, she can work part-time, which is very common for women in the uk. in this 9 context, i shall highlight how institutions contribute to choices of behaviour as well. the uk labour market is characterised by a high level of part-time jobs (short part-time). this was not the case in italy or hungary. again, her lifestyle also reflects external opportunities and conditions. the second mother was working full-time when the child was small, but she had to stop after six months: “i did it for six months and then i thought, it was not worth it… i had to keep my daughter first and that was the best thing i ever did” (uk mother 2, student). six years later after having had a second child, she went back to college, and the nursery fees were paid by the college. this became possible because the partner was working part-time in the nursery back then from 9-12 p.m. “i went to college last year. i think she was six or seven when i went back to college and my son, he was one at that time, and he went to a private nursery… and my husband was actually working at the nursery at the time and he went part-time from 9-12”. had the family not been provided with these institutional opportunities, the gender norms would probably have dictated the gender division. as mentioned, she, for example, had to stop working when the child was little. the partner was working part-time and more involved compared to the other british fathers from the same sample that i have presented in previous articles (olsson, 2011; olsson and boje, 2011). moreover, the last sentence in the following quotation also tells us that this is not a usual thing for a british father to do: “so if i am working he would do everything that i normally do…and he is doing quite good that was (laughs) he would do the cleaning and cooking... he is a chef anyway, everything that i normally do… and he is doing quite good that… he needs to do as much cooking as possible at home because i just cannot cook.. he is really good in that way…bathing them and brushing their teeth and things… he is quite switched on because a lot of men would just leave them (uk mother 2, student). this father has actively chosen to have more time with his family, and thus he has been working against the general norms: “i think that he would be spending more time with the kids because he was working full-time and he cut down to part-time and the only reason was to be more with them…because he is working as a chef and they did offer him working full-time or part-time. i think he still could if he wished to do so, but i think as long as this gets food on the table and the bills paid because sure the kids are important”. this family does not seem as much constrained as some of the others. with her being able to go on with her studies and him working part-time, they are able to reorganise their household strategy according to their needs and preferences. they have more free choice and have been acting against the more traditional gender values, meaning that they also have been acting against the gender contract by the father transcending the private-public sphere. i conclude that they are acting against what is generally the norm in the british culture on the basis of her referring to their collaborative strategy as being unusual. both cases indicate a weaker gender 10 contract, especially in the second case where his participation at home has been more persistent. both families illustrate an example of a work-family dilemma being solved by a more collaborative household strategy, which the mothers seem to appreciate, since it also appears that they wanted to work and to study. however, they also noted that this involvement from the fathers and co-operation was very unusual for a british family. the conflicts are reduced because the families have had a more co-operative strategy that fulfils the needs of both the mother and the father. in this case, we find that institutions also have an impact on their behaviour. flexibility and the opportunity of working part-time give these families a freer choice, despite still being dictated by the gender norms as well. in denmark, the first mother is a housewife. this is a very unusual family type in denmark today. in this family, the fathers' job and the importance of it becomes a constraint for mother. she liked working, but, in her case and with his job, having children has put her in a double role and in a workand family dilemma: q: “how was your experience with paid work? a: i thought it was exciting. i also got the education as a bailiff through my work. that was very exciting. but having children makes you vulnerable” (danish mother 1, housewife). she adapts her lifestyle according to him: q: “how does his job affect your family life? a: his previous job as a managing director at xxx affected us very much. he was always travelling and away. he never made his plans to fit our family life. it was always the other way around; us having to adapt to his job and his meetings, etc”. one could argue that this is a free choice of this mother since denmark in general is not characterised by such a family type. however, one could also argue that in choosing this life, despite liking working, is a reflection of her gender values. she reflects some more traditional gender values. she supports the fact that she should be at home and him being the breadwinner, and that work is more important to him. however, it may be questioned whether she could choose differently. the answer to this is no, i shall claim. not with this man, since he also lives according to a strong traditional gender contract. she gives up her job, not because she necessarily really wants to – this is at least not what she is saying – but because she could not cope with a paid job now that she is the only one to take care of the children: “after the leave with anders (the youngest of the boys), i worked for one year, and then we moved to munich. and giving up on my job was actually fine with me. it was hard working when you know that your husband isn’t able to help out at all; often, he was away on business trips. i could never call him, for example, when the children were sick. but that was a choice of our own. we decided that he was the one going on with the career so i never questioned the way of organising it and the fact that i was alone in taking care of the children”(danish mother 2, housewife). she adapts the situation and accepts the conditions due to having no alternatives: “i mean, if you are not used to having your husband at home and nursing you, then you don’t expect him to be there afterwards. my friends have asked me of what i have thought about him being so absent but i have also been used to being alone with things so i didn’t expect him to be there”. 11 this mother sees this as a free choice, despite concluding that she does not seem to have other alternatives due to his situation and him living out the traditional breadwinner role. thus, i shall argue that the choice of this housewife might be a free choice for her. but seen from the perspective of the researcher, it reflects an accommodated preference; giving up her job, despite reflections, reflects a constraint, due to lack of alternatives. danish mother 2, who is a shop assistant, also finds her husbands’ work a constraint. she argues that it was better when he was working less, meaning that they could work together on the care and household responsibilities: they have tried to reorganise things, but it has not changed, also not when she complained about her double burden and sole responsibility at home. her situation does not stem from a genuine free choice, either. q: “do you ever talk about reorganising it? a: yes but it doesn’t change..(). well, sometimes we have different ways of perceiving things and the amount of work, and if i were to complain, it wouldn’t change anyway” in this case, the gender contract is being challenged but it is still quite rooted in practice. it is still difficult to erode the dictating gender norms. according to her, a real preference would be a more collaborative strategy. her complaining also indicates that her lifestyle and household strategy is a result of some external constraints. fathers are constrained by work this section aims at illustrating how fathers are also constrained by gender norms, which in their case is the breadwinner role. it thus aims at addressing how gender expectations are not towards the role of the mother only, but also towards the role of the father. furthermore these expectations towards the role of the fathers, which are also seen from the labour market perspective, constraints the mothers even more by putting more pressure on her to take care of the family obligations. this starts a circle that contributes to upholding the expectations towards the father role. thus, we find that both parents are constrained by living according to the gender contract. this sequence aims at addressing what the fathers have said. hungarian father 1 has a family with very traditional gender roles; she runs the household, and he is the breadwinner. having a job is a condition for running a family, and he is seen as the breadwinner: “i mean if you give up your job then you can’t support your family”. this clearly indicates what he thinks is expected from his role. in contrast to the mother, he is constrained by his work. he feels pressure, and his work-life conflict does not come because of the family and his children but because of his breadwinner role and his position at work: “well, i’m pretty satisfied, but i hope others are also. i mean, if i don’t do my work well, then i feel huge remorse” […] q: “can you relax? a: well, it’s not because of them (the children), it’s because of my work that i can’t. i work as an architect, and i draw a lot in the night. so because of that. so i’m sometimes tired and sleepy” (hungarian father 1, architect) 12 the wife has been on leave for seven years which may put even more pressure on him, financially. he has not been reflecting upon any alternatives. his role is a matter of course and pre-destined. however, the rooted gender contract results in no reflections and request of wanting things to be different. the work is also very important to the second father (the fourth family). he has to work in order to provide for the family. when he is asked if he wants to work less, he answers that according to the circumstances; he has to work. his preference is given due to circumstances and gender roles and gender expectations and not something that he has been reflecting upon. q: “given the choice, would you rather have more time at home or a larger salary? a: unfortunately, it shifts to a larger salary, as it doesn’t matter that i can have more time at home if we cannot afford things” (hungarian father 2). but he is not necessarily satisfied, despite not questioning the situation: q: “do you feel that this is the way you want to balance work and care? a: no, unfortunately not. i have to work a lot mostly because of financial reasons”. he is constrained by his breadwinner role, and would like to work less but it is difficult to change the situation: “yes, shorter work time probably would help. well, my wife cannot work because we have little children and csabi will start school. he will need more help in learning. it would be hard to get a half-job, and she cannot work full-time. it is very hard to change this situation”, and” it is a bigger responsibility (after having children, ed.) and i have to appreciate the work i have”. lack of other alternatives too, indicates that his behaviour reflects external conditions and constraints. he indicates that it is a matter of course that she is in charge of the care obligations, and having children gives him a greater responsibility as a breadwinner. he likes his job, but it is sometimes stressful, too. he accepts it, despite a latent frustration: “i love to do my job, but it often gets on my nerves. it is stressful”. this means that a real preference and a better balance for him would be to have less work pressure. thus, one could argue that a collaborative strategy would ease his burden, too. however, this alternative is not even close to being recognised or reflected upon, which is to be explained by the rooted gender norms. the first italian father, who is a hospital doctor (his wife is a doctor, too, but she works parttime after having had children), also feels pressure around his work. this father had no concerns about having children: “so if we had to compare the two things, work is definitely more a source of stress while my family is a source of ..(sentence not finished ed.)” (italian father 1, doctor) and he has not experienced changes in his life style after having children: “no i just went back to normal”. 13 when one of the children was little, he, however, had night shifts so that he could take care of the child during the day. this father does find it important to spend time with the family and children had it not been for his work pressure: “the biggest difference is having to organise your time to make sure you can dedicate a minimum…i mean, it’s got to be more than the minimum really because you realise that the relationship with your children is built on time. i mean, the quality is important but so is the quantity” (italian father 1, hospital doctor). this also indicates a dilemma for the father. he tries to find a better work-family balance by cutting down on working hours, however, it is difficult which supports the fact that it is a constraint in the form of gender role expectations ruling in the labour market. thus labour market structures are also build around gender norms that in this case dictates a father’s greater responsibility in paid work: “no, i tried to compromise. i realised that things had reached a critical point, and i took a step back and rethought things, i tried to streamline my responsibilities at work. also because, when it comes to your family, you don’t get a second chance. you can’t make up for lost time later”. a real preference for him is to spend more time with the family: ”no, i'd like to have more time (to play with the children, ed.), it would make me happy” (italian father 1, hospital doctor). thus, his constraints are not around the family as is the case for the mothers but around work; gender norms have traditionally dictated fathers into the paid work – the public sphere and the breadwinner role, which often results in larger paid work responsibilities for fathers than for mothers: q: ”so then if arguments arise every so often, they generally tend to be about whether you spend enough time or not with the children? a: yes about coming home late and so on, that’s probably the only thing” (it father 1, doctor). indirectly, we get access to the partners’ real preference; to have the husband more at home with the family. the second italian father the fourth italian family does not question the labour division, although it creates conflicts with his partner. they have a clear gendered labour division, which makes his wife complain about his lack of involvement at home. they clearly always argue about their housework duties: q: “and you never argued about any problems you may have had regarding your housework duties? a: yes yes yes, of course, always” (italian father 2). this underscores the fact that his role is a constraint for her, and her frustration indicates that 14 her role does not entirely stem from a truly genuine choice. his lack of reflections and questioning indicates an example of a more rooted gender order that still has its dominance. he sees himself as the head of the family: “i am the head of the family”, and he does not expect it to be different: “i am very satisfied with this”. one could expect that this moreover would create some tension at home now that the wife is not satisfied with the situation. the case of italy is ambiguous. one father clearly expresses that a real preference would be to spend more time with his family. he feels constrained by his work pressure and work responsibility. he, too, indicates that asking for more family time would be illegitimate, meaning that gender norms are shown in the workplace too. this family represents a more modern gender contract, due to reflections. the second father is satisfied with his role as the breadwinner and he sees the work life dilemma as only being the mothers’. the gender roles still indicate a constraint. obviously for her, seeing that she complains, but also for him, i would say that i doubt if he has other alternatives. his acceptance simply seems to reflect a rooted gender contract. the first family is simply an example of a family that tries to act against the gender contract, although without success, and the second one is still subject to it. thus, despite attempts from one family, the outcome and the extensiveness of the gender contract in practice remains equal. the first uk father argues that it should be easier for fathers to take parental leave: “but one thing i would change is fathers getting paternity leave..().. ..i would love to be stay at home dad. i just wouldn’t be able to do that…i would like to do what the mothers can do and take time off and still have their jobs open for them and still get a decent amount of wages” (uk father 1, train guard). this reflects a real preference which is impossible to live accordingly due to determining gender norms. this opinion goes down very well with the rest of the uk families that i have studied in this article. we found that fewer constraints led to more collaboration. however, in practice, this father is constrained in his breadwinner role and thus by the prevailing gender norms. by not providing the families with an institutional framework that give them freer choices, gender norms will remain dominant. thus, they are still dominating. “but unfortunately i am the main breadwinner so i can’t do that… but i would definitely make it easier for myself to be able to take time off work at important moments of my kids’ live…definitely..”. there is a constraint dictating the fathers’ role. this father feels the work pressure, too: q: “would you say that sometimes you feel pressure from work? a: definitely yeah it’s got to the point that i resent my job and but the money that i get for the job and the perks that come with the job”. and his work is a constraint. he adapts his family around work obligations: “once the time table comes out in may i would know when i will be working pretty much till december. the only times that change comes from spare shifts” ( uk family 3 british father 1, train guard in the rail industry). 15 this also goes along very well with the looser gender contract and the more collaborative responsibility at home that we have already presented. there are still constraints in practice, however. for one danish father, who is an it-developer, paid work is a constraint for the family. he is expected to work, but seen in retrospective he would have liked to take some leave. no weeks reserved for the father is also a constraint: q: “regarding the discussion about parental leave... ingrid took leave the first two times, and then you took 4 weeks with magnus. how have you felt about that division? a: i would have liked more paternity leave. with the first two there weren’t that many options” this illustrates how leave regulations would impact on behaviour and practices. “then i only had an option of the first two weeks. that was all i could get. but with magnus, the youngest, there was an opportunity for me to take four weeks, and i really wanted to do that” (danish father 1, it-developer). and he also wanted it earlier when the children were young: q: “has your attitude towards that changed along the way, or have you always really wanted that? would you also have wanted that back then?” a: “ i don’t really know. no, i think i also would have wanted it back then with the first child. i have really always been good with little kids, and i’ve taken care of all three children quite a bit, when they were small. but i’d probably be more on it now. because i have started to think more about the family now, because i did think a lot about work back then. i didn’t speculate about it so much back then, and it wasn’t possible to do that. but i’d definitely think about it more today”. it seems that there is a widespread misunderstanding that children are only for the women. there are fathers who want to be with the children, too, and who describes themselves as being good with children. today, now that the gender contract has been challenged, this father starts to think of alternative strategies and how things could be different. however, changing the practice is now too late, which means that the gender norms have been reproduced. however, his reflections today go hand in hand with a looser gender contract. the partner has the same job, and she has been working part-time since they had the third child. the second danish father has taken eight months on leave, but it was due to his work in the navy. however, he says that he would have wanted to have leave, had he worked in a normal job, but he realises that it would not have been that easy to get the leave, at least not for such a long time. once again we find that there are constraints for real choices, but this father has been ‘saved’ by being in the navy. this family seems less constrained and thus more liberated from the traditional gender norms: q: “when did you realize that you wanted to take paternity leave? a: it was something that we had discussed. when the new rules for parental leave came out, i thought, wow this is great” (danish father 2, nutritionist, trained as a chef). from these examples, we have found that there are fathers who would want paternity leave, however social structures such as gender norms become a barrier. vice versa, the mothers, too, 16 would not mind having their partner’s “assistance” at home. in the case of father 1, this is realized too late. the dictating gender norms, which are a result of the story of the gender contract, are too quick to take over the decisions. summing up – preferences or constraints? the hungarian families were the most constrained ones. among the four included countries, they represent the most rooted gender contract; they had the greatest acceptance of the gender order, meaning that they also represented the fewest reflections regarding their gender role constitution. they were the least collaborative ones in paid and unpaid work, meaning that there was least convergence of mothers and fathers in paid and unpaid work. i argued that the acceptance and lack of reflections reflected a rooted gender contract rather than a truly free choice. latent frustrations between the lines were evidence of a rooted gender contract that was not yet challenged. some mothers were worried about their work when they were pregnant and in the question of whether the fathers would rather work less or have a higher salary, they would answer according to the situation; he has to work, due to his breadwinning role, since the mother has to take care of the children. this upholds the reproduction of gender norms which results in constraining mothers into unpaid work and fathers into paid work. thus, their preferences reflect the outer situation – external constraints and not necessarily a truly genuine personal choice. in italy, the frustrations were a bit more outspoken. thus, the gender contract was a little less rooted, meaning that frustrations reflect an attempt to challenge the rootedness and the dominance of the gender contract. one father also expressed outright a request of wanting to spend more time with his family, but he was constrained by his work. the other father, who saw himself as the breadwinner of the family and who was satisfied with the gender division, had a wife who complained over their household division. thus, italy was also constrained about the gender norms – a result of the gender contract that represents a division of mothers and fathers into unpaid and paid work, respectively. despite some more outspoken frustrations and reflections upon the gender role constitution, italy was also characterised by a quick acceptance of the gender order. the mothers in the italian cases were adjusting their careers to their household responsibilities and the breadwinner role of the father. the acceptance of this in italy also reflects a rooted gender contract and not a free choice where they are liberated from external constraints. among the british families, more families were liberated from constraints and they were less constrained. some of them were collaborating on care and household obligations and on supporting each other’s choices of paid and unpaid work. one father was participating in the care work of the twins, and one mother went on with her studies while he was working parttime. this indicates that there is a chance for alternative strategies and genuine choices if both parents liberate themselves from constraints – the traditional gender norms. but some british families were also still constrained. one father very openly argued that he wanted to have paternity leave but he had to work. one mother had to stop working when the child was little, since she could not manage a full-time job alongside having a child. the british families included in this paper represent ambiguous cases, but all in all they are not entirely liberated from external constraints. in contrast to hungary and italy, a flexible labour market and a high level of part-time jobs, give the families an opportunity to collaborate if they liberate themselves from traditional gender norms as well, and it gives the mothers an opportunity to remain attached to the labour market, despite their primary care role. the families with collaborative strategies are also unusual examples, it was emphasised. 17 one of the danish fathers was on parental leave for eight months, but this was also emphasised as being unusual, and that it had only been possible to take the leave because of his work in the navy. the other families were quite constrained, too. the difference between denmark and the way they are constrained by gender norms – the gender contract – in italy and hungary, is that the danish parents have tried to alter the situation and to reflect upon alternatives. however, it does not seem to be realised in practice, which might be due to them being constrained by gender norms, after all. one father would have wanted parental leave, seen in retrospect, but now the traditional gender roles have already been reproduced. another mother is directly frustrated by the gender division and she tries to alter the situation, however without success, due to his work and attachment to the paid labour market. one family was a breadwinner family, representing a traditional gender role constitution. in this case, she was constrained by his work, and she did not seem to have any other alternatives than being a housekeeper. the latter family type, is, however, very unusual in denmark. despite ambiguous cases and reflections upon altering the household division which in itself reflects a more modern contract, denmark, too, is characterised by constraints. in contrast to other countries, denmark has more encompassing family policies by which they have greater possibilities to have a more collaborative household strategy. however, it has to be said which is also the main point of this article that despite positive family policies with universal and public day-care institutions, it is difficult to combat the story of the gender contract. a status of less family policy regulations, which is the case in italy and hungary, makes it even more difficult to live outside the traditional gender contract. in all families, regardless of country, the gender norms were a constraint for both mothers’ and fathers' behaviour. dictated by gender specific expectations towards fathers’ and mothers’ positions in the public and private spheres, respectively, the fathers are expected to be breadwinners, to a larger extent than the women, and the mothers are expected to be caregivers. lastly, this paper has found that fathers’ expectations of being the breadwinner strengthens mothers’ position even further into unpaid work, and vice versa, expectations of mothers’ role in the private sphere, puts fathers even further in a breadwinner role. it creates a circle that reproduces the gender roles. the gender expectations are also upheld in the labour market, by which the fathers, to a larger extent than mothers, are put under more work pressure, which again contributes to the reproduction of the unequal gender order. vice versa, labour market expectations towards mothers’ and fathers’ gender roles also put more pressure on the mother to “go back” and do the careand household obligations. in order to achieve truly equal opportunities, which is conceptualised as participation in parity by nancy fraser, we need to take these barriers – constraints – into account when developing family political strategies. by not overcoming these ruling gender norms, mothers and fathers will not have truly equal opportunities and free access in paid or unpaid work. the gender norms still seem to be a determinant factor regarding mothers’ and fathers’ behaviour. ensuring truly equal opportunities and truly equal access in paid and unpaid work for both parents will also ensure equal access in citizenship rights. mothers being constrained by unpaid work reduces them from participating in citizenship rights, since citizenships rights are still based on paid work. this very crucial point has been emphasised by ruth lister (2003). using the theories of fraser and lister, it seems that policies must actively intervene in the private matters of the families in order to influence these inequalising social processes of the genders, where mothers are expected to be caregivers and fathers breadwinners. evidence has also proven that there seems to be a relationship between active political intervention and mothers’ and fathers’ behaviour. 18 social research has proven that countries that are characterised by high labour market participation among women, which is the case in denmark and other scandinavian countries, also have a relatively higher level of comprehensive family policies (del boca and wetzel, 2007). denmark has a high level of universal and public based day care facilities by which care has been moved from the family to the state; this supports mothers’ labour market attachment. others have argued that paternity leave that designates some of the leave period only for the fathers, also promotes gender equality in the households (brighouse and wright, 2009). as this article has proven, fathers seem constrained by their breadwinner role, as well. paternity leave would give fathers the incentive to take more parental leave since this kind of policy would overcome the barrier and expectation of only mothers being the caregiver. in this respect, research shows that in norway and sweden, where they have introduced paternity leave with a period specifically reserved for the fathers, it has been proven that traditional parenting roles have been challenged (leira, 1999). research shows that taking parental leave affects men’s thinking about work and family and their subsequent participation in child care (haas and hwang, 1999). now sweden has two months ‘daddy leave’. thus, such a policy would influence mind sets and perception of gender roles and thus might 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(2004). choosing between his time and her time – market work and housework among danish couples. the danish national institute of social research. working paper 4: 2004 21 oecd report 2002: babies and bosses – reconciling work and family life. australia, denmark and netherlands. volume 1. author yildiz olsson is a phd candidate in the department of society and globalisation, roskilde university, denmark. email: yatas@ruc.dk article 0_ introduction (trykkeklar) 69 multiple perspectives on ‘researching difference’ lotte bloksgaard, madeleine kennedy-macfoy & helene pristed nielsen please cite this article as: bloksgaard, l., kennedy-macfoy, m. & nielsen, h. p. (2012). multiple perspectives on ’researching difference’. qualitative studies, 3(2): 69-77. introduction it almost goes without saying at the start of the second decade of the twenty-first century, that social differences matter, and researchers are called upon to address the challenges to which they give rise within the research process (heath et al., 2009:39). the motivation for producing this special issue on ‘researching difference’ came out of the authors’ shared view that, like any other social interaction, research interactions are important sites for the production, shaping and negotiation of categories of difference. the special issue presents seven articles which together form a panoply of perspectives on the theme of ‘researching difference’. the articles address this theme in a number of ways: firstly, they discuss research focusing on different types of differences, including class, gender, race, ethnicity, citizenship status, and sexuality. secondly, the authors themselves, and the research projects they discuss, are located in different geographical locations, just as several articles reflect explicitly on the role of the researcher´s own positionality in carrying out the research. thirdly, the contributing authors apply a variety, and sometimes a combination, of methods in their research, and the usefulness and suitability of these methods to researching difference are discussed. the methods include biographical narrative interviewing, feminist memory work, semi-structured interviewing and participant observation. combined, the articles presented here offer insights into ‘the difference that difference makes’ in research settings, interactions and findings. the idea for the theme of this special issue came out of an initial conversation between a black and a white researcher, who discussed their experiences of interviewing ‘across differences’ with each other, and found that their respective research experiences revealed many similarities, but also many important differences. although the articles were authored or coauthored as separate entities, all of the authors actively engaged in a collective process over a year, during which we discussed our ideas, challenges and experiences in relation to ‘researching difference’, as well as reading and commenting extensively on each other’s work in progress. some of the questions we took up in these debates were: who defines ‘difference’? does it need defining? how is it/can it/should it be defined? how do we study difference without creating difference? the collective engagement with the issues relating to ‘researching difference’ and with each other´s work, has been extremely helpful for the progress of this special issue. a special thanks is, however, also very much due to the 14 anonymous reviewers whose comments provided the impetus for final revisions and refinements of the articles’ arguments. researching difference there are no innocent categorisations to be made in research. gunaratnam speaks about ‘race’ and ‘ethnicity’ as “dangerous categories” (2003: 19), but, as the joint articles in this issue attest, most other categorisations seem equally dangerous or risky. one point which also emerges 70 from the articles is that, not only are categories dangerous and risky, they are also very often contested. as researchers, we may contest and problematize the categories we and others employ, but the articles in this special issue also provide a number of examples of respondents contesting the categorisations they are implicitly or explicitly labelled or associated with by the researcher(s). researchers are dependent on the ability to categorise and delimit: our research fields as well as our objects and subjects of research. despite all care not to label, pathologise or stigmatise anyone or anything, we recognise that this may not always be easily avoided. we find ourselves in a ‘catch 22’ since very often we are, almost by definition, interested in our research participants precisely because they ‘belong’ to a particular category. hence, the aim in this issue is not to make an argument for dispensing with categories, (although there are those who would do exactly that with categories viewed as especially pernicious, such as race – see nayak, 2006), but to reflect on how we use, speak, and write about them. a clear message that emerges from the articles is the need to pay close attention to categorisations. another important aspect of researching difference, which we took up in our discussions, revolves around the issue of when researchers should highlight the complex ways in which categories intersect with each other to produce specific material and discursive effects (see crenshaw, 1989, 1991; phoenix & brah, 2004; mccall, 2005; gans, 2008; choo & ferree 2010), or when a single category focus is most salient. several of the articles discuss intersecting categories, while others focus on one category; in our collective discussions, we defended the view that researchers should be open to applying both approaches in their work. in some research contexts, paying in-depth attention to the production of only one category may be perfectly adequate, and may provide new and valuable evidence, for example, about the role of class in contemporary society. a single category focus, however, does not mean that we should dismiss the insights stemming from intersectional theory or methodology, but merely that it may be relevant to choose to leave those insights in brackets for a while, while paying attention to the production of a specific axis of ‘difference’ in specific ways, at a given time, and in a particular place. our focus on the complexities of using categories of difference extend to what we came to speak of as ‘the effects and affects of researching difference’. in terms of effects, we spoke about the ‘real’ (ontological) effect of the categorization in the research relation – which covers anything from taking up the respondents’ time, to perhaps bringing to the fore otherwise unheard of viewpoints, even potentially exposing illegal or socially subversive practices, or causing respondents to change behaviour. we also discussed at length the question of whether we produce ‘difference’ by researching ‘difference’. some researchers have previously argued that academics ‘write difference’ through the texts they produce (nayak 2006; rosenblum and travis, 2008). as the first article in this issue suggests, there is a decided risk that researchers could end up ‘sampling on the dependent’ if not sufficiently aware of the methodological flaws that might sneak into one’s research through the categories one has defined. we were equally interested in debating the affects of researching difference – raising questions such as: “how does our research affect us and our respondents?”, “what reactions do we meet, and how should we respond to them?” although we were all in agreement that we wished to avoid stigmatizing, stereotyping or exercising ‘symbolic violence’ (bourdieu, 1999) through our research, finding ways to avoid our research taking place in “an arena of othering” as krumernevo (2002) puts it, seemed extremely difficult. othering can be defined as the process of subordinate groups being defined into existence in a reductionist way (spivak, 1985; riggins, 1997). in one sense, the very definition of our research subjects, such as the “female thai 71 migrants selling sexual services”, “polish labour migrants in denmark” or “marginalized ethnic minority men in denmark”, discussed in some of the articles in this issue, could be seen as reductionist labels; at least insofar as the labels focus on only one or a few aspects of the respondents´ identities. although we clearly recognize the risk of othering, or presuming authenticity of subject positions when researching and eventually representing others, we agree with alcoff (1991-92) that retreat from representation is not a satisfactory solution. following spivak (1988), alcoff concludes that the best option is to ‘speak to’, rather than ‘speak for’ or ‘listen to’, although both options retain an essentialising approach to the subject positions of the less powerful. the notion of ‘speaking to’ allows for the possibility that the researched subject will produce a ‘counter sentence’. it is only through addressing others that we create opportunities for counter sentences to appear. refraining from ‘researching difference’ dismantles no stereotypes. a central issue for several authors was the shared experience that our own bodily appearance mattered in the research situation. this was the case in relation to visible signs of difference (such as skin colour) potentially eliciting responses from respondents, and, thereby, impacting on our research outcomes. race is one key aspect of visible difference, which researchers are by now almost conventionally called on to acknowledge and consider (frankenberg, 1993; ware, 1992; back and ware, 2002; alexander and alleyne, 2002). however, as several authors in this special issue found, other visible signs of difference can also play an important role in the research encounter: hair texture and its relationship to standards of beauty and gendered bodies, as discussed in one article. physical objects signalling class position, for example, such as the glasses worn by a researcher or the car she drives, might also be noted and reflected on during research encounters – this is also taken up in one of the articles. an upsurge in literature within critical whiteness studies (including alcoff, 2006; ahmed, 2007) has called on white researchers to reflect on the role of their racialisation both within and outside of research situations. an additional argument, which emanates jointly from the seven articles in this special issue, is that such reflections should not be limited to white researchers only, nor only to reflections about race. there are those attributes which you might quite literally ‘park somewhere else’ during an interview and there are those which you cannot. carefully considering why one would wish to conceal or downplay any element of one´s appearance during an interview or field work, for example, is an important aspect of analysing research interactions. it also calls for a consideration of what our research participants might or might not wish to disclose about their appearance during the research encounter. another issue which authors shared in their experiences of researching difference was the issue of accessing research participants. access is of course already a well described methodological problem, particularly within literature from ethnographic traditions (van maanen, 1988; de laine, 2000; fielding, 2001). however, we took the view that researching difference complicates the problem of access. this is because when researchers wish to research difference, the very act of creating access underscores the distance between the researcher and the researched. as the articles demonstrate, various tactics may be applied to lessen this gap. another challenge is getting access to studying differences that people find ‘of no importance’ or ‘not relevant’ – for example gender in modern work-life or classed differences in contemporary societies. strategies for handling such complexities are also discussed in the articles of the special issue. there has been some discussion in the methodological literature about whether or not researchers should share the same characteristics as those they research, with respect to such markers as race, gender, ethnicity, class or sexual orientation (for example, hey, 1997; mac an 72 ghaill, 1993; phoenix, 1994; gunaratnam, 2003). theorists often argue that researcher/researched sameness will not automatically produce the best research: nairn et al. (2005) suggest that an insistence that researchers and those they research should share identities or particular characteristic, could lead to ignoring other important, non-shared, characteristics that could be salient in the research interaction. it could also provide an excuse for majority researchers, positioned as ‘the norm’ in relation to any category (for example, an able-bodied researcher) to avoid researching people positioned or perceived as ‘different’ from that norm (such as disabled people) (see nairn et al., 2005:336). for carter, a deliberate mismatch between the researcher/researched could have the positive effect of encouraging researchers to not take anything for granted while they conduct research (carter, 2004:348). taft concurs with these arguments against assuming that researcher/researched sameness is inherently beneficial, and she urges researchers to be reflexive and alert to the effects that researcher/researched similarity or dissimilarity will have on the research (taft, 2007). the articles here draw on studies where both ‘similarities’ and ‘dissimilarities’ characterise the research relation. some also include examples of how ‘difference’ or ‘sameness’ was in fact created during the research encounter, as either researcher or researched were positioned or positioned themselves as belonging to certain categories. while the approach in all articles concur with taft’s idea that it is important to be reflexive about the effects of the characteristics that the researcher brings into the research interaction, several of the articles in this special issue take this point further, and argue that new and unexpected identifications and dis-identifications may be produced during the research encounter. ramazanoglu and holland (2000) argue that critical (self) reflection about one’s research practices and the categories one employs is a goal to strive for, but not for its own sake, as it may easily end in endless regression of interrogating the interrogation: “reflections on how feminists know what they know and how they are constituted as ‘knowers’ can be productive, but cannot replace investigation of social life” (2000: 210). given that we consider the investigation of social life important – this is why we do research in the first place – we need to research difference with all of its ramifications, and this implies the use of categorisations, delimitations and definitions. if the aim it to ‘tell it like it is’, we have to both “produce knowledge of social existence and question how knowledge and knowing selves are produced and made authoritative” (ramazanoglu and holland, 2000: 208, our emphasis). therefore, we would defend our ‘bottom line’: that challenges notwithstanding, researching difference in combination with a critical engagement with categorisations, is by far the more appealing option than refraining from dealing with difference. categorisations – dangerous as they may be – are also a means of identifying problems and social inequalities. the articles in this special issue the seven articles presented in this special issue cover a variety of research fields and approaches. six of the articles draw on empirical material stemming from one or multiple research projects undertaken by the author(s), in which the object of investigation and/or the research field itself has been riddled with categorizations, often assigning research participants to specific groups and potentially distinguishing the researcher him/herself as belonging or not belonging to the group. examples of such groups or identities within the articles include “thai female migrant sex workers”, “male manager recently turned father” and “white middle/working class women from aalborg”. all of these articles share the ambition of discussing what such categorizations mean, what happens when they are employed, and also what sometimes happens when our expectations of how such categories should be ‘filled’ are not met. hence, several of the articles also deal with what goes on in research situations where 73 the categories or identities become puzzling or even troublesome for the researcher, who may sometimes be designated as a “thai-speaking white male researcher in night club”, a “pregnant interviewer asking questions about plans for parental leave”, or a “volvo-owner asking questions about class”. combined, the articles offer insights into how we may understand and make sense of categories of ‘difference’ and ‘sameness’ in research, how we may ask about difference without creating or accentuating difference within our research fields, and how research may sometimes be experienced as an ‘othering’ process certainly for the research participants, and sometimes perhaps also for the researcher. the first article by martin bak jørgensen about ‘categories of difference in science and policy’ sets the tone for the entire issue by taking up the question of how researchers understand and work with categories of difference. as he argues, categorization is a crucial, indeed an indispensable, element in social science, which serves important fundamental functions not only in quantitative, but also in qualitative research. however, as his examples about the usages of ‘race’ and ‘islam’ as categories in research underscore, such categorisations may easily lead to a ‘sampling on the dependent’, where the presumed relevance of certain groupings lead to a confirmation of their relevance. calling for greater methodological and theoretical reflexivity about the usage of categorisations, he ends by pointing to seven examples of research which specifically tackle this challenge, and which may point to new strategies for qualitative research in particular. the second article by trine lund thomsen about ‘irregular migration’ takes up the line of argumentation from jørgensen´s article that researchers need to stay alert to how categories and categorisations may play (sometimes inadvertent) roles in our research. based on the author´s own experiences with researching ‘irregular’ migration experienced by polish migrant workers in denmark, she develops an argument for rethinking the concept of ‘irregular’ in terms of ‘irregularised’, which in many ways better fits the lived experiences of the people her research was about. adding a social dimension of licit/illicit to the state regulated dimension of legal/illegal migration, opens up for a deeper understanding of the life stories and trajectories of such people, who may at times have experienced their position as having become irregularised through no action of their own. thomsen further demonstrates how the biographical narrative interview method is particularly well-suited for uncovering these processes, which sometimes take place in the grey zones of legality/illegality and social acceptability or lack thereof. hence, thomsen´s contribution to the debate about researching difference is that employing the method of biographical narrative interviewing is a concrete way of re-opening understandings of categories such as ‘irregular’ or ‘illegal’ migrants, and providing a possibility for obtaining insight into how the research subjects themselves understand their own positioning. in the third article by sune qvotrup jensen, the author takes up the concept of intersectionality, and demonstrates through the use of examples from two different research projects how the understanding of relations between researcher and researched may be enhanced by analysing these as relations between intersectional social positions. the article combines the concept of intersectionality with the concept of typifications, and uses memos and interview excerpts to analyse how research interactions constitute meetings between complex intersectional configurations of social categories. drawing on a wide array of research encounters, the author reflects on how, where, when and why different social categories are brought into play in these situations, the categories spanning everything from gender, ethnicity, race, and class, to locality, political affiliation and more. the article highlights the interactional and intersectional aspects of research encounters, and argues that these aspects of the research process is a valuable source 74 of information in its own right, contributing with knowledge and insights about social positionalities. the fourth article by madeleine kennedy-macfoy and helene pristed nielsen is experimental in attempting to practice what it preaches, namely ‘talking about what race feels like’. the article is based on a dialogue between the two authors about the production of race and ethnicity in research encounters. inspired by feminist memory work, kennedy-macfoy and pristed nielsen develop the argument that ex post comparative and contrastive memory work undertaken in dialogue with differently positioned research colleagues is a useful way to learn more about the production of race and ethnicity in research encounters. while not dismissing ‘the difference that difference makes’, the authors suggest that such deliberate attempts to ‘get lost’ in the ‘headwork and textwork’ of research processes is a useful approach to broaching the challenges of researching racialised difference. the overall argument of the article is that more attention ought to be paid to how ethnicity and race are sometimes produced in research encounters, and that a useful way of doing so is to talk to other researchers about what race and ethnicity feel like in the research encounter. based on interviews with, and participant observation among, female-born and transgendered thai migrants selling sexual services in denmark, the fifth article by marlene spanger focuses on how looks and bodily practices, of both researcher and researched, impact on the research setting and results. using illustrative examples from her field work, spanger describes how research encounters can become a site of struggle in the ongoing negotiation of identities, based on gender, sexuality, nationality and race. as part of the research interaction, different gendered and racialized positions are established, generating moments of inferiority and superiority for the researcher, and disrupting the dichotomy of ‘the victimized’ versus ‘the empowered’ subject often assigned to the group of female thai migrants selling sexual services. the sixth article by lotte bloksgaard discusses challenges and strategies for researching gender as a category of difference and as producing inequalities in modern work organisations. modern work life is often understood as gender-neutral, which makes it difficult for researchers to access gender in work organisations, where gender differences are typically seen as being ‘of no importance’. furthermore, gender may be understood as produced in different organisational processes and ‘levels’, why it is important to carefully consider the methods used in researching gender in modern work-life. the article unfolds and discusses these complexities, illustrates and argues for the usefulness of applying a longitudinal research design, and combining different methods when studying gender and negotiations in work organisations. in the seventh and last article by stine thidemann faber, the author recounts and reflects on how to access class through interviews. the goal of the article is threefold: to discuss dilemmas and concerns when conducting the interviews, to discuss power relations and social belonging/positionality in interview encounters (in terms of gender, race, class, sexuality and other axes of social difference), and to explore some of the challenges involved in representing other peoples’ experiences in such a setting. despite claims about the ‘death’ of class in denmark, the different experiences and understandings displayed by the research participants highlight the persistence of class as a relevant sociological research topic. yet, as faber illustrates, the process of undertaking interviews about class tends to be marked by elusiveness, suggesting that attention needs to be paid to the detail of the classed discourses produced in interviews. 75 the articles may of course be read individually, but, as we hope to have conveyed in this introduction, the entire special issue may also be read as one coherent argument for applying multiple perspectives when researching difference. we hope the issue in its entirety will help to ‘spice up’ a debate which we feel needs to spread across all research traditions of the social sciences and humanities. while not pointing a finger at any traditions in particular, it has been a thought provoking journey for all of us, coming from different research traditions as we do1, to observe that, firstly, we do not feel that there is a sufficiently widespread debate about ‘researching difference’ within any of our research traditions. secondly, although we are essentially debating the same thing – how categories and categorisations are problematic yet present, unavoidable and important in research – we draw on different examples, different literatures, and different disciplinary conventions for how to speak and write about researching difference. the potential for further development of these debates, and not least the potential for further cross-disciplinary fertilization, is significant, as this special issue attests. references ahmed, s. 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(1992). beyond the pale: white women, racism and history. london: verso authors lotte bloksgaard is assistant professor in sociology of gender at the department of culture and global studies, aalborg university, denmark. email: bloksgaard@cgs.aau.dk madeleine kennedy-macfoy is a visiting researcher at the centre for gender research, university of oslo, norway. email: madeleine.kennedy-macfoy@stk.uio.no helene pristed nielsen is associate professor in globalisation, gender equality and diversity at the department of culture and global studies at aalborg university, denmark. email: pristed@cgs.aau.dk untitled 79 the revelation(s) of asher levi: an iconographic literacy event as a tool for the exploration of fragmented selves in new literacies studies after 9/11 jeanine m. staples abstract. this article considers the dynamics of an iconographic literacy event that functions as a tool for explorations of literacy practices and fragmented selves, particularly in relationship to the literate lives of marginalized individuals in the post 9/11 era. the author examines what happened when a group of 10 african american women in an urban area employed new literacies in the teaching/learning spaces of their personal lives (i.e. individual homes, familiar eateries, communicative digital technologies) to explore and respond to stories in post 9/11 popular culture narratives. the study employed ethnographic methods (interviews, journaling, email and instant message writing and critical observations) with members of the inquiry over the course of two years. the author investigated critically the meeting of biography, fiction and autoethnography as a literacy event used to couch the literacies and fragmented selves of these women in the post 9/11 era. findings regarding the nature of their post 9/11 literacies, as expressed through fragmented selves, are shared, along with implications for new literacies research and teaching. findings show that the women’s post 9/11 literacies include a range and variation of critical sensibilities that include, but are not limited to, multiple levels of sociolinguistic integration, sociocultural criticality and heightened awarenesses. keywords: new literacy studies, african american women, media education, qualitative inquiry, 9/11 please cite this article as: staples, j.m. (2011). the revelation(s) of asher levi: an iconographic literacy event as a tool for the exploration of fragmented selves in new literacies studies after 9/11. qualitative studies, 2(2): 79-97. is there any way of writing the “fragmented self”? that is, can we represent a conflicted identity, a self with multiple affiliations, a self that is transient, a self whose shape is contingent on the given contexts in which it emerges? (de freitas & paton, 2009, p. 487). the provocative questions posed above speak to the complexities within examinations of fragmented, evolving, socially situated selves. recently, de freitas and paton (2009) employed this question and others to explore critically the ways a group of graduate students grappled with humanist and post-humanist stances for self-study through the methodology of autoethnography. they explained that autoethnography is positioned to “indicate how the researcher is implicated in the context of inquiry” and points to how we might resolve the conflict between the emergence, composition and presentation of a humanist, ideal “i” and members’ claims that they overcame such a presentation (p. 485). specifically, de freitas and paton (2009) worked to understand empirically the ways students experienced a disjunctive or misrecognition of the self in the reflected self. in addition, they worked to understand the constitution of the elusive and transient ideal “i” as it was used and emerged within members’ autoethnographic writing. they did so by maintaining 80 particular interest in the ways members dealt with self-recognition and exploration through the genres of confession and testimony. within this framework for data analysis, they presented a “collective biography” of members. this tactic was used to frame more particularly “the assemblage of ruminations on the nature of the self that were generated through questionnaire data” (de freitas & paton, 2009, p. 487). they found that, ultimately, the dissonance and perplexities about self that members met within their writings were crucial to the development of meaningful conceptions of self over time, and further, that it is neither possible nor desirable to attempt to resolve this conflict (de freitas & paton, 2009). rather, they suggest that autoethnography functions as a methodological framework through which individuals can decenter the self as a knowing subject (peters & burbules, 2004) and come to terms with the notion that “the time of the fiction of a single true, authentic self has come and gone” (denzin & lincoln, 2000, p. 1060). subverting the idea that a “single true, authentic self” exists is useful to me as a qualitative researcher of literacies because it assists the social justice project upon which my work is founded. that is, eradicating the idea of a unified, stable identity supports an understanding of how and why marginalized individuals and groups read, write and respond to sociopolitical instances of local and global inequality, discrimination and propaganda communicated through and as popular culture narratives. when i say “marginalized” individuals and groups, i refer to those people who are socially, historically, culturally, and at times, linguistically “othered” – negated or made ancillary, strange, exotic, curious, misunderstood, disposable, or even dangerous in relation to the individual or group that is centralized. this fringe status bears power in that it can be framed with intellectual and spiritual passions, criticalities and creative nuances of expression that are evolved in order to transgress boundaries obstructing paths to the center. as a new literacies theorist, scholar and practitioner, i focus regularly on ways i can liberate and empower my methodological inquiries into the nature and utility of the contemporary literate lives of african american urban adolescents and adults in addition to other marginalized and often adversely labeled groups. my work hones in particularly on the ways marginalized individuals and groups’ converging identities (such as race, gender, age, religious affiliation and socioeconomic status) intersect and are mediated via their literate lives and in relationship to popular culture narratives, particularly in modern times. members’ literate lives include their literacy practices. literacy practices are the socially situated, culturally informed, politically laden and media/technology influenced ways that people establish, destabilize and challenge epistemologies, share information, generate texts, communicate broadly, form (hyper)social networks, perform iterations of selves and engage in intellectual work for particular purposes (marshall, staples & gibson, 2009; staples, 2008a, 2008b, 2008c, in press). the observable episodes and artifacts which arise from literacy practices, and are shaped by them, are literacy events (barton & hamilton, 2000; heath, 1982; street, 1993). such episodes may take the form of a written document, oral story, text-based discussion, photograph or digital composition. my work produces nuanced and evolving analytic responses to questions like “what happens when marginalized individuals and groups employ new literacies in various teaching/learning contexts?” facilitating critical, deep explorations with respect to these phenomena often calls for the evolution of methodologies because the layers of selves employed provokes the intersections of voice, position, his/herstories, public/private consciousness, theology, art, cultural phenomenological movements, sociocultural vision and memory in addition to reading, writing, speaking and listening. 81 to explore the intersections of new literacies, fragmented selves and the ways they can be framed through a new literacy event, i first discuss briefly the necessity of situating fragmented selves and literacy practices through a new literacy event. second, i frame the inquiry presented here by relaying my research question, methods of data collection and the interpretive framework used to understand happenings in the inquiry. then, i discuss the iconographic work used to couch literacy events and literacy practices that emerged among group members in relationship to particular social situations and consciousnesses. next, i share artifacts from the inquiry and point to the ways members’ literacies and fragmented selves advanced within it. lastly, i present implications for new literacies research and teaching for the field in contemporary times. situating fragmented selves and literacy practices through a new literacy event as an african american woman scholar/teacher, i feel compelled to consider deeply the constitution of fragmented selves, social situations and literate explorations. i do so as a testament to my devotion to qualitative inquiry into literate lives and the constituents i serve in addition to furthering my interests in converging phenomena as they occur in current literate lives. autoethnography speaks both to the narrative nature of many of my inquiries, the social aspects of my sites for research, and the persistence of texts as phenomena to be studied and/or (re)produced within various teaching/learning contexts. it is also responsive to the cultural and linguistic nuances that one must regard and take up in order to mine experiences and personal evolutions. ellis and bochner (2000) described autoethnography as “systematic sociological introspection” whereby the researcher begins with personal feelings and memories and uses reflexive writing practices to move back and forth between personal narratives, encompassing contexts, and social forms” (ellis & bochner, 2000, p. 735). this introspection yields a post-humanist self, a site of dislocation, contradiction and instability which includes internal disorientation and fragmentation (st. pierre, 1997, 2000). such a struggle gives way to the autobiographical subject’s striving toward “the false symmetry of…a unified self which can only ever be a fiction” (anderson, 2001, p. 66). this “fiction of autobiography” is explored in artistic autoethnography (de freitas & paton, 2009, p. 490). for example, ellis (2004) wrote of her own work, “i think and gather information like an ethnographer, but i try to write like a novelist or story teller. autoethnographic writing goes hand in hand with fictional techniques such as dialogue, scene setting and plot development” (p. 335). yet, regardless of its creative allowances, i have come upon a particular problem in my attempts to use this methodology to form creative analytic portraits of the ways marginalized individuals and groups employ literacies to engage the language, images and messages used in media texts, particularly when attempting to deal insightfully with the idea of fragmentation. the problem is two-fold. first, autoethnographic writing tends to emerge exclusively from the stance of the researcher. this vantage point can quiet the voices of members. one objective of my work is to challenge the rigidity of the margins and further center member’s voices as primary, creative and knowledgeable. second, the power of fiction, as a means through which qualitative researchers might (re)imagine and advance boundaries impeding interpretation and description of members’ constructions of fragmented selves begs that autoethnographic writing yield an inventive stance. de freitas and paton (2009) used collective biography as a way to explore members’ autobiographical ruminations on self. they found it to be a useful tactic because it allowed them to “blur boundaries of the individual self” by examining stories as they “evolve[d] into a collective statement about more general mechanisms of subjectification” (davies et al., 2001, p. 169). however, this tactic 82 functioned as a way to communicate the group’s responses as a whole. it may not have been sufficient in scope to grapple with data that represented fragmentations of selves that one could trace across members’ writings or discrepant cases that challenged dominant fragmentations. my struggle to capture the ways marginalized individuals use literacies in relationship to the narratives of popular culture includes a literacy event that fuses collective biography, autoethnography and a fictional (re)presentation of members. with regard to the study presented here, this fusion serves to push forward analysis, interpretation and description of ethnographic data collected immediately after 9/11. it is best described as an iconography and is discussed below. the data it contains feature various ponderings on the location and evolution of selves within competing discourses on words and signs perpetuated by media; inter-group rhetoric on the (de)stability and necessity of heterosexual romantic love and the ways it can function as a lens through which african american women understand the sociocultural situation and power of a black christian feminine self; the sociopolitical influence of religious thought and its impact on social and cultural ways of being and meaning making; in addition to language, images and the phenomenological junctions of the post 9/11 era. a post 9/11 inquiry: research question, methods and interpretive framework during the first two years after 9/11, i became increasingly interested in the types of local, empirical frameworks that were developing in relationship to media representations of “terror”, the heinous instances of fear, intimidation and mayhem that incite negative national and global repercussions (i.e. a suicide bomber in iraq or afghanistan in the presence of native or allied troops and/or innocent civilians), and “terror”, the type of private or personal instances of fear that incite negative local repercussions (i.e. a violent or mean-spirited transaction between lovers or friends, a web of gossip, lies, or interpersonal disassociation among friends or even those perceived to be strangers). when i say “local empirical frameworks” i refer to those complex ways of knowing that function at the site(s) of the individual fragmented self and are shared with members of a similarly situated community. to explore these frameworks i met with a group of ten (10) women twenty-two (22) times from 2003–2005. during gatherings, members responded to and shared ideas about various post 9/11 stories – popular culture narratives (pcns) – that presented language, words, ideas and interpersonal scenarios about people’s lives in the post 9/11 era. the “post 9/11 era” constitutes the time frame immediately after 9/11 until the present. other “eras” are conflated within this time frame. some include the “web 2.0 era” and the “social networking era”. “post 9/11 literacies” are the socially situated ways in which meaning is made and selves are dynamically represented within the era and in relationship to phenomena and languages storied within the era; and, “post 9/11 popular culture narratives” can be understood as the responsive, contradictory and interdependent media and personal stories that function as literacy events. popular culture narratives have five primary descriptors (marshall, staples & gibson, 2009; staples, in press). first, pcns portray nuances of social constructs. race, class, gender, religion and sexuality are often at issue in them. second, they often depict archetypes—representative human paradigms that embody “types” of identity. third, these narratives frequently mingle standardized english and variations of english. this mingling affords characters, authors, or narrators the ability to texturize social situations and individuals in specific ways. fourth, they produce or describe visual representations that signify and complicate language. that is, compositions of rich, moving and still images are depicted and invoked to pictorially translate what is expressed. lastly, pcns provoke readers to deeper revelations of predicaments of human conditions and the complexities of 83 personhood, place, word and image. this provocation can be (and often is) initiated by both print and visual popular culture narratives. pcns offer a point of entry into the literate lives of many marginalized groups because they are highly consumed, readily accessible and consistently (re)present, for study or entertainment, innumerable scenarios of various individuals, groups and lived experiences (both “real” and “contrived”). women were chosen for the inquiry based on their responses to a simple question, “do you think reading and writing can save your life?” all replied, “no.” i asked this question because i experienced a history, as a literate person, scholar and teacher, which caused me to answer in the affirmative. i wanted to understand, through this question, how other african american women conceived the power of literacies and understood their capacity for facilitating inquiry, freedom, and relationships in everyday life. i found the common pessimism among the women interesting. i noted that it conflicted with my understanding of literacies and my assumptions about what formally educated adult women might believe about their power or influence as literate beings. as a result of this, i asked the women to come together to read and write and “make sense of the word and the world after 9/11” (staples, journal entry, 01.09.03). members used journals, poems, email, im correspondences and transcripts of group conversations to build community and develop intimate communication. the women were called group members instead of participants because neither the inquiry nor data collection was structured systematically. instead, they progressed organically and intuitively. in addition, most data were shared, some co-authored and a number of them compiled to create composite artifacts to illustrate knowledge, questions, stances and perspectives relative to our selves and post 9/11 narratives. to inquire deeply and critically, i asked “what happens when a group of african american women in an urban area employ new literacies in the teaching/learning spaces of their personal lives (i.e. individual homes, familiar eateries, and communicative digital technologies) to explore and respond to post 9/11 popular culture narratives?” i employed a triangulated interpretive framework to analyze data. interpretive analytic framework critical black feminist frames allowed me to analyze the ways members’ racialized and gendered selves were reified through literacy practices (collins, 1990; hooks, 1989, 1992). endarkened feminist epistemologies helped me to understand the ways members’ racialized and gendered selves intersected a collective spiritual epistemological framework for knowing, action and leadership (dillard, 2000). critical literacies theory allowed me insight into the ways the women employed literacies and facilitated literacy events as ways to converse and build knowledge, particularly with various modes of communication. analysis included the iterative and progressive processes of “collecting, noticing and thinking about” recurrent themes, rejoinders, stances and questions members had, particularly as these phenomena signified various types of emphases on and representations of selves, self positions and self evolutions in relationship to the messages of post 9/11 pcns and/or other members (siedel, 1998). via multiple readings within and across data sets, i coded and classified these things. then, i logged themes with respect to the visibility, corroborations and contradictions of members’ fragmented selves. next, i interrogated ascending findings by introducing questions from each aspect of my triangulated framework within and across data sets, paying close attention to 84 discoveries about fragmentation that seemed expected in addition to those that seemed uncommon, were confirmed and/or challenged by members. to interpret analyzed data and grapple with ways to describe findings, i draw from haraway’s (1988) notion of cyborg consciousness and situated knowledges. haraway’s work provides ways to think about the love/hate, trust/distrust relationship human beings have with machines and their promise to liberate, empower and unite; it also offers points of entry for pondering the idea that female embodiments inherently stimulate various metaphoric extensions, and complicates feminist idea(l)s that focus almost exclusively on identit(ies) by introducing notions of affinity(ies). the revelation of asher levi: a post 9/11 iconographic literacy event when attempting to relay artfully the literacy practices employed by and within this group and describe what data suggested about the fragmented selves of each member, autoethnographic writing imposed a distance from the points of revelation members experienced. writing with the illustrative “i” seemed inauthentic and detached because this technique merely revealed my points of revelation and exposed my struggle with orientation and resolve as a qualitative researcher. when in fact, members’ “i” articulations, connections and stances reified their literacies and lifealtering discoveries (marshall, staples & gibson, 2009; staples, 2008b, 2008c, in press). to facilitate a way to capture such ruminations, i began to shift and move aspects of member profiles, excerpts from journals, correspondences, emails and transcribed voices in ways that could show, with a type of disordered coherence, the results of analysis and interpretation and portraiture of the selves, literacy practices and epistemological processes of members. disordered coherence refers to the disorganized ways members cohered their literacy practices and understandings of selves in order to push forward signs of racialized, gendered, spiritual epistemologies. disordered coherence also refers to the discrepancies the women dealt with over the course of our twenty-two (22) meetings, the nuances of fragmentation that arose when negotiating continually shifting conceptions of self, the notion of our unstable place(s) in a post-9/11 society and our shifting understanding of post-9/11 popular culture narratives. the result of this approach to data description and transmittal is an unpublished iconographic book entitled the revelation of asher levi: a woman reads the world and the word. i composed the book from the individuated and collective data generated by members. it captures, through its fictitious protagonist asher levi, the literacies and epistemologies that emerged in the inquiry. it also features several other dominant fragmented selves. the book is a literacy event (street, 1993) because it is an iconography—a symbolic, amalgamation of representative selves and a portraiture collection of words, ideas, images and symbols that resists a singular genre. it couches analyzed, interpreted qualitative data assembled by a composite protagonist (asher) and collaborating characters. each (re)present other selves and story lived experiences that manifested among members of the inquiry group. the book demonstrates imaginatively and critically one way new literacies theorists might orchestrate a protagonist as a useful literate symbol that facilitates ethnographic inquiry into lived/literate experiences, questions and relationships. what follows is a brief clarification of the function of the data-driven book. the revelation of asher levi functions as an iconographic literacy event in three ways. the revelation of asher levi acts as a biographical portrait. it serves as asher's incidental memoir as she portrays critical recollections of life immediately after 9/11. in the book, she chronicles the ways she made sense of her and others’ positionalities, influences, subjectivities, and knowledge 85 frameworks in relationship to post 9/11 popular culture narratives. she highlights and investigates the post 9/11 musings of her closest friends and discusses the ways her sensibilities (i.e. heightened political awareness, social self-consciousness, personal resolve and a thirst for intimacy and knowing) affect her response to the dissolution of her most significant romantic relationship. it is a coming of age story as asher discloses to readers the ways she met with several social, cultural, political and spiritual revelations after 9/11 and “grew her self up and out and all over” in the duration (asher levi, member journal entry, 05.12.2004). this growth, along with that of her friends, marks a trajectory of awareness and critical sensibilities that affect real change in asher and compel her to restructure her life and aspirations toward affinities with all people. asher narrates this plot closely. she presents a window into a life-altering season, one that is crucial to readers’ understandings of her development as an african american woman, global citizen, educator, sisterfriend and lover of black men in the post 9/11 era. the revelation of asher levi also performs the work of autoethnography. it is a creative, critical text that afforded me opportunities to position artistically many analyzed data and present discussions of their meaning and implications through asher’s voice.1 because i authored the work as a creative scholar, it became a tool for me to situate, trouble, and frame members’ post 9/11 literacies and fragmented selves to further the scholarship of new literacy studies, methodology, and our understanding of popular culture as text without speaking exclusively for myself or from my own perspective. in addition, the work helped me to push forward new notions about the ways literacies evolve and perform individuated and communal (r)evolutions for particular purposes such as selfgeneration, -exploration, -determination and -in/exclusion in the post 9/11 era through engagements with popular culture narratives. lastly, the revelation of asher levi is a fiction literacy event in that it tells asher’s story on the basis that she and all the characters that thrive from her vantage point are not “real”. that is, the work as a whole bends the limits of reality in the ways that certainty is bent in the post 9/11 era—through the construction of illusions, composite voices, fused identities and shifting, interchangeable spaces, messages and signs. so, characters in the work are un-real to the extent that they are archetypical fragmentations of members in the inquiry and the scenarios that members depicted through journal entries, ims, poems and transcribed conversations. these fragmentations are composed and woven from members’ multiple voices, sensibilities and social situations, phenomena that actually manifested and took place among group members within the inquiry. the revelation contains the modes of communication actual members used, such as those aforementioned. it also showcases literacy practices used to respond to post 9/11 popular culture narratives and navigate lived experiences shared through fragmented selves. each character in the book acts as a compounded symbol. each functions as a vehicle of expression for a dominant fragmented self that emerged within data sets. for instance, asher, the main character, represents compilations of members’ analytical, teacherly selves. kagan represents their sexual, materialistic, social selves. laish performs an assemblage of members’ wounded, insecure selves. rajah portrays the women’s spiritual, religious selves. nason consists of members’ helping stances; she renders compliance, service and liberalism. sash and talon are splinters of the antagonistic, persistently oppositional self. maven enacts the motherly type; she houses the instances of a loving, maternal self that evolved within each woman in the group. these fragmented selves (i.e. characters of book) were called “sisterfriends” like the women in the inquiry group. this tactic helped to unify “real” 86 women with iterations of fragmented selves, further complicating and enriching efforts to realize post 9/11 literacies and knowledge. while i am the sole author of the revelation and subsequent research articles that feature its excerpts, members helped to name each character, took part in member checks of the amalgamated analyzed data, interpretive codes that organized them, and reviewed some creative descriptions and passages that led to full chapters and a developing plot. asher’s intersections with a post 9/11 popular culture narrative the following excerpt from the iconography reveals asher’s musings after a significant breakup. partly as a result of the impacts of 9/11 and the dissolution of this relationship, she works to build knowledge around what it means to get to “where it’s @”1 – a point of destination in knowledge production and resolve toward personal wholeness, which for her, amounts to true love. asher “writes for her life” (schaafsma, 1996, p. 110) by tracing the intersections she finds amid encounters with a post 9/11 popular culture narrative that stories the potentially tragic lived experiences of a muslim woman named mukhtaran bibi and those of her sisterfriends. mukhtaran bibi was a 28year-old pakistani muslim woman who was sentenced to be raped and kidnapped, then denied the opportunity to form her own romantic attachments and marry (simons, 2002). this sentence was punishment for a crime her brother allegedly committed. ms. bibi wrote about her experiences through personal letters and legal petitions. she also forged oral narratives in protest of her viciously masochistic “punishment”. eventually, she secured justice for herself in the form of physical protection, the right to marry whomever she chose, emotional support, and financial resources to found two same-gender schools that use a progressive muslim curriculum. members and i discussed the (r)evolutionary literate life ms. bibi generated in the service of her own physical defense, socio-emotional survival, and right to love on her own terms. this post 9/11 popular culture narrative helped us to grapple with some of the ways we conceived and documented conceptions around heterosexual romantic love and began to understand the communicative processes that facilitate sense-making around social and communal affection, affinity and trajectory. asher’s journal entry pushes forward her critical musings on moving toward a place of revelatory knowledge and wholeness in and after significant relationships by examining closely how ms. bibi dealt with the repercussions of relationships that were violently imposed upon her. it evolves asher’s thinking to a critical level because in it she is able to juxtapose the ways mukhtaran bibi dealt with “terror” and the ways asher dealt with “terror” through her local epistemological frameworks. i define “terror” as the private or personal instances of fear that incite negative local repercussions (such as a violent or mean-spirited transaction between strangers or lovers). local epistemological frameworks are the complex ways of knowing that function at the site(s) of the individual and are shared with members of a similarly situated community. through the following journal entry, asher reflects seriously on her deeper understanding of the convergences and divergences of this narrative after 9/11 and the lessons it can teach her about the power of women to affect change in getting to where it’s @, regardless of their physical or empirical location and/or herstories. this understanding arises vis a vis asher’s tracings of narrative meeting points within similar sites of struggle shared by local and global women of color. her local epistemology is founded on the idea that individuals often become lost to the extent that life’s journeys may not be 1 this title will be elaborated on later in the article. 87 elected or linear but forced and winding, yet, in any case, we are able to choose how we deal with them, snuff out terror in our midst and incite reverberations of wholeness in and around us. getting to where it’s @, or, seeing my self in my sister: a revelation of asher levi asher levi: love is where it’s @. if i had learned how to tell him what i wanted and listened to my own voice instead of allowing it to be twisted or silenced, i could have gotten to where it’s @ a lot sooner. the point of getting there is to be a better woman – to be a more powerful, more peaceful, loving and joyful woman…all by yourself, first, despite any circumstances. such qualities depend on individual agency and intimate understanding of one’s own road. i’d lost that with him. maybe i’m being naïve, even unfair. actually, i probably gave it away. can’t blame somebody else for that. when i tried to set myself straight – my road, my mind, my heart, my body – he was too accustomed to having it his way, to leading the way. he wouldn’t relent his footing from where we’d begun. he was the casanova. i was the fool. he was the cool guy. i was the square. he was the party animal, the fun-loving, hip talking livewire with the slew of fast times and faster women on the side. i was the wannabe wifey who thought she held all the cards. i co-signed the contract, unspoken or not. sure, he was the asshole. but i wiped the ass. i gave him permission to fake me. i authorized his bad behavior. so, who was to blame? they say we make the road by walking (horton & freire, 1990). we get to where it’s @ by putting one foot decidedly in front of the other. i relinquished my direction in the walk without question and with little consideration of the consequences. it takes two, right? trying to fix people is hard work. trying to fix situations is even harder. the toil is long and arduous and it rarely amounts to anything good. it definitely doesn’t compare to the peace that comes from surrender. have you ever tried to make somebody do something they clearly didn’t want to do? ever tried to make somebody into someone you really wanted them to be? do you know the kind of frustration and heartache i’m talking about? if you even have a hunch then you know that it all seems completely useless. nonetheless, people persist. there’s a lot of brute and subversive force going on in the world. i see it in the stories that surround us. one reason women of color were [and are] oppressed on the other side of the world is because they feel powerless to change the men who have forced a manipulative and perverse control over their physical, spiritual, social and economic futures. i’ve detected a similar problem in myself and in every woman i’ve ever met. though the circumstances diverge in that few american women are subject to such barbaric, often legalized violations of basic human rights, we are still subject to abuse. it is the abuse we inflict upon ourselves through our own ignorance and lazy acquiescence to the way things are that is a real danger. it is also our stubborn and harmful certainty in individuated strength that invokes hardship. i learned this by watching other women around the world through media, and contrasting their habits of being with my own. for example, a while ago, rajah contributed an inspiring and provocative story from www.nytimes.com that depicted an instance of terror – one that, in tandem and collection with others like it, could lead to terror (http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/29/opinion/29kris.html?_r=1). the all male tribal counsel of a village called meerwala sentenced a pakistani woman named mukhtaran bibi to be gang-raped. her crime? she was the sister of a man who allegedly had an affair with a “high status woman.” the man was to be punished by forcing his entire family into shame through the rape of one of his siblings. mukhataran was chosen. she was gang raped by four men and forced to walk home naked and traumatized in front of 300 villagers. she was expected to commit suicide. however, she did not. instead, she appealed to pakistani authorities. she testified against the men who attacked her. the authorities believed her. she was awarded government issued protection and enough money to found two schools in her village – one 88 for boys and one for girls. it is likely that she wept and lamented the twisted hand of her fate. at some point, she has probably struggled and been caught in her own mind’s jail… fighting against fear, anger, doubt, anxiety, and hopelessness. but her resolve and indignation met with her attachment to triumph and divine power. someone prayed, and is praying, for mukhtaran bibi. in addition, she most certainly prayed for herself. if she attempted to fix or figure her neighbors, and the destructive situation she was forced into, she probably would have killed herself. that was the plan from the beginning. other women in her village had already done so. she was supposed to die. everything she held dear – her dignity, self-worth, comfort, and honor – were to be stripped from her with every assault suffered by her perpetrators. invulnerable observers would say that she fixed her own situation, that she affected change in the hearts of a cluster of powerful men who were trained by radical islamic law to be hardened and calloused against women. some would attribute her intellect, her will, her influence, or plight as precursors to change. not so. she was academically ignorant, emotionally and physically battered, of no social importance, and resigned to a village barely named among the modern world. she was, and is, steeped in a cultural milieu that is cemented in fundamentalist muslim rhetoric. she couldn’t do it on her own. the spirit assisted. it was the lord who filled the hearts of men who could have sentenced her to death with favor2. she prayed. others prayed. she received grace because she reconciled herself and surrendered her circumstances to the one greater than herself. i do not believe we are capable of affecting real, sustained change in our human relationships without divine guidance or instruction. when i heard of mukhtaran’s story, and the countless other stories of local relational atrocities revealed and forefronted in our consciousnesses after 9/11, i knew there was a connection to my life story and those of the sisterfriends. somewhere in the maze of stories, we were implicated, nearly entangled, at the very least, paralleled. of course, i recognized some connections immediately. i had been raped. until i met with sisterfriends, i don’t think i could have even written those words, let alone speak them out loud. it was before my ex. it was my time of anonymity. i had no footing in my own realm of self. although i could boast of education, status, wealth, and standing, i was not as brave as mukhtaran bibi. i didn’t voice my rage to the lord. i didn’t ask for guidance. i didn’t seek a plan from the spirit or seek retribution through earthly authorities. i hid. and, in my own sad way, i almost killed myself with withdrawal, self-pity, and isolation… primal seeds of terror. my death inched in slowly through the pinhole of silence and lying by omission. i did not scream from the rooftops as ms. bibi did. i did not petition an arrest. i did not demand protection and retribution. yet, by outward appearances, i had some authority. mukhtaran bibi did not. or, did she? upon deeper investigation i find that the conclusions are not as obvious as i originally thought. without degrees, pedigrees, riches, or agency, ms. bibi travailed her plight and proved victorious in tangible ways. she got to where it’s @. with all my comforts and acquisitions, i had not. i harbored my offenses internally for years. there were multiple points of departure for us as women, worlds apart, in the midst of these terrorist attacks. but the definitive one is this: she moved forward to her destination; she prayed; she took the risk. i did not. i received mercy by virtue of my humanity, and so, i did not perish. she received grace by virtue of her appeals, and so, she thrived. while i hadn’t fully realized the power of prayer in human relationships the night i was raped, nor did maven realize it when she was molested as a child, neither did sash and talon on the respective cold winter mornings when they had their abortions, the revelation of prayer and conciliatory movement toward wholeness was not completely lost to us. thankfully, we began to remember prayer as an active staple from our youth when our eyes met each other’s in the cyclical mirrors we held up to our selves. the days and nights i spent imprisoned 89 in my own mind should not, could not, be compared to the degrading experiences of mukhtaran bibi. comparison and contrast are not at issue. the point is to find a degree of overlap and understanding in the entanglement of post 9/11 narratives as unifying, human stories. it is to connect seemingly disparate narratives, so that we can understand better how we fit into the big chronicles of our post 9/11 world…it is to set our feet on solid ground in the midst of change and understand better how to get to where it’s @. reading the worlds of the women and men around the globe who participate in relationships, by design or by force, helps us to better discern the smaller bits of terrorism that insight the catastrophic ones (terror). the sisterfriends have learned that there is no bigger crisis in the world than the individual one, festering in our own minds, in our own hearts, threatening to explode and annihilate our selves. when i cried so that the tears washed across my face and i trembled and moaned and lulled myself into unconsciousness, i could not hear of another person’s plight. i was fighting my own war for survival. so, comparison is pointless. it is in the moment that our terror threatens to cut at our lives, and catastrophically affect the lives of others, that reflection is needed. how can we better grasp our own power when we’re constantly giving it away or having it stolen…never getting to where it’s @? we’ve learned that we have to communicate with god. we have to stop trying to control everything on our own. if we include divinity and a commitment to social and global justice while we are in the midst of our relationships (be they forced or of our own design), life devoid of terror is reified as not only possible, rather, it leans toward probable. but, first, an examination of real life relationships is necessary. we have to be sure not to take each other in directionless places while we do the lookinglisteninglearningloving. and we have to be walking in the same general direction, perhaps in different ways, but always, together. on the revelations of fragmented selves and post 9/11 literate lives when members in the inquiry employed new literacies in the teaching/learning spaces of their personal lives to explore and respond to representations in post 9/11 popular culture narratives, they assembled a system by which they could locate selves and deal with the dissonance and perplexities that arose when confronted with contrary conceptions of selves or selves’ responses, language, behavior and/or phenomenological understanding of post 9/11 narratives. this system was devised from a convergence of literacy practices that occurred in relationship to fragmented selves. that is, members were able to read, write, speak and listen in culturally comfortable and socially situated ways that afforded them insight into facets of their being and those of others, especially those that were uncomfortable and disruptive of conscious ideal selves (i.e. one steeped in perceptions of wholeness). i identified selves as they emerged among members. each self permeated others to varying degrees, as fragmented selves are disjointed, porous and frequently concentric. when coming to grips with representations storied within post 9/11 popular culture narratives, like that of pakistani women survivors of rape, and wondering through the ways terror impacted or posed implications for fragmented selves, the women used a tactic i call “enmeshing”. this tactic asked members to “see [them] selves in every person” (staples, whole group transcript, 11.12.2003). it required that members speak or write responses to/for/about “others” as if they were kindred. in addition it asked that whenever possible, members read, write, speak and/or listen on a deeper level, as if the “other” was self. enmeshing gave way to the concept of “terror” as a seed of terror. it helped members to become aware of the ways local, intrapersonal disruptions and grapplings with fear fester and, when presented with extraordinary circumstances, can be positioned to devolve to terror. it also gave voices to fragmented selves, providing me a means with which to write them. this awareness elucidated points of intimate connections between and 90 among individuals subjectified within post 9/11 narratives who at first glance appeared disconnected from members’ selves by class, ethnicity, nationality, religious affiliations, region and language. it also helped sisterfriends to read connections between and among each other, as depicted in asher’s quest to discover connections with her critical perceptions about getting to where it’s @. she accomplished this by locating and examining closely similar experiences within a post 9/11 narrative. the poetry in the prose objects called ‘poems’ are sites of literary production where language also is an actor [in]dependent of intentions and authors; bodies as objects of knowledge are material-semiotic generative nodes. their boundaries materialize in social interaction. boundaries are drawn by mapping practices. objects do not preexist as such. objects are boundary projects. but boundaries shift from within; boundaries are very tricky… a risky practice. (haraway, 1988, p. 579) asher levi, the analytical, teacherly self, functioned as the protagonist and sense-maker for other selves in the iconographic book. members chose her full name because it means “happy, blessed” and “united, joiner”, respectively. “levi” was also the name of jacob’s (the hebrew patriarch) third son, who was named and assigned all the leadership duties of a high priest of israel. asher compiled the poetic phrase where it’s @ from the ruminations and sayings of multiple selves. these included, for example, highlighted risings of the wounded self (laish) within the person of the material/sexual/social self (kagan), through the voice of her self (asher as analytical teacher). this mode of communication helped to demonstrate how members became aware of the ways their responses to personal and post 9/11 narratives splintered with respect to selves and functioned to collapse the “risk…boundary project” haraway describes. when considering ways to draw and play with boundaries by mapping practices, generating sights of literary production with iterations of selves became an important strategy. the cultivation of poetic devices then, was crucial to the processes of employing literacy practices and voicing/writing fragmented selves. considering where it’s @ as a point of knowledge production and destination for wholeness arose in relationship to the creative, poetic use of language as an actor [in]dependent of intentions and authors (haraway, 1988). as haraway suggests, this play with boundaries and directions is tricky. it means that negotiating where it’s@ includes “materializing social interactions” between bodies and language variations. such processes are complicated because they are inherent in voices of fragmented selves and function through fragmented narratives – ever shifting, slippery phenomena and uniquely post 9/11. asher pursued where it’s @ by cohering a collective vision of what it looks like and includes. asher relayed the sisterfriends’ understanding of this destination by marking a balance of (un)desirable occurrences, expectations, hopes and tensions between and among a man and a woman in relationship with each other. in addition, she employed her literate abilities to articulate and record the truths of herself as it manifested in relationship to revelations about personal and post 9/11 narratives. these included the idea of being “out there,” exposed to the elements of life and longing for refuge and a true friend (staples, in press). they also included transactions with “admission and reconciliation” (staples, in press). the overall expression of asher’s writing includes the idea of multiple truths contained within one voice and “arrivals”—the advent of destinations in knowledge production. the recurrences of these literate markings also introduced elements of 91 critical consciousness into engagements with popular culture narratives. they helped to craft responses to the why and how of members’ motivations and distinguished components of epistemological intensities. asher’s critical response to muhataran bibi’s story worked to strike down delusions and allusions to “get @ what is real” (i.e. a relatively stable and unifying truth). this work was a procedure; it helped to position and locate her as the teacherly fragmentation, reveal dangerous and paradoxical combinations as “contradictory and necessary” (haraway, 1988, p. 579) and connect to seemingly distant experiences with global terror by locating experiences with terror inside her own experience. as chapters of the revelation of asher levi were drafted, group members provided feedback as i decided how to show visually their literacy practices. within the context of journal entries (and other modes of communication such as ims and emails), members manipulated the mechanics of technology to (re)present their understandings and conclusions. these manipulations included use of various fonts, the bold, italics and underline functions in microsoft word®, as well as the infusion of hyperlinks, color, emoticons and sketches. these visual illustrations are significant and help to convey certain feelings such as foreboding or fright. or, power through interjection of the font “impact” to spell the words where it’s @. such illustrations demonstrate the choices available to members and the ways they were taken up to frame their direct attention to the nuances of their post 9/11 literate lives. the prose the cyborg is likened to the political identity of “women of color,” which marks out a self-consciously constructed space that cannot affirm the capacity to act on the basis of natural identification, but only on the basis of conscious coalition, of affinity, of political kinship. (haraway, 1988, p. 599) writing the fragmented selves of women in the inquiry included delineating a “self-consciously constructed space” that could affirm the capacity to act on the basis of “conscious coalition, affinity and political kinship” (haraway, 1988, p, 599). the contexts that situated members’ selves affected the manifestations of selves and the literacy practices that communicated their knowledges. members’ responses to post 9/11 narratives were communicated increasingly through personal, hyper-communicated, multimodal literacy practices. when writing prose (i.e. journal entries like the one herein), asher often created an interplay of closeness to and distance from representations and stories within and about post 9/11 narratives. this dance was intended to try out objective and subjective views on what was happening, pictured, or communicated. it was also intended to find ways to securely situate the emergence or transformation of knowledges through a closeness that can be found within and between women. in order to couch such practices in a safe place, the varied teaching/learning spaces of our personal lives were all ascribed with an ethos of peace, acceptance and safety. to articulate this, we adopted the stance of anna julia cooper, a critical black feminist foremother, who said, “when and where i enter, in the quiet, undisputed dignity of my womanhood, without violence and without suing or special patronage, then and there the whole race enters with me” (giddings, 1984, p. 2). this stance encouraged the propagation of critical literacies, responses to post 9/11 popular culture narratives and the exercising of fragmented selves in the service and integrity of blackness and sisterhood within any and all contexts, from actual to virtual. it encouraged a move beyond racialized and gendered identities and ways of being to experiences 92 with affinities among the actual women in the inquiry. these ways of being transferred to, and showed up within, iterations of fragmented selves. this meant that our situated knowledges were uniquely black, critical, feminist and steeped in intimate relationships. it also meant that they were purposed. the coalition, affinity and political kinship that asher came upon when placing pieces of sisterfriends’ narratives adjacent to mukhtaran bibi’s arose through inquiry and deference. asher inquired into mukhtaran’s story and wondered about the ways her experiences with terror held points of similarity and sisterenergy with the ones close to her heart (i.e. those that emerged within sistercircles). this choice was intentional and reflective of the focus among sisterfriends. when asher deferred to mukhtaran’s exercise of wisdom and faith she connected it to the power of prayer. this connection revealed not only another point of affinity—in addition to the subjugation of women through brutish attempts to control the female body with sexualized intimidation (molestation), pain (abortion) and humiliation (rape)—it also situated the knowledge of fragmented selves intimately with mukhtaran’s. this connection helped to elucidate prayer as a powerful narrative practice, yielding certain and desirable fruits. this made coalition, affinity and political kinship possible. this “self-consciously constructed space” for writing the production of knowledge showed the “cyborg” identity of the women in the inquiry via the voices of fragmented selves. this political identity was assigned to the service of the revelation of selves for personal serenity, critical social and political consciousness, and local, interpersonal activism that might resound through individual and collaborative efforts positioned to serve the greater good. implications for new literacies research and teaching hemmingson (2008) presents a call to action for what he terms the eighth moment in qualitative research and notes that we “must find (or create) a method that best suits each lived experience” and “rebels against the colonists of social science” (p. 1). i find his call particularly crucial to the work of understanding dynamically the literate lives of marginalized individuals and groups in relationship to fragmentations and post 9/11 popular culture narratives. the findings presented here speak to a dearth in research among this group and simultaneously point to a scarcity of deep thought about the ways literacy practices become critical and (r)evolutionary—both pointedly resistant and concessional and evolving over time, for particular purposes and with profound respect for spirituality, gendered, racialized community members and humanity at large in current times and with relationship to fragmented selves. contemporary new literacies research in the post 9/11 era must attend closely to the socially situated ways individuals and groups incorporate and use selves and identities to build and share knowledge about myriad local and global narratives. since teaching/learning contexts are shifting and evolving to include web 2.0 spaces and new technologies with global influence, literacy practices are framed with new issues of location, transference and agency. in addition, these factors pave the way for that which is critical in new literacies, pointing to new literate lives that intersect issues of social (in)justice as they bump up against and traverse “others”. for instance, the african american women in the inquiry group discussed here rallied around a sense of critical, spiritual, black feminine pride as they engaged narratives (marshall, staples & gibson, 2009; staples, 2008a, 2008b, 2008c, in press). the culmination of the selves that emerged from the group drew attention to this activist stance as it became at once personal, public, and useful in determining one’s location and propensity for constructive action in the post 9/11 era. members employed post 9/11 literacies to explore and 93 respond to post 9/11 popular culture narratives. and, their fragmented selves were written through these literacies. they: • integrated fragmented selves (and other iterations of identit(ies) within each others’ homes, other familiar spaces, and hyper-communicative teaching/learning contexts for knowledge production • intersected personal narratives and post 9/11 popular culture narratives as a means for knowledge production • fragmented narratives to reflect complexities within knowledge engagements and production • integrated both individuated and communal stances on selves and narratives to build knowledge • constructed multiple contexts to couch knowledge production, interpersonal relationships, intimacies and new knowledge • introduced spiritual/religious epistemologies to support new knowledge • accessed racialized and gendered perspectives on both local and global narratives to generate and affect change in knowledge development • introduced language play and manipulation of digital print aesthetics and mechanical tools to relay new knowledge • heightened critical consciousness about consequential reverberations of 9/11 and social, cultural, religious, political and economic occurrences and intersections world-wide as importantly, the above post 9/11 literacies paved a way for sisterfriends to draw stronger connections to women of color within their immediate social situations and those in global contexts. the women drew strength from reading the way mukhtaran bibi navigated her situation, against gross intergenerational religious and political injustices against women. they noticed intently the methods of reading, writing, speaking and listening other women of color perpetuated in the service of knowledge production and civil action against terror. this stance was a subversive citation. it demonstrates a sense of agency and was a result of the members’ text engagements. they chose to hone in on the post 9/11 pcn, understand it from their own vantage points and move beyond its assumptions, particularly as they intimated their own parameters as sympathetic readers/writers/speakers/listeners. their readings honed in on successes highlighted in the post 9/11 pcn and traced them to a lifelong mission in which mukhtaran bibi constructed a defiant response to blockades barring her from getting to where it’s @ by reading/writing/speaking/listening to and against the terror of rape and subjugation as a local and global leader. such triumphs were accomplished through her confrontation and exposure of extremely conservative men and their “perpetuation of the segregation of women” (simons, 2002, para. 24). this and other post 9/11 narratives pointed sisterfriends to new knowledge about the unique, profound impact and influence of feminine power through sisterhood, mothering, partnership and affinity (if not for this truth, the perpetual segregation and oppression of women would be deemed unnecessary and ignored among domineering men worldwide). issues of power and positionality among the sisterfriends were also explored within the women of the inquiry. when considering whether or not we qualified as “marginalized” people, given our high levels of education and economic statuses particularly in relationship to the often uneducated and economically vulnerable women storied in most of the post 9/11 narratives we engaged, we 94 determined that, like our black and brown sisters in many nations, we are marginalized to the extent to which we are caught up in the gazes and articulations of members of dominant groups, or those individuals and groups whose power is chronically yielded or to which power is routinely deferred (staples, in press). as a result, in various contexts occupied or dominated with ideologies enabled by uniquely valued persons, african american women’s knowledges, positionalities and relationships (like those of other women of color) are severely questioned and/or considered unreasonable, unhelpful or underdeveloped. the idea of marginalization was not, at the time, considered countermanding to the orienting conceptual framework of fragmentation. instead of understanding marginalization as a unified, singularly labeled space from which to make meaning and encounter (new) knowledge, and therefore, contradictory to the plural concept of fragmentation, the term was taken back from the repertoire of the oppressor, as hooks proposes (1989, 1992). instead, it was understood as a dynamic, multiplicitous vantage point from which to do literacy work and form literate lives. the members’ consideration of themselves as “marginalized,” in tandem with other storied women in the post 9/11 era, could then be seen, and understood, through their fragmentations, as valuable to literacy work and empiricism (staples, in press). it is important to note then, that, in alternative contexts, through othered lenses, unusual articulations, and new narratives, “marginalized” people (including african american women) are repositioned and newly understood in terms of our inherent power and we are respected differently. this type of marginalization carves out a potential point of connection to the lived experiences and fragmented narratives of black and brown people locally and globally. as the post 9/11 era becomes more complicated via the conflation of multiple worlds, narratives, identities, class structures, language systems and religious doctrines while promoting beliefs for public consumption, new literacies theorists must interrogate the boundaries of literate lives, particularly with regard to technology and pcns. such interrogations allow points of entry into these lives. de freitas and paton’s (2009) remaining questions regarding fragmented selves instigate the next phase in future inquires. they ask, “how do you imagine your reader? do you imagine a unitary reader resonating with your narrative? do you imagine a reader in pieces? to whom do we write these narratives? who do they serve?” (de freitas & paton, 2009, p. 487). these questions poise future work and spur new possibilities for the field of qualitative research, and particularly among new literacies theorists, scholars and practitioners. the questions not only push forward new literacies research in the post 9/11 era, they also point to the ways teachers may be prepared to include post 9/11 literacies within traditional teaching/learning spaces inside schools. as youth become more tech-able and simultaneously conscious about issues of local and global (in)justices that can be traced to 9/11 (such as the collapse of the u.s. financial systems, the u.s. presidential election of barack hussein obama, the wars on terror in iraq and afghanistan, the absence or prevalence of popular culture narratives on death, maiming and recovery among soldiers and citizens, etc.), classroom teachers must learn to include space and time to contend with the fragmentation of selves, narratives and knowledge production in the post 9/11 era (staples 2008a, 2008b, in press). since post 9/11 literacies coalesce racialized and gendered epistemologies, occur in multiple contexts, perform the work of knowledge production and sharing and are interdependent with(in) interpersonal relationships (be they “real” or contrived online), literacy educators should: 95 • consider the ways technologies, modalities, local and global narratives intersect and inspire new knowledge • (co)create with students opportunities to integrate post 9/11 popular culture narratives into classroom reading experiences, written assignments and oral debates • attend closely to the ways fragmented selves rise up and/or are arrested when encountering these narratives and reflect on the implications of these occasions • hone in on one’s own pedagogical and personal understanding of post 9/11 pcns and literacies as a facilitator and assessor of knowledge in addition, classroom teachers may consider new questions about contemporary literate lives. such questions expand de freitas and paton’s (2009) list. as we prepare teachers and support youth to engage with the prevalent and weighty content and notions of the post 9/11 era we may ask of all who read/write/speak/listen: how do you imagine your self as a reader/writer/ producer/contributor in the post 9/11 era? do you imagine unitary or disparate selves resonating with(in) your narrative(s)? do you imagine a reader/writer/ speaker/listener in pieces? to whom do you write your post 9/11 narratives? who do they serve? who do they exclude? subjugate? empower? how do you know? why does it matter? 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(2008b). “how do i know what i think ‘till i hear what i say?”: the role of collaborative discourse in critical media literacy development. the international journal of learning, 15 (7): 107–118. staples, j. m. (2008c). “how does that hurt?”: encouraging teacher leadership that confronts linguistic violence in popular culture media. english leadership quarterly, 31 (2): 3–6. st. pierre, e. (1997). circling the text: nomadic writing practices. qualitative inquiry, 12: 403–417. st. pierre, e. (2000). working the ruins: feminist poststructural theory and methods in education. new york: routledge. street, b. (1993). introduction: the new literacy studies. in b. street (ed.), cross-cultural approaches to literacy (pp. 1–21). new york: cambridge university press. author jeanine m. staples, ed.d is assistant professor of language and literacy in the department of curriculum and instruction at the pennsylvania state university. email: staples@psu.edu notes 1 asher’s voice does not represent the voice of the author of the book and this article. asher is a fragmented self, as are all other characters in the book. asher’s voice was employed as narrator and protagonist because she emerged as the teacherly self and was apt not only to transformations within the post 9/11 era but also able to navigate and explicate literacies and effects of selves from the stance of an educator. 2 proverbs 21:1. untitled 40 timeline interviews: a tool for conducting life history research hanne kirstine adriansen abstract. the aim of this paper is to explain and discuss timeline interviews as a method for doing life history research. it is a ‘how to’ article explaining the strengths and weaknesses of using a timeline when conducting qualitative interviews. the method allows the interviewee to participate in the reporting of the interview which may give raise to ownership and sharing of the analytical power in the interview situation. exactly for this reason, it may not be the most appropriate method for interviewing elites or for conducting insider interviews where positionality can be at play. the use of the timeline should not lead the interviewer or the interviewee to assume linearity and coherence; it is an organising principle for the events. it provides an opportunity for linking the story with the wider social, political and environmental context during the interview. while the method is very suitable for life story research, it can also be used for other types of studies where interviews are made. keywords: interview; timeline; life history research; narratives; learning journey please cite this article as: adriansen, h.k. (2012). timeline interviews: a tool for conducting life history research. qualitative studies, 3(1): 40-55. prelude – the story of this paper my first encounter with life history research was during my ph.d. study. this concerned a multi-method study of nomadic mobility in senegal. one method stood out as yielding the most interesting and indepth data: life story interviews using a timeline. i conducted interviews with the head of the nomadic households and during these i came to understand the use of mobility in a complex context of continuity and change, identity and belonging in the fulani community. timeline interviews became one of my favourite tools in the years to follow, a tool used both for my research in various settings across cultures and disciplines and for my work as a management consultant. naturally, i would include the tool for my students in educational psychology when i began teaching a course on qualitative interviews in spring 2010. large was my surprise when i failed to find any references to the specific timeline tool. i wondered where i had first read about this type of interview and looked through my old books on development research. while i was sure the inspiration came from britha mikkelsen’s methods for development work and research, the book did not provide any instruction on the use of a timeline for making life story interviews. i decided that the lack of authoritative literature should not omit me from teaching my students how to make a timeline interview. after an introduction, they had to use the tool for interviewing each other on their learning journey to university. the results were quite powerful. the students made in-depth interviews with each other, experiencing how an interview can be a coconstruction, as they had read in steinar kvale’s interviews. afterwards, many chose to use the tool for their exam. this was a ‘reflection essay’ written after they had conducted an interview. some of these essays contained beautiful reflections on the analytical power at play in a timeline interview. unfortunately, the students could not refer to any literature related directly to the method. reading these i decided it was about time i wrote a paper on the use of a timeline in qualitative interviews. 41 i first presented the paper at a conference on life history research in november 2010. my main purpose was to establish whether the paper should be placed in the context of life history research. the valuable comments from the other participants convinced me that timeline interviews can be a useful tool for life history research. moreover, the participants agreed that literature on how to conduct a timeline interview was missing. consequently, i decided to place the paper in the context of life history research. i finalised the paper while teaching the course on qualitative interviews in 2011 and decided to invite my students in as co-researchers. therefore their voice can be heard in this paper. introduction timeline or lifeline1 interviews can be used for a number of different purposes. in this paper, however, i will focus on the use of timeline interviews for life history research. the paper is written against the backdrop that there is a gap in the literature on ‘how to’ do timeline interviews.2 many researchers write that they have used a timeline, but there is very little explanation of what this entails. hence, the purpose of this paper is to describe how to conduct a timeline interview and analyse the implications of this tool for the outcome of the interview. the intention is that readers should end up with a level of understanding that enables them to analyse whether a timeline interview is an appropriate tool for their research, and, if so, feel sufficiently confident to conduct their own timeline interviews. in order to do so, the remainder of the paper is organised as follows: after an introduction to life history research, timeline interviews are carefully described including learning journey interview, how to analyse, and ethical issues. then, two important aspects of timeline interviews are analysed namely ownership and the analytical power of the researcher. subsequently, it is analysed how a piece of paper functions as a means for visualisation. in the following section, strengths and weaknesses of timeline interviews are discussed. finally there is a discussion and some concluding remarks. as the paper is based on my own experiences with this method, there are examples from my research3 illustrating the practical implications of doing timeline interviews and quotes from my students who have tried the technique. on life history research life history research has had a long history going ‘in and out of fashion’ since thomas and znaniecki published their the polish peasant in europe and america some 90 years ago (thomas and znaniecki, 1918-20). meanwhile, what constitutes life history and life story has been an issue of debate. according to goodson and sikes (2001), a life story is concerned with understanding a person’s view and account of their life, the story they tell about their life (2001: 87). in life history research, the intention is to understand how the patterns of different life stories can be related to their wider historical, social, environmental, and political context. yet, 1 in the literature both timelines and lifelines are mentioned. i see timelines as an overarching concept including lifelines. subsequently, i use the concept timeline in this paper. 2 the use of timeline interviews outside qualitative research interviewing is not uncommon. in the mid 1990s there were many studies especially in psychology using the so-called time-line follow-back (tlfb) interview method as a tool for helping people with addictive behaviours (e.g. brown et al., 1998; carey, 1997). however, these are not qualitative studies and the use of a timeline per se does not render them relevant for this paper. 3 my own philosophical stance is predominantly within critical realism and therefore the examples of my application of the timeline in interview research will be marked by this stance. my hope is, however, that the article can be of some inspiration to others doing qualitative interviewing irrespective of their philosophical stance and modified to the purpose of their research. 42 rosenthal (1993) uses life history to denote the ‘lived through life’, while the life story denotes the narrated life. in this paper, i use the former understanding of the concepts. one may notice that there is little difference between different researchers’ understanding of life story (a narration), but life history has different connotation relating to the purpose of research. while goodson and sikes (and others) are interested in seeing life stories in relation to the wider societal context, rosenthal and e.g. bar-on (2006) are concerned with understanding the way the story is told. plummer (2005) points to the different goals of life (hi-)story research within different disciplines and how this goal affects issues of validity. hence, difference in purpose has implications not only for how the analysis is performed, but also for the way interviews are conducted. particularly in sociology, life story interview has been taught as a method for capturing people’s own perceptions of their lives (goodson and sikes, 2001). in development studies and human geography, which is my background, life history research is linked to ‘oral history’ projects aiming to explore the culture and history of certain places through the memories and recollections of its people – in their language, using their vocabulary (e.g. cross and barker, 1994). especially people’s perceptions of change have been subject to study by human geographers and anthropologist alike. this was my entry into the field. by making life story interviews with fulani nomads, i gained insights that i had not gained by using other methods – structured interviews, questionnaires, observations.4 i came to understand the life world of the interviewee in a new way. a life world that was so different from my own that i assumed the power of the method was related to these differences. little did i know that the method was equally useful for studying people leading lives very similar to my own. some life history researchers are predominantly interested in the way stories are told and less interested in the relationship between the story and the lived life (plummer, 2005). when we focus on the stories we tell ourselves about who we are, then the way we tell the story is very important – what is told and what is not being told (goodson, 2010). in this case, it becomes important for the interviewer to be silent, not to take over the interview with too many questions or a set frame for asking questions (rosenthal, 1993). when, on the other hand, the lived life also becomes important, when we want to relate a person’s life story to his/hers actions, then ‘facts’5 become important. it is not only how the story is told, which is relevant, it is also how the story relates to what has happened in the interviewee’s life and how the person has reacted towards it. hence, both the story and the lived life become important. timeline interviews as described below can be used by researchers who are interested in the lived lives of the interviewees and may be less relevant for those who are interested in the way stories are told. 4 my ph.d. project concerned the mobility patterns of fulani nomads in senegal. i used a wide range of methods and data sources from gps and satellite imagery, over questionnaires, to qualitative interview (including timeline interviews) and participatory observations. fieldwork was conducted on several occasions from 1997 to 2000. eight timeline interviews were made lasting about two hours each. an interpreter was used for translating from the local language, pulaar, into french. as the nomads were illiterate, they did not participate in writing on the timeline (adriansen, 2002; 2008). 5 i use the word ‘facts’ for lack of a better word and use inverted commas to account for our different understandings of the word fact depending on our ontological and epistemological stances. 43 one of the strengths of life story interviews is the strong emphasis on holism. lives are seen as whole, the public and private cannot be separated, and lives are contextual and should be studied and understood this way (callewaert, 2007; goodson and sikes, 2001). the timeline method increases our possibilities of seeing events and perceptions of these events within contexts of wider life experiences. often when people tell their story, it is nice and linear, rational and coherent – it becomes ‘one’ life. but we live many lives and by using the timeline method explained below, we can make room for these different lives, for the different stories and their contexts. however, the timeline should not be seen as an assumption of linearity of a chronological timeline. it is a tool to provide a visual representation of main events in a person’s life and for engaging the interviewee in constructing this story. goodson and sikes (2001) argue that timelines can be a useful start for life history research, for instance by inviting the interviewee to construct a timeline of key events. my approach to the use of timelines is somewhat different. when i conduct a timeline interview, the construction of events along the timeline is the basis for the whole interview. hence, it is not merely a tool for starting an interview. the construction of the timeline is a collaborative effort shared by the interviewer and the interviewee. i do not consider the timeline interview to be the sole source of information for life history research. but it is a useful tool for collecting and constructing for life stories. how to conduct a timeline interview the tool itself is not complicated to handle, but, as with other interview techniques, it takes time to master. the basic ingredients are a large piece of paper and a number of coloured pens. the interview may be taped (and transcribed); it depends on the type of analysis intended and on how the use of a tape recorder may affect the interviewee. the use of tape recorder for qualitative interviews is an issue in itself, which i will not address further in this paper (see e.g. kvale, 1996). the backbone of the method is the drawing of a timeline in the middle of the paper. i usually draw it horizontally, but it could be any other way the interviewee prefers. ordering of events can be guiding the interview. an important issue is when the timeline should begin and end. in the case of the nomads from senegal, the timeline began with their year of birth and ended with the year of the interview – the end of the story so far. it could also begin when the interviewee’s parents met or any other significant event prior to the birth of the interviewee. likewise, the timeline could also continue into the future if the interviewee finds this relevant for the story. depending on the type of life story we want the interviewee to tell, the interviewer can open with different questions. when interviewing the nomads, i asked about the important events in life. these turned out to be when they received their first animals (as kids 5-7 years old), when they married, had children, were divorced and so forth. i marked these events with different colours and lines parallel to the timeline. by asking about important events first, we can take time to explore when and how these events unfold, how and if they are related and affect each other. the paper is a physical layout which permits different lines representing different perspectives; these may be the ‘core’ of the story, e.g. the home/family/private in the middle and work/outside towards the edges. usually, the interviewee begins with the most important events, which we will note on one side of the timeline and gradually ‘outside’ events that have affected the events may come up as the story unfolds and be noted on the other side of the line. when trying to place events in order, the interviewee sometimes realise that these events took place in a different order from what the person initially remembered. this may mean that they deand re-construct their story; they see different patterns of ‘cause and effect’. in this way, the 44 paper and the drawings along the timeline become important visual tools for seeing how the story is told. it is also used for attending to the tensions and contradictions in the story as these become more apparent when they story is laid out on the paper in front of the interviewer and the interviewee. likewise, the researcher may challenge the interviewee’s interpretation of ‘cause and effect’ if these seem very ‘neat’ and one-dimensional. often, the paper is split into two by the line in the middle, but it can be divided into three or four parallel sections thereby leaving room for different stories to be constructed alongside each other. or the different sections can be used for different contexts – the local, the national, the socio-political or the environmental – depending on what is important for understanding the story/stories. thereby there is an emphasis on context. according to callewaert (2007), context should always be thought of in life history research – also when the interviewee does not touch upon it him-/herself. by leaving room on the paper for context, the researcher is prompted to focus on context in the interview – or afterwards. the researcher can also choose to add information about social or political events along the timeline in the subsequent analysis. however, the interviewer should remember to add this information with another colour/in another part of the paper thereby indicating clearly which part of the paper is the life story and which part is used for the analysis. some may find this emphasis on context premature in the life story interview and prefer to leave it to the analysis, i.e. to the life history research. i prefer, however, to include the interviewee in understanding his/her life in context. in this way, the analysis may begin in the interview situation. this is not new, though, as goodson and sikes (2001) have also noted, life history research is iterative and the analysis of an interview already begins in the interview situation. the interviewee can participate in writing and drawing. after the researcher has explained the purpose of the interview and the process, he/she can encourage the interviewee to take part in writing and drawing on the paper. in this way, the interview can become a ‘co-construction’ which many qualitative interviews are, as kvale (1996) has explained. the paper serves as a ‘collective memory’ where the story can be seen both by the interviewer and the interviewee. it is easy for both parties to return to an issue already discussed and this can be linked with other events along the way. whether the interviewee is participating in writing or not, she/he is usually engaged in following how the story enfolds on the paper. this is quite different from an interview where the interviewer writes notes on a piece of paper that the interviewee cannot see. using the paper as a collective memory can make the interview a collective process allowing the interviewee to take ownership of the process. this is discussed further in the following sections. in my experience, this type of interview takes time. it is by nature very explorative, which means that the end result is not known, the interesting issues may be quite different from what the interviewer expected, and the interviewee may be surprised to see unexpected links between events. often, approximately two hours have been appropriate for the timeline interviews that i have conducted. this is enough time for stories to emerge and ‘materialise’, yet it is usually not so long that the interviewee gets too exhausted. learning journey interviews the timeline interview can be used for capturing learning journeys. a learning journey is the learning process experienced during time. in principle, the journey can be any course or learning process at school or elsewhere. for the learning journey interview to work, the interviewee has to be able to reflect on the events and be able to relate to learning aspects. i have used learning journey interviews for a project concerning creativity in higher education. i interviewed former master students on their learning journey during their two year programme 45 in leadership and innovation (adriansen, 2010). also, my master students have used learning journey interviews to analyse the outcome of continuing education courses, in particular leadership courses – both in-house and external, open courses. one student, marcelo, decided to make the timeline vertical instead of horizontal. this small change gave raise to some other interesting changes in the construction of the learning journey: the bottom of the line, i.e. the beginning of the story, changed from being a line to being a number of intertwined lines – like roots of a tree. the simple change in the drawing of the timeline caused a slightly more complicated story to be told – a story where different events, different roots led to events along the main story line, the tree trunk. likewise some of the interviewees saw different perspectives for the future, i.e. different lines emerging from the trunk like the crown of a tree. these interviews were made with a group of people who had finished a leadership training course based on ‘theory u’ (scharmer, 2007), a course with a spiritual orientation focusing very much on emergence, presence, and ‘leading from the future’ (scharmer, 2007). the interviewees were academics, who were very reflective and capable of expressing themselves. they took part in developing the interview method. from the outset, marcelo had been concerned to use an interview method that was appropriate for capturing the learning process that interviewees had experienced during the course. marcelo found that the explorative character of the timeline method made it particularly useful for his purpose. marcelo argues that the learning journey interview should be seen as a rhizome rather than a tree. marcelo is inspired by deleuze who adopts the concept from the natural sciences and uses it as an image of thought (deleuze in boundas, 1993). in botany, a rhizome denotes a subterranean steam and is fundamentally different from roots of a tree. whereas a root assumes a very definite shape for instance as a tree, the rhizome assumes very different forms. while a tree has a hierarchical structure with different layers, the rhizome has no points or positions, no centre or core: “any point of a rhizome can be connected to anything other, and must be” (boundas, 1993: 29). it is a multiplicity of relations, lines of development. the bulbs and tubers we see at the surface are thus manifestations of the larger network and not a result of a unique seed and thus not simply predetermined in a strict causal sense. by using the rhizome as an image of thought, deleuze’s idea is to avoid narrativizing history and culture, which is often the case when using the tree metaphor where the source of an event is easily found by tracing back to the root and the conclusion is found by looking forward towards the crown. hence, causality is charted along the chronological line of the trunk. a rhizome, on the other hand, can be used to represent culture as a map of attractions or influences allowing for multiplicities. similarly, the stories which are sold during the learning journey interview, marcelo argues, should be seen as some of the many possible stories, not as the only and ‘true’ story about the learning journey. hence, it should not be seen as a tree (the story being the trunk) with many ways (roots) leading to it and many possible outcomes (the branches). instead it is but one in a number of possible sprouts from a root with no centre. the story constructed around the vertical line during the interview can be seen as one vertical line out of a number of possible lines, yet remaining part of the horizontal structure with other lines of connection and meaning, which also could be visualised. this way of interpreting the use of a timeline for an interview is based on a more poststructuralist approach than the one i have employed in this paper generally. analysing the interviews the timeline interview is an interview technique or a tool for making interviews; hence there is not a certain type of analysis pertaining to timeline interviews. on the contrary, one should 46 adapt the way the timeline interview is conducted to the type of analysis wanted. for instance marcelo, mentioned above, adapted the learning journey interview to the poststructuralist stance he used in his master thesis. in my own research, i have used timeline interviews in different ways; however, they have never been my sole data source. in my ph.d., i combined a number of different types of data derived from both qualitative and quantitative methods (adriansen, 2002; madsen and adriansen, 2004). usually, i make timeline interviews as part of a field study and therefore i also have observations and other types of data which can be used in combination with the interviews. how the interviews are analysed, how they are combined with other types of data, and how they are validated depends on the purpose of the study. within life history research, there are a number of different strategies for analysis. as mentioned above, goodson and sikes (2001) analyse individual life stories within a larger social, historical, and political context thereby making life history research. bar-on (2006) has used life stories and narratives for creating dialogue between jews and germans, palestinians and israelis. for this research, he has made qualitative interviews both with groups and with individuals. even though bar-on does not use timelines, he uses chronology as one level of analysis in his three level strategy (2006: 33): 1. a chronological analysis (the life history). extraction of calendar dates and events associated with a specific time or age. 2. a linguistic analysis. differentiation between descriptions or reports (usually emotionally detached), argumentation (addressing a hidden interlocutor), and stories (which have a definite beginning and end in time and space, a drama, usually with deeper emotional involvement). 3. a sequential analysis of the biographical data, identifying the topics discussed, starting from the beginning of the interview and moving forward step by step. using a timeline for the interview will no doubt focus the interviewee on the chronological dimension of the narrative. hence, if the main interest of the researcher is the narrative, ‘the story as it is told’ with as little interference as possible, the timeline would probably be seen as ‘polluting’ this story. researchers like bar-on (2006) and rosenthal (1993) are very interested in capturing the narrative undisturbed. when they make biographical interviews, they ask the interviewee to tell their life story the way the interviewee wants and only ask clarifying questions afterwards. in this case, it makes more sense to leave the chronological aspect until the analysis, thereby leaving it to the researcher – for better or for worse. finally, it should be noted that – depending on the type of analysis – a timeline interview can be more complicated to analyse due to the less verbal and more visual character (this is discussed later). ethical issues as in other qualitative interviews, ethics are important in timeline interviews. what may happen – possibly due to the interviewee’s feeling of ownership and the explorative nature of the interview – is that the interview becomes very personal. i have experienced this on a number of occasions and my students have reported the same. during class, where they have less than an hour to conduct a timeline interview with each other, the majority manage to create 47 an atmosphere of trust where the interviewee open up, share and explore. moreover, many of them return to class having shared deep feelings and new understandings of their lives6: i: “even though i had told the story before, i saw new patterns by looking at the paper” r: “it was more like a conversation – with more than one person asking questions” yet, one of them found using a piece of paper an obstacle; perhaps because it was the first time he tried it: i: “i was so focussed on getting something on the paper that i did not ask very much about emotions and influences” those who choose to work in greater depth with the method for their reflection essay usually write about the ethics involved, because this type of interview appears to enable a closer contact and more trusting atmosphere. we ascribe this to the explorative and unstructured nature of the interview without a question guide, to the use of artefacts/paper and lack of eye contact, and to the situations when the interviewee feels ownership to the process thereby wanting to explore and understand together with the interviewer. it appears that for many structuring the interview around the timeline helps creating a safe ‘potential space’ (winnicott, 1988) between the interviewer and the interviewee. a student reflected: “the paper between us provided safety”. some felt that sitting next to each other with the paper in front provided a safe space. consequently, when conducting timeline interviews, the researcher has to be aware that the interview can become very personal and intimate. as goodson and sikes (2001) have mentioned, the researcher should manage to exercise caution, be emotionally sensitive and intelligent. the researcher is responsible for stopping or diverting the interview, if the interviewee is approaching issues that are too sensible. of course this can be very difficult to judge. but being aware of this effect beforehand hopefully means that the interviewer will be aware in the interview situation and can guide the interview in an ethically manner when approaching delicate issues. in my research, the paper with the timeline is a means of data, which has the same status as notes made during an interview. this implies that it is simply the researcher’s tool which should remain in the background and not be published when presenting the results of the study. there are two main reasons for this: firstly, the timeline would usually enable the reader to situate a life story in time and space whereby anonymity would be lost. secondly – and this may sound like a contradiction – the timeline in itself does not tell the reader very much. the drawing and the notes along the timeline are by no means the full extent of the information derived from the interview. just like a reader would be puzzled by looking at the researcher’s notes, but might still be able to decipher personal information from interviewees. therefore there is no reason for publishing the timeline, it might even be unethical. 6 the quotes in the paper are from master students of educational psychology participating in a course on qualitative interviews. they were asked to conduct a number of interviews with each other. towards the end of the course, they were asked to conduct a timeline interview lasting approximately half an hour. when they returned, i wrote down their comments and reflections. it should be noted that the comments were made in danish. i have chosen verbatim translations over ‘elegant’ ones. 48 ownership and analytical power there are two important and intertwined points, which i consider benefits of the timeline interview method. these concern ownership and analytical power. in my experience, interviewees often take ownership of the timeline interview and sometimes the analytical power is distributed in the sense that the interviewee has a share in the analytical power during the interview. i will try to explain why this happens. however, it is important to note that what takes place before and after a timeline interview is not different from other qualitative interviews; here the analytical power belongs to the researcher solely. the large paper allows both the interviewer and the interviewee to ‘report’. hence, the interviewee can take ownership by drawing and writing, by participating in the reporting. the fact that the interviewer shares the large piece of paper with the interviewee instead of making notes on a ‘private’ piece of paper or in a note book means that the interviewee can see what is being noted and the paper thus becomes a collective memory. a student said: “it was nice that i could see what the interviewee wrote and left with”. sharing the notes, the memory with the interviewee may give him/her ownership to interview. he/she has the possibility to steer the interview in a certain direction, although it is still the interviewer who ultimately holds the analytical power and thereby is the one who can decide which issues are relevant for the interview. it is easy to claim that the interviewee takes ownership, but how can this be seen? an example is that the interviewee often will ask to get a copy of the paper with the timeline illustrating the life story. the interviewee feels that the timeline (also) belongs to them. i have never experienced an interviewee asking for a copy of my notes or the audio file – that is perceived as the researcher’s material. likewise when my students return to class upon making a timeline interview, i asked them who got to keep the paper with the timeline. most often it is the interviewee. they explain that it seem most natural as the timeline illustrated the interviewee’s life. bar-on (2006: 26) claims that: “people who tell their own story thereby repossess it, so that it contributes to their self-esteem”. repossession is a way of taking ownership to the interview. it is this repossession which in my experience is stronger when the story told simultaneously is visualised along the timeline on the paper. one of the students expressed it this way: “positions were levelled”. this levelling may also be related to analytical power. i am inspired by rose’s (1997) use of the concept analytical power of the researcher. she explains that the researcher holds a privileged position by deciding who is a relevant interviewee, by formulating the questions asked and when they are asked, by directing the flow of the discourse, and by having the final power of interpretation. this is the analytical power of the researcher and it should not be neglected. rose further links the analytical power of the researcher to the issue of distance. even though the researcher and the researched may be placed in the same landscape of power, there is still a distance between them because of the analytical power of the researcher. in ‘conventional’ interviews, the interviewer holds the analytical power. it is the interviewer who decides that the interviewee is a relevant person to talk to; it is the interviewer who constructs the interview guide; it is the interviewer who asks the questions (kvale, 1996). when conducting a timeline interview, it is still the interviewer who decides that the interviewee is a relevant person to talk to and likewise it is the interviewer who decides that a timeline interview is appropriate for the interview. so far the analytical power is held by the interviewer. 49 when the timeline interview starts, however, the situation is different from a ‘conventional’ interview because the interviewee is invited to participate in ‘constructing the story’. the questions are not prepared beforehand. the key events are articulated by the interviewee and he/she can participate in linking them by writing and drawing on the paper with the timeline. in this way, the analytical power is shared, although not equally, in the interview situation. the timeline interview with its use of artefacts allows the interviewer and the interviewee to be situated closer in the landscape of power – to use the vocabulary of rose (1997). one of the students remarked, however, that it was difficult for the interviewee to take part in writing on the paper and this meant that the analytical power was not shared in this case. it is important to note that prior to and after the interview itself, it is still the researcher who holds the analytical power solely. in case of the senegalese nomads the interviewees were illiterate and did therefore not participate in the reporting. nevertheless they found the whole setup with the large piece of paper and the coloured pens entertaining. the fact that they could follow what was going on – rather than me writing in my notebook out of their sight – was no doubt useful in establishing a trustful atmosphere. a piece of paper – a visualisation to use a piece of paper and thereby visualise the interview can benefit both the researcher and the interviewee. by using a timeline for the visualisation, we can increase our chances of seeing events and perceptions of these events in context with the wider life experiences. this perception was very pronounced among the students: r: “the timeline means that it is easier to keep focus because it is on the paper” i: “the visual made me think in outer structures” r: “the paper means that one can go back and add more [to the story]” i: “the visual opens the possibility to reflect out loud” r: “the interviewee recalls new things and is participating in the analysis” i: “including the wider context gave me an ‘aha’ experience” similar experiences can be seen in hviid’s paper on children’s development (2008). hviid made interviews with 12-year old danish children and explains that ‘to lighten the task’ she asked the children to draw maps of their lives on big sheets of papers. hviid wanted to capture both a temporal and a spatial dimension, thus maps and not only timelines. during the interviews, these visualisations served as a means for further discussion and reflection. although the children could map their lives in any way they wanted, they all chose to “present their lives on the map in chronological age, starting from their birth” (hviid, 2008: 185). another interesting discussion regarding timeline interviews is the effect of the timeline. it may seem like a paradox, but by using a timeline the story often becomes less linear. it is because we can make room for different lives, for the different stories and their context along the timeline. it is also due to the fact that by visualising the interview, it is possible – both for the researcher and for the interviewee – to ‘jump’ in the story/interview. the visualisation along the timeline can become like a painting where you can refine different fields in any order you like, add new layers. in a ‘conventional’ interview, on the other hand, the interview has a tendency to become more linear because it is more controlled by words – the linearity of a story line, of a written text. 50 the visualisation on the paper also affects how the interview is conducted. while some researchers (e.g. goodson and sikes, 2001) recommend that the interviewer keep eye contact with the interviewee, i find that it is very culturally specific what constitutes appropriate eye contact. having conducted fieldwork and interviews in diverse cultural settings from rural senegal over bureaucracies in the middle east to academia in denmark, i am used to pay attention to these differences. while eye contact can create an intimate atmosphere, it can also be intimidating. in my experience, it is sometimes easier to talk about personal issues when there is no eye contact, but an atmosphere of presence – for instance because both the interviewee and the researcher are engaged in the same activity. this could be the construction of the timeline. one student told: “the paper removes the focus from the slightly formal situation”. this is similar to the atmosphere that we may experience when we are doing the dishes together and can have a confidential conversation without eye contact, or when two people are taking a walk together. two students commented on the timeline interview in this way: “it is a very efficient means of interview” and “it is a good explorative type of interview” and many were amazed by the amount of information they managed to get within a relative short period of time: “it provided a fast overview of the person sitting in front of me”. in some types of life history research, piecing together a life story can seem like a jigsaw puzzle. when the researcher is visualising the life story by writing and drawing along a timeline and possibly involving the interviewee, the researcher and the interviewee can be doing a joint work where the interviewee also looks for ‘missing pieces’ because he/she can see something is missing. this hunt for missing pieces can cause the interviewee to tell more than in a ‘conventional’ interview situation, where the collective memory in shape of the visualisation of the timeline does not exist. thereby part of the story which might have remained untold, censored or suppressed, may be told. strengths and weaknesses of the timeline interview method as any other method, the timeline interview has its strengths and weaknesses – and sometimes strength can also be a weakness. while the visualisation of the interview by the use of a timeline is beneficial for both the researcher and the interviewee, the use of a timeline, however, could be seen as an assumption of linearity of a chronological timeline. this is not the intention. the timeline is merely a tool for untangling the story and for engaging the interviewee in constructing this story. depending on the researcher’s stance and research question, it may be appropriate to work with different conceptions of time, for instance ‘subjective time’ and ‘objective time’ as discussed by hviid (2008).7 when people tell their story, it is often coherent, rational and linear. however, when trying to place events in chronological order, the interviewee sometimes discover that these events took place in a different order from what the person initially remembered. this may mean that they deand re-construct their story; they see different patterns of relationship. in this way, the paper and the drawings along the timeline is also used for attending to the tensions and contradictions in the story as these become more apparent when they story is laid out on the paper in front of the interviewer as well as the interviewee. i have argued that the use of artefacts, in this case paper and pens, can create ownership of the interview by the interviewee. one should be aware, however, that not all interviewees like to 7 subjective time can be represented by ‘durée’ (bergson, 1915; 1917) which is a nonchronological composition of past, present, and future. objective time, on the other hand, is a social structure that is used for coordinating activities of members of society (hviid, 2008). 51 participate in this process. the first time i made timeline interviews, the interviewees could not participate as they were illiterate. moreover, there was a language barrier. so interviewees should, of course, be literate, be confident in writing and feel secure about the process, so they know what to write. even amongst the students, there was some reluctance to write. yet, some found it beneficial as writing made them think of new things to add to the interview. even when the interviewee does not participate in writing, the piece of paper can be useful, because it attracts attention. this means that it is easier to be silent and reflect. both the researcher and the interviewer can look at the paper to create overview and think of new questions/answers. perhaps this is why many students reported that the interviews were very calm with a pleasant pace; some mentioned a feeling of flow. due to the sharing of ownership and analytical power, the method may not be the most applicable for interviewing elites. when conducting interviews with powerful people high in the social hierarchy it may be useful to balance their power by maintaining one’s analytical power. likewise, timeline interviews may also be more difficult to conduct with insiders. especially in education research it is common to have an insider position (sikes and potts, 2008). as discussed by adriansen and madsen (2009), there are both advantages and disadvantages when conducting research on the inside. being an insider in relation to one’s interviewees gives the advantage of having a shared history and a close knowledge of the context. the disadvantages concern power relations, positionality and presupposed shared understanding. positionality, in particular, is negotiated – overtly or silently. positions can become blurred when ownership and analytical power can be shared in the interview situation, as is the case in timeline interviews. in a study of the construction of knowledge in research communities (madsen and adriansen, 2006), we made qualitative interviews with our colleagues, but decided not to use timelines, paper or artefacts as we wanted to keep our position as researchers. this was already difficult when interviewing our colleagues, some of whom negotiated and challenged our analytical power. discussion using a timeline to guide one’s interview can naturally be applied outside life history research. however, it only makes sense if time or chronology is important for the issue at hand. in my experience time is central more often that we realise. i have used the method for evaluating a development project at a department at a danish university. i was employed as a management consultant and in charge of the evaluation. it was clear that the project did not proceed as planned due to financial problems at the university at large and due to mergers within the faculty. an evaluation that did not take all these changes into account would show the project had failed. by using the timeline method, however, a more complex story unfolded. i made the interview with a group of five and used paper from a flipover. we were all sitting and standing around the paper and took turns in writing while trying to unfold what had happened to the development project (on one side of the timeline) in relation to the events at faculty and university levels. the group discussed how these outside events (on the other side of the timeline) had affected the project and during the interview their view of the project changed. from the outset, they felt that it had been a failure as they had not reached their milestones and targets. during the interview process, however, they came to a different understanding: the project had helped them navigate in a very turbulent period at the department. the project meetings had given them a place and a focus for something positive and productive, while the events at faculty and university level rendered them passive, negative and unproductive. in my understanding, using the timeline made them see the project 52 in context with ‘outside’ events and to see these events in relation to each other over time. the group discussed and corrected each other until a shared understanding of the story and its chronology was constructed. hence, the timeline in itself with the possibility to connect ‘different worlds’ was useful. a second important aspect was the use of the collective memory, the piece of paper where the participants took turns in writing and understanding the story. i found that this made them work towards an understanding themselves rather than i should ‘lure’ information out of them. the timeline is supposed to help the researcher. it can help in a number of different ways. first, it can provide a chronological overview of a story. second, the visual representation allows a number of stories to be told along the same line and provides space for multiple representations instead of a singular language. thirdly, it can affect the interview situation in a positive way by engaging the interviewee in the interview process. fourthly, it can assist an interviewee without a narrative packed and ready to be told. the timeline will not, however, help the researcher who is interested in the ‘raw’ narrative told with as little interference as possible. one of the pertinent issues when doing life history research is that people often want to make sense of their lives. to use the words of søren kierkegaard “life is lived forward, but understood backward”. this means that some interviewees may be very eager to make sense of events, to tell a nice, coherent story. some researchers have criticised life history research exactly because life stories can become too neat and linear, full of purpose and meaning (see several examples of this critique in petersen et al., 2007). one of the students also noticed this: “one would like to create meaning and coherence”. for me, the problem is not life story interviews, but the way they may be used. we should acknowledge the strengths and limitations of the life story interview. it is an actor oriented perspective, where the researcher is interested in how the story is told, the type of events the interviewee picks and the way the interviewee makes sense of these events. however, the life story in itself may not tell us (enough) about the wider social, political, and environmental context (steensen, 2007). therefore, it can be wise to supplement life story interviews with other types of research. a basis question in interview research is to which extent verbal language, which is serial, can represent the simultaneity of different feelings and emotions (bar-on, 2006). the visual representation of the life story makes this dilemma less acute as there is space on the paper to give space to simultaneity, yet it does not solve the dilemma that humans have many experiences which cannot be intellectualised and expressed during a verbal interview (prieur, 2002). this is, however, a dilemma shared by all research interviews. concluding remarks the aim of this paper has been to explain and discuss timeline interviews as a method for doing life history research. my motivation for writing the paper was twofold: i wanted to share my positive experiences with this type of interview and i aimed at filling the gap in the existing literature. timeline interviews are not different from other qualitative interviews when it comes to problems and shortcomings. we still struggle to know to what extent the life story represents the lived life. also, it is important to remember that the timeline interview is a snapshot in time. the interviewees will (hopefully) have new futures which may change their interpretation of their life history. this is not a problem of validity of the result of interviews, it is a condition. and time is important not only for life history research, but for many types of research. studies 53 of development, structural change, and novelty for instance all have a temporal dimension which should be part of the study. when it comes to making qualified life story interviews, i find that the timeline method can be a useful tool. the method allows the interviewee to participate in the reporting of the interview which may give rise to ownership and sharing of the analytical power in the interview situation. exactly for this reason, it may not be the most appropriate method for interviewing elites or for conducting insider interviews where positionality can be at play. the use of the timeline should not lead the interviewer or the interviewee to assume linearity and coherence; it is an organising principle for the events. it provides an opportunity for linking the story with the wider social, political and environmental context during the interview. while the method is very suitable for life story research, it can also be used for other types of studies where interviews are made. references adriansen, h.k. 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(2007). theory u: leading from the future as it emerges. sol, society for organisational learning, cambridge massachusetts sikes, p. & p. potts (eds.) (2008). researching education from the inside: investigations from within. routledge, oxon 55 steensen, j. (2007). biografiske interviews i et kritiske realistisk perspektiv. in petersen, a.k., s. glasdam & v. lorentzen (eds.) livshistorieforskning og kvalitative interviews. forlaget puc viborg thomas, w. & f. znaniechi (1918-1920). the polish peasant in europe and america. university of chicago press, chicago winnicott, d.w. (1988). babies and their mothers. addison-wesley, reading, ma author hanne kirstine adriansen is an associate professor at the department of education, aarhus university. email: hkoa@dpu.dk untitled 56 qualitative research between craftsmanship and mcdonaldization. a keynote address from the 17th qualitative health research conference1 svend brinkmann abstract. although qualitative research methods remain marginalized in certain disciplines, qualitative inquiry has within the last couple of decades become generally accepted as a legitimate scientific way of working. today, society at large is making more use of qualitative research than ever, not just in laudable social justice research, for example, but also in relation to market and consumer research and focus groups for different political parties. with this in mind, i wish to discuss three current questions for qualitative researchers: the first i will refer to as “ethical progressivism versus new ethical challenges”. is qualitative research as such more ethical and progressive than quantitative research (as some have argued), or do qualitative researchers on the contrary face more elusive and perhaps difficult ethical challenges? the second question is called “solid evidence versus subjective anecdotes”. how should qualitative researchers respond to the current call for evidence? should they seek legitimacy by accepting the dominant politics of evidence, or should they play by their own rules with the risk of increasing marginalization? the third question is “method versus intuition”. should qualitative researchers strive for maximum transparency by following accepted methods, or should they proceed more intuitively like artists to create their stories? both sides of the questions have their influential advocates today. i will argue that all three questions are handled most fruitfully by conceiving of qualitative research as a craft. keywords: challenges to qualitative research; mcdonaldization; craftsmanship; consumer society please cite this article as: brinkmann, s. (2012). qualitative research between craftsmanship and mcdonaldization. a keynote address from the 17th qualitative health research conference. qualitative studies, 3(1): 56-68. introduction let me begin by thanking the international institute of qualitative methodology and the organizers of this conference for inviting me to come all the way to canada, this very beautiful country, and to vancouver, this most welcoming city. it is a pleasure to be here, and i have learned a lot from being here this week. my talk today will be about current questions in qualitative research, as we are situated in the specific cultural historical situation that i will address as consumer society. qualitative researchers have been excellent at providing analyses of how knowledge is produced and circulate in society. this endeavour is often called “the sociology of knowledge”, but what they – or we – have been less good at, is directing the tools of sociology of knowledge to qualitative research itself. this is what i will do in my talk. i will argue that we need to 1 this paper is an edited, revised and expanded version of a keynote address that was given at the 17th qualitative health research conference in vancouver, canada, on october 26, 2011. i have kept the speech format of the text in order to maintain the tentative and oral nature of the argument. 57 understand qualitative research as situated in a specific historical situation, and that this presents us with a number of challenges. some of my remarks may be controversial, since they are likely to interfere with the established self-understandings of some qualitative researchers: that we are ethically good, because we are qualitative, that positivism is pure evil and that we need methods of inquiry in order to be scientific. i should add that i am not certain that all my ideas will stand the test of intellectual scrutiny, but i allow myself nonetheless to present them to you for discussion. as you know, the theme of the congress is “research for change: impacting society through qualitative research”. very often qualitative researchers complain that what they do does not have an impact. “we don’t count, because we don’t count!” is the message articulated by many people in qualitative research. this means we don’t count, because we don’t have numbers. often, when qualitative researchers feel that their research is ignored, they explain this by pointing to their methods of inquiry as not being sufficiently recognized. i am not saying that this is a complete misunderstanding, but i often have problems recognizing this state of affair. this is so, mainly because i find that qualitative research in fact has a huge impact on modern society (perhaps sometimes too huge!), and i am going to return to this in a short while. here, i might add that within my own field of psychology such giants as sigmund freud on psychoanalysis, wilhelm wundt on anthropological psychology, jean piaget on children’s development and frederick bartlett on remembering do in fact count as some of the most influential founding fathers of the discipline, who all did what we now call qualitative research (see brinkmann & kvale, 2005). some of them have also had quite an impact on modern society, particularly freud. interestingly, these scholars found no need to designate their methods of inquiry with the label “qualitative”; they just did science and used whatever investigative tool they found adequate. in passing, i may also add that natural scientists do exactly the same thing, and often work qualitatively, e.g. in anatomy, chemistry and biology, all of which are inconceivable without basic qualitative frameworks (kvale & brinkmann, 2008). but this is a topic for a quite different talk. another thing is that people who do quantitative research in psychology, social science, and, i suspect, health, very often have the exact same feeling: “no one is listening to me, no one shares my enthusiasm for this fantastic result that i have come up with – alas, my research is not having the societal impact i had hoped for!” perhaps there is not with respect to this problem much of a difference between qualitative and quantitative research. in the current marketplace of research, with an ever-growing amount of commodified “knowledge” (which i think we often need to put in quotation marks), it is simply just difficult to be heard and have one’s research make an impact on society. as i see it, qualitative researchers should avoid marginalizing themselves by constantly reinforcing the story that no one wants to listen to them in particular. actually, the case studies done by qualitative researchers are often discussed in public and stay on people’s minds, sometimes much more than impersonal statistics. in the rest of my talk today, i will do three things: first, i will address the role of qualitative research in modern society. i will try to tell a story that is different from the common one of marginalization. second, i will sketch three questions in current qualitative research that relate to its current cultural status. finally, i will present an approach to qualitative research as a craft, which is meant to resolve some of the questions and also enable us to better understand the societal role of qualitative research – and judge its contemporary impact. in particular i will warn against what i shall refer to as the current mcdonaldization of qualitative research. 58 qualitative research in modern society it has become rather trivial to say that modern society – at least in the imagined hemisphere we call the west – is a consumer society (paterson, 2006). very often, however, we (including culturally sensitive qualitative researchers) forget to take the societal situation of our work into account. what is consumer society and how does qualitative research relate to this? one way to approach an answer is to draw a contrast with industrial society. henry ford, inventor of the assembly line production, incarnated the logic of industrial society with his wellknown remark that customers could have the ford t in any colour they wanted, as long as they wanted black (paterson, 2006, p. 61). industrial society was built on this logic of production: products should be as cheap and reliable as possible, and new means of mass production were able to help the companies produce the standardised commodities to the consumers. however, a significant change of focus took place in the years following world war ii. henry ford’s dictum became totally outdated in the affluent societies that emerged in the west, not least with the rise of the countercultures of the 60s and 70s. along with increased wealth and mobility came the need to make more life choices (honneth, 2004). today, we have no choice but to choose, as anthony giddens (1991, p. 81) has elegantly put it, even if the experience of choice is often illusory for individuals in the lower strata of society. and there remain few places to look for a guide to make life choices outside the individual’s own self. it thus became imperative to ‘know one’s self’, and self-realization has become part of the institutionalised expectations inherent in the social reproduction of society, as the german philosopher axel honneth has argued (honneth, 2004, p. 463). obviously, there has been what we now call qualitative research prior to the advent of consumer society, but i think there is a non-accidental link between the rise of this kind of society and the boom in qualitative inquiry that we have witnessed in the last fifty years or so. on my interpretation, this is due not least to the fact that contemporary capitalism has become experiential or emotional, to borrow the title of eva illouz’ wonderful book on cold intimacies: the making of emotional capitalism (illouz, 2007). consumer society is an experience society, as the german sociologist gerhard schulze (1992) has argued. the main commodity today has become experiencing itself, which is nowhere more visible than in the fact that tourism has become one of the world’s largest industries, if not the largest. zygmunt bauman has aptly captured this change with his well-known identity metaphors, the pilgrim and the tourist (bauman, 1996). the pilgrim travelled to a fixed destination that was of value in independence of the pilgrim’s own experiences and preferences. the destination was a sacred place, because it had somehow been endowed with divine force. today’s tourist, on the other hand, travels only in order to find new, pleasurable experiences. tourism is first and foremost an aesthetic practice and it is a practice that demands constant change, for: ”you can’t have a favorite place until you’ve seen them all!”, as the intercontinental hotel ad says... advertising is the poetry of capitalism that harbours deep truths about our current selfunderstandings. we live in an era where everyone’s narratives, experiences and opinions are interesting and circulate as commodities. with specific reference to qualitative interviewing, which is my own main area, atkinson & silverman (1997) referred fifteen years ago to our society as an interview society, in which the self is continually produced in confessional settings ranging from talk shows to research interviews. they find that “in promoting a particular view of narratives of personal experience, researchers too often recapitulate, in an uncritical fashion, 59 features of the contemporary interview society” where “the interview becomes a personal confessional” (p. 305). in consumer society, softer, and more concealed, forms of power gradually replace the bureaucratic structures of industrial society with its visible hierarchies and governance through reward and punishment. a chief technique of governance today, as nikolas rose has demonstrated, is management through subtle and soft quasi-therapeutic techniques (rose, 1999). analogously, and this is where my argument might get controversial, in consumer society, soft qualitative research has been added to the repertoire of scientific methodology, often superseding the bureaucratic forms of data collection in standardized surveys and quantitative experiments that reflected the hard power exertion in more hierarchical societies. while a textbook on quantitative methodology may read like a manual for administrators and engineers, interested in rationalization and time-and-motion studies, qualitative guidebooks read more like manuals for personnel coaches and advertisers, interested in personal potential and desire. we should not, i believe, overlook the immersion of qualitative research in a consumer society, with its sensitivity towards experiences, images, feelings and lifestyles of the consumers. focus groups and qualitative interviews in particular have been used to generate knowledge to manipulate consumers’ desires and behaviors through psychologically sophisticated advertising. one of the most significant methods of marketing in consumer society is thus unsurprisingly qualitative market research. it accounts for an enormous global turnover (imms & ereaut, 2002), and, according to one serious estimate, 5% of all british adults have taken part in market research focus groups. talk about a powerful research methodology that makes an impact! i believe it is relevant to raise the question whether qualitative research has come to reflect and reinforce social forms of domination in western consumer societies? there is surely not a simple answer to this provocative question, as qualitative research itself is very much a broad church. however, i allow myself to raise the question nonetheless, since i believe that it is almost always glossed over; perhaps even repressed under the banner of qualitative research being something particularly ethical, because it gives voice to subjective experience etc. question 1: ethical progressivism versus new ethical challenges this takes me directly to my three questions, the first of which i call “ethical progressivism versus new ethical challenges”. with the late steinar kvale, i have published papers on some of the ethical challenges that emerge from the position of qualitative research today (e.g. brinkmann & kvale, 2005). the biggest challenge might be related to the very idea of some – but not all – qualitative researchers that qualitative research is ethically good in itself, or at least ethically superior to the hard, “uncaring” quantitative approaches of questionnaires and behavioral experiments. the idea that “we are ethically superior, because we are qualitative!” is widespread, and is, in my view, in fact a great obstacle to ethical research behavior. as nietzsche once said: “there has never been a more dangerous ideology than the will to be good!” the first step to becoming moral may be realizing we are not. the idea that qualitative research is ethically good in itself can be called qualitative ethicism (see also hammersley, 1999). it is dangerous, because it blinds us to the societal conditions of what we do, as i referred to before, but also because it ignores those power relations that are 60 inevitably in play in research activities, including those we set up as being empathetic, caring, respectful to subjectivity and so on. interviewing, for example, is never in my view a symmetrical “method of friendship”, as some have depicted it, operating in a zone of intimacy, free from issues of power and potential domination. rather, interviewing is saturated with power. in general, there is an asymmetrical power relation in the interview, with the interviewer setting the agenda for the conversation. the interview is most often a one-way dialogue with the interviewer asking questions without providing answers. the interview is also an instrumental dialogue that is not a goal in itself (like a conversation with one’s friends), but serves the researcher’s ends of producing knowledge. and there is often a monopoly of interpretation on the side of the interviewer (these aspects are discussed in brinkmann & kvale, 2005). taking into account the interviewee’s options for counter-control – such as evading or not answering the questions – and the different counter powers of children and expert interview subjects, it still appears warranted to characterize qualitative research as saturated with more concealed forms of power than quantitative and experimental research. interviewing may even involve what has been called commodification of the skills of “doing rapport”, where the researcher engages in the affair of “faking friendship” in order to obtain knowledge (duncombe & jessop, 2002). the british feminist qualitative researchers jean duncombe & julie jessop have analysed instructions from qualitative method textbooks as evidence of the widespread, yet arguably unethical, tendency of researchers to commodify their trust, empathy and feelings. in one textbook, interviewers are thus encouraged to ”manage their appearance, behaviour and self-presentation in such a way as to build rapport and trust with each individual respondent” (o’connell davidson & layder, 1994, pp. 122-3; my emphasis). and, in another well-known book, we are told that “trust is the foundation for acquiring the fullest, most accurate disclosure a respondent is able to make […] in an effective interview, both researcher and respondent feel good, rewarded and satisfied by the process and the outcomes. the warm and caring researcher is on the way to achieving such effectiveness” (glesne & peshkin, 1992, p. 79, p. 87). the soft means – warmth, empathy and care – are used instrumentally to achieve hard ends, viz. effectiveness. armed with good intentions and qualitative ethicism, qualitative researchers may nevertheless fail to be ethically prudent, i believe, if they fail to situate their means of knowledge production in power relations as these often reflect the wider cultural situation. i thus conclude from the example of interviewing that new ethical challenges emerge when we do qualitative research in consumer society; challenges that may well be more difficult because they are more elusive and hidden, not least hidden under a widespread ethicism that paradoxically dodges some of the most important ethical questions in qualitative research. question 2: solid evidence versus subjective anecdotes now, let me jump to the next question, which i call “solid evidence versus subjective anecdotes”. i am going to discuss this in light of the evergreen we call “positivism”. back in the good old days of positivism and its critics, i mean when positivist sociology and psychology, for example, were under attack by philosophers such as habermas and gadamer in germany, peter winch in great britain and, in the 1970s, by ken gergen and the like in the us, the discussion was a genuine epistemological one. originally, the positivists wanted knowledge claims to be verifiable by human experience, which might not be such a bad idea after all… but positivism turned into physicalism, the idea that all sciences must employ the methods of the 61 physical sciences and ultimately be reducible to the language of physics. indeed a very bad idea… but these matters were then discussed in terms of differing philosophies with arguments pro and contra. today, however, especially in psychology, but also elsewhere, we see a resurgence of positivism, but this time not as a philosophical position, but rather as a bureaucratic approach to research funding, related to an emerging global audit culture. we might call this economical positivism to distinguish it from philosophical positivism, which is much better than its reputation. how can i make this claim? (the following is based on kvale & brinkmann, 2008) well, if you will allow me a brief intermezzo, there is little doubt that original positivist philosophy made a historical contribution, both to the social sciences and also to the arts: august comte (1798-1857) founded both positivist philosophy and the science of sociology in the early nineteenth century. positivist philosophy was a much needed reaction against religious dogma and metaphysical speculation and advocated a return to observable data. significantly, this did not imply an exclusion of (what we now call) qualitative approaches. quite the contrary. emile durkheim (for example) was one early sociologist who was influenced by positivism and who gave penetrating qualitative analyses of social phenomena. positivism also had a wide influence on the arts of the 19th century, inspiring a move from mythological and aristocratic themes to a new realism, depicting in detail the lives of workers and the bourgeoisie. flaubert’s realistic descriptions of the life of madame bovary, for example, can be considered as a positivist novel, and impressionist paintings, sticking to the immediate sense impressions, in particular the sense data of pointillism, also drew inspiration from positivism. michel houllebecq is one contemporary french author who explicitly acknowledges his inspiration from comte’s positivism. early positivism was also a political inspiration for feminism, and it was the feminist harriet martineau (sometimes called the first feminist sociologist) who translated comte’s positive philosophy into english. all this is to say that we too often use positivism as a term of abuse without understanding its historical importance or its rational core. and, as joel michell (2003) has recently argued, there is little in classical positivism that is hostile to qualitative research. but today, with what i call economical positivism, we see a much more powerful exclusion of qualitative research, for example with reference to evidence hierarchies and the like. with a background in biomedicine, the cochrane movement has developed an evidence hierarchy, which has placed randomized controlled experiments as “the gold standard”, and expert opinion, as well as qualitative research, at the bottom level of evidence. these strict criteria of evidence may be adequate for some parts of biomedical research. however, when they are extrapolated to other forms of research, they too often result in a “politics of evidence” (morse, 2006), where qualitative research in general becomes marginalized. the explorative, interactive, and case-based approach of many qualitative studies does not fit the logic of strictly controlled experimentation. the effect of the evidence-based practice movement on qualitative research has largely been to discredit qualitative research, hampering the acceptance of research proposals and the funding of qualitative research, and it has supported a methodological conservatism (denzin and giardina, 2006). the quantitative dogma of the evidence movement is today in line with a rationalization and bureaucratization of society, conceptualized as an “audit culture”. it conforms to the all-pervasive economic performativity of consumer society, where everything that exists can be measured in money, or else is dismissed: “be operational (that is, commensurable) or disappear”, as lyotard (1984) put it in his famous book on the postmodern condition. 62 the reaction of some qualitative researchers has been to go in the exact opposite direction of celebrating subjectivity against objective and intersubjective evidence, echoing søren kierkegaard (my compatriot) that “subjectivity is truth and truth is subjectivity”. in qualitative research, we are not concerned with objective matters of fact, they claim, but with the personal, subjective, experiential aspects of life. although there is much to learn from this response, i believe it too easily accepts the either-or question of solid evidence versus subjective anecdotes. reducing qualitative research to subjectivity is deeply unfair in my view, and it misses the fact that on many reasonable interpretations of what it means to be objective, qualitative research can indeed attain objectivity. if being objective means reflecting the nature of the object researched, letting the object speak, or being adequate to the object investigated, qualitative research seems entirely capable of being objective (kvale & brinkmann, 2008). for only qualitative research can throw light on qualitative features of the world. and, as i mentioned earlier, people in the natural sciences know this very well. accepting the subjective as the only field of play for qualitative research is simply to buy into a false question that furthermore situates qualitative research too firmly in consumer society with its celebration of subjectivity: as they say – “the customer is always right”… question 3: method versus intuition my final question that follows from this is “method versus intuition”. with this question i refer to the ongoing discussion between those, on one side, who argue that we need rigorous methods in qualitative research in order to be adequately scientific, and those on the other side, who argue that rigorous methods are detrimental to the creativity of qualitative research, and that we instead should rely on subjectivity, artistry and intuition. norman denzin is perhaps a spokesperson for the latter view. in his recent book entitled methodology: who needs it? martyn hammersley (2011) has drawn a distinction between three different genres within the literature of methodology. he calls these methodology-as-technique, methodology-as-philosophy and methodology-as-autobiography. i believe that one central genre is lacking, which is the one i will advocate to balance between rigorous method and creative intuition. this is methodology-as-craftsmanship. i will return to this soon. staying with my reading of qualitative research in light of the cultural situation of consumer society, i will first raise the question, whether we today – with the call for methods and techniques in qualitative research – are witnessing a mcdonaldization of qualitative research the mcdonaldization of qualitative research sociologist george ritzer (2008) is famous for having coined the term mcdonaldization to describe an array of significant aspects of modern consumer society. ritzer continues the classical work of max weber, depicting the “rationalization” of society as a bureaucratic “iron cage”, famously portrayed in the novels of franz kafka. moving from industrial to consumer society means moving from the iron cage and into fast food restaurants such as mcdonalds. in a recent analysis, clive nancarrow and co-workers (2005) from great britain have addressed qualitative marketing research specifically and argued that this kind of research has undergone a process of mcdonaldization. i believe that qualitative research more broadly and globally stands in danger of falling into mcdonaldization, when it becomes an industry that affects and is affected by consumer society. 63 in his books on mcdonaldization, ritzer highlights four primary components that have been perfected at mcdonald’s restaurants, but which have spread throughout consumer society according to ritzer: the first component is efficiency, which means employing the best and least wasteful route toward one’s goal. the current emphasis on methods in qualitative research, which can sometimes even be characterised as methodolatry, or a worship of methods, is in line with the call for efficiency, and the term ‘method’ originally comes from greek and meant “a way to a goal”. methods are supposed to get us from a to b as fast and efficiently as possible. nancarrow and co-workers (2005) argue in their article on the mcdonaldization of market research that focus groups are employed to an increasing extent, because they are a fast and efficient way to obtain data. the problem with efficiency is that imaginative and penetrating research demands time and patience. we cannot demand, when we do research, that everything should be geared toward minimising time. proper field work may take months or even years, which is not unusual in social anthropology. if you want to know and understand other people, you need to spend time with them, but today it is the case that we, as qualitative researchers, are rather like zygmunt bauman’s (1996) tourists, who visit others for a brief period of time (maybe just for one hour), take our snapshots (i.e. record the conversations), and then leave for the next destination. interviewing is becoming the preferred choice in qualitative research, not because it is always the optimal way to answer one’s research question, i believe, but because it appears to be less time consuming than ethnographic fieldwork, for example. if qualitative market research is leading the way for us, we may conjecture that even the individual interview will become less widely used in comparison with focus groups, as these are often even less expensive and faster in data collection. the second component is calculability, signalling the audit culture that is part of mcdonaldization. initially, calculability sounds like it should be far away from qualitative concerns. however, anyone who has read qualitative research proposals will recognize this trope, for example when it is stated that “30 people will be interviewed, 15 men and 15 women” and the like. why 30? why not 3 or 300? how can we know in advance how many participants we need? such questions are often bypassed when qualitative researchers emulate the kind of calculability that may be a virtue in quantitative research. the problem with calculability is first and foremost the fact that it sits uneasily with the emergent and imaginative processes of qualitative research. in general, when the goal is to know and understand other people, calculability will restrain the potentials of qualitative research. the next component is predictability, defined by ritzer as uniformity across settings and times. “predictability” means that people will everywhere receive the same service and product every time they interact with mcdonalds. like calculability, predictability often goes directly against the promises of qualitative research to be inductive and flexible. the virtue of predictability is “no surprises!”, but granting that this can be seen as a virtue in the fast food industry, it is more like a vice in qualitative research. qualitative research is increasingly becoming standardised, witnessed for example in the enormous amount of technical “how to” books that tells you what to do, regardless of the subject matter, context and basic philosophical approach. just as a big mac is the same all over the planet, interviewing others is often supposed to be a process that 64 can be standardised, whether the interviewee is a single mother in ghana or a senior citizen in denmark. the main problem of predictability is that qualitative research, which is interested in contextual experience and emergent meaning making, simply cannot be rendered predictable. we need qualitative research exactly when we can not keep controlled factors constant. the final component is control, which, for ritzer, refers to the non-human technology that speeds the operation, or, to put it in more negative terms, takes skills away from people. in qualitative research, there has been a growth in the number of research projects that employ caqdas – computer assisted qualitative data analysis software. this may increase the feeling of control when dealing with very large amounts of data, but there are also dangers associated with the outsourcing of central aspects of analysis to computer programs. the problem of control by taking skills away from people thus concerns the fact that existing computer programs are well-adapted for coding strategies, for examples, whereas the many other forms of analysis, such as narrative and discursive analyses, figure less in the computerassisted programs for textual analysis. there is thus a danger that the ready availability of computer programs for coding can have the effect that coding (and such approaches as grounded theory) becomes a preferred short-cut to analysis, at the expense of a rich variety of modes of analyses. as nancarrow and co-workers conclude about the impact of mcdonaldization on qualitative research: just as mcworld creates ‘a common world taste around common logos, advertising slogans, stars, songs, brand names, jingles and trademarks’ […], the qualitative research world also seems to be moving towards a common world taste for an instantly recognisable and acceptable research method that can be deployed fast. (nancarrow et al. 2005, p. 297). qualitative research as a craft the antithesis to mcdonaldization is craftsmanship, and i will end my talk today with addressing qualitative research as craftsmanship. if george ritzer (2008) is the sociologist of mcdonaldization, richard sennett is the sociologist and analyst of craftsmanship, especially in his recent book simply entitled the craftsman (2008). it’s a book that i cannot recommend enough. in previous works, sennett has articulated a particularly influential critique of contemporary consumer culture and what he calls its ‘flexible capitalism’. he has analyzed how this culture leads to a ‘corrosion of character’ in our workplaces and how it forces us to consider ourselves as consumers rather than citizens. his recent work on craftsmanship can be seen as a rather more constructive attempt to point to existential resources and moral practices that are still with us, but that we have forgotten in our times with our incessant focus on flexibility and the short-lived. craftsmanship, for sennett, is not just a name for old production practices such as carpentry or masonry. it names, to quote his own words, “an enduring, basic human impulse, the desire to do a job well for its own sake.” (sennett, 2008, p. 9). doing something well for its own sake has been forgotten as a basic human value in our instrumental approach to life, he claims, where most things that we do are stepping-stones to further success in the future. people who aspire to 65 be good craftsmen today, sennett says, are therefore often “depressed, ignored, or misunderstood by social institutions.” (p. 145). they do not square with the reigning ethos of mcdonaldization, so characteristic of our times. what it means to do something well, according to the craftsman’s form of life, is not a subjective issue, i.e., something that an isolated individual may decide for herself. rather, as sennett says, “craftsmanship focuses on objective standards, on the thing in itself.” (sennett, 2008, p. 9). there must thus be masters who set standards and train newcomers in the arts and practices of the craft, i.e., someone who inculcates the proper habits in apprentices (p. 54). good skills, for a craftsman, are inseparable from ethics, since work skills involve such virtues as perseverance, loyalty, and commitment to standards that transcend an individual’s perspective. first and foremost, the craftsman represents the special human condition of being engaged, and sennett advocates the kind of modern pragmatism that “could be said to take on faith [thomas] jefferson’s belief that learning to work well is the foundation of citizenship’ (p. 290). this, it seems to me, is as far away from mcdonaldization as one can get. in the human and social sciences, we have had our own advocates of research as craftsmanship, most famously c. wright mills (1959). in the 50s, mills depicted social research in general as ”intellectual craftsmanship”. in this light, mastery of the relevant methods and theories are important for the craft of social research, but should not become autonomous idols of scientific inquiry. methods, mills argued, “are like the language of the country you live in; it is nothing to brag about that you can speak it, but it is a disgrace and an inconvenience if you cannot” (p. 121). instead of using methods mechanically (to live up to demands for efficiency, calculability, predictability and control), mills believed in the power of the researcher-craftsperson herself to generate insightful research. here is a famous quote from mills: be a good craftsman: avoid any rigid set of procedures. above all, seek to develop and to use the sociological imagination. avoid the fetishism of method and technique. urge the rehabilitation of the unpretentious intellectual craftsman, and try to become such a craftsman yourself. let every man be his own methodologist; let every man be his own theorist; let theory and method again become part of the practice of a craft (mills, 1959, p. 224). recently, anthropologist tim ingold (2011) has advocated c. wright mills’ plea for intellectual craftsmanship, destroying traditional divisions between “theory” and “method”. we do not (or should not) begin social research with a theoretical agenda that is then operationalised into testable hypotheses through methods, ingold argues. rather, we should acknowledge, as he says, “that there is no division, in practice, between work and life. [an intellectual craft] is a practice that involves the whole person, continually drawing on past experience as it is projected into the future.” (p. 240). we should never forget that we do qualitative research for purposes of living, and theories and methods are just some of the tools we employ in the process (others, i might add, are art and education). the approach to qualitative research that i wish to advocate here is one that tries to avoid the dangers of “methodolatry” on the one hand, and a mysterious reliance on subjective intuition on the other. to mechanically follow certain prespecified methodological steps does not guarantee scientific truth, let alone interesting research. rather than distrusting our ordinary human capacities for observing and communicating about our lives, and allocating understanding to specific methods instead, we should focus on the person of the researcher as 66 the actual research instrument itself. this was expressed, for example, by anthropologist jean lave in the following interview sequence, where steinar kvale (sk) acts as interviewer: sk: is there an anthropological method? if yes, what is an anthropological method? jl: i think it is complete nonsense to say that we have a method. first of all i don’t think that anyone should have a method. but in the sense that there are "instruments" that characterise the "methods" of different disciplines – sociological surveys, questionnaire methods, in psychology various kinds of tests and also experiments – there are some very specific technical ways of inquiring into the world. anthropologists refuse to take those as proper ways to study human being. i think the most general view is that the only instrument that is sufficiently complex to comprehend and learn about human existence is another human. and so what you use is your own life and your own experience in the world (lave & kvale, 1995, p. 220). i would like to add that after having written an international bestseller on the method of interviewing, and having read countless doctoral dissertations based on interviewing as well as numerous research proposals, steinar kvale came to the conclusion – toward the end of his life – that there is a negative correlation between the number of pages devoted to methodology and the quality of a manuscript that communicates qualitative research. the more methodology, the less valuable the contribution, was his analysis. “why so”, i asked him, when he revealed this surprisingly negative attitude toward methodology. because, he answered, those who have discovered something novel and important through their studies will focus on what is new and exciting, whereas those who have not really found anything of interest can always fill their manuscript with sections on methodology. it is no coincidence that significant analysts of our time, such as richard sennett who does in fact use qualitative interviews quite extensively, does not in general have method sections in his books and papers. this may be at the expense of efficiency, calculability, predictability and control, but it is – at least in this and more than a few other cases – conducive to high quality research that not only lives up to the standards of the craft, but constantly pushes these further. conclusion in conclusion, i should say that my attempt at understanding the nature of qualitative research as currently practiced by reading it in light of the cultural situation, is obviously not meant to render all qualitative research invalid. every kind of human activity is situated somewhere, at a given point in time, but i believe that we, as a community of qualitative researchers, are not sufficiently alert to the challenges that arise from the society of which we are a part. our response to these challenges, arguing that we are particularly ethical because we are qualitative, and that we are subjective and intuitive, actually just reinforces some of the pitfalls of consumer society with its individualising tendencies. my suggestion instead is that we rethink qualitative research as a craft. for surely and sadly, the main impact of qualitative research on modern society does not in general represent craftsmanship, but rather mcdonaldization: it’s quick, dirty and not very satisfying. thank you for your attention! references atkinson, p. and silverman, d. 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(1992). die erlebnisgesellschaft. frankfurt: campus. sennett, r. (2008). the craftsman. new haven: yale university press. author svend brinkmann is a professor of psychology at the university of aalborg, denmark. email: svendb@hum.aau.dk untitled qualitative studies, 1(1) 48 på tanken: kultur som poetik søren frimann & christian jantzen abstract: i artiklen analyserer vi en eksemplarisk case for at belyse generelle forhold ved hverdagslige interaktioner. i vort tilfælde drejer det sig om de læringsmæssige effekter, som afvigelsen fra et opøvet interaktionsmønster skaber. det forhold, at afvigelsen kan danne grundlag for nye måder at ’gøre’ interaktionen på – det er ’kultur’. kultur er noget, der ’hænder’ på grund af faktiske interaktioner i konkrete situationer. vi illustrerer dette kulturbegreb ved at analysere en kort interaktion, som udspandt sig på en tankstation nogle år tilbage. vi vil prøve at vise, hvordan den ene deltagers (nemlig kundens) forventninger er rodfæstet i tidligere erfaringer, hvordan interaktionens forløb skuffede disse forventninger, hvorledes dette bevirkede, at situationen måtte omdefineres, hvorledes dette påvirkede deltagerens selvbillede og hvad det kan betyde for deltagerens fremtidige bidrag til lignende interaktioner i form af justerede erfaringer. i situationen skete der nærmest intet, men alligevel hændte der tilstrækkeligt til, at også denne interaktion – uventet og utilsigtet – førte til ’kulturarbejde’. kultur er nemlig noget, ’der gøres’: dette ’noget’ er pragmatisk – og som sådan poetisk og performativt. key words: kultur, poetik, performativitet, interaktionsanalyse, kulturanalyse. please cite this article as: frimann, s. & jantzen, c. (2010). på tanken: kultur som poetik. qualitative studies, 1(1): 48-74. ”hvad kan jeg gøre for dem?” hvordan kan det være, at vi til tider taler forbi hinanden, selvom vi deler mange fælles erfaringer, og endda på trods af, at vi muligvis har kendt hinanden i lang tid? og hvordan kan det omvendt være, at jeg kan gøre mig forståelig for dig og også er i stand til at forstå dine bevæggrunde og hensigter, selvom vi netop ikke kan observere hinandens individuelle motiver og erfaringer? to simple spørgsmål, som ikke desto mindre peger ind mod de to parallelle ’universer’, som vi som socialt situerede individer lever i og med, så snart vi interagerer med hinanden. vi handler på den ene side ud fra et mentalt univers, begrundet i egne erfaringer, som er unikke for hvert individ, men er usynlige for andre. det er derfor, vi så ofte misforstår hinanden. på den anden side handler vi i forhold til et socialt univers, hvor meningen med tingene og situationen er kommunikeret og kommunikerbar: hvor vi altså kan deltage i og – langt hen ad vejen – deles om en konventionel og fælles forståelse. det spændende ved menneskelig handlen er helt elementært, at disse to universer hænger sammen, så snart vi interagerer med verdenen. sammenhængen findes i hverdagslivet og leves mere eller mindre gnidningsløst ud der. den findes imidlertid i langt mindre grad i de videnskaber, som har sat sig til opgave at undersøge forudsætninger og konsekvenserne af menneskelig handling. sociologien har i løbet af det sidste århundrede udforsket de gruppemæssige og socialisationsbetingede mønstre for kollektiv adfærd. psykologien – og ikke mindst kognitionsvidenskaben – har i samme tidsrum blotlagt de individuelle strukturer for blandt andet erindring og viden. transaktionerne mellem disse to universer er imidlertid i stigende grad gledet ud af billedet og erstattet af en ufrugtbar dualisme. sociologien har – groft sagt – udviklet sig i anti-mentalistisk retning, hvorimod psykologien er blevet domineret af en situationsuafhængig betragtningsmåde. qualitative studies, 1(1) 49 det er dog netop disse transaktioner, som er retningsgivende for menneskelig handling (det mentale univers) og samtidig gør disse handlinger meningsfulde (det sociale univers). i det følgende vil der derfor blive sat fokus på præcis disse transaktioner. vi vil argumentere for, at ’kultur’ er den praksis, som oversætter mellem hverdagens sociale situationer og private erfaringer. kultur vedrører spørgsmålet om, hvordan oplevelser i konkrete interaktioner kan foranledige til dannelsen eller opdyrkningen (latin: cultus) af nye erfaringer, som så atter er grundlag for fremtidige handlinger. argumentationen bygger på en tese om, at denne kulturelle praksis er poetisk, og at denne praksis er et hverdagsfænomen. den finder sted, når eller så snart en af interaktionens deltagere begynder at hæfte sig ved interaktionens form (dens ”hvorledes”) frem for ved dens indhold eller tematik (interaktionens ”hvad, hvem og hvorfor”). hverdagen er kendetegnet ved, at der hænder en masse, uden at der egentlig sker en del. vi interagerer mere eller mindre ubesværet med andre mennesker og med genstandsverdenen, og derfor kan vi ved dagens afslutning ofte kun sporadisk rekonstruere nogle få interaktioners omtrentlige forløb. men det hænder, at en interaktion fæstner sig et sted i hukommelsen, så vi husker den detaljeret og sansemættet, også selvom egentlig intet skete. her er et eksempel på en sådan interaktion, som fandt sted på en tilfældig benzintank en hverdagsaften i 2001. det er denne i og for sig banale hændelse som i det følgende vil være vores case1i ekspedient: goddag hr. hvad kan jeg gøre for dem? kunde: jeg har tanket benzin på stander 5 ekspedient: det bliver 354,75. ellers andet? (…udeladelse...) ekspedient: de må fortsat have en god dag, hr. kunde: tak intet skete, udover at ekspedienten fik sine penge og kunden sin benzin. men alligevel hændte der noget ’mere’, der fik kunden til at huske interaktionen som en dårlig oplevelse, fordi han ikke tacklede situationen helt tilfredsstillende. han kom i vildrede med hensyn til, hvordan han skulle matche ekspedientens høflighed. i vores optik behandler kulturanalyse denne slags banale og alligevel unikke interaktioner i bestemte situationer, hvor der hænder en del uden, at noget afgørende er på spil. ’situation’ og ’interaktion’ er således kernebegreber i vores analytiske praksis. en situation er et stedsbundet hændelsesforløb med en start og en slutning, der er struktureret ud fra et overordnet tema. enhver situation er stedsog tidsbundet, hvilket betyder, at den er konkret. situationens tematik udtrykker dog, at hændelserne handler om noget mere alment, hvad enten det fx er at hænge ud eller forrette et ærinde, nå et mål eller score en gevinst. der findes altså en lang række situationstyper, hver især kendetegnet ved en egen tematik. tematikken er definerende for typen. den konkrete situation er derimod en specifik udfyldning af tematikken. ingen konkret situation er fuldstændig identisk med andre – tidligere eller senere – situationer, men den ligner mange andre situationer. indkøbet i supermarkedet i dag ligner indkøbet andre dage og i andre supermarkeder og endda i betydelig grad indkøb i almindelighed. fordi den konkrete situation svarer til den almene (eller mere abstrakte) situationstype, kan indkøbet som regel ske ubesværet. individet agerer i situationen, på situationen og i forhold til andre deltagere (genstande og mennesker), der ligeledes agerer og reagerer i og på situationen. en interaktion er den qualitative studies, 1(1) 50 udveksling, der opstår mellem mennesker og mellem mennesker og genstande i den konkrete situation. interaktionen er det faktiske forløb, som de situerede deltagere realiserer, mens de handler situationsspecifik. enhver situation åbner for mange mulige forløb. den faktiske interaktion er dermed en konkret udmøntning af dette potentiale, hvilket specificerer den konkrete situations egenart: lige nu er vi i denne stedsog tidsbundne situation, som godt nok ligner mange andre situationer, men i grunden er unik. da den faktiske interaktion er en udveksling, danner den et mønster, som fastlægger de deltagendes position og roller i forhold til hinanden. dette mønster er en relation. i tråd med simmel (1998) må interaktioner derfor ikke kun betegnes som sociale, men som selve grundlaget for samfundsmæssighed. samfundet vokser frem af vekselvirkningerne på aktørernes mikroniveau, og samfundets institutioner (skoler, politi, politik og meget mere) er formaliseringer og generaliseringer af de relationer, som er blevet dannet på mikroniveau (jf. berger og luckmann, 1966). et særligt træk ved simmels sociologi er desuden, at han insisterede på, at individer interagerer med hinanden ud fra individuelle erfaringer og tilbøjeligheder og med henblik på at nå både private og fælles mål. simmels sociologi er således mentalistisk, og han udviklede denne teori i undersøgelsen af hverdagens banaliteter: af hilsner, dørhåndtag, flirt etc. den er ydermere en formal sociologi. den er optaget af, hvorledes sociale situationer konstitueres, forløber og afvikles. den undersøger derfor de alt andet end banale regler, som får hverdagens trivialiteter til at hænde: fx den viden eller de færdigheder, vi bruger for at kunne gebærde os på tankstationen. hensigten med denne slags undersøgelser er ikke at få en mere fuldstændig viden om tankstationen (situationens ”hvad”), men om hvorledes interaktionens mønster og regler er definerende for både individet (selvforståelse, identitet) og samværet eller endog samfundet (relationen, institutionen). denne form for mentalistisk og formal mikrosociologi er derfor optaget af spørgsmålet om, hvordan hverdagslivet overhovedet er muligt. vi abonnerer på denne tradition, især i den udformning den har fået hos garfinkel (1967), der undersøger den til dels kognitivt baserede metodologi, som almindelige folk anvender for at skabe sammenhæng i hverdagen (deraf navnet ”etnometodologi”), og – ikke mindst hos goffman (1959, 1967, 1995), som analyserer de hverdagsstrategier, der bruges for at præsentere sig selv og for at opretholde ansigt-til-ansigt interaktioner. disse teorier går imod den sociologiske hovedstrøm, fordi de adresserer, at mentale processer i form af ”sense making” er forudsætningen for aktørers deltagelse i sociale situationer (jf. fx heritage, 1984, p. 37ff; van dijk, 2009, p. 100ff.). senere bidrag til den formale sociologi har derimod tenderet mod at fokusere enten på interaktionens sproglige, men ”kontekstløse” regeldannelse – fx schegloffs konversationsanalyse (1991) – eller dens indlejring i samfundsmæssige diskurser (fx fairclough, 1995). i lighed med vores inspirationskilder analyserer vi en eksemplarisk case for at belyse generelle forhold ved hverdagslige interaktioner. i vort tilfælde drejer det sig om de læringsmæssige effekter, som afvigelsen fra et opøvet interaktionsmønster skaber. det forhold, at afvigelsen kan danne grundlag for nye måder at ’gøre’ interaktionen på – det er ’kultur’. kultur er noget, der ’hænder’ på grund af faktiske interaktioner i konkrete situationer. vi vil i det følgende forsøge at illustrere dette kulturbegreb ved at analysere den korte interaktion, som udspandt sig på tankstationen nogle år tilbage. vi vil prøve at vise, hvordan den ene deltagers (nemlig kundens) forventninger er rodfæstet i tidligere erfaringer, hvordan interaktionens forløb skuffede disse forventninger, hvorledes dette bevirkede, at situationen måtte omdefineres, hvorledes dette påvirkede deltagerens selvbillede og hvad det kan betyde for deltagerens fremtidige bidrag til lignende interaktioner i form af justerede erfaringer. som det fremgår af ordvekslingen, så skete qualitative studies, 1(1) 51 der nærmest intet, men alligevel hændte der tilstrækkeligt til, at også denne interaktion – uventet og utilsigtet – førte til ’kulturarbejde’. kultur er nemlig noget, ’der gøres’: dette ’noget’ er pragmatisk – og som sådan poetisk og performativt. det pragmatiske kulturbegreb den centrale antagelse for et pragmatisk kulturbegreb er, at kultur ikke er noget tillært, overleveret eller institutionaliseret. kultur er ikke, som det ellers antages i den antropologiske tradition, noget individer vanemæssigt ’er’ del af (fx tyler, 1873; williams, 1958). kultur er ej heller en kanon af særligt værdifulde artefakter, som individer ’har’ eller socialt og statusmæssigt set kan have adgang til, hvilket er grundtanken i det æstetiske kulturbegreb (jf. jensen, 1989). kultur er derimod den proces, hvor mennesker lærer noget ved at handle i situationer, og derfor har med sig som erfaring eller vane næste gang, de skal handle i en lignende situation. kultur er noget, ’der gøres’: den indsigt, der opstår, eller den lektie, der læres, mens og idet man handler. i det pragmatiske begreb er kultur en erkendelsesproces i forhold til faktiske erfaringer med sociale situationer. processen beror på menneskets evne og vilje til at tage stilling til verden (jantzen, 2005, p. 98). denne proces udvikler eller forandrer, hvad vi efterfølgende vil og skal kunne eller bør og kan ville. vi får præciseret vores forventninger til situationen, tunet vores færdigheder i interaktionen, nuanceret vores emotionelle parathed, redefineret vores position i relationer eller vores selvforståelse (identitet). kultur er således de færdigheder, hensigter, idealer, ønsker og længsler, vi opdyrker (latin: cultivare) som konsekvens af situerede handlinger, hvilket forbereder os på kommende handlinger. kultur lærer at indstille os på fremtiden ved at bearbejde fortidens hændelser. når vi netop kan forholde os ubesværet i mange situationer, skyldes dette, at fortolkningen med tiden og ved trial and error – altså ved aktiv deltagelse i mangfoldige interaktioner – er blevet indarbejdet som en kropslig rutine og mental disposition – som fx habitus (bourdieu, 1990). kultur gør det muligt at erkende de forventningsbrud, som den konkrete situation måtte byde på, bearbejde disse oplevelser refleksivt (som ny fortolkning) og derved omdanne dem til nye forholdsregler, der med tiden kan blive et selvfølgeligt erfaringsog motivationsgrundlag for handlen (jf. jantzen og vetner, 2007b). kultur ’gøres’, fordi forventninger de-automatiseres: kompetencer og intentioner, begrundet i eksisterende erfaringer (’det gjorte’), udfordres. denne ’gøren’ er ny erkendelse, som sker med henblik på erfaringsdannelse. hvis denne proces ’lykkes’, vil de nyerhvervede kompetencer og intentioner hen ad vejen automatiseres som et nyt selvfølgeligt erfaringsgrundlag. vi vil i det efterfølgende vise, hvorledes kultur som forandringsog tilpasningspraksis svarer til det poetiske sprogs virkemidler. sprogets poetiske funktion opstår ifølge traditionen fra den russiske formalisme i en dynamisk vekselvirkning mellem de-automatisering og dannelsen af nye konventioner (sklovskij, 1969). denne funktion er kendetegnet ved, at opmærksomheden vendes fra budskabets reference til den ydre verden eller fra henvisningen til afsenderens intentioner eller modtagerens reaktioner ind mod tekstens egen formmæssige karakteristika (jakobson, 1960). det er tekstens ’tekstlighed’, der kommer i fokus, ikke dens indhold eller umiddelbare hensigt. konsekvensen af en sådan poetisk refokusering er, at situationen må omdefineres. den handler fx ikke længere blot om et simpelt bytteforhold på en tankstation, der understøttes af en verbal udveksling, men også – og især – om hvad og hvorledes, noget kan, bør eller må siges i denne udveksling. det handler altså om ’teksten’ frem for pengetransaktionen. derved sættes den gamle kontekst for interaktionen på spil og bringes en ny på banen. qualitative studies, 1(1) 52 denne refokusering er performativ. interaktionens vante gang bliver afsporet, idet udsigelsens stil – ordvalget, intonationen, metrikken etc. – kommer i centrum. det ’gør’ noget ved deltagerne. spørgsmål, som normalt ikke bør stilles, hvis interaktionen ellers skal forløbe rutinemæssigt, trænger sig på: ”hvad sker der i grunden her?”, ”hvem er ’jeg’ i dette spil?” eller ”hvad vil hun/han ’mig’?”. performativitet er netop kendetegnet ved denne form for refleksivitet, der drager den oprindelige fortolkningsramme i tvivl (bauman og briggs, 1990, p. 73). lige som interaktionen poetisk peger tilbage mod ’tekstligheden’, så peger situationen performativt tilbage mod deltagerne: mod deres erfaringer, intentioner og motiver. handlingens sociale og mentale univers de-automatiseres, så de skal fortolkes anderledes, end deltagerne havde regnet med eller er vant til. det er her kultur kommer ind i billedet. kultur er mellemleddet mellem gamle vaner og nye erfaringer: altså erfaringsbaseret læring, idet nye erkendelser sker på baggrund af etablerede vaner og refleksivt foranlediger nye vaner (dewey, 1922; jf. også brinkmann, 2008). da kultur udspringer af faktiske interaktioner, må denne læring samtidig siges at være situeret (lave og wenger, 2003). det er oplevelser med relationer i konkrete situationer, der er kulturskabende, og altså kan forandre deltagerens selvforståelse og udvide aktørens kompetencer. dermed kan kultur som læringsform fremdeles relateres til kognitiv udvikling, som beskrevet af vygotsky (1978). idet kultur internaliserer interpersonelle oplevelser, udvikles individet og tilpasses de ændrede historiske og sociale omgivelser. en vigtig teoretisk implikation af vores kulturbegreb er, at vi forstår interaktioner som styret af to principper. et økonomiprincip tilsiger deltagere at få det meste ud af situationen med færrest mulige anstrengelser. interaktionen skal derfor være så ubesværet som muligt, og det fremmes ved, at deltagerne kan trække på tidligere erfaringer: på etablerede kompetencer, på forståelser af situationen i form af fx scripts (schank og abelson, 1977) og mentale modeller (van dijk, 1985) samt på selvbiografisk erindring af specifikke episoder. en del af kulturanalysen består derfor i at afdække dette økonomiserende kognitive grundlag. det er rutiner. et andet princip, som man kunne kalde et prægnansprincip, tilsiger deltagere at erhverve størst mulig personlig relevans i relationen med færrest mulige omkostninger. interaktionen skal derfor give den enkelte deltager mulighed for at pointere sit eget bidrag så optimalt som muligt. det drejer sig om at skabe det rette indtryk på de andre for enten at undgå konflikt eller at opnå størst mulig gyldighed: altså ”impression management” (goffman, 1959). en anden del af kulturanalysen drejer sig derfor om at vise disse positioneringsmekanismer. disse to principper er, som vores analyse vil vise, langt fra altid kongruente. mange faktiske interaktioner vil derfor være præget af, at disse to principper handles af mod hinanden, så den situationelle gevinst sker med mindst mulig relationelt tab (og omvendt). deltagere i interaktionen vil således typisk teste hinanden for at undersøge, hvilke gevinster er mulige og hvilke tab, der kan befrygtes. det forhold, at interaktioners forløb som regel tillader en vis improvisation inden for de situationelle og relationelle rammer, fremmer denne testning og bevirker, at erfaring bliver til ved hypotesedannelse, -testning og -justering – altså netop trial and error. i den analytiske udmøntning af vores pragmatiske kulturbegreb vægter vi de kompetencer og intentioner, som er på spil i situerede interaktioner. disse analyseres tekstlingvistisk. i forlængelse af den strukturelle lingvistik undersøges interaktioner og konkrete situationer som qualitative studies, 1(1) 53 en realisering af de paradigmatiske og syntagmatiske muligheder, som er indeholdt i et abstrakt sprogsystem (jakobson, 1956; saussure, 1985). et paradigme angiver lighedstræk mellem forskellige betydningselementer, hvorimod et syntagme angiver reglerne for sammenkædning af elementer fra forskellige paradigmer. betydning dannes således ved at selektere et element fra et paradigme og kombinere dette element med valg fra andre paradigmer. denne kombination er et syntagme. de paradigmatiske selektioner og syntagmatiske kombinationer hviler på koder: dvs. konventionelt definerede regelsæt for hvordan betydningselementer syntaktisk, semantisk og pragmatisk er relateret til hinanden (jf. morris, 1938). vi trækker på hymes (1974) med henblik på at analysere evnen til at forholde sig refleksivt og kommunikativt kompetent til interaktionens kode og på den kognitive semantik for at undersøge det kodekendskab, som situationsfornemmelse kræver (fx schank og abelson, 1977; johnson-laird, 1983; van dijk, 1985). diskurspsykologien bruges til at analysere den subjektivitet, som situationsbestemte valg og fravalg positionerer (harré og van langenhove, 1999). situation og kompetence at gebærde sig ubesværet på tankstationen forudsætter, at man er kompetent til at begå sig i situationen. man bør have kendskab til, hvad hensigten med tankstationer er, hvad man kan forvente af tjenester sådan et sted, hvilken form for transaktion og hvilken slags varer, stationen tilbyder, og hvad der til gengæld forventes af ens eget bidrag. alt dette er forudsat, og da de fleste af os har en ’miniteori’ om tankstationerne og deres samfundsmæssige betydning, volder situationen sjældent større besvær. pointen er, at denne ’miniteori’ er nødvendig for at være kompetent, samt at den beror på en kognitiv model, som bygger på erfaringsdannelse som følge af en lang række forudgående interaktioner i lignende situationer. det er erfaringer, gjort for egen regning, som synes fælles, men er private: netop vores egne, unikke mentale forestilling, lagret i vores egen selvbiografiske hukommelse som viden om den socialt almenkendte kategori ’tankstation’. denne viden er en mental model, som er en subjektiv repræsentation af en begivenhed eller situation i den autobiografiske hukommelse (johnson-laird, 1983; van dijk, 1985), eller et script, som er en kognitiv drejebog for, hvordan situationer typisk forløber (schank og abelson, 1977). vores kognitive situationsmodel informerer os om tankstationens hvad (benzin og dagligdagsvarer, evt. bespisning) og hvorfor (transport, køb og salg mm.). modellen er på det punkt en mini-samfundsteori, der giver os nogle rimeligt sikre antagelser om, hvad der vi kan forvente os og hvad vores rolle forventes at være. men den informerer os også om interaktionens hvordan, og rummer som sådan en mini-kommunikationsteori med antagelser om, hvad vi bør eller kan gøre i forhold til de andre kunder og ekspedienten (altså i forhold til relationen) og i hvilken rækkefølge, vi bør eller kan gøre hvad (altså i forhold til situationen) (jf. hymes, 1974). den kognitive model er som sådan en abstraktion, som dannes ud fra erfaringer med konkrete situationer. den viser de generelle træk, som definerer det prototypiske ved denne art situationer. denne abstraktion kalder vi i det efterfølgende situationstype (frimann, 2004, p. 35; halliday og matthiesen, 1999). situationstypen ’tankstation’ giver os en rimelig sikker fornemmelse for, hvordan vi bør agere for at virke kompetent. kompetence er ikke mindst et spørgsmål om at kunne vælge uhensigtsmæssige handlinger fra. selv om vi som kompetente sprogbrugere kan generere en uendelig mængde grammatisk og semantisk korrekte sætninger (chomsky, 1966), så ved vi af erfaring, at vores valgmuligheder på tanken faktisk er begrænset. det kan vises i følgende eksempel viser, hvor de valg, der ikke er mulige, hvis vi skal forekomme kompetente, er markeret med *. qualitative studies, 1(1) 54 ekspedient: hvad skulle det være? kunde: a: * jeg vil gerne høre din mening om statsministeren. b: * jeg vil gerne købe benzin til 50 øre literen. c: * vil du med ud at spise i aften? d: jeg har tanket benzin på stander 3 og så vil jeg gerne have 20 prince. ytring a, b eller c viser et misforhold mellem ekspedientens og kundens definition af situationen. der er ikke længere tale om ekspedition, men om fx kurmageri (ytring c), en østerlandsk basar (ytring b) eller en art opinionsundersøgelse (ytring a). for at interaktionen kan forløbe gnidningsfrit og næsten automatisk, skal deltagerne således være enige om, hvilken situationstype de deltager i, og de skal vide, hvad dette kræver af bidrag (roller, ytringer) fra deres side. hvis en af deltagerne bryder forventningerne, må de andre overveje, enten om deres egen situationsfornemmelse svigtede (fx at der godt må scores, mens der tankes op) eller hvor vidt regelbryderen er social eller psykisk tilregnelig (kompetence) eller kommunikativt oprigtig (jf. grice, 1975). der er altså grænser for de ytringer, som ekspedient og kunde frit kan frembringe inden for situationens rammer. disse begrænsninger skyldes også forventningerne til de relationelle roller i ekspeditionssituationen: dvs. i forhold til hvordan ekspedienten og kunden kan optræde overfor hinanden. det kan illustreres med et eksempel, hvor kunden starter interaktionen. kunde: a: *hvad kan jeg hjælpe dig med? b: har i citronmåner? ekspedient: b: ja, de er på tredje hylde på reolen til venstre for køleskabet. i a overtager kunden ekspedientens rolle ved at gøre et udspil om salgsindgåelse, mens kunden i eksempel b fremsætter en salgsforespørgsel. a er derfor ret beset umulig i situationen. disse eksempler illustrerer en generel pointe for interaktion i almindelighed. situationstypen præformaterer deltagernes handlinger. der er grænser for, hvad man kan tale om og hvilke taleroller man kan indtage, hvis ytringerne skal være meningsfulde i situationen. for det tredje indeholder situationstypen retningslinjer for interaktionernes faktiske forløb, således at der kun findes et begrænset antal adækvate valgmuligheder på bestemte steder i sekvensen. det kan illustreres med følgende varianter på det oprindelige eksempel. ekspedient: det bliver 354,75. ellers andet? kunde: nej, tak. værsgo’ her er 354,75. ekspedient: tak. a: *er de sikker på, at de har husket det hele? b: * hvad skulle der være? c: har de forresten set at der er tilbud på bilvask til halv pris i dag? d: farvel og ha´ en god dag. varianterne viser, at deltagernes bidrag ikke kan fremsættes vilkårligt i interaktionen, da det ellers ville pege tilbage på en af deltagernes (her: ekspedientens) manglende kompetence til at qualitative studies, 1(1) 55 håndtere situationstypen. situationens mulighedsfelt er for ekspedientens vedkommende indsnævret efter påbegyndelsen af betalingssekvensen: faktisk kan ekspedienten kun indlede en afskedssekvens (ytring d) eller henlede kundens opmærksomhed på tilbud, som kunden måtte have overset, hvilket potentielt indleder en ny ekspedition (ytring c). i disse sekvenser er kundens frihed langt større, da han uden videre kan påbegynde yderligere ekspeditionssekvenser, fx.: ”jeg glemte for resten, at jeg også skulle have en pose kaffe”. indtil nu har vi undersøgt aspekter af den minikommunikationsteori, som deltagerne bruger i deres interaktion på tanken. med en sådan miniteori in mente har deltagerne hver for sig dannet hypoteser om hvilken situation, de befinder sig i, og hvad der følgelig er påkrævet af dem. det er vores påstand, at alle interaktioner beror på denne slags implicitte hypoteser, og endvidere at enhver interaktion må siges at være aktivt hypotesetestende. de andre deltageres kompetente handlinger i interaktionen – fx deres modtræk, deres turtagning i interaktionen og deres anerkendelse af vores indspil – bekræfter vores hypotese, så situationen faktisk kan verificeres. i denne proces skabes der samklang mellem de deltagende, idet de afstemmer deres handlinger i forhold til hinanden. det er på den måde, ’fælleshed’ tilvejebringes. men ’fælleshed’ er ikke altid interaktionens konsekvens. ofte sker det, at kravene til adfærden ikke opfyldes eller at adfærden er tvetydig eller vanskelig at tolke. så må enten hypotesen eller selve miniteoriens grundlag justeres. i det andet tilfælde må vores oprindelige definition af situationstypen problematiseres eller forkastes og suppleres eller erstattes af en anden og muligvis mere kompleks: som fx når kurmageri (”vil du med ud at spise i aften”) blandes ind i en ellers tilsyneladende banal økonomisk udveksling. i så fald må vi genoverveje, hvad der ’egentlig’ er på færde – altså hvad situationen i grunden drejer sig om. i det første tilfælde må derimod dele af vores hypotese ændres, afvises eller udvides, da vores egen eller modpartens viden ikke synes at slå til i forhold til situationstypen. dette hænder, når der opstår tvivl om en af deltagernes kompetencer. dette rokker ikke som sådan ved den anden parts opfattelse af situationstypen, men i høj grad ved opfattelsen af relationen til den ’inkompetente’. hvis den anden part tilsyneladende ikke er fuldt tilregnelig, skal der bruges anden viden (flere kompetencer) for at redde situationen. det handler om kompetencer. men hvordan afgøres det, om man er kompetent? der er ingen kodeks, man kan slå op i for at få sin kompetence bedømt. kompetencer afprøves og udfoldes i interaktionen og viser sig i udfaldet. de er hverken overleverede eller fælles forudsatte, men tværtimod dannet af de erfaringer, vi hver især har gjort. kompetence er dermed evnen til at anvende (og teste) kognitive modeller på konkrete situationer og afstemme adfærden, således at det er muligt at tilpasse både adfærden, situationsfornemmelsen og hypoteserne i forhold til interaktionens faktiske forløb. herved opstår der en form for fælleshed i deltagernes handlinger, idet de relaterer sig til hinanden. vores handlinger udspringer af en praktisk viden om, hvordan verden er beskaffet, hvordan vores egen position i forhold til denne beskaffenhed er, hvordan vi følgelig kan opføre os kompetent i forhold til den situation, vi befinder os i, etc. og omvendt: vores handlinger virker tilbage på denne praktiske viden. idet vi bruger vores kompetencer bliver vi mere kompetente: dvs. mere erfarne og vidende om de situationer og relationer, som vi indgår i. der er således tale om en vekselvirkning: handlingerne er begrundet i den abstraktion, som vi har benævnt en ’kognitiv model’ eller en ’situationstype’, og udbygger eller justerer samtidig denne model. en qualitative studies, 1(1) 56 konsekvens af vekselvirkningen er, at der skabes en relation mellem ’indehavere’ af private kognitive modeller. situation og kode evnen til at fremstå kompetent afhænger i særdeleshed af situationsfornemmelse: dvs. af evnen til at spille en overbevisende rolle i interaktionen. tankstationen fx skal se kompetent ud i mulige kunders øjne. det skal virke som et typisk sted, hvor man kan få fyldt tanken op. ekspedienten skal ligeledes kunne besvare almindelige henvendelser fra kunderne. kunden skal have en rimelig klar fornemmelse for, hvad det er muligt at bede om, hvis henvendelsen skal kunne tages alvorligt. alt dette kræver kendskab til situationstypen fra de interagerendes side. vi bør derfor se nærmere på, hvordan deltagernes viden om situationstypen er organiseret. i tråd med vores tilgang vil vi hævde, at denne organisering er tekstlig. tekstligheden skyldes, at den kognitive model organiserer både semantiske kompetencer i form af leksikalsk viden om, hvad der tematisk set passer i situationen, og syntaktiske kompetencer som viden om, hvordan interaktionen ret beset bør forløbe. situationstypens semantik er i første instans paradigmatisk organiseret ved hjælp af en taksonomi af hierarkisk organiseret viden (van dijk, 1985), som klassificerer de forskellige services, varer og/eller hændelser, som er mere eller mindre typiske for situationen. herved fastlægges både pertinente træk og frie elementer ved situationen. for benzintanksituationens vedkommende er tilstedeværelsen af benzinprodukter og en række biltilbehør (billygter, tændrør, sprinklervæske etc.) pertinente træk. disse træk udgør et paradigme af obligatoriske elementer, der skal være til rådighed – dvs. kunne købes – for, at der er tale om en tankstation. de er typificerende for situationen: fordi der kan købes benzin, diesel og andre olieprodukter til automobiler, er der tale om en tankstation. vi har forventninger om, at vi kan købe disse ting her, fordi vi tidligere har gjort os erfaringer med lignende steder. og endvidere forventer vi, at vi så også kan købe tændrør og andet tilbehør på stedet – og evt. at der er kyndigt råd om, hvordan tændrør skiftes. forskellen på en benzinstander og en tankstation er netop, at assortimentet på det sidstnævnte sted er mere udbygget. tankstationen er en benzinstander med mere. de typificerende elementer er definerende men ikke udtømmende for situationen. det er fx sandsynligt, at der findes både anlæg til bilvask og kundetoiletter på tankstationer. hvis denne forventning skuffes, så holder stedet dog ikke op med at være en tankstation. den er blot en ’dårlig’ repræsentant af typen. tankstationen er således ikke defineret som et pissoir med mere. de sandsynlige elementer er et paradigme af træk, der plejer at være til stede, men ikke behøver at være der. de vil (typisk) være der, uden at skulle være der. dermed er taksonomien langt fra fuldstændig. der er også et paradigme af mulige elementer: af træk, der kan være til stede, uden at de altid plejer at være det – fx visse rekreationsformer (spillemaskiner, græsplæne), forplejningstilbud (grillbar, automater), dagligvarer (kiosk, minimarked). tilstedeværelsen af en eller flere elementer fra dette paradigme gør stationen til et udbygget eksemplar af typen: stedet bliver en tankstation med mere. en fjerde kategori er de usandsynlige elementer: træk der ikke plejer at være tilstede, men godt til en vis grad kan være det, uden at situationen af den grund skal omdefineres grundlæggende – fx hvis der tillige sælges istandsatte cykler i butikken. dette fjerde paradigme er kategorien mellem paradigmet af mulige elementer og et femte paradigme af umulige elementer: dvs. træk der er udelukket, fordi de er i modstrid med den grundlæggende definition af situationen. denne definition er så i øvrigt betinget af paradigmet af obligatoriske elementer (i dette tilfælde: qualitative studies, 1(1) 57 de varer der skal være tilstede – benzinog andre autoprodukter) og den metakommunikative ramme (jf. bateson, 1990) omkring interaktionen, der besvarer spørgsmålet: hvad foregår der her? de umulige elementer udelukker således de obligatoriske elementer og er i modstrid med den overordnede ramme: køb og salg af varer og ydelser i privat virksomheds regi. der er fx hverken tuskhandel, religiøs forkyndelse eller offentlig forvaltning på tankstationer. tankstationens situerede semantik er følgelig en taksonomi bestående af fem kategorier med hver sin modalitet. det kan vises i følgende model: obligatoriske elementer sandsynlige elementer mulige elementer usandsynlige elementer umulige elementer skal/bør være præsent vil typisk være præsent, men skal ikke kan være præsent vil typisk ikke være præsent, men kan være det skal/bør ikke være præsent de fem kategoriers modaliteter er for så vidt situationsuafhængige. alle situationer er karakteriseret ved for det første at rumme såvel typificerende som andre elementer, og for det andet ved, at forskellen mellem disse elementer på et formelt plan skyldes modalitet. det er derimod kontingent og følgelig situationsafhængig, hvilke indholdselementer, der bliver anset for at være obligatoriske for en bestemt situationstype, og hvilke elementer, der er mere eller mindre sandsynlige eller mulige. vores forestillinger om situationen differentierer således mellem, hvad vi med sikkerhed forventer at finde i situationen, hvad der er sandsynligt eller muligt at finde og hvad der ville være overraskende eller udelukket at møde i situationen. det er endvidere foranderligt, hvilke indholdselementer der er obligatoriske, sandsynlige, mulige, usandsynlige eller umulige. når indholdet i situationstypens modaliteter ændres, så afstemmer deltagerne deres adfærd i forhold til nye erfaringer og nye kompetencekrav. kodeændringer sker således ikke på et ’makrokulturelt’ niveau (i ’systemet’), men ved en kognitiv tilpasning i form af hypotesejustering hos den enkelte deltager. disse kodeændringer og hypotesejusteringer sker uden større besvær, fordi den situerede semantik rummer en evolutionær dynamik for realiseringen af potentialer. udviklingspotentialet er nemlig indeholdt i semantikkens mulige og usandsynlige (og til tider endda: hidtil umulige) elementer, der kan transformeres til obligatoriske, sandsynlige hhv. mulige elementer. det er på den måde, tankstationssituationen i det forgangne århundrede har udviklet sig. semantikken er her blevet analyseret med henblik på den paradigmatiske ordning. men det er klart, at paradigmatikken også på semantikkens niveau understøttes af stedets syntagmatik. syntagmet fastlægger hierarkiet i de forskellige elementers vægt og aftegner dermed det forløb, som handlingen med fortrin kan eller bør følge på stedet (jf. floch, 1990). for tankstationens vedkommende lader den visuelle og rumlige placering ingen tvivl om, at benzinstanderne er et væsentligt indholdselement. men i modsætning til tidligere er benzinstanderne i dag overdækket og derved forbundet med hovedbygningen, som kunden skal bevæge sig hen til og ind i. standerne er da heller ikke længere tankpasserens arbejdssted, men kundens domæne. tankpasseren befinder sig inden for, og er i øvrigt ikke tankpasser længere, men ekspedient med en indsnævret kompetenceprofil.2 ii inden for: det er også stedet, hvor ikkeautomobilgeneriske produkter sælges både til trafikanter og nabolaget. disken er således blevet qualitative studies, 1(1) 58 syntagmets andet dominerende element: der hvor regningen for selvbetjeningen (både ved standerne og i minimarkedet) betales og hvor kunden kan henvises til stedets evt. nebengeschäfte: bilvaskautomaterne, solariet etc., som også syntagmatisk behandles som underordnede elementer. for at kunne fremstå som en kompetent deltager i interaktionen skal tankstationen agere typisk repræsentant for arten ’tankstation’. kendetegnene for denne art er frembragt af tidligere handlinger: af ’det, der er gjort’. men som vi så, er specificeringen af arten en evolutionær proces på grund af det udviklingspotentiale, som er tilstede i artens semantik. innovationer sker med henblik på at udmønte potentialet bedre eller anderledes. de efterfølgende interaktioner afgør ved selektion, om og i hvilken grad innovationerne vinder varigt indpas. i så fald er ’det overraskende’ blevet ’selvfølgeligt’. kendetegnene er på den måde dynamiske, og dynamikken hviler ikke på en kollektiv aftale, men på hvad enkelte aktører gør i forhold til situationen og af hvilken lære, de drager af deres erfaringer. der findes altså en semantisk kode, som får sit indhold fra de erfaringer, som aktører hver især har gjort sig i konkrete interaktioner. det er på den måde, hver deltager opbygger sin egen situationsfornemmelse. den enkelte aktørs erfaringer ligner mange andres, derfor vil situationsfornemmelsen langt hen ad vejen være afstemt med de øvrige deltagere, hvorved der opstår samklang. situation og sekvens vi vil nu vende blikket væk fra tankstationens ’deltagelse’ i interaktionen og i stedet se på de andre deltageres bidrag for at analysere situationstypens syntaks. syntaksen er selvfølgelig i første instans syntagmatisk kodet, idet den fastlægger det prototypiske forløb af interaktionen. det er fremdeles syntaksen, der fastlægger valgmulighederne på bestemte tidspunkter i sekvensen. derved har den også betydning for de interaktionsroller, deltagerne kan indtage. set fra kundens optik afhænger evnen til at gebærde sig kompetent på tankstationen af kendskab og kundskab i forhold til det storsyntagme, som besøget på stedet udgør. storsyntagmet består af en række mindre episoder, der i sig selv er sekvenser og altså syntagmatisk organiserede: køen foran tanken, selvbetjeningen, indkøbet i minimarkedet, betalingen, andre forretninger (strække ben, tisse af), exit etc. rækkefølgen mellem disse sekvenser har drejebogslignende karakter (jf. schank og abelson, 1977). episoderne kommer fra to forskellige erfaringsregistre eller paradigmer: den ene er specifik for tankstationer og kan kun på en ganske abstrakt måde læres i eller overføres til andre situationer (fx selvbetjeningen ved standeren), den anden er gyldig for en hel række lignende købssituationer (fx ekspeditionssekvensen). de enkelte episoder er placeret mere eller mindre bundne i forhold til storsyntagmet: da der kan tisses af, både før kunden deltager i kødannelsen og efter ekspeditionen er afsluttet, er denne episode mindre bundet end exit, der altid afslutter sekvensen. desuden er nogle episoder obligatoriske for storsyntagmet, mens andre er valgfrie. der behøver ikke at være kø, kunden er ikke forpligtet til at købe yderligere varer i minimarkedet eller til at tisse af: disse episoder er valgfrie. omvendt skal der betales, for at der kan være tale om et køb, og uanset hvad skal sekvensen slutte: disse episoder er obligatoriske for købssituationer. besøget på tankstationen har således sin egen syntaks. det, som gælder for situationen som helhed, gælder tillige for de enkelte episoder, der konstituerer den overordnede sekvens. også de er bygget op af bundne og ubundne komponenter og af obligatoriske og valgfrie elementer. qualitative studies, 1(1) 59 det kan illustreres ved et eksempel på en ekspeditionssekvens, som jo i sig selv er en obligatorisk episode i købssituationer på tankstationer:3iii si (salgsindledning) ekspedient kunde hvis tur er det? det er vist min tur h (hilsen) ekspedient kunde hej hej sf (salgsforespørgsel) kunde jeg vil gerne have 20 kings og politiken (lægger politiken på disken) sa (salgsaccept) ekspedient kunde (lægger 20 kings på disken) værsgo´, var der ellers andet? nej tak, det var det hele s (salg) ekspedient så bliver det 42 kr. k (køb) kunde ekspedient her er 100 kr. tak ka (købsafrunding) ekspedient og der var 58 kr. retur, værsgo´. a (afsked) ekspedient kunde ha´ fortsat en god aften i lige måde de tre elementer, som er fremhævet i fed i kolonnen til venstre, er obligatoriske, for at interaktionen i det hele taget kan forløbe. salgsaccepten, som drejer sig om ekspedientens mulighed for at indvillige eller afvise salg af en vare efter salgsforespørgslen, er til gengæld uundværlig, hvis ikke ekspedientens bidrag til interaktionen skal vurderes som uforskammet.4iv så dette element er uundværligt for opretholdelsen af relationen i situationen. købsafrundingen, som foretages af ekspedienten, har ligeledes til formål at opretholde høfligheden i interaktionen og er derfor ligeledes uundværlig. disse fem elementer er desuden bundne i forhold til hinanden. de skal optræde i denne rækkefølge i interaktionen, så forløbsstrukturen for de obligatoriske elementer er sf^sa^s^k^ka.5vde obligatoriske elementer og deres bundne rækkefølge er typificerende for situationen: dvs. når disse elementer er til stede i interaktionen, kan den genkendes som et tilfælde af situationstypen ’ekspedition’. at et element er valgfrit, betyder omvendt, at det ikke er nødvendigt for, at interaktionen kan genkendes som ekspedition. hverken salgsindledning (si), hilsen (h) eller afsked (a) er typificerende for ekspeditioner, men de er alle tre bundne elementer enten i begyndelsen eller ved afslutningen af interaktionen. hilsen og afsked er begge fatiske, idet de har til formål at bekræfte kontakten mellem de to interagerende (jakobsen, 1960). denne funktion bruges i et utal af situationer. salgsindledningen handler om at regulere turtagning mellem kunder, så et salg kan indledes med næste kunde (sacks m.fl., 1978). dette element forekommer ikke kun i købssituationer, men også i andre institutionelle sammenhænge, hvor forholdet mellem ’kunder’ skal reguleres: f.eks hos lægevagten eller på biblioteket. elementet er derfor ikke genrespecifikt for den situationstype, som vi undersøger. ud over disse tre valgfrie elementer kan der også være elementer, som gentages. disse gentagelser er ligeledes valgfrie i forhold til situationstypen, men de kan desuden gentages et vilkårligt antal gange efter si-elementet. og ydermere er de relativt ubundne. kunden kan qualitative studies, 1(1) 60 påbegynde en salgsundersøgelse (su) på mange punkter i sekvensen (fx ”hvor meget tjære er der egentlig i kings?”). ofte indledes salgsundersøgelsen (su) med en implicit salgsforespørgsel (sf): ”jeg skal have nye pærer til mine forlygter”. det betyder, at de obligatoriske elementer sa (fx ”ok, var det ellers andet”) og sf (”ja, har i fælgrens til alufælge?”) også er gentagelseselementer. de kan fremsættes et vilkårligt antal gange, indtil kunden ikke ønsker at købe flere varer og ekspedienten får negativ respons på sine invitationer til yderligere salgsforespørgsler fra kunden. tilsammen udgør de obligatoriske og valgfrie, de bundne og ubundne samt gentagelseselementerne situationstypen ’ekspedition’, hvilket halliday og hasan (1985) kalder det ”generiske strukturpotentiale” (gsp): dvs. koden for de realiseringsmuligheder, som arten (her: ekspeditionssituationen) strukturelt set har. den formelle beskrivelse af ekspeditionssituationens gsp-kode er følgende:6 vi gsp: [(h) ∙ (si)^] [(su∙) {sf^sa^} ^s] k^ka(^a) det generiske strukturpotentiale viser ikke en konkret ekspeditionssituation, men angiver de strukturmuligheder, som gør, at et stort antal konkrete tilfælde kan realiseres og genkendes som tilhørende situationstypen eller genren ’ekspedition’. netop den generiske struktur er årsagen til, at ekspeditioner i langt de fleste tilfælde har et gnidningsfrit forløb med et minimalt forbrug af opmærksomhed og energi. vi kender den generiske struktur for denne situationstype til hudløshed og ved erfaringsmæssigt, hvordan vi kan variere den efter behov. den er det selvfølgelige grundlag for interaktion: en situeret syntaks, som i den konkrete situation begrænser antallet af valgmuligheder fra det sproglige register og samtidig bekræfter, at deltagernes fornemmelse for og sproghandling i situationen er korrekt og adækvat. i forlængelse af vores analyse af den situerede semantiks udviklingspotentiale kan vi sige, at også den situerede syntaks er historisk dannet, idet konkrete interaktioner har gjort visse valgfrie elementer obligatoriske og bundet rækkefølgen mellem bestemte elementer. drivkraften i denne udvikling er ’økonomiprincippet’: behovet for at kunne udføre ens eget bidrag til standardsituationer på en rutiniseret facon, dvs. så ’omkostningsfri’ og ubesværet som muligt. ligesom med tankstationens semantik er der på den måde blevet fastlagt en ny situationstype – ’ekspedition’ –, der er lagret som et skema for adfærd og sprogbrug i bevidstheden: dvs. som en kognitiv model, der kan appliceres i fremtidige situationer af samme art. gsp-koden er hverken et medfødt instinkt eller en kollektiv vedtaget kodeks. men det betyder fremdeles, at nye interaktioner kan ændre ved forholdet mellem valgfrie og obligatoriske elementer samt ved rækkefølgen i det generiske strukturpotentiale. det ser vi netop et eksempel på i vores egen tankstationsinteraktion, som har følgende realiserede syntaks: h (hilsen) ekspedient kunde goddag hr. (besvarer ikke hilsen) si (salgsindledning) ekspedient hvad kan jeg gøre for dem? sf (salgsforespørgsel) kunde jeg har tanket benzin på stander 5 s (salg) ekspedient det bliver 354,75. qualitative studies, 1(1) 61 sa (salgsaccept) ellers andet? (…udeladelse…) a (afsked) ekspedient kunde de må fortsat have en god dag, hr. tak følgende struktur er realiseret fra det generiske strukturpotentiale: h^si^sf1^s^sa1^(udeladelser: sf2^sa2^s^k^ka)^a vores case indeholder de bundne, valgfrie elementer h, si, a, hvis funktion er at skabe og vedligeholde den interpersonelle relation mellem ekspedient og kunde. men desuden er strukturens potentiale realiseret på en måde, som ikke passer helt med halliday og hasans gsp-kode, idet s (”det bliver 354,75”) strukturelt fremsættes før sa (”ellers andet?”). hermed afviges der fra den bundne rækkefølge mellem disse to obligatoriske elementer. ikke desto mindre fungerer interaktionen gnidningsfrit på dette punkt. en sådan videreudvikling er altså mulig, især når den – som her – fungerer som en ’økonomisk’ variant af koden. ved at fremsætte både s og sa i samme tur, giver ekspedienten kunden to valgmuligheder i interaktionen: a. hvis kunden ikke ønsker at købe flere varer, er prisen og hermed s-elementet fremsat, hvilket kræver, at kunden betaler k. b. hvis kunden imidlertid ønsker at fremsætte yderligere sf for at købe flere varer, kan kunden betragte s som en foreløbig eller ’subtotal’ prisinformation. trods denne afvigelse fra gsp-koden forløber den sproglige interaktion problemløst. det betyder, at varianter og mutationer i forhold til gsp kan accepteres, så længe de ikke rokker ved den overordnede definition af situationen og ved rollefordelingen mellem deltagerne. opsummerende kan vi sige, at en sekvens er et tidsbegrænset forløb, hvor begyndelse og afslutning som bundne obligatoriske elementer markerer interaktionens grænser og hvor en rækkefølge af bundne – men potentielt gentagelige – elementer inden for sekvensens afgrænsede tidsinterval typificerer situationens emne. disse elementer er ligeledes uundværlige og anvendes af aktørerne for at nå deres respektive målsætninger med interaktionen: i dette tilfælde køb og salg af benzin og dagligvarer. inden for situationens grænser og overordnede definition (formålet) kan sekvensen udbygges med valgfrie elementer, der enten uddyber begyndelsesafsnittet, afslutningsafsnittet eller det mellemspil, som er typificerende for situationen. det vil samtidig sige, at de valgfrie elementer ikke er vilkårlige i forhold til situationen. dels er de bundet til bestemte afsnit i sekvensen: en hilsen kan fx ikke fremsættes ved situationens afslutning. dels skal de valgfrie elementer svare til situationstypen. de skal netop være uddybende i forhold til aktørernes formål i og med situationen. i modsat fald sker der en sammenblanding af situationstyper, som fx når kunden pludselig gør kur til ekspedienten. situationstypens syntagme sætter således rammerne for den faktiske interaktions afvikling. syntagmet er et potentiale af elementer, hvoraf nogle skal anvendes, andre bør anvendes (høflighed) og andre atter kan anvendes, mens mange andre ytringer ikke må anvendes. desuden fastlægger syntagmet den overordnede rækkefølge, som de mulige (valgfrie), uundværlige og obligatoriske ytringer bør anvendes i. når interaktioner ’gøres’, så sker det derfor ikke mindst qualitative studies, 1(1) 62 med udgangspunkt i denne syntaks (gsp), som forlods er ’gjort’. de konkrete interaktioner realiserer syntagmets potentiale. de er erfaringsbaserede: fremvisning, udøvelse og opøvelse af kompetencer i forhold til et på forhånd afmærket potentiale. potentialet sætter deltagernes kompetencer i og på spil. hvis de skal optræde kompetente i interaktionen, må deltagerne udfolde sig inden for situationstypens rammer. ’inden for rammerne’ vil sige, at de skal vise, at de behersker situationstypens syntagmatik og paradigmatik. og ’udfolde sig’ betyder, at rammerne er vide, og tilsvarende at valgmulighederne på bestemte steder i det syntagmatiske forløb er mangfoldige. den måde, hvorpå disse muligheder forvaltes, er derfor med til at specificere relationen mellem deltagerne og i særdeleshed den rolle, deltagerne ønsker at spille i forhold til hinanden. det er fremdeles et spørgsmål om de paradigmatiske valg, der foretages på baggrund af syntagmet. derfor er det ikke nok at vide, at og hvor der kan siges en salgsindledende ytring: ”hvad siger du?”. man skal også vide, hvordan ytringen fremsiges kompetent – fx ”hvad kan jeg gøre for dem?” – og hvilken konsekvens dette valg har. det handler om konkrete sproglige valg, som har konsekvenser for realiseringen af forholdet mellem deltagerne. det undersøges i næste afsnit. situation og relation ved at strukturere rækkefølgen i interaktionen fastlægger gsp-koden deltagernes position i forhold til hinanden. strukturpotentialet angiver, hvor i sekvensen, aktørerne kan eller skal træde i karakter og udfylde deres specifikke rolle i interaktionen. men måden, hvorpå interaktionsrollerne så rent faktisk forvaltes, beror på paradigmatik. kompetencer vedrører altså syntaktisk viden om, hvad der skal siges hvor i forløbet, såvel som selektionsfærdigheder mht. hvorledes ytringen siges for at indfri intentionen med interaktionen. de paradigmatiske valg af specifikke ytringer på bestemte steder i sekvensen skaber således en interpersonel ramme omkring situationen, der for det første specificerer, hvordan deltagerne ser på hinandens position og på deres egen rolle i interaktionen, og derved for det andet realiserer en relation mellem deltagerne. i forlængelse af morris’ (1938) heuristik, der skelner mellem syntaktiske, semantiske og pragmatiske niveauer, er dette et spørgsmål om interaktionens pragmatik. denne virkning frembringes altså i interaktionens realisering af situationstypens semantik og syntaks. for at undersøge denne pragmatik nærmere, må vi se på sekvensens valgfrie elementer hilsen (h), salgsindledning (si) og afsked (a), der, som sagt, specificerer den interpersonelle relation mellem de interagerende. vi ser på de personlige pronominer og de tiltaleformer, som anvendes i vores eksempel. det er netop disse paradigmatiske valg i forhold til syntaksens potentiale, som specificerer deltagernes syn på egen og modpartens position og rolle i interaktionen. pronominer fastlægger referencen til personer for deltagerne i interaktionen. de identificerer personers tid og sted i forhold til kommunikationen. i en sætning som fx ”kom nu herhen du” kan kun de tilstedeværende identificere person, tid og sted entydigt. disse personreferencer er i nogle sammenhænge bedre kendt under betegnelsen deiksis, herunder persondeiksis (fillmore, 1971). i funktionel lingvistik anvendes et lignende begreb for deltagere i den umiddelbare situationskontekst (martin, 1992, p. 124; martin og rose, 2003, p. 171). en sådan reference kaldes eksoforisk. hvis en taler fx siger: ”nu skal du give ham den, der ligger til højre for dig på vejen”, så kræver det, at modtageren er til stede i samme tid og rum for at kunne udlede identiteten af referenterne fra den umiddelbare situationskontekst. eksoforiske referencers funktion er at qualitative studies, 1(1) 63 holde styr på og spore identiteter og objekter uden for teksten, så teksten hænger sammen og giver mening for den anden part i kommunikationen. men det er ikke de personlige pronominers eneste funktion. det kan vises ved at underkaste ekspedientens ytringer en simpel kommutationsprøve, hvor et betydningselements valør undersøges ved at udskifte dette element med et, der er paradigmatisk beslægtet: si hvad kan jeg gøre for dem?(eksempel) hvad kan jeg gøre for dig? (kommutation) a de må fortsat have en god dag, hr. (eksempel) du må fortsat have en god dag, hr. (kommutation) i disse ytringer anvender ekspedienten 2. person singularis i de eksoforiske referencer til kunden, men bruger henholdsvis ’du’ og ’de’ formen. de funktionelle betegnelser ’uformel’ og ’formel’ kan bruges til at karakterisere forskellen mellem disse to former. valget af pronomen er i dette tilfælde en manifestation af ekspedientens holdning og forventning til den interpersonelle relation med kunden. i det øjeblik han har selekteret og ytret den formelle/høflige form, har han samtidig skabt og defineret relationen som ’formel’ og ’høflig’ med en betydelig social grad af distance. havde ekspedienten valgt de mindre formelle personlige pronominer ’du/dig’, ville han have skabt en højere grad af social nærhed i relationen til kunden. ekspedientens valg af tiltaleform har imidlertid også en signifikant relationsskabende effekt, da tiltaleformer kan anvendes til flere formål på samme tid. for det første kan tiltaleform anvendes til at markere deltagernes sociale position i et hierarki, fx ’direktør-underordnet’. for det andet kan formen anvendes til at markere graden af nærhed og distance – dvs. kontakten – mellem deltagerne. for det tredje kan tiltaleformer graduere høflighed/afslappethed/uhøflighed. for det fjerde kan de også markere afsenderens evaluering af modtageren, fx ’kloge åge, smukke sara’. og for det femte kan den henvise til kommunikationsparternes historisk betingede intertekstuelle referenceramme, som kan være både offentlig kendt (fx ‘ørnen fra herning’) og privat (fx ‘bondejyderen’). sprogbrugere kan således foretage valg fra et større system af tiltaleformer. i vores eksempel har kun ekspedienten valgt tiltaleform, nemlig i interaktionsforløbets begyndelse og afslutning, ved h og a. h goddag hr. a de må fortsat have en god dag, hr. at relationen mellem kunde og ekspedient er anonym viser sig ved valget af tiltaleformen ’hr.’, der kun markerer det for ekspedienten umiddelbart iagttagelige ved kunden. hvis ekspedienten havde kendt kundens identitet, så kunne tiltaleformen være blevet udbygget ved at kombinere flere navnebaserede elementer: fx ’hr. + (titel +) efternavn’. og hvis ekspedient og kunde havde haft en mere nær relation, så kunne ekspedienten have valgt andre tiltaleformer qualitative studies, 1(1) 64 end de formelt navnebaserede. at ekspedienten ydermere specificerer relationen som formel, viser sig ved, at tiltaleformen ret beset kunne være helt udeladt, fx: h goddag a de må fortsat have en god dag den alternative afskedsytring demonstrerer endvidere, at ’hr.’ er redundant i forhold til den formelle form for 2. person singularis, ’de’. ’hr.’ tilføjer ingen ny information, men understreger til gengæld, at den høflige tone er oprigtigt ment. der er således kohærens i valget af pronomen og tiltaleform. kohærensen bekræftes yderligere af valget af hilseudtryk, da ’goddag’ er et mere neutralt og formelt ordvalg, sammenlignet med alternativer som ’hej’, ’hejsa’, ’dav’, ’davs’. dette valg optræder i let varieret form både i sekvensens start og slut. en redundans, som gør ekspedientens gestaltning af sin rolle til en sluttet helhed. han fastholder fra begyndelse til ende et konsistent stilleje, som udtrykker en professionel kompetence i situationen: en evne til at præge interaktionen og definere relationen som ’formel’ og ’høflig’ med betydelig grad af social distance. at ekspedienten tager første taletur, viser fremdeles hans vilje til at sætte dagsordenen for interaktionen. ekspedientens indsats skaber således en metakommunikativ ramme omkring den interpersonelle relation (bateson, 1990). rammen viser, at relationen er upersonlig (anonym), men ikke af den grund ligegyldig – set fra ekspedientens side. valget af pronomen og tiltaleform er nemlig fravalg af jovialitet og nonchalance, af ligeværdig kammeratskab såvel som sjusket desinteresse. der markeres, at vi ikke er lige: at relationen altså er asymmetrisk. denne asymmetri forvaltes imidlertid professionelt: herren skal have, hvad herren tilkommer. indsatsen verbaliserer således på den ene side ekspedientens sociale underordning i forhold til kunden. men ved at indsatsen sker professionelt – med direkte reference til den sociale asymmetri, hvor nogle bør tiltale andre i høflighedsformer – indstiftes der en ny form for gensidighed. modparten (kunden) forventes at udvise samme respekt, som ekspedienten giver ham. hvis denne respekt forstås som en gave, så bør kunden gengælde den for ikke at miste anseelse (jf. mauss, 1990). på den måde sættes kunden i en reciprok relation til ekspedienten – som potentiel underhund i en symbolsk (a)symmetri, hvor ’andre’ bør gengælde ’nogles’ tiltale symmetrisk, og bør gøre dette på en ’passende’ måde, for at der ikke skal være tale om asymmetri. relation og konflikt det raffinerede ved ekspedientens udfyldning af interaktionsrollerne er fremdeles, at det metakommunikative budskab ikke fremsættes eksplicit. ekspedienten indleder ikke samtalen med et ’skal vi være de´s?’. i stedet præsupponerer han relationen, uden at den skal gøres til genstand for diskussion eller forhandling. med et af goffmans begreber, så skaber ekspedienten en bestemt ’footing’ (goffman, 1995), en ramme for situationen. et brud på ’footing’ ville øge risikoen for, at en af parterne taber ansigt (goffman, 1967). qualitative studies, 1(1) 65 kunden kan reagere på ekspedientens ’footing’ ved at vælge tre forskellige typer tiltaleformer og personlige pronominer. han kan vælge at benytte: a. samme pronominer og tiltaleformer som ekspedienten: ’de’, ’hr.’ b. forskellige pronominer, ingen (evt. forskellige) tiltaleformer: ’du’, -- c. udelade pronominer og tiltaleformer: ---, -- hvis kunden vælger at anvende samme tiltaleformer og pronominer som ekspedienten, vil kommunikationen måske bedre kunne forløbe gnidningsfrit under ekspeditionen. kunden accepterer ekspedientens ’footing’, ingen af parterne risikerer at tabe ansigt. set fra kundens perspektiv kan omkostningen dog være, at han skal gøre vold mod sin selvforståelse og sine idealer om ’uformelle’, ’afslappede’ omgangsformer også i professionelle situationer. i stedet skal han i den symbolske reciprocitets navn underkaste sig en formel omgangsform. hvis det er tilfældet, sker kommunikationen godt nok gnidningsfrit men ikke automatisk. hvis kunden vælger mulighed to og afviser ekspedientens ’footing’, gøres enten den sociale eller den symbolske asymmetri eksplicit. i første fald bekræfter kunden, at der er forskel på folk og at dette hierarki gerne må udtrykkes i et forskelligt valg fra tiltaleformernes og pronominernes paradigmer. denne holdning ville dog være helt ude af trit med samfundsudviklingen i de seneste halvtreds år. kunden ville kunne risikere at blive skammet ud af andre kunder på tanken – et ansigtstab. i andet fald kunne den videre afvikling af købshandlingen komme i fare. kunde og ekspedient bliver nødt til at forholde sig til hinandens holdninger og eventuelt forhandle en fælles forståelse på plads for at få rettet op på truslen om ansigtstab. interaktionen afvikles hverken gnidningsfrit eller automatisk. hvis kunden vælger at undgå at anvende tiltaleformer og pronominel reference til ekspedienten, så sikrer det, at ekspeditionen foregår gnidningsfrit. der er ingen risiko for ansigtstab, og samtidig undgår kunden at skulle underlægge sig det formelle sprogbrug, som ekspedienten benytter sig af. ulempen er dog, at eftersom der ikke er gensidighed, så er der heller ikke nogen interpersonel kontakt mellem deltagerne. relationen mærkes af, at den sociale asymmetri forbliver symbolsk umedieret. vi kan sammenfatte disse konsekvenser i følgende skema: accept ansigtstrussel reciprocitet a. lighed + – + b. forskel – + – c. undvigelse (unddragelse) – – hvis vi ser på vores konkrete interaktion, så er det klart, at kunden valgte den tredje mulighed: h ekspedient: goddag hr. kunde: (besvarer ikke hilsen) sf kunde: jeg har tanket benzin på stander 5 a qualitative studies, 1(1) 66 ekspedient: de må fortsat have en god dag, hr. kunde: tak ved at undgå tiltaleformer eller brug af personlige pronominer om modparten gør kunden sit bidrag til etableringen af relationen så neutralt som muligt. symptomatisk for denne taktik er endvidere, at kunden enten ikke besvarer ekspedientens hilseudtryk (i h) eller afstår fra at gengælde den (i a): ’tak’ vælges i stedet for fx ’i lige måde’. det raffinerede ved kundens taktik er, at markeringen af den talendes syn på relationen er så udvisket eller underspillet, at den anden deltager formodentlig end ikke opdager, at kunden ikke gengælder – og dermed faktisk forkaster – den ramme eller ’footing’, som ekspedienten har foreslået. derfor afvikles ekspeditionen gnidningsfrit. men dermed er ikke sagt, at interaktionen så også er gnidningsfri for kunden. kunden vælger en taktik, hvorved han undgår at handle i modstrid med sin egen opfattelse af, hvordan relationen burde være gestaltet: nemlig at også professionelle interaktioner ideelt set burde være ’uformelle’. altså vælges der ikke at gengælde ekspedientens udspil med en reciprok replik (alternativ a.). dette ville nemlig ud fra kundens idealer have været en ’tilpasningstaktik’. for at undgå at udsætte ekspedienten for en ansigtstrussel og undvige en eventuel konflikt afstår kunden endvidere fra at vælge ’konfrontationstaktikken’ (alternativ b.). i stedet bruger kunden sin erfaring med gspkoden og sin viden om sprogsystemets valgmuligheder til at vælge en kurs, som hverken er i modstrid med kundens syn på, hvordan interaktionen burde forløbe, eller – omvendt – missionerer for dette syn. men denne konfliktundvigende kurs kræver en kognitiv proces med refleksion over og tolkning af konsekvenserne af de sproglige valg, der kan træffes. den er i den forstand ’uøkonomisk’ og mangler – som konsekvens – den reciprocitet, som ekspedientens valg af ’footing’ lagde op til. vi ser altså, hvordan den ene deltager afstemmer sin adfærd i forhold til den anden. men i dette tilfælde opstår der hverken samklang eller dissonans. hvis han vil undgå konflikt og ansigtstrussel (alternativ b.), må kunden enten spille en påduttet høflig rolle (alternativ a.) eller blive konfronteret med sin egen situationelle uhøflighed, da han ikke følger op på ekspedientens udspil (alternativ c.). hans faktiske valg er således et valg mellem flere onder, hvor det forhold, at han netop beslutter sig for den undvigende – men også relationsudviskende – version, med al tydelighed viser, at hans beslutning bunder i et dilemma. vores case er således et eksempel på en interaktion, hvor egentlig intet sker, men som ikke desto mindre huskes. da begge parter når deres mål med situationen (køb/salg) i forløbet, og da intet ændrer deres hensigter eller øger deres indsigt i situationen, så sker der egentlig intet. men mens ingenting er i gang med at ske, så hænder der alligevel noget, som den ene part bagefter husker. set fra kundens vinkel, rokkes der ved relationens automatisme: ved den metakommunikative ramme, som ellers plejer at specificere deltagernes position i forhold til hinanden (jf. harré og van langenhove, 1999). der sættes spørgsmålstegn ved deltagernes rettigheder og forpligtelser i interaktionen, hvorved selve relationen bliver sat til diskussion eller endda på spil. der gøres. og det der gøres, tiltrækker sig opmærksomhed og bliver husket, fordi det afviger fra, hvad der tidligere er gjort – og dermed fra hvad kunden forventede sig af situationen. disse forventninger baserer sig nemlig på det gjorte, som er lagret som erfaring med denne og tilsvarende situationstyper, og har dannet et kognitivt beredskab til at handle på en bestemt måde i situationen. i vores case udfordrer interaktionen m.a.o. kundens situationsfornemmelse qualitative studies, 1(1) 67 og i særdeleshed det aspekt, der vedrører gestaltningen af interpersonelle relationer. denne gøren kan analyseres ud fra vores model af den situerede semantik. kundens forventninger til relationsdannelsen er nemlig begrundet i en fornemmelse for, hvordan ekspedienten vil spille sin rolle som kompetent deltager. det er et spørgsmål om erfaringer med paradigmatiske valg. hvis han derfor ikke forlods ved, at ekspedientens sproglige valg er obligatoriske, så bygger kundens situationsberedskab på en skelnen mellem sandsynlige/mulige realiseringer, usandsynlige realiseringer og umulige realiseringer af ekspedientens valgmuligheder. disse optioner kan vises i følgende model: obligatoriske valg sandsynlige/mulige valg usandsynlige valg umulige valg kundens forventninger -- ’du’ eller ingen markering ’de’, ’hr.’ (ukvemsord) forventningen til de sandsynlige/mulige valg bygger både på kundens erfaringer med lignende situationer og på kundens ideal for, hvordan en ’uformel’ og ’afslappet’ relation bør ’gøres’.7viii den henseende vil både det usandsynlige og det umulige valg være uønskede valg, da de forstyrrer idealet. i vores tilfælde har vi imidlertid et brud mellem den forventede realisering af ekspedientens rolle og ekspedientens faktiske realisering, som kunden – fordi denne realisering var usandsynlig og uønsket – ikke er forberedt på. kunden må overveje med sig selv, hvorfor modparten har truffet det usandsynlige valg, og hvordan han selv kan forholde sig kompetent til dette uønskede udspil.8 viii i stedet for en interaktion per automatpilot får vi derfor en situation, som let kan udvikle sig til en dyst om positioner med ansigtstab (for ekspedienten) eller en oplevet utilstrækkelighed i situationen (for kunden) som det mulige udfald. hvis kundens hensigt med relationen var, at interaktionen skulle bygge på en konfliktfri gensidighed, så er han fra starten bragt i en catch 22 lignende situation, som han ikke kan vinde. gengælder han ekspedientens udspil på en gensidig måde ved at bruge høflige tiltaleformer (reciprocitet, symmetri), så undgår han en åben konflikt, men kommer i konflikt med sit eget ideal: ideal og realitet bliver asymmetriske. holder han fast i sit ideal, risikerer han derimod enten en åben konflikt (konfrontationstaktikken) eller at fremtræde uhøflig (den konfliktundvigende taktik). begge løsninger skaber symbolsk set asymmetriske relationer. dilemmaet kan vises i følgende skema, hvor (+) viser en potentiel konfliktsituation: tilpasning konfrontation undvigelse asymmetri* – + + åben konflikt** – + – indre konflikt*** + – – * asymmetri: manglende reciprocitet * * åben konflikt: en konfrontation mellem deltagernes bidrag til interaktionen *** indre konflikt: en modsætning mellem idealet om ’ligeværdighed’ og den manglende virkeliggørelse af idealet i interaktionen kundens erindring af situationen skyldes således oplevelsen af den indbyggede konflikt i interaktionen, idet han ikke kunne undgå enten at give afkald på egne idealer (tilpasning), qualitative studies, 1(1) 68 skabe en konfrontation med ekspedienten eller komme til at virke uhøflig (undvigelse). det er oplevelsen af ”selv-diskrepans”, der rodfæster sig (higgins, 1987). selv-diskrepansen mindsker deltagerens evne til at opnå den ønskede gyldighed i interaktionen (jf. prægnansprincippet). der er for stor afstand mellem det ”aktuelle”, det ”ideelle” og det ”normative” selv: mellem det, kunden faktisk formår i situationen, det mål, han gerne ville nå i interaktionen (nemlig at være i kontrol med situationen), og den adfærd, kunden burde udvise (nemlig høflighed, gensidighed). denne diskrepans opleves som ubehagelig i den konkrete situation. erindringen skyldes desuden, at det sproglige træk fra ekspedientens side, som kunden forlods antog var usandsynligt, fremover må betragtes som et muligt eller sandsynligt valg. vi ser her et konkret eksempel på hypotesejustering. situationen får derfor som konsekvens, at kunden efterlods må lave en revurdering. hvis ikke han vil undgå stedet fremover, så må han: • justere sine idealer, hvorved han ’bearbejder’ den indre konflikt • eller udvikle sine sproglige og nonverbale mønstre, så han er bedre garderet i tilsvarende situationer, og kan undvige reciprociteten uden at virke uhøflig • eller udvide sin forståelse for ekspedientens adfærd, så den kan forklares plausibelt (for evt. at kunne ’bearbejde’ ekspedienten bedre). revisionsarbejdet udvider eller ændrer kundens (selv-)indsigt og handlingsmønstre. det giver nye kompetencer eller justerer selvbilledet. denne ’gøren’ er kultur. ”ellers andet?” vores hverdagshandlinger er situationsbestemte. vi afstemmer vores forventninger og optræden ud fra tidligere erfaringer og de forestillinger, vi har om os selv og de øvrige deltagere. erfaringer og forestillinger er noget vi har med til interaktionen i form af mentale modeller og scripts, der danner en automatiseret baggrund for, hvad vi kan og vil i situationen, og som økonomiserer vort bidrag til interaktionen. vi behøver ikke at overveje hvert træk. det hænder dog, at situationen udvikler sig i en retning, så vi bliver nødt til at revurdere vores intentioner – og i yderste konsekvens: vores selvbillede. vi har ikke helt den gennemslagskraft, som vi forlods antog. kultur er i den henseende den konsekvens, som justerede forestillinger og forventninger har for fremtidige handlinger: altså den erfaringsog identitetsdannelse, som oplevelser i konkrete situationer foranlediger. kultur omsætter oplevelser til erfaring. derved kan konkrete hændelser blive nye elementer enten i den implicitte erindring, som når vores automatiserede vaner – de adfærdsmønstre, der nærmest ligger på rygraden – justeres, eller i den autobiografiske hukommelse. denne form for eksplicit erindring knytter det oplevede sammen med vores selvfortælling, hvorved selvbilledet – altså identiteten – potentielt ændres. kultur er således den læring, der sker, idet vi i situationen oplever en fysiologisk ændring, en emotionel respons eller et brud på vores kognitive forventninger og dispositioner. læringen gør, at kropsligt funderede oplevelser, som er situationsbundne og som sådan momentane og flygtige, får større erfaringsog identitetsmæssig permanens. i og med at hændelsen ’kultiveres’, har vi den med til næste møde – som nye kompetencer, nye intentioner. kultur tilføjer et refleksivt niveau til oplevelsernes biologiske plan, hvilket gør, at hændelserne bearbejdes med sigte på fremtidige handlinger (jf. jantzen og vetner, 2007a, 2007b) i det eksempel, vi har analyseret, fører interaktionen til, at kunden må bearbejde nogle af sine kompetencer for at sikre sig, at lignende situationer ikke fremover giver tilsvarende dårlige qualitative studies, 1(1) 69 oplevelser. det var hverken kundens evner i forhold til interaktionens syntaktiske kode (nemlig den specifikke gsp-kode) eller situationens semantiske kode (situationstypen ’tankstation’), der voldte problemer. det var derimod den pragmatiske kode, som knyttede sig til forventningerne til relationen, som uventet viste sig at være en udfordring. ekspedientens tiltale brød med kundens forestillinger om en anonym, men uformel og udistanceret relation. ekspedienten positionerede sig som ’tjener’ overfor kunden, og relationen blev derfor metakommunikativt defineret anderledes, end ’herren’ havde ønsket sig. kunden blev sat i en respektfuld distance til ekspedienten, hvorved det præsupponeredes, at ’herren’ gengjaldt ’tjenerens’ sproglige træk. kundens dårlige oplevelse blev fremkaldt af dette forventningsbrud og viste sig som en negativ emotionel respons, som kunden forsøgte at tackle ved undvigelse frem for konfrontation. konsekvensen af episoden bliver, at kunden må genoverveje, hvem han er i forhold til ikke kun den konkrete ekspedient, men måske salgspersonale i almindelighed – altså et identitetsarbejde, der skal få det aktuelle, ideelle og normative selv til at stemme bedre overens. desuden må han tage sin strategi i denne slags interaktioner op til revision. han må kompetenceudvikle sig. dette arbejde finder sted på det tekstlige plan. det er i tekster, i sproglige og andre betydningsdannende mønstre, at situationer konkretiseres og relationer konstitueres. i vores eksempel betyder den faktiske interaktion, at kunden må redefinere sin egen position i relationen. dette skift medfører, at selve konteksten for interaktionen – nemlig situationen – må genovervejes. hvad handler interaktionen i grunden om? den drejer sig ikke længere ’blot’ om køb af benzin og dagligvarer på en tankstation, men mindst lige så meget om sociale og symbolske magtrelationer, hvilket gør indfrielsen af kundens oprindelige intention med interaktionen alt andet end ubesværet. den faktiske interaktion er derfor mere end en simpel realisering af de muligheder, som den abstrakte situationstype ’tankstation’ rummer. konteksten bliver til i teksten. det er interaktionens forløb, som materialiserer, hvad det er, vi taler om (situationen), og hvordan vi så er i forhold til hinanden (relationen og dens positioner). interaktionens deltagere afstemmer og forhandler således løbende det sagsforhold, som udvekslingen drejer sig om, og den form for kontakt, de hver især ønsker, der skal være mellem dem. dette er meddelelsens referentielle og fatiske funktioner, som er konstitutive for meddelelsens kontekst. disse funktioner realiseres gnidningsfrit, så længe parterne er enige om kommunikationens metasproglige funktion: altså om interaktionens koder. hvis denne enighed trues eller ophører, kommer konteksten til forhandling. eller rettere: så bøjes opmærksomheden væk fra interaktionens kontekst (sagsforholdet og kontakten) og ind mod meddelelsen selv. det tekstlige aspekt ved selve interaktionen, som i hverdagen tjener til at indfri tekst-eksterne formål – nemlig at skabe kontakt, at udtrykke sig selv, at påvirke sin modpart eller at henvise til en sag –, kommer i fokus. denne refleksivitet kaldes den poetiske funktion (jakobson, 1960), og når den er i højsædet, så dekontekstualiseres meddelelsen. meddelelsen kommer til at dreje sig om sig selv: om hvorledes ting kan eller bør siges og gøres, frem for om hvad eller for hvem der siges eller gøres. i vores eksempel kommer kundens bidrag til interaktionen til at handle om, hvordan relationen kan forvaltes mest hensigtsmæssigt, og ikke så meget om køb af benzin og cigaretter. enhver dekontekstualisering medfører rekontekstualisering: dvs. skabelsen af en ny forståelsesramme for, hvad meddelelsen handler om (bauman og briggs, 1990). i vores case rekontekstualiseres meddelelsen som et anliggende, der vedrører relationsdannelse og kodekompetencer. den sproglige udveksling gør de positionsforskelle, som er konstitutive for almindelige købsinteraktioner, eksplicitte og endog emotionelt og kognitiv påtrængende – som ubehag. de vaner og forventninger, som til dagligt tages for givet, de-automatiseres. de bliver qualitative studies, 1(1) 70 ’gjort fremmede’, kan på ny opleves i deres sanselige umiddelbarhed (nemlig som ubehag) og bliver som sådan erkendbare i deres (u)hensigtsmæssighed. netop denne erkendelsesskabende effekt af fremmedgørelse (russisk ostranenie) er ifølge sklovskij (1969), en af grundlæggerne af den formalistiske tekstteori, den poetiske funktions primære kvalitet. men idet poetik rejser tvivl omkring det givnes berettigelse, er den uøkonomisk. kultur er i den henseende den proces, som skal reintegrere den ny erkendelse med de eksisterende erfaringer. den er kunne man måske lidt overfrisk sige – vejviseren til ”zonen for nærmeste udvikling” (vygotsky, 1978). kultur er andet end læring slet og ret. kultur hænder, når læring sker poetisk. den hænder som en tekstlig praksis, en ’gøren’, der er centreret om at gøre tekstlig praksis mest hensigtsmæssig, fx at få en bedre sans for situationen eller en større prægnans i relationen. kultur ’gøres’ og ’gør’, når teksten domineres af den poetiske funktion (jakobson, 1971). teksten bliver så en opøvelse i situationsfornemmelse med sigte på, at aktøren fremover kan realisere potentialet i faktiske situationer så økonomisk som muligt. den bliver endvidere en identitetsbearbejdning med henblik på at sikre aktøren optimal prægnans i faktiske relationer. kultur er således transformativ og skabende. den gør noget nyt i forhold til det, der tidligere er gjort – nemlig: erfaringen. dette nye gøres med henblik på kommende situationsbetingede praksisser: på dannelsen af nye automatismer. dette indebærer fremdeles, at kultur er refleksiv, aktørbaseret og performativ (jf. jantzen, 1992, 2005; sørensen m.fl., 2008). den er performativ, fordi den udstiller de tekstlige forudsætninger for social interaktion og højner bevidstheden om de poetiske virkemidler, der indgår i dannelsen af ’fælleshed’. den er aktørbaseret, for det første fordi den udspringer af de bidrag, som deltagere leverer til interaktionen og som ændrer noget ved forløbet i forhold til tidligere erfaringer med lignende situationer. for det andet, så vedrører kultur aktørens nye erkendelser af situationen og af sine egne muligheder i interaktionen. den er refleksiv, fordi den udspringer af den poetiske funktions rekontekstualisering af meddelelsens betydning og fordi den foranlediger aktører til at anvende sådanne de-automatiseringer til at overveje etablerede rutiner og det eksisterende selvbillede. det pragmatiske kulturbegreb er, i modsætning til mere traditionelle forståelser af begrebet, ikke ”det hele” eller nærmest alt (jf. tyler, 1873; williams, 1958). det er nærmere næsten intet. men dette intet er dynamisk, fordi det medierer mellem handlingers sociale og mentale univers. det ændrer vores måde at handle og at forstå os selv og andre på. referencer bateson, g. 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(1958). culture and society, 1780-1950. london, new york: columbia university press. 1 en af artiklens forfattere var deltager i denne interaktion. dialogen er nedskrevet efter hukommelsen umiddelbart efter hændelsen (jf. også frimann 2004: 110). registrering af data er således baseret på feltnotater (kruuse, 1999:138), hvis største fejlkilde er, om forskeren husker og præcist kan gengive interaktionen i alle dens detaljer uden unøjagtigheder, udeladelser eller tilføjelser i form af tolkninger og selektiv perception. forskerens rolle har været den fuldstændige deltager (buford juncker, 1960), hvor det var skjult for forsøgspersonen, at deltageren var i gang med dataindsamling. denne dataindsamlingsmetode er ofte forbundet med etiske problemstillinger, især når data offentliggøres. i denne case har vi minimeret det etiske aspekt ved at anonymisere ekspedientens identitet, benzinselskabet og tankstationens geografiske placering. interaktionen består af en enkelt case (kruuse, 1999:63), som udgør en enkelt analyseenhed. potentielt rejser casestudiet spørgsmålet, om den udvalgte case er eksemplarisk qualitative studies, 1(1) 74 og gælder for et stort antal lignende tilfælde, eller om der er tale om et særtilfælde. vi mener, at denne case er eksemplarisk. for at underbygge denne påstand har vi kontaktet det pågældende benzinselskab, som har bekræftet, at ekspedienter får kurser i at kommunikere i ekspeditioner ud fra selskabets eget koncept. det omfatter bl.a. tiltaleformer, interaktion, forløb og ordvalg. 2 tankstationens evolution hen imod den moderne servicestation har sit modsvar i forvandlingen af tankpasserens arbejdsfunktioner. indtil 1970erne stod tankpasseren for al kundekontakt: benzinpåfyldning, olieeftersyn, afregning. i en overgangsfase blev afregning forlagt til hovedbygningen, hvilket befordrede udviklingen af andre salgstilbud på stedet. da stationerne alle var blevet overdækket kunne tankpasseren definitivt rykke indendørs – på museet. tankpasserens særlige kompetencer er distribueret til den opkvalificerede kunde og den nedkvalificerede ekspedient. 3 i det efterfølgende ser vi bort fra de øvrige episoder i storsyntagmet. analysen er baseret på den funktionelle grammatik, som den udfoldes hos hasan (1985). vi analyserer kun interaktionens verbalsproglige forløb. gestik, prosodi o.l. er således udeladt 4 afvisning af salgsforespørgslen sker af samme grund kun, hvis butikken ikke har den efterspurgte vare. med til sa hører også, at ekspedienten tilbyder yderligere varer ’ellers andet?’. det er faktisk den vigtigste funktion for sa, som udspringer af den asymmetriske rolleforfordeling mellem kunde og ekspedient. disse roller betyder at ekspedienten skal være tilgængelig og tilbyde varer, så længe kunden ønsker det. 5 ^ angiver at et element kommer strukturelt før et andet. det, står til venstre for ^ skal optræde før det, der står til højre for tegnet. 6 forklaringen af de symboler, der er anvendt til notation af strukturen. 1) ^ betyder at elementet før og efter symbolet skal forekomme i den rækkefølge, 2) (x) parentes om et element betyder, at det er valgfrit. 3) ∙ prikken betyder, at der er mere end en valgmulighed i sekvensen, dvs. at element h og/eller si kan vælges, og hvis begge er valgt i situationen kan rækkefølge vælges frit si, h eller si, h. 4) [xx] kantet parentes markerer, at sekvensen i den kantede parentes er bundet til at optræde på denne plads i strukturen. 5) den buede pil markerer gentagelse. 6) {x y} klammeparentesen markerer at gentagelsen af elementerne inden for parentesen skal være ensartet, sådan at hvis der eksempelvis optræder tre sf elementer, så skal der også forekomme 3 sa elementer. 7 en kritisk indvending mod dette ideal kunne være, at den maskerer den ulighed, som er indbygget i situationen, hvor den ene part skal betjene den anden, som kan lade sig betjene, men også kan vælge ikke at købe noget. desuden er den tjenende rolle i denne situation lavt betalt og nyder ingen social status pga. manglende formel ekspertise. 8 vores forespørgsel til benzinselskabet har i øvrigt efterfølgende givet os viden om, at ekspedientens valg i situationen var obligatorisk. høflighedsformerne var led i selskabets forsøg på at designe kommunikationen på en ’kundevenlig’ måde. forfatterne søren frimann er lektor på institut for kommunikation, aalborg universitet. email: frimann@hum.aau.dk christian jantzen er lektor og institutleder på institut for kommunikation, aalborg universitet. email: jantzen@hum.aau.dk untitled qualitative studies, 1(2) 129 metodik til studiet af strategiske ledelsesprocesser i organisationer1 jørgen gulddahl rasmussen abstract: denne artikel handler om at skabe viden om en hverdagspraksis, der sjældent er sat ord på. den behandler de ledelsesprocesser, der i virksomheder producerer strategi og omsætter sådanne strategier i produktive handlinger. det er processer, der i små og mellemstore virksomheder er præget af intuition og af meget uformelle samspil mellem virksomhedsledere og medarbejdere. metodikken er en videreudvikling af de metoder til produktion af kvalitative data, som firm-gruppen2 har eksperimenteret med gennem nogle år. artiklen kan ses som en afrapportering af et flerårigt metodeudviklingsarbejde. da erfaringer fra sådanne virksomheder viser, at strategiske processer i høj grad udvikler sig gennem uformel kommunikation, og at lederes intuition spiller en meget stor rolle, arbejder metodikken med en struktureret udviklingsdialog mellem et mindre antal virksomhedsledere med strategiske opgaver og forskere. denne udviklingsdialog har til formål at følge og forstå de processer, der skaber ledernes egne praksisrelaterede ”teorier” for strategisk handling. efter en præsentation af temaet gennemgås metodikkens praktiske fremgangsmåde med undersøgelser i en række virksomheder, opbygning af cases i samarbejde med ledere fra disse virksomheder, diskussion af disse og foreløbige konklusioner hen mod de næste trin i metodikken. artiklen er skrevet samtidigt med arbejdet på et igangværende forskningsprojekt og vil derfor både være en præsentation og en udvikling af muligheder og vanskeligheder i metodikken. key words: kvalitativ metode, interaktion mellem forskning og udvikling, samspil med feltet, dynamiske studier af strategiprocesser. please cite this article as: rasmussen, j.g. (2010). metodik til studiet af strategiske ledelsesprocesser i organisationer. qualitative studies, 1(2): 129-158. 1 jeg ønsker at takke firm-forskningsgruppen kommentarer til en ufærdig udgave af denne artikel, at takke professor erik laursen for mange nyttige kommentarer til denne udgave i en foreløbig form, og ganske særligt ønsker jeg at takke mette vinther larsen for hendes meget betydningsfulde bidrag både i udviklingen af metodikken i straway-projektet og i den praktiske medvirken i dette. 2 firm-gruppen (firm, innovation, relationship & mangement) er en af forskningsgrupperne i institut for erhvervsstudier, aalborg universitet, som bl.a. arbejder med kvalitative studier af virksomhedsstrategi. når termerne vi og vores anvendes i artiklen omfatter den forskellige kombinationer af medlemmer i firm. qualitative studies, 1(2) 130 “..it is what is unsaid and unseen that is of interest” (chia and holt: strategy without design, s. 99) indledning ”vi satser i virksomheden på at udvide de ydelser, vi tilbyder vore største kunder, så vort produkt ikke alene er det konkrete halvfabrikata, vi sælger. vi tilbyder i stedet sammen med vore store kunder at medvirke i en integreret udvikling af vort halvfabrikata og resten af kundens produkt på en måde, så kundens samlede produkt får den størst mulige attraktivitet overfor slutbrugere. det er allerede lykkedes os at involvere flere store kunder i denne proces.” sådan beskrev direktøren for en af de virksomheder, der deltager i vores igangværende forskningsprojekt, straway,3 i store træk sin strategiske ledelsesopgave, da vi i september 2009 mødtes med ham første gang. siden da er denne beskrivelse gradvist blevet uddybet. det drejer sig om en proces, der for virksomheden vil resultere i en ny måde at drive forretning på. en måde der allerede har ført til et betydeligt mersalg. der er tale om en innovativ idé, som kan få afgørende strategisk betydning. det er samtidig en idé, der er groet frem næsten af sig selv i det daglige arbejde, og er således ikke noget, ledelsen i virksomheden har analyseret sig frem til eller kopieret fra andre. og intuitivt for ledelsen føles ideen rigtig. direktøren har, primært sammen med sin souschef, på den måde tilsyneladende fundet et guldæg, som kan være med til at bringe virksomheden styrket ud af finanskrisen. den store opgave, ledelsen nu står med, er at få egne sælgere til at forstå og kunne anvende de teknikker, der er nødvendige for at få dette nye udviklingsog salgskoncept til at fungere over for de øvrige store kunder. det er ikke tilstrækkeligt, at direktøren er i stand til at overbevise enkelte kunder om løsningens fortræffelighed. den skal også kunne praktiseres af virksomhedens meget erfarne sælgere. han ser, at dette skal skabes i et samspil mellem den nye idé og eksisterende kompetencer. der er her tale om at sælge på en anderledes måde, nemlig gennem at overbevise kundens topledelse om ideens fortræffelighed gennem at demonstrere, hvilken forøget værdiskabelse der ligger i denne. i det tidligere strategiske koncept har det været kundens indkøbere, sælgeren har skullet påvirke. udfordringen er, at det kan være vanskeligt for sælgerne at leve op til en kompetence, direktøren har udviklet og ønsker, at de udviser i deres arbejde, og det har medført en række konkrete besværligheder for sælgerne. så ét er for direktøren at udvikle en innovativ idé med strategisk rækkevidde, men en anden særdeles vigtig del i strategisk ledelse er hos alle sælgere, designere, logistikere og ledere at udvikle de praktiske kompetencer, der er nødvendig for at realisere ideen. den løbende daglige strategiske ledelsesudfordring er dermed at få en sådan idé til at blive til virkelighed og en del af den daglige praksis. denne artikel handler om udvikling af en metodik til at undersøge, hvordan sådanne hverdagsprocesser foregår, og det ovenstående eksempel kan ses som et indgangsbillede på en strategisk proces. 3 straway er et flerårigt forskningsprojekt, som blev indledt i 2009 i samarbejde med en dansk brancheorganisation med det formål at undersøge dagligdagens strategiske ledelsesprocesser i et mindre antal virksomheder, og er en efterfølger til det stracon-projekt, som tillige indgår i artiklen. begge projekters indhold og metode vil hen gennem denne artikel blive beskrevet i detaljer og danne grundlag for en væsentlig del af diskussionerne af kvalitativ metode. qualitative studies, 1(2) 131 den væsentligste interesse for at udvikle teori for strategi i virksomheder har gennem tiden været baseret på at opbygge strukturmodeller for markeder og konkurrence (se f.eks. ansoff & mcdonnel 1990; lynch 2003; de witt & meyer 2010). kort fortalt tager en strukturmodel udgangspunkt i, hvad det er for betingelser, de markeder, virksomheden arbejder på, stiller til denne, og modellen anviser derudfra, hvordan ledelsen skal strukturere sine strategiske aktiviteter (johnson, scholes & whittington 2008: 301). meget omtalte er i den sammenhæng en række modeller opbygget af den amerikanske strategiforsker michael porter. mindre belyst er, hvorledes og om sådanne modeller specifikt anvendes i konkret virksomhedsledelse (se som udgangspunkt: mintzberg, 1994). undersøgelse af dette fænomen var, hvad firm-gruppen satte sig for at arbejde med i 2005. dette er blevet undersøgt gennem tre forløb, som har i alt involveret tre gange fem topledere og deres femten virksomheder i et projekt ved navn stracon-projektet. metodikken, der diskuteres i denne artikel, er udviklet på grundlag af disse forløb og i det igangværende forskningsprojekt. både de tidligere forløb og det nuværende projekt arbejder med at skaffe viden om en række uformelle hverdagshandlinger og brug af intuition hos ledere som redskaber til at udvikle og udfolde virksomhedens strategi. dette analyseres lidt utraditionelt gennem interaktion mellem forskere og ledere fra forskellige virksomheder og gennem deres fælles fortolkninger af konkrete strategiske iagttagelser. artiklen diskuterer i relation hertil en række muligheder og kritiske punkter i metodikken. det fænomen, der undersøges, kan genfindes også i gængse lærebøger om strategi (johnson et al. 2008: 423) og handler om lederes håndtering af samspil mellem en organisations omgivelser, ressourcer og mål, hvilket kan stå som definition på strategisk ledelse i praksis. men formålet med undersøgelsen må siges at ligge uden for det, som i lærebøgerne er hovedstrømmen i strategisk teori. interessen i vore analyser er hverdagsprocesser, mere end de officielle strategidokumenter. det er en interesse, som dog kan findes i anden strategilitteratur (ahlstrand, lampel & mintzberg 1998; cummings 2002; jarzabkowski, balogun & d. seidl 2007; carter, clegg & kornberger 2008; chia & holt 2009). metodikkens paradigmatiske udgangspunkt den fremgangsmåde, som forskningsarbejdet følger, har sin inspiration i et fortolkende paradigme inden for virksomhedsteori (arbnor & bjerke 1977; arbnor & bjerke 2009). metodikken er samtidig i høj grad baseret på produktion af kvalitative data (andersen 2008) og bygger i høj grad på dialog mellem aktør og forsker (kvale 2000). et fortolkende paradigme knytter sig til en bestemt ontologi. en tilgang, som har en fænomenologisk inspiration og derfor ikke baserer sig på, at erkendelse er endelig, men at resultater af forskningsprojekter kun er ”valid until further notice” (schutz 1970:49). steiner kvale skriver om det meningsløse i at lede efter ”den egentlige mening” (kvale 2000: 220), hvilket tillige er en opfattelse, der deles i det her anvendte paradigme. og ud fra dette paradigme skal resultaterne af studiet af sådanne erkendelsesprocesser i højere grad måles ud fra ”is it interesting? is it relevant? is it beautiful?” end ud fra ”is it valid? is it reliable? is it science?” (czarniawska 2004:136). i sådanne processer møder fortolkninger løbende andre fortolkninger, og de synteser, der opstår heraf gennem relationerne mellem aktører og gennem tolkning af fænomener, ændrer ikke qualitative studies, 1(2) 132 kun strategier, men forandrer virksomheden i små skridt (chia & tsoukas 2002; gergen & thatchenkery 2004; weick, sutcliffe & d. obstfeld 2005). undersøgelsen og dens metodik bygger videre på metoder i en række forskningsprojekter, flere af os har været involveret i gennem de seneste ti år (rasmussen 2001; jørgensen og rasmussen (red.) 2005; laursen og rasmussen (red.) 2007; larsen og rasmussen 2007; gregersen, lind og rasmussen 2009; gelsing, gjerding, nielsen, rasmussen & vinding 2008; rasmussen 2006; larsen & rasmussen 2008). endvidere er metodikken udviklet i samspil med metodeudvikling i en igangværende empirisk undersøgelse af strategiske processer i én stor servicevirksomhed (larsen, 2008). metodikkens vægt på et fortolkende paradigme fokuserer på følgende elementer: praksis: det ledere gør (carter et al. 2008), hverdag: det, som dagligt tages op til behandling (jarzabkowski et al. 2007), livsverden: lederens samlede forståelse af sin hverdag (schutz & luckmann 1973), aktiv dialog: problemløsende dialog mellem aktører, her ledere (arbor & bjerke 2009), forskerens involvering i forskningsprocessen: samspillet mellem ledere og forskere (clark & fast 2008) og ledernes rolle i strategiprocesser: alle praktiske dimensioner af ledelse (johnson et al 2008). praksis, hverdag og livsverden sætter sigtepunkter for metodikken, som derigennem søger at fange det gængse, de daglige handlinger og det, at en organisation er i stadig bevægelse og forandring gennem inkrementelle skridt (chia & holt 2008). ledernes rolle både i virksomhedernes strategiprocesser og som direkte involverede sammen med forskerne i produktion af ny erkendelse om dagligdagen peger på de typer af interagerende relationer, der er et væsentlig led i metodikken. at arbejde ud fra dette paradigme består i at lægge dokumenterede billeder af disse processer frem. billeder, som både de deltagende ledere og læsere med interesse for feltet kan tage op til overvejelse. men det vil være i strid med de forudsætninger, paradigmet sætter op, at tro, det er muligt at arbejde hen mod en generel ”grand theory” for feltet. strategisk ledelse som forskningsfelt set med traditionelle briller og ud fra hovedstrømmen i den hidtidige udvikling i strategiteori kan den forskningsintention, der ligger bag opbygningen af denne metodik, for nogen virke irrelevant. denne intention handler anskuet ud fra hovedstrømmen i strategiteori tilsyneladende om studiet af ganske almindelige hverdagsaktiviteter i virksomheder. aktiviteter, som kun i begrænset grad kan have strategisk interesse. det vil være et synspunkt, der vil kunne blive fremført. men det er erfaringer fra blandt andet tidligere undersøgelser, vi har arbejdet med, og fra en voksende gruppe af forskningsprojekter om strategi, som ofte går under betegnelsen ”strategy-as-practice” (whittington, molloy, mayer & smith 2006; whittington, jarzabkowski, mayer, mounoud, nahapiet & roleau 2003; johnson, langly, melin & whittington 2008 b), at disse mere hverdagsagtige og på erfaring og intuition baserede handlinger spiller en betydelig rolle for at få en strategi til at lykkes. det er tillige noget, som mange praktiserende ledere giver udtryk for, når det drejer sig om ledelseshandlinger, som berører relationer mellem omgivelser, ressourcer og mål i virksomheder (larsen & rasmussen 2008b). handlinger baseret på intuition er sådanne, som lederne forklarer ved, at det gjorde de bare, fordi det var det naturlige at gøre i situationen. sådanne handlinger er ikke baseret på en forudgående logisk opbygget kalkulering, men bruger implicit nogle af de erfaringer, der er internaliseret gennem arbejdet som leder. qualitative studies, 1(2) 133 med det udgangspunkt var der for os skabt interesse og mulighed for at arbejde med dette forskningsfelt. det kræver efter vores opfattelse ikke kun en aktiv indsats fra forskere. det kræver tillige, at praktiserende ledere medvirker aktivt. ikke kun for at ledere selv reflekterer over egne handlinger, men for at bidrage til en fælles erkendelse, som rækker ud over den enkelte strategiske proces og den enkelte virksomhed. der skulle udvikles en metodik, der både er praktiserbar og gennemskuelig for forskere som for ledere. dette skulle ske med udgangspunkt i, at strategiske processer i virksomheder altid vil bære præg af, at de udgør en bevægelse fra noget kendt til noget nyt og kun delvist kendt. dette sker ofte gennem, at ledere tilsyneladende handler helt intuitivt, og at sådanne ledelsesprocesser er vedvarende uden fast startog slutpunkt. praktisering af strategisk ledelse sker dag efter dag. struktur eller proces? stracon-forløbene peger på, at den viden, som ledere har om strategiske muligheder og problemer, altid er foreløbig og kontinuert vil blive erstattet af ny midlertidig erkendelse. dette kan siges at stå i modsætning til mange af de strukturmodeller, som ofte præger de teoretiske forestillinger om strategi, og hvor en virksomhed har én og måske kun én bedste model for sin strategiske adfærd. det er samtidig således, at den offentlige diskurs om strategi både i teori og praksis i høj grad bygger på sådanne strukturelle løsninger gerne med en forestilling om, at der kan nås én optimal løsning, og ofte ud fra eksempler, der er blevet kanoniseret som succeser. dette er med til at gøre det at diskutere strategi som hverdagsprocesser til noget mere usædvanligt og måske til noget, der ikke hos alle vækker det store bifald. strukturelle syn på ledelse bygger også ofte på, at erkendelse, som ikke direkte kan præsenteres i tal og i officielt godkendte beretninger, kan forekomme virksomhedsledere og for den sags skyld forskere lidt suspekt. ledere er vant til at præsentere og argumentere ud fra nedfældede regnskaber, beretninger og planer. derfor betyder studiet af strategisk praksis et ændret fokus i retning af en fælles diskussion om, hvad man intuitivt gør i hverdagen og med hvilke intentioner. det er en form for perspektivskifte, som for mange ledere er uvant og ikke helt enkel. når handlinger baseret på intuition og praktiske erfaringer skal diskuteres, er det officielle og formelle sprog for virksomhedsledelse ikke længere tilstrækkeligt. derfor kræver en brug af hverdagens sprog, som er anderledes end det, der anvendes i de normale officielle præsentationer, som de kendes fra virksomheders hjemmesider og regnskaber. det kræver en anden form for opmærksomhed på hverdagen og det hverdagsagtige. det almindeliges betydning for strategien skal kunne fanges i flugten og endevendes i en fælles dialog. det betyder, at alle deltagere skal have plads til at fortælle om deres ledelseshverdag, så forestillinger om sammenhænge og forløb får plads i typer af fortællinger om og fra virksomhedernes dagligdag. endelig vil arbejdet med uformelle strategiske processer bære præg af, at det består af mange sammenhængende og usammenhængende hverdagsprocesser, som tilsammen kan ses som en fortløbende, men ofte modsætningsfyldt diskurs i virksomheden. en måde at karakterisere det på, er gennem udtrykket meshwork (ingold 2000), som både dækker, at det er en sum af processer, der snor sig ind imellem hinanden, skaber forskellige spor og er i stadig bevægelse. qualitative studies, 1(2) 134 strategiske hverdagsprocesser trækker samtidig på virksomhedens historie, vaner, rutiner og erfaring og arbejder på at konstruere troværdige billeder af en i princippet ukendt fremtid. dette princip om den ukendte strategiske fremtid blev i øvrigt med finanskrisen fra slutningen af 2008 til en barsk realitet for flertallet af virksomheder og deres ledere, noget der fik stor betydning for forskningsprocessen i straway-projektet. formål med at studere strategiske hverdagsprocesser er at komme tættere på en erkendelse af, hvad det er, virksomhedsledere går og gør, når de i hverdagen håndterer sådanne opgaver. men det er samtidig en proces, der, for at processen lykkes, for den enkelte leder skal føre resultater med sig i form af en øget erkendelse og øget evne til håndtering af strategiske processer. dette er ikke erkendelse, der i forskningseller i praksissammenhæng alene handler om strategi. det er erkendelse og ny viden, der tillige knytter sig til, hvad der holder sammen på og udvikler en virksomhed som organisation. metodik og paradigme en undersøgelse af strategiske ledelsesprocesser benytter information fra såvel kvalitative som kvantitative datakilder. den trækker på de formelle kilder i form af regnskaber, budgetter, planer og kalkuler, der stilles til rådighed. men når det handler om at producere viden om de processer, som trækker på erfaringer og intuition og på hverdagsbegivenheder, vil kvalitative kilder spille en afgørende rolle. udgangspunktet er her, at undersøgelser med hovedvægten på kvalitative studier vil være nødvendige til forståelse af mange fænomener, hvor det ikke er muligt eller ikke hensigtsmæssigt at søge at kvantificere data. det er en diskussion, som føres i mange metodebøger (se f.eks. kvale 2000; robson 2002; carson, gilmore, perry & gronhaug 2005; andersen 2008). i vores optik anvendes kvalitative metoder ikke uden tilpasning til det paradigme, der danner baggrunden for et konkret forskningsprojekt. den relation, der skal opbygges mellem metodik og paradigme, skal specificeres (arbnor & bjerke 2009:22). det hænger sammen med, at et paradigme i praksis definerer, hvad der er data, og hvorledes data skal tolkes. det er et udgangspunkt for den metodik, der præsenteres her, at paradigmet farver metodikken, samtidig med at det konkrete undersøgelsesområde ikke kun påvirker udformningen af metodikken, men at paradigmet gennem metodikken samtidig lægger et undersøgelsesperspektiv ned over feltet. for at komme lidt mere konkret ind på dette og samtidig præsentere metodikken kan det være formålstjenligt at beskrive forløbet af det nu afsluttede stracon projekt, hvor en række forskere i 2005 startede med en idé om at undersøge strategi. det handlede i første omgang om at foretage eksplorative studier af strategiske processer i virksomhedskontekst. den idé opstod ud fra, at vore erfaringer sagde os, at specielt i små og mellemstore virksomheders praksis var en systematisk brug af strategiske modeller og procedurer ikke særligt anvendt. når der fandt strategisk ledelse sted, så det ud til at være præget af lejlighedsvis og spontan aktivitet og ikke af systemer og regelmæssighed. det er ikke for hverken små eller store virksomheder noget principielt nyt. det synspunkt har været bragt frem gennem mange år (mintzberg 1978; mintzberg 1994). men det, som vi som forskere gerne ville, var at skabe en empirisk baseret viden om, hvad der så finder sted i de mindre virksomheder, når der sker ændringer i relationer mellem virksomhedens omgivelser, dens ressourcer og dens mål. var det ændringer, der var helt styrede af markedet, af de vaner, der qualitative studies, 1(2) 135 eksisterer i virksomheden, eller gennem ideer, der opstår i situationen hos virksomhedens ledelse? den metodiske konklusion på dette var, at dette kun ville kunne undersøges i et relativt tæt samspil med ledere, der praktiserer strategi. involvering af praktikere i forskningsprocessen at trække praktikere ind som samarbejdspartnere i forskningsprojekt er inden for bl.a. organisationsområdet langt fra noget nyt. mange af de forestillinger, der i dag eksisterer omkring, hvorledes organisationer fungerer, er udviklet gennem casestudier i enkeltvirksomheder, og metodik til casestudier er beskrevet i mange metodebøger (f.eks.yin 1989; robson 2002; andersen 2008). imidlertid var ambitionen i stracon en anden, idet virksomhedsledere skulle spille en mere betydende rolle i produktionen af data end i det traditionelle casestudium. det hang sammen med vores forståelse af, at specielt i små og mellemstore virksomheder har ledelsen en meget afgørende, men noget usystematisk funktion i arbejdet med strategi. lederne skulle trækkes ind ikke alene som ”dataleverandører”, men også som kontaktskabere og som fortolkere af fænomener på feltet. stracon blev fra starten udviklet til, at der skulle skabes en stærk forbindelse fra felt til metodik. men det blev stadig tydeligere gennem forløbene, at netop den måde, strategi blev håndteret på ofte som svar på noget pludseligt opdukkende (emergerende, se f.eks. mintzberg 1978) og gennem intuitive handlinger, kræver visse paradigmatiske overvejelser. det handler om, hvorledes intuition og brug af opbygget erfaring kan forstås, når det praktiseres i strategiske ledelsesprocesser. det kræver en aktiv indsats ikke kun fra forskere, men også fra de ledere, der deltager. det at trække ledere fra forskellige virksomheder ind i et sådant projekt, er ikke helt ligetil. ledere vil ofte opfatte et sådant projektforløb og deres deltagelse ud fra et af to forskellige perspektiver. det ene perspektiv er, at deres rolle i forskningsprocessen er tilsammen at udgøre en form for styre eller koordineringsgruppe, som monitorerer forløbet. det andet perspektiv er, at projektet skal ses som en avanceret form for erfaringsopsamlingsgruppe. men intentionen med stracon-metodikken var noget helt tredje: en integration af disse to opgaver. lederne skulle derfor både være aktive med deres egne strategiske problemstillinger, de skulle optræde som kontaktpersoner til deres virksomhed, og de skulle deltage som diskussionspartnere med de øvrige virksomhedsledere og forskerne. ideen til denne opbygning hentede inspiration fra flere kilder. dels var det et forsøg på at bruge erfaringer fra flerårige aktiviteter i træning af ledere. dels var det erfaringer, som var hentet fra undersøgelsen af organisatorisk læring, som var et flerårigt empirisk studium. og dels var der inspiration fra aktionsforskning og action learning. stracon-projektet hentede på den måde inspiration fra forskellige sider af organisationssociologien og lagde samtidig et pragmatisk udgangspunkt. pragmatisk i den betydning, at vi sammen med de udvalgte ledere løbende søgte at udvikle et forløb, som så vidt muligt passede alle deltagere. metodeudvikling i stracon første runde af stracon projektet lagde ud under ret kontrollerede former. vi inviterede fem ledere, vi kendte til, og som vi troede på var interesseret i at diskutere strategi, til at deltage i en række forskningsseminarer over en periode på otte måneder. de kom fra forskellige virksomheder og forpligtede sig til at møde op til denne række seminarer – i alt fem af cirka tre timers varighed. qualitative studies, 1(2) 136 de skulle endvidere modtage en eller to af os forskere på deres virksomhed for en præsentation af virksomheden, interview og gennemlæsning af relevante strategipapirer. vi skulle så på grundlag af denne besøgsrunde skrive en case fra hver virksomhed, som byggede på aktuelle strategiske problemstillinger. hver case blev godkendt og derefter præsenteret af den enkelte leder og diskuteret af alle på seminarerne. det første seminar blev brugt til at præsentere metodikken og præsentere vore syn på strategi. det sidste seminar blev brugt til en teoretisk og praktisk afrunding med en form for evaluering. denne første sæson var en resultatmæssig succes i form af de informationer, der blev produceret om, hvordan strategi tænkes og håndteres i de fem virksomheder, og i den interesse, de fem ledere viste. vi fik materiale til spændende cases, som både indeholdt interessante forskningsproblemstillinger og i flere tilfælde blev til anonymiserede cases, som blev anvendt i undervisningen (se f. eks. gelsing m.fl. 2008). det førte til, at vi næste år startede en runde med seks ledere, som vi ikke på forhånd kendte, og som på vores foranledning var blevet kontaktet af en regional, midtjysk erhvervsfremmeinstitution. det andet år forløb cirka efter samme skabelon som det første, og resultaterne var af samme type og kvalitet. dette førte til et forøget ambitionsniveau for det tredje år, idet der her ikke kun blev samlet en gruppe på fem ledere, hvoraf en var genganger fra andet år. aftalen med lederne blev, at hver virksomhed kunne besøges af forskere flere gange. formålet med det var at søge at følge strategiske processer mellem et halvt og trekvart år. det skulle gøres for derigennem dels at følge udviklingen i det enkelte strategitema og dels at se på, hvorledes strategiske temaer afløser hinanden i virksomheder. med det metodiske koncept skiftede undersøgelsen karakter. nu var der ikke længere tale om en traditionel eksplorativ undersøgelse, idet den nu i høj grad koncentrerede sig om proces og kommunikation omkring strategiske processer. undersøgelsens paradigme var på vej til at forlade sit tidligere relative brede udgangspunkt, hvor økonomer, erhvervsøkonomer, organisationsteoretikere og ledelsesforskere ud fra hvert deres perspektiv skulle kunne udnytte data. i stedet blev undersøgelsen i stadig højere grad præget af en interesse for det intuitive og det erfaringsbaserede i strategisk ledelse og dermed i et forsøg på eksternalisering af erfaring og intuition til brug for forståelse af, hvorledes uformelle strategiske processer forløber. denne udvikling, hvis mere principielle rammer vil blive diskuteret nedenfor, var ikke kun påvirket af de strategiske temaer, der blev analyseret i cases og i seminarer mellem ledere og forskere. den blev samtidig skabt af de ledere og forskere, der deltog. lederne var ud over at være administrerende direktører eller næstledere en relativ heterogen gruppe, men med visse homogene kendetegn. det første hold bestod af to økonomer og tre ingeniører, alle i fyrreårsalderen. det andet hold var lidt mere heterogent med en lidt højere gennemsnitsalder og med halvdelen med en formel videregående udannelse og den anden halvdel uden. med hensyn til den tredje runde var deltagerne to ingeniører, to økonomer og en med anden uddannelse. virksomhederne arbejdede inden for en lang række brancher. forskernes fagfelter var som nævnt tidligere: økonomi, organisation og ledelse. to forskere var gennemgående i alle tre forløb, mens tre deltog i et eller to forløb. qualitative studies, 1(2) 137 figur 1 stracon-undersøgelsens forløb forberedelse 1. forløb efterbehandling 2. forløb efterbehandling 3.forløb efterbehandling forskerne 5 ledere forskerne 6 ledere forskerne 54 ledere forskerne 6 måneder 8 måneder 4 måneder 8 måneder 4 måneder 8 måneder 6 måneder de tre forløb kan retrospektivt ses som trin i en metodeudvikling. første forløb blev en afklaring af, hvordan strategiarbejde i sådanne små og mellemstore virksomheder kan anskues. andet forløb kom til at sætte fokus på lederes aktiviteter i sådanne forløb. tredje forløb blev i betydelig grad rettet mod, hvorledes ledere kommunikerer mellem sig og med medarbejdere i forbindelse med strategiske processer i den enkelte virksomhed. specielt springet fra et besøg til flere i det tredje forløb, tre til fire besøg pr. virksomhed, betød samtidig et betydeligt tættere og integreret samspil mellem de forskellige forskningsaktiviteter: interview med lederen, interview med andre ledere i samme virksomhed, dokumentstudier og virksomhedsbesøg. i tre af de deltagende virksomheder i tredje forløb betød det en nærmere integration af forskere i den løbende diskussion af virksomhedens strategiske temaer. kontakten til de to øvrige var mere formel. som en sideeffekt af dette kom én af virksomhederne til ret intensivt at medvirke i et flerårigt ph.d.projekt om strategisk ledelse, udvikling og kommunikation. sammenhænge mellem felt, paradigme og metodik principperne, som de er blevet udviklet i løbet af den samlede proces, kan ses i et samspil mellem felt, paradigme og metodik. figur 2 felt, paradigme, metodik principperne for undersøgelsen blev ud fra den måde, forskningstemaerne udviklede sig på, som nævnt stadig mere inspireret af et fortolkende paradigme. det betød dels, at hvor det i starten var en eksplorativ undersøgelse af, hvor meget mainstream strategiteori blev brugt, og hvad der 4 heraf én genganger fra året før sætte empiriske grænser definerer data skaber perspektiv tjekker tydeliggør sætter epistemologiske rammer felt metodik paradigme qualitative studies, 1(2) 138 supplerede dette, så udviklede formålet sig til at se på, hvad det var, ledere med en omfattende praktisk og teoretisk uddannelse anvendte i strategiarbejdet, når det fra de første forløb kunne konstateres, at de ikke brugte de modeller, de havde lært om på læreanstalten og læst om i bøger. for at kunne komme nærmere ind på dette krævede det en metodik, der arbejder med relationerne mellem ledere indbyrdes og mellem ledere og forskere. en iagttagelse, der blev gjort, var, at lederne, når de var sammen, ikke talte om strategi i mainstream strategisprog, men meget mere var indstillet på at gøre det i det sprog, som de bruger i deres hverdagskommunikation i virksomheden. det sprog definerer en række empiriske grænser, som er med til at forme metodikken, når den arbejder under et fortolkende paradigme. samtidig skaber et sådant paradigme et bestemt perspektiv på feltet og dermed på empirien. dette kan forstås på den måde, at i metodikkens operationalisering af paradigmet sker der en tydeliggørelse af særlige karakteristika ved dette. det betyder f.eks., at den samtale, der foregår mellem leder og forsker, føres af begge ud fra en interesse om, at de internaliserede erfaringer om strategi får en mulighed for at blive eksternaliseret gennem det hverdagssprog, der anvendes (se f.eks. arbnor & bjerke 1977:139; se også nonaka & takeuchi 1995). det tydeliggjorde og prioriterede opmærksomheden på uformelle kommunikationsog fælles reflektionsprocesser. det betyder endvidere, at dialogen mellem ledere og mellem ledere og forskere får et intensivt udforskende indhold på en anden og mere direkte virksomhedsrettet måde end den første fases eksplorative studier. dette retter den metodiske interesse mod den måde, strategiske processer skaber mening og betydning på, og de ledelsesprocesser, der knytter sig til dette. som nævnt kan forskningsprocessen, som den blev udøvet i det tredje forløb, opfattes som en bestræbelse på eksternalisering af erfaringer, som gennem en længere periode ved brug er blevet internaliseret hos ledere, i gruppen af ledere i den enkelte virksomhed, og i et vist omfang i hele virksomheden og i dele af dens omgivelser. denne eksternalisering fremmes gennem en metodik, der såvel anvender en integreret kombination af dokumentstudier, virksomhedsbesøg, observation, ustrukturerende interview, etnografiske interview, samtaler, cases diskussioner og en fortløbende dialog. ledere og forskere medvirkede i processen som ligestillede parter, men med forskellige kompetencer. sammen udforsker de processer, der ikke findes dokumenteret viden om, og hvor det, der måtte være nedfældet i rapporter ol. i virksomheden, kun omfatter en lille del og kun berører hjørner af det internaliserede og usagte. metodikkens konceptuelle inspiration et retrospektivt blik på metodens udvikling gennem de tre forløb åbner for et andet tema, som handler om, hvor de enkelte elementer i metodikken hentes fra. metodikken blev udviklet, mens undersøgelsen fandt sted, og det gælder tillige videreudviklingen i straway-projektet, som har været i gang siden 2009. denne udvikling prioriterede i høj grad metodikkens praktiske sider. hvad angår den mere teoretiske side, er inspirationen mere indirekte, men den har tydeligvis elementer til fælles med tidligere anvendte metodikker i empiriske undersøgelser. til gengæld vil det ikke være muligt alene at følge ét enkelt spor bagud for dermed at skabe et overblik over de teoretiske rødder for metodikken. qualitative studies, 1(2) 139 en måde at se på de teoretiske rødder for undersøgelsen er at tage udgangspunkt i samtalen (kvale 2000:47) som metodikkens ”mindste” enhed for frembringelse og forståelse for de processer, der studeres. dette peger på den inspiration fra fænomenologien, som metodikken er kommet til at bære præg af. det er på flere måder studiet af en intentionel og kollektiv proces. på den måde eksisterer der relationer til berger og luckmann (berger & luckmann 1976) og til alfred schutz (schutz & luckmann 1973) og dermed til forestillingen om livsverden og dialektikken mellem samfund og menneske, og således her mellem virksomhed og leder. en central inspiration er i den sammenhæng to svenske aktørsforskere (arbnor & bjerke 1977; arbnor & bjerke 2009), som bl.a. kan stå som inspiratorerne til dialektikken mellem internalisering og eksternalisering i metodikken. den samlede metodik, og herunder, at såvel kvantitative som kvalitative kilder og teknikker anvendes, bliver til det, som benævnes mixed, flexible method (robson 2002). det betyder, at feltet, og det forløb, erkendelse produceres gennem, styrer de operationelle beslutninger om anvendelse af enkeltteknikker. at metoden er mixed er lig med, at valget af dialogform afhænger af feltets øjeblikkelige respons. et virksomhedsbesøg er planlagt til et bestemt sted på et aftalt tidspunkt, men alt efter hvad der sker på den dag i virksomheden, kan kredsen af samtalepartnere og formen for kommunikation fastlægges eller ændres på stedet. inspiration fra action research det tredje og mest sammenfattende niveau i undersøgelsen og dermed de roller, deltagerne og deres kommunikation får, er, set retrospektivt, inspireret af aktionsforskning og af action learning. det var en erkendelse, der først sent er kommet eksplicit ind i arbejdet, men implicit har spillet en rolle hele tiden. det hænger sammen med, at metodikken deler flere elementer med aktionsforskning (dickens og watkins, 1999). det gælder åbenheden over for som forsker direkte at være med i de forandringsprocesser, som en eksplicitering af tavs strategisk viden i sig selv medfører, og vigtigheden af at lade ledere diskutere hinandens forståelse af strategi og strategisk ledelse. man kan selvfølgelig sige, at al forskning er aktionsforskning (mathisen 1973:31), men selv uden at gå til den yderlighed, er der aktionsforskningselementer i metodikken, dog uden, som det til tider gøres, at aktionsforskning først og fremmest er et forsøg på at realisere bestemte praktiske mål (op. cit.:31). det, som metodikken helst ikke deler med aktionsforskning, er risikoen for ubevidst at blive forført af bestemte ledelsesagendaer, mens vægten på refleksion (clegg, hardy & nord 1996:21) og samarbejde er prioriteret. det betyder, at metodikken accepterer, at andre end forskerne direkte skal have et udbytte af arbejdet. det er et princip i metodikken, at lederne enkeltvis og tilsammen kan handle for at nå egne mål. det er i øvrigt noget, som direkte kan observeres i de fælles diskussioner på seminarerne. lederne analyserer andres ideer, kommer selv med ideer til fælles overvejelse og med løsningsforslag på andre lederes problemer. megen af den dialog, som finder sted på seminarerne, har til formål, at lederne hjælper hinanden til at nå nye erkendelser og konklusioner på konkrete strategiske problemstillinger. fandt dette ikke sted på seminarerne, ville det være meget vanskeligt at fange og forstå dele af den implicitte erfaringsbaserede viden, den enkelte leder besidder. det er igennem at arbejde på den måde, det implicitte i strategisk ledelse kommer frem i dialogen. det fører direkte ind i kurt lewin’s arbejder med action research fra 1940erne, som ifølge chris argyris (french & bell 1999: 138) var: problemdrevet, klientcentreret, udfordrede status quo og producerede empiriske modfortællinger, som passer ind i en teori, der er brugelig i hverdagslivet. qualitative studies, 1(2) 140 flere af disse elementer ligger inden for den metodik, som præsenteres her, selv om modfortællingen ikke har spillet nogen rolle i metodikken indtil nu. metodikken er problemdrevet i et problembaseret læringsformat i arbejdet med at definere strategiske problemstillinger, og arbejdet med disse problemstillinger kan netop føre til eksplicitering af internaliserede erfaringer. klientcentreret handler om, at dette også er til gavn for lederne. udfordrende status quo handler om at se strategi som noget andet end mainstream lærebogsteori. og brugelig teori handler om vægten på teori som hverdagsopfattelser og –sprog. action research set i lewins perspektiv handler om, at hvis organisatoriske mønstre af relationer skal forstås, kan det kun ske gennem et forsøg på at ændre disse. det er en forudsætning, som den her anvendte metodik søger at imødekomme gennem de fælles diskussioner af specifikke strategiske processer. kobling til action learning en anden tilgang, som kan siges at have lighedspunkter med aktionsforskning, og som præger metodikken, er action learning5. det er cirka 60 år siden, begrebet action learning (revans 1992) blev præsenteret for ledelserne i en række engelske kulminer. action learning kan næppe siges siden da at være blevet en dominerende læringsmetode, men findes i en række versioner (marsick & o`neal 1999). pointen er imidlertid, at denne metode anvendt som et led i praktisk empirisk forskning kan bruges i en afklaring af, hvorledes den tavse viden, der har betydning i strategisk ledelse, kommer til veje. det er samtidig således, at elementer af denne action learning kan genfindes i den måde, som strategisk ledelseskompetence opbygges på i praksis i virksomhederne, om end dette sjældent sker i en særlig systematisk form. action learning har i sit oprindelige udgangspunkt følgende praktiske spørgsmål til ledere: hvad er det, jeg og min virksomhed virkelig forsøger at nå? hvad stopper os i at nå det? og kan vi finde en vej til at løse dette? (revans, 1992:67; min oversættelse jgr) selv om sådanne spørgsmål ikke var formuleret eksplicit i de tre forløb i stracon, så var det temaer, der i høj grad prægede de diskussioner, der foregik på seminarerne, og det var tydeligt, at ledere i flere tilfælde tog ideer til nye løsninger med hjem. dette knytter sig til forestillingen om at forstå gennem at skabe forandring, der er et led i selve metodikken. det er i øvrigt en proces, der har været fremhævet af flere ledere i de evalueringer, der efter hver runde blev foretaget. resultater fra stracon da denne artikel koncentrerer sig om at præsentere en forskningsmetodik, er der ikke plads til at præsentere de resultater, der er kommet ud af stracon-projektet. det er sket andre steder (gelsing m.fl. 2008; larsen & rasmussen 2008 b; larsen 2008; rasmussen 2008). en opsummering af dette vil være den vægt, der her har været lagt på at præsentere ligheder og forskelle mellem de resultater, stracon-projektet har produceret, og så mainstream strategifremstillinger. 5 lighederne med action research blev genopfrisket gennem kommentarer fra professor vernon trafford, anglia-ruskin university, cambridge, da han i vinteren 2010 blev præsenteret for metodikken. qualitative studies, 1(2) 141 et gennemgående resultat er, at blandt ledere af små og mellemstore virksomheder spiller de formelle teorier, modeller og teknikker en ubetydelig rolle. hvad der derimod spiller en rolle, er den specifikke og særlige måde, hvorpå ledelsen i den enkelte virksomhed opfatter dens relationer til omgivelserne og de interne relationer. et andet gennemgående resultat er, at set henover en enkelt sæson er der mange af de enkelte elementer i strategien, der skifter betydning. men samtidig har ledelsen bag dette en forståelse af, at de udvikler og fastholder en implicit kerne af strategi i virksomheden, som set i deres tidsperspektiv er næsten uendelig og som i meget høj grad indeholder billedet af, hvad virksomheden er, kan og skal. metodikkens elementer og praktiske fremgangsmåde det har ovenfor været nævnt, hvilke elementer metodikken er bygget sammen af: besøg, cases, seminarer og efterbehandling. imidlertid kan metodikken beskrives mere detaljeret i følgende elementer: udvælgelse og introduktion af aktører, undersøgelser i virksomheden, udformning af case, præsentation af case, diskussion af case med deltagelse af ledere og forskere, opsamling af resultater og ny runde af undersøgelser. denne grundform blev udviklet til den tredje runde af stracon projektet og anvendes i det igangværende straway-projekt (larsen & rasmussen 2009). generelt kan det siges, at forskning inden for strategi og tilgrænsende områder er præget af et paradoks mellem på den ene side alle de fine og afslebne teorier og modeller, og på den anden side al det ”rodede” meshwork praksis. det er et paradoks, der er flere ”løsninger” på. en er at afskærme sig fra rodet gennem at afgrænse sin forskningsaktivitet til det, der kan kontrolleres, hvilket i høj grad er simplificerede modeller, som kun tager virkeligheden op under ordnede former. en anden løsning er som virksomhedsleder at acceptere at befinde sig midt i meshworket og søge at løse problemerne, som de kommer, måske engang imellem ved brug af dele af en model fra den ”teoretisk ordnede” verden. og en tredje, som er den, der følges her, og som kan vise sig at være den mest vanskelige, er at søge at afklare nogle af disse dynamiske forløb som meshwork gennem en fælles indsat mellem ledere og forskere. det er den måde, som har brug for kvalitative metoder til gennem dialog at sætte betydning på det uklare og utydelige. men det er som nævnt ikke den måde, lederne lærte om strategi, da de for år tilbage gik på læreanstalterne. og det er næppe den måde, de over for omverden ville præsentere deres arbejde med virksomhedens strategi. med andre ord skal den samlede undersøgelsesproces indeholde en form for anonymt og eksperimentelt frirum for lederne. samarbejde mellem virksomhedsledere og forskere et spændende og samtidig forstyrrende aspekt ved dette er, at ledere og forskere ofte ser den anden part som kommende fra en anden planet. en forudsætning for et vellykket projekt ved anvendelsen af en kvalitativ metodik i den her beskrevne form er imidlertid ikke at søge fra starten at gøre alle deltagere ens eller at skabe et ensartet sprog, som alle kan anvende. det ville nemlig, hvis det kunne lykkes, føre til en sproglig og indholdsmæssig forarmelse. det, som har vist sig, ikke er umuligt at skabe i undersøgelsesprocessen, er en accept af forskellighed i opfattelser og fortolkninger og en vilje til at bruge denne forskellighed til en mere dynamisk og dybtgående forståelse af fænomenet strategisk ledelse i hverdagen. det kræver imidlertid en fælles diskussion mellem ledere og forskere om to former for indsats. den ene er fra starten at involvere lederne i udformning af cases og præsentation af disse. den anden er, at qualitative studies, 1(2) 142 forskerne fra starten gør deres indlæg prøvende, spørgende og åbne. centralt i denne metodik er at gøre alle til ligeværdige deltagere i dialogen på virksomheden og på seminarerne. figur 4 undersøgelsens praktiske forløb (et gennemløb) udvælgelse og introduktion af aktører den udvælgelse, som er blevet brugt, har rettet sig mod at involvere ledere, der af sig selv er interesseret i temaet strategisk ledelse. hvad der kan ses som afgørende i de første faser, er den introduktion, som lederne får om undersøgelsens karakter og formål. metodikken kan ikke præsenteres som beskrivende eller hypoteseprøvende, hvilket ofte vil være lederes forventning til et forskningsprojekt. den beskrives som en søgen for at komme ”bagom” den måde, strategiske processer og strukturer normalt præsenteres formelt og officielt, og ind til ledernes daglige aktiviteter på området. det er et afgørende punkt, idet fænomenet, der undersøges, både er et, lederne har daglig kontakt til, men samtidig er det et, som mange teorier og modeller kun beskriver i formaliserede termer. et formål med introduktionen er, at aktørerne kommer frem til en erkendelse af, at dette er en analyse af deres og deres virksomheds hverdagspraksis, og det er ikke er recitation af de mest gængse teorier på markedet. hvis reaktionen fra aktørerne over for forskeres præsentation af metodikken ikke i starten lyder noget i retning af: ”hvad er dette for noget?”, så er sammenhængen mellem paradigme og metodik sandsynligvis ikke udtrykt tydeligt nok, idet den valgte fremgangsmåde vil virke særegen for langt de fleste ledere. processen har hverken form som en forelæsning på læreanstalten eller som et møde i en vl(virksomhedsledelses-)gruppe. men hvis denne reaktion til gengæld ikke i løbet af det første seminar ændrer sig til en, der er præget af større indsigt i metodikken, risikerer lederen at blive inaktiv. denne problemstilling er ikke enkel at håndtere. det hænger sammen med mange lederes forudfattede syn på forskning, som, hvilket var tydeligt i starten hos flere ledere i straconprojektet, går i retning af, at forskere er typer, der kommer med abstrakt afprøvede teorier og modeller, som et givet begivenhedsforløb fra praksis skal prøves over for. forskere kan ikke i lederes normalperspektiv være personer, der i bund og grund er mest interesseret i praksis. hvis forskerne derfor lægger ud med, at det, som skal i centrum, er strategisk praksis, vil det af nogle ledere blive opfattet som noget ret fremmedartet. dette var specielt i forbindelse med den første kommunikation både i straconog i strawayprojektet lidt overraskende for flere af de ledere, der havde meldt sig, men efter at de gennem seminarerne havde vænnet sig til det, skabte det en forestilling om, at alle – aktører og forskere var uens, men ligestillede, og at det var et fælles ansvar for alle at bidrage med den viden og de erfaringer, de kunne. de centrale punkter i introduktionen inkluderer fra forskernes side på den måde at vise, at der kan skabes relationer mellem undersøgelsens formål og de traditionelle teorier, udvælgelse introduktion virksomheds undersøgelse caseskrivning casepræsentat ion diskussion opsamling ny runde qualitative studies, 1(2) 143 men at undersøgelsen er opbygget med den intention at komme ind under de formelle modellers og teoriers generelle og abstrakte kommunikation for på den måde at få forståelse af, hvad der foregår i hverdagen. pointen for både aktører og forskere er, at projektet indledende skal ses som en udveksling af erfaringer og viden på området mellem forskere og ledere og indbyrdes mellem lederne. men projektets metodik indeholder en betydeligt mere krævende ambition i form af en fælles produktion af viden om det internaliserede. det kræver en del af forskernes præsentation af metodikken. det hænger sammen med, at der på den ene side er risiko for, at processen kan udvikle sig til en traditionel erfaringsudveksling mellem lederne. en proces, som næppe fører til megen ny erkendelse. eller at konteksten i stedet udvikler sig til en ramme for ”akademisering” / kategorisering af hverdagsviden. en proces, som heller ikke er hensigtsmæssig. derfor er en del af det fokus, metodikken skal sikre, rettet mod opbygning af en fælles kontekst, der så vidt muligt ligestiller aktører og forskere. forskerne præsenterer metodikken og viser derigennem interesse i, at den enkelte aktør både får kommentarer og viser det sig gode råd fra de andre aktører. det skal tillige give mulighed for at få de strategiske problemstillinger, der dukkede op fra praksis, kommenteret gennem forskernes viden om teorier, modeller og generelle opfattelser på feltet og tilgrænsende felter (organisation, kommunikation, netværk, driftsøkonomi mv.). på den anden side skal processen gennem sine undersøgelser af strategi i den enkelte organisation via casene, de fælles diskussioner og opsamlinger bidrage til, at forskerne får et materiale til deres videre analysearbejde. projektet er hverken et traditionelt uddannelseseller udviklingsseminar for ledere eller en traditionel interviewundersøgelse, men en syntese af sådanne aktiviteter. det sidste er ikke mindst væsentligt for at få den afsluttende del af introduktionen af undersøgelsen over for lederne til at falde på plads. det er den del, der handler om, at en sådan undersøgelse ikke kan fungere, uden at forskerne får adgang til at besøge og undersøge den enkelte virksomhed for på den måde at skabe den information, der muliggør en diskussion af fænomenet strategi, som det udfolder sig i praksis. det er selve kernen i metodikken, og det kræver en udstrakt åbenhed fra den enkelte leder, men det kræver i lige så høj grad, at forskerne giver lederen udstrakte muligheder for at styre, hvad der kommer frem. det vil blive berørt i det følgende, men det skal allerede her understreges, at dette ikke kun indeholder en etisk problemstilling, men også er en forudsætning for, at lederen i det hele taget har mulighed for at være åben inden for disse rammer. endelig lægger ikke bare introduktionen, men også den foregående invitation til at deltage, afgørende vægt på, at al information, som kommer uden for aktørernes og forskernes kreds, er anonym, og diskussioner og data er så fortrolige, som den enkelte leder ønsker. det er en vigtig del af den ”kontrakt”, der tegnes ved det første møde mellem ledere og forskere. undersøgelse i organisationer to forskere – eller i enkelte tilfælde en enkelt forsker står for at aftale med den enkelte leder om, hvornår og hvordan vedkommendes virksomhed skal besøges. formålet med dette første besøg er dels at få et overordnet billede af virksomheden og dels at komme i dybden med den måde, virksomheden og dens ledelse beskriver og tackler de strategiske problemstillinger, der aktuelt og qualitative studies, 1(2) 144 dermed i øjeblikket vise sig betydningsfulde for dem. forskerne møder efter aftale op i virksomheden – og mere præcist startes på lederens kontor for en indledende snak om virksomheden, dens strategiske situation og aktuelle strategiske problemstillinger. forberedelsen af denne snak foregår gennem, at forskerne har kigget i regnskaber, årsberetninger og på virksomhedens hjemmeside og eventuelt før mødet har modtaget dokumenter fra lederen. men en pointe er, at denne forberedelse ikke må strukturere samtalen så meget, at det ender med en traditionel beskrivelse af de formelle procedurer i organisationen. der skal i stedet være rigelig plads til, at lederen fortæller sin(e) version(er) af historien. en fortælling, som på samme eller senere besøg bliver suppleret med tilsvarende fortællinger fra andre ledere i virksomheden. den form for samtale, der er blevet udviklet til straway-undersøgelsen, ligger tæt på et ustruktureret, kvalitativt interview med vægt på forskerens understøttelse af, at lederen fortæller sin og virksomhedens historie. når der lægges vægt på, at besøget skal bruge sådanne personbårne fortællinger som startpunkt, hænger det sammen med, at det ikke er i undersøgelsens og heller ikke i deltagernes interesse at få gentaget de formaliserede fortællinger, der allerede er offentliggjort på virksomhedens hjemmeside, i nyhedsmedier og lignende steder. et formål med metodikker er ved hjælp af ledernes ”gentænkning” af hverdagens aktiviteter at nå nye erkendelser omkring strategipraksis. figur 4 forløbet af et første besøg i en virksomhed besøget i organisationen annonceres af den medvirkende leder til dem, vedkommende finder det relevant for. det hænger sammen med, at det hele tiden er lederen, der styrer forløbet af besøget. lederen er knudepunktet både som medvirkende i produktionen af data og senere som modtager af disse data i en bearbejdet form. det har som en del af metodikken vist sig hensigtsmæssigt, om lederen bruger tid på det første besøg til en rundvisning af forskerne til de dele af organisationen, som lederen mener, er de centrale i en strategisk sammenhæng. væsentligt er her i øvrigt, at lederen benytter lejligheden til at give sin beskrivelse og analyse af strategiske problemstillinger i forbindelse med en sådan rundvisning. erfaringer viser, at det giver en levende fortælling, som knytter strategi til praktiske opgaver og problemstillinger i virksomheden. lederen er som nævnt den centrale aktør i projektet, og det er i den sammenhæng vigtigt for forskerne at søge at komme i en detaljeret dialog med lederen om, hvordan vedkommende selv ser virksomheden håndtere strategiske problemstillinger i hverdagen. det kan være alt fra pludseligt opstående problemer og muligheder, som viser sig at få strategisk betydning, til de procedurer, ved hjælp af hvilke virksomheden mere langsigtet søger at styre strategiske processer. her sættes ord forar bejde interview med direktøren rundt i virksomheden interview med funktionsleder dokumentlæsning på stedet nyt interview med direktøren afrunding + aftale om case qualitative studies, 1(2) 145 på og samtidig skaffes, hovedsageligt på lederens initiativ, såvel officielle som mere uofficielle dokumenter frem af betydning for forståelsen af den strategiske situation. der tegnes sideløbende et billede af, hvilke andre aktører i virksomheden der efter lederen opfattelse er centrale i håndtering af strategien. specielt hvad det sidste punkt angår, kan forskerne alt efter lederens planlægning af besøget under dette kontakte nogle af disse aktører – hvis de har tid – eller gemme oplysninger om deres navne, placering og funktion til brug for kontakt før senere besøg. hovedopgaven ved besøget er, at forskerne får datamateriale til at skrive en case, som via information om virksomhedens aktuelle strategiske situation tegner et billede af centrale strategiske problemstillinger. besøget får en afgørende betydning i den sammenhæng, hvorfor det i nogle tilfælde er hensigtsmæssigt at optage væsentlige dele af dialogen, eller, hvis lederen foretrækker det, at forskerne under og umiddelbart efter besøget noterer deres iagttagelser. vigtigheden af dette hænger sammen med, at det er forskerne, der alene samler dokumentationsmaterialet og sammen foretager den første analyse af dette, og først i næste fase involveres lederen direkte i færdigskrivningen af casen. udformning af case casebeskrivelsen af virksomhedens strategiske problemstillinger er det helt afgørende redskab i kommunikationen mellem lederne og mellem lederne og forskere, idet det er det dokument, som alle har foran sig på de seminarer, der har som formål at få belyst og gennemdiskuteret strategiske vanskeligheder og muligheder. en casebeskrivelse er i den sammenhæng et dokument på 3 – 6 sider og udgør resultatet af en fælles første analyse af kvalitative data – normalt også med baggrund i kvantitative data fra regnskaber, budgetter, beretninger og økonomiske kalkuler. pointen i udformningen af casebeskrivelsen er, at organisationens strategiske problemstillinger ses gennem to linser på én gang: forskerens og lederens, men at det er forskeren, der på grundlag af de indsamlede data skriver en skitse til casen, som derefter e-mailes til lederen, som kommenterer og korrigerer denne. denne fremgangsmåde er valgt for, at det på den måde bliver muligt på en gang at fastholde lederens erfaringsgrundlag og via forskernes virksomhedsbesøg at få nye perspektiver ind til inspiration for den erkendelsesproces, der i bund og grund er lederens. derfor skal lederens arbejde med disse korrektioner ikke ses som en udskiftning af en række fakta med andre, men skal i stedet bruges som en refleksion fra lederen over forskerens forståelse af de bagvedliggende data. denne proces løber i flere tilfælde over flere trin, hvor forsker og ledere kommunikerer med hinanden om casens udformning og vægtning af dens forskellige delemner. nogle ledere er i denne proces ret aktive med at komme med nye ideer og andre tolkninger, mens andre mere ser opgaven som en traditionel ledelsesmæssig godkendelse. den første case skal behandle organisationens strategiske situation og knytte den til væsentlige karakteristika ved organisationen og dens omgivelser. samtidig må den gerne munde ud i nogle strategiske temaer, som lederen ønsker at få taget op til diskussion på seminaret for på den måde at få alternative tolkninger udøvet af eksperterne, som her er de andre ledere uden forudgående kendskab til virksomheden. på den måde understreges lederens afgørende betydning i udformningen af casen samtidig med, at det er forskerne, der har det væsentligste ansvar for strukturering af casebeskrivelsen og for, at casen kan forstås uden for kredsen af organisationens egne ledere og medarbejdere. qualitative studies, 1(2) 146 casen sendes til de øvrige ledere og til de øvrige forskere, der deltager i projektet. dette skal ske relativ kort tid før det næste seminar, for at alle på den måde kan tænke over de mere åbenlyse strategiske spørgsmål i casen. samtidig er det klart, at også dette casedokument er fortroligt og ikke spredes ud over dem, der deltager i dette seminar. præsentation af case den godkendte case spiller som nævnt en afgørende rolle i den fortsatte produktion af data og dermed i udviklingen af en fælles baggrund til diskussionen af den konkrete strategiske situation i virksomheden og som bidrag til en mere almen forståelse af, hvordan strategiske processer fungerer som ledelsespraksis. pointen er, at udformningen af casen sker i et samspil mellem leder og forskere, men at den samtidig kun er ét indspark i den forsatte fælles bestræbelse på at kunne forstå fænomenet: hverdagens strategiske processer og brug af ledelseserfaringer. af den grund er det lederens privilegium at præsentere casen for de øvrige aktører og forskerne. privilegium på den måde, at lederen dermed er i stand til at sætte en tydelig mundtlig accent på den skriftlige case. en accent, der kommer til at præsentere lederens overvejelser på grundlag af den produktionsproces, vedkommende har været involveret i omkring omformningen af data fra organisationen til selve casebeskrivelsen. denne præsentation er samtidig en måde at fastholde den enkelte leders engagement i processen og vil give en vinkel på fænomenet, der vil være tættere på praksis og mere dybtgående end en præsentation foretaget af forskeren. dette virker samtidig motiverende på de andre aktører, idet de herved får præsentationen fra den person, de mener, skal stå i første række i strategiprocessen. det er tillige en person, der deler arbejdsverden med dem selv, og det er en person, der kan bruge hjælp til at løse praktiske strategiproblemer. denne form for præsentation har dermed til formål ikke bare at fastholde ”autentiske” billeder fra organisationen, men har tillige til formål at fastholde aktørernes aktive rolle i analysen af strategiske problemstillinger. det er op til lederen at vælge præsentationsform, og det har været gældende for det store flertal af de cases, der har været præsenteret, at lederne i den første casepræsentation ofte starter med et overordnet billede af virksomheden – af og til hjulpet af et slideshow med forskellige illustrationer af organisationen, dens aktiviteter og aktører. de mest vellykkede præsentationer har imidlertid været dem, der er gået mest direkte til sagen: de specifikke strategiske problemstillinger. sådanne præsentationer har muliggjort, at den efterfølgende diskussion har kunnet holde kursen direkte på en strategisk linje, samtidig med at lederen har fået mulighed for at holde diskussionen fast på, hvad der interesserer vedkommende. en anden væsentlig erfaring er her, at et mundtligt oplæg på cirka femten minutter giver en tilstrækkelig tydelig platform for den efterfølgende diskussion og analyse. kombinationen af casen og det mundtlige oplæg fra lederen er vigtig for den efterfølgende diskussion. det gør det muligt at lade lederen have store frihedsgrader i det mundtlige oplæg. dette har betydet, at nogle oplæg har været koncentreret om at give et historisk indblik i, hvorfor virksomhedens strategiske situation er, som casen viser. i andre tilfælde har det mundtlige lagt vægt på at beskrive de forandringer, der er sket mellem tidspunktet for skrivning af casen og tidspunktet for seminaret. pointen ved frihedsgraderne er netop, at lederen på den måde kan søge at påvirke temaerne for den følgende diskussion, men samtidig er caseteksten en form for ramme for disse frihedsgrader. en pointe er tillige, at dette giver de øvrige deltagere en række qualitative studies, 1(2) 147 frihedsgrader til at tolke case og præsentation på helt andre måder ud fra det erfaringsgrundlag, de har. diskussion på seminaret casebeskrivelsen og præsentation af casen er først og fremmest et redskab til gennem diskussion mellem ledere – og forskere at få endevendt en række dagligdags strategiske problemstillinger. det kan f.eks. handle om outsourcing, indsats på nye markeder, problematiske salgskanaler, sammenbrud af centrale markeder, finansieringsproblemer, overordnede kompetenceudviklingsudfordringer, eller omstrukturering af organisationen. en diskussion af sådanne emner skal kunne løbe ad de veje, som lederne ønsker. det hænger sammen med, at det er gennem diskussion og afprøvning af praktiske løsningsforslag fra de forskellige ledere, billeder dannes af, hvad strategiske processer i praksis går ud på. det er en diskussion, som lederne kan lade løbe frit, og forskernes indsats går mest på at spørge og at sørge for, at diskussionen ikke kommer for langt ud på sidespor i forhold til det strategiske emne. det kunne ske, hvis én eller flere af lederne går i gang med at definere og løse problemer, som kun i ringe grad ligger inden for den fælles forståelse af, hvad strategi er, f.eks. rene operative personaleproblemer. disse diskussioner skal løbe frit for på den måde at få flere tolkninger af en præsenteret problemstilling frem. alle strategiske problemstillinger har visse ligheder med andre strategiske problemstillinger, og det er i ligheder, men måske mere i forståelsen af forskelle, at en dybere forståelse af, hvad det er, der arbejdes med, opstår. et samlet indtryk af dette er, at når diskussionen løber, så er henvisninger til standardstrategiteori og -opfattelser tilsyneladende helt trængt i baggrunden. i stedet er det aktørernes hverdagsteorier, der kommer frem. med hverdagsteorier menes her problemforståelser og handlingsanvisninger, der bygger på praktisk erfaringer. diskussionen bliver på den måde en form for afprøvning af forskellige vinkler på problemstillingerne, men tillige de øvrige lederes afprøvning af løsningsforslag. det betyder, at mange indspil i diskussionen kan blive hængende ”i luften”, idet ledere generelt accepterer, at deres analyse og deres forslag til løsning ikke på nogen måde kan blive den endelige løsning for den leder, hvis virksomhed er i centrum, men skal være inspiration til vedkommende. dette gælder tillige forskerens mere spørgende input. skriftlig og mundtlig opsamling en passende længde for en præsentation og efterfølgende diskussion er vanskelig at definere. i de fleste tilfælde kan en sådan diskussion fortsætte over længere tid, hvilket ofte viser sig gennem, at den fortsætter ind i den pause, der normalt er fastsat, før den næste case diskuteres. derfor er det den overordnede tidsramme, der afgør den længde i tid, hver enkelt præsentation og diskussion skal have, men op mod en time kan være, hvad der pr. case maksimalt er tid til på et seminar. den samlede længde for et seminar har efterhånden udviklet sig til fire timer. for at dette bliver overholdt, kræver det, at en forsker under seminaret styrer det overordnede tidsforbrug, mens en anden samler op. qualitative studies, 1(2) 148 det er væsentligt, idet formålet er at opsamle ideer, billeder og fælles analyseresultater fra diskussionen. det kan være en vanskelig opgave for den eller de forskere, der er udpeget til det, idet det kræver en betydelig koncentration under seminaret, der ikke for vedkommende tillader nogen særlig aktiv deltagelse i diskussionen. præsentation af en sådan opsamling skal ikke foretages efter hver case, idet dette i for høj grad kan blive en repetition af diskussionen. det skal i stedet ske i det sidste kvarter af et seminar, hvor tre eller fire cases har været præsenteret og diskuteret. det er en opgave, der som nævnt kræver en særlig evne til at opsamle og transformere resultater fra en diskussion af enkelttilfælde til en form for problematisering, der går på tværs af de enkelte diskussioner. selv om denne opsamling selvfølgelig kan støttes gennem notetagning fra seminarets dialoger, kræver det en koncentreret indsat på seminaret at få en opsamling til at virke succesfuld. det hænger sammen med, at en sådan opsamling ved afslutning af et seminar ikke kun er en opsummering, men også bliver en form for delkonklusion, som skal motivere alle deltagere – ledere som forskere – til løbende at overveje, hvordan ledere og medarbejdere tackler strategiske problemstillinger. en væsentlig styrke ved denne form for forskningsproces er, hvis den også kommer til at virke mellem seminarerne. løbende evaluering for at denne proces kan blive vellykket, skal seminarerne og deres afrunding samtidig kunne løse en anden opgave. den er, at deltagelse i en række seminarer for travle ledere fra deres side kræver en prioritering af denne aktivitet. og en prioritering kræver, at aktiviteten opfattes som givende og betydningsfuld. dette peger igen på vigtigheden af, at ledere og forskere i fællesskab arbejder for at skabe en kontekst og et normsæt, så alle interesser er ligestillede, og alle parter arbejder i fællesskab for at opfylde deres forskellige erkendelsesbehov. denne kontekst dannes via den måde, samtaler føres om, hvad det er for et projekt, og hvilke krav deltagerne kan stille til hinanden og skal stille til sig selv. men det handler også om noget så prosaisk som den lokalitet, hvor seminarerne foregår. der har været eksperimenteret med dette over det samlede projektforløb i stracon og straway, hvor universitetet, en erhvervsfremmeinstitution, en brancheorganisation og i flere tilfælde en af de deltagende virksomheder har lagt lokaler til. det er tydeligt, at forventningerne og dermed konteksten er forskellig, om lederne er på fremmed grund i et universitet, eller om de er på hjemmebane i en af virksomhederne. hjemmebanen kan skabe en større opgave for forskerne med at holde fokus, mens udebanen hos ledere kan skabe nogle særlige forventninger om formalisering. i nogle af de evaluerende diskussioner, der er foregået, er der tre typer af vurderinger fra ledere, som er karakteristiske. den ene er en udtalelse i retning af: ”i begyndelsen var jeg ret skeptisk over for, om jeg kunne få noget udbytte af at deltage i dette”. en anden går på følgende vis: ”jeg er blevet overrasket over, hvor mange praktiske forhold vi får diskuteret i en proces, jeg troede var præget af teoretiseren”. en tredje gå i retning af: ”hvis jeg ikke var startet på dette forløb, ville jeg aldrig have taget mig tid til at løse dette, og jeg kan nu se væsentlige strategiske problemer i organisationen”. opsummeret kan det siges, at lederne får et udbytte af disse analyser og diskussioner, ellers ville deres sparsomme tid næppe blive brugt af dem til over et længere forløb at deltage i sådanne seminarer. hvad forskerne får af udbytte, må nærmest måles i, hvilke nye erkendelser de er i stand til at skrive om og publicere. qualitative studies, 1(2) 149 opsamlingens afgørende betydning handler om at holde sig på sporet og vedligeholde motivationen – og gerne udbrede den til også at omfatte arbejdet i perioderne mellem projektets formelle aktiviteter. det hænger sammen med, at alle – såvel aktører som forskere reelt kun er bundet til processen gennem deres motivation og en opbygget følelse af forpligtelse. en måde at understøtte dette på er gennem nogle dage efter et seminar at sende en skriftlig opsummering af resultaterne til aktørerne, og at huske allerede på seminaret at aftale tidspunkter for de næste virksomhedsbesøg og det næste seminar. det skal bemærkes, at i løbet af de tre stracon-forløb og det straway-forløb, der er i gang, har ingen ledere forladt processen, til gengæld har ikke alle været lige aktive mellem seminarerne. de følgende runder som det blev nævnt, var den eksplorative fase i de to første år af stracon-projektet bygget op omkring ét besøg i hver virksomhed og én casebeskrivelse pr. virksomhed, men i den tredje sæson blev dette udvidet for at følge strategiske processer gennem flere besøg og seminarer. dette førte i øvrigt til, som et sideskud på stracon-projektet, at to af de involverede organisationers strategiske arbejde i praksis blev fulgt i over to år henholdsvis flere år (se f.eks. larsen 2008). det har medvirket til at reorganisere metodikken på en måde, så løbende besøg i straway-projektet er blevet en del af metodikken, og med de praktiske konsekvenser, at ledere og deres organisationer følges og inddrages i en flerårig periode. denne ændring i metodikken sker som følge af, at formålet med forskningsprojektet forandres. hvor stracon fra begyndelsen som nævnt var lagt an som et eksplorativt projekt, der skulle kunne producere data til forskere med forskellige paradigmatisk udgangspunkter, arbejder det igangværende straway-projekt ud fra en tilgang, hvor forbindelsen mellem et fortolkende paradigme og metodikken er tættere. overgangen fra en til flere cases pr. organisation og vægtningen af at arbejde med en forløbsundersøgelse er en forudsætning for dette. som det vil blive præsenteret i det følgende, er straway-projektet, mens dette skrives, i gang med sin fjerde runde. straway-projektets konkrete forløb som beskrevet i indledningen har denne artikel ikke kun som formål at beskrive en metodik, der allerede har været bragt i anvendelse, men tillige at diskutere nogle metodiske problemstillinger, der viser sig i det igangværende straway-forskningsprojekt. det vil blive gjort i dette afsnit startende med en kort præsentation af elementer i dette projekt og ligheder og forskelle til det tidligere stracon-projekt. intentionen med at starte et nyt projekt var for de to forskere (mette vinther larsen og jørgen gulddahl rasmussen) ultimo 2008 at prøve at sætte særligt fokus på netop de processer, der udvikler de internaliserede, erfaringsbaserede, strategiske ledelseskompetencer. dette skulle gøres gennem over længere tid at følge den kommunikation om strategi og de refleksioner, en udbygget udgave af metodikken ville muliggøre. vi havde i forvejen kontakt til en brancheorganisation, der viste sig interesseret i at skaffe deltagere til, hvad organisationens ledelse så som en udvikling af strategisk ledelseskompetence, og dermed noget, som derfor var i branchens interesse. de sendte i forsommeren 2009 gennem deres kommunikationskanaler vores invitation ud til deres medlemmer, og da fem direktører fra virksomheder inden for branchen havde meldt sig, blev projektet igangsat. qualitative studies, 1(2) 150 de deltagende ledere og deres virksomheder medvirkede var lederne, tre mænd og to kvinder, for tre mellemstore og to mindre virksomheder. imidlertid skete der det dagen før startseminaret, at lederen fra en af de mindre måtte melde fra, idet hendes virksomhed samme dag var gået i betalingsstandsning. det medførte, at deltagerne i projektet er fire ledere og to forskere. de fire virksomheder har en række ensartede karakteristika. de er medlemmer af samme brancheorganisation, de har alle deres hovedsæder placeret i danmark, de sælger alle på det danske og europæiske markeder, og ingen af dem sælger til konsumenter, men b2b, og de har alle udbyggede designog produktudviklingsfunktioner, der spiller en afgørende, strategisk rolle. de adskiller sig ved, at selv om råvarerne er ret ensartede, så er deres produkter ikke i konkurrence med hinanden. en af virksomhederne står selv for produktionen, mens de andre tre får produktionen udført i asien og østeuropa. to af virksomhederne har kunder globalt, mens de to andre to begge sælger på europæiske markeder. tre af virksomhederne er ret kraftigt ramt af den økonomiske krise, mens den fjerde stort set har undgået dens virkninger. nøglepersonerne i projektet er de fire ledere, hvoraf to har meget omfattende ledelseserfaringer opsamlet gennem en længere årrække, mens de to andre er yngre og derfor har haft færre år (mindre end ti år) som ledere bag sig. hvad angår de øvrige medvirkende i projektet, der deltager som respondenter og informanter, og som er blevet interviewet gennem undersøgelsens virksomhedsbesøg i det første år, omfatter det én i den mindste og seks ledere i den største virksomhed. disse ledere er henholdsvis souschefer og funktionsledere inden for salg, udvikling, design, produktion og finanser. herudover har et større antal ledere og specialister, herunder flere af de ovenfor nævnte, medvirket i de møder og seminarer, vi har observeret. straway-projektet trin for trin september 2009: startseminar (i en større midtjysk by). formål: præsentation af virksomheder, deres strategiske og innovative problemstillinger, præsentation af forskerne, vores koncept om strategi i praksis, metodik og forudsætninger for projektet. seminaret blev afsluttes med en aftale om den praktiske fremgangsmåde. (varighed cirka 3 timer). resultat: de fire ledere tilsluttede sig projektet og dets idégrundlag. efteråret 2009 (oktober): virksomhedsbesøg på de fire virksomheder i tre forskellige danske regioner, indeholdende et dybtgående, ustruktureret interview med lederen (ca. 2 timer), virksomhedspræsentation og dokumentstudier. dette blev efterfulgt af caseskrivning om centrale strategiske og innovative emner i den enkelte virksomhed. forskerne havde som nævnt ansvar for at aftale besøg og for udformning af case, som efterfølgende blev suppleret af virksomhedens leder. (inklusive transport tog hvert besøg cirka en hel arbejdsdag) november 2009: 2. seminar (igen i samme midtjyske by), hvor cases fra de deltagende virksomheder blev diskuteret, og hvor der ud fra de konkrete strategiske udfordringer blev peget på fokusområder for det videre arbejde med projektet i den enkelte virksomhed. den enkelte case præsenteres af lederen fra den enkelte virksomhed og diskuteres af alle seminardeltagere (varighed 3 cirka timer). resultat: afklaring af strategiske udfordringer for hver virksomhed og en opsamling i skriftlig form fra forskerne på tværs af virksomhederne. qualitative studies, 1(2) 151 vinteren 2010 (januar – februar): indsamling af data om specifikke strategiske processer som opfølgning på de behandlede ”oktobercases”. dette skete gennem en ny runde af virksomhedsbesøg, hvor lederen ud over sig selv havde udpeget mellem en og fem medledere som informanter, som hver blev interviewet i en periode mellem tre og fem kvarter om deres måde at se de udvalgte strategiske temaer og processer på. disse interview var bevidst ustrukturerede for at sikre, at det blev informanternes fortællinger, som blev det styrende for forløbet. lederen blev ved starten eller afslutningen af besøget kort involveret for at berette om ”siden sidst”. resultat: cases ud fra en flerfacetteret sum af data, som belyser forskellige sider af de centrale strategiske virksomhedstemaer. (varighed: inklusiv transport en lang dag i hver virksomhed) marts 2010: 3. seminar (foregik efter invitation hos en af virksomhederne) havde til formål gennem arbejde med konkrete cases om strategiske processer belyst fra flere sider i ”januar/februarcasen” for på den måde at komme dybere ned i den hverdagspraksis, disse aktiviteter omfatter. forskerne udformede på grundlag af de skrevne cases før seminaret et tema, som den enkelte leder kunne vælge at tale over, og som havde et fremadrettet perspektiv på virksomhedens strategiske temaer (varighed 4 timer). forsommer 2010 (april – maj): virksomhedsbesøg med indsamling af data, som beskriver de løbende strategiske processer. et formål med denne runde var om muligt at møde flere ledere i den samme virksomhed samtidig og observere dem i fællesskab, diskutere de strategiske udfordringer og studere kommunikationen omkring disse temaer. dette skete i tre af virksomhederne gennem forskernes deltagelse i virksomhedsfastlagte strategiske seminarer og strategiske møder for ledere i virksomheden planlagt af ledelsen. i den fjerde virksomhed var der ikke i det tidsrum en passende lejlighed, så det blev i stedet til et gruppeinterview. resultat: cases, som var en afrapportering af praktisk strategisk ledelsesarbejde. (varighed: igen inklusiv transport en relativ lang dag i hver virksomhed). juni 2010: 4. seminar (foregik efter invitation hos en anden af virksomhederne) havde til formål at nå en række konklusioner omkring de måder, strategiske processer forløber på i de deltagende virksomheder. specielt blev der lagt vægt på trianglen mellem produkt, organisation og marked. caseresultater præsenteredes af lederne og blev diskuteres af alle i fællesskab (varighed 4 timer). efteråret 2010 (august – september): indsamling af data og diskussion mellem forskere og ledere i den enkelte virksomhed om succeser og vanskeligheder i forbindelse med gennemførelsen af strategiske aktiviteter. foretages gennem virksomhedsbesøg og i form af relativt intensive interviews med de fire ledere efter en række individuelle nøglepunkter formidlet til dem gennem tilbagemeldingerne fra juniseminaret. casene, som udarbejdes, vil blive forsøgt udformet som skitser til strategiske handlingsplaner for den efterfølgende periode. oktober 2010: 5. seminar, som har til formål at analysere handlingsplaner for det fortsatte arbejde med spredning og forankring af strategi i den enkelte virksomhed. arbejdet vil foregå i fællesskab i den samlede seminarkreds (varighed cirka 4 timer). vinter 2010/11: de enkelte ledere arbejder med udmøntning af handlingsplaner for effektivisering af det strategiske og innovative arbejde. forskerne følger arbejdet og kan, hvis det skønnes hensigtsmæssigt, deltage som medspiller i specielt udvalgte problemstillinger. qualitative studies, 1(2) 152 forår 2011: 6. seminar, hvor de foreløbige resultater af handlingsplanerne diskuteres og vurderes (varighed 4 timer). forsommer 2011: besøgsrunde, hvor leder og udvalgte informanter interviewes om, hvordan virksomheden indtil da har klaret krisen, og hvilke forandringer der er sket i arbejdet med strategiske og innovative opgaver. efterår 2011: 6. seminar, hvor projektets samarbejdende del afsluttes gennem en evaluering af, hvad der er sket af forbedringer i den enkelte virksomhed vedrørende arbejde med centrale strategiske og innovative opgaver, og hvor den enkelte deltager er blevet mere kompetent inden for disse opgaver. alle medvirkende deltager med mundtlige bidrag til alle evalueringer (varighed 3 timer). metodikkens muligheder og kritiske punkter denne forløbsbeskrivelse af straway-projektet udtrykker, at metodikken hele tiden søger at skabe to spor. et spor, der retter sig mod forskning i et relativt traditionelt koncept, som opfylder forskningskriterier for kvalitative studier, som de er beskrevet her i artiklen, og giver materiale til skrivning af papers og artikler. og et spor, som gør det muligt for lederne at blive mere bevidste om egne overvejelser og handlinger i strategiske processer, og at de på den måde vil kunne opbygge nye og brugbare ledelseserfaringer. disse to spor skal samtidig ses som tæt indvævet i hinanden, hvilket er en konsekvens af såvel paradigmet som af metodikkens karakter og en forudsætning for, at der kan ske erkendelse på tværs af den enkelte virksomhed. paradigmet forudsætter, at sådanne uformelle og næsten intuitive processer, som ligger bag virksomhedernes formulerede strategier, kun kan eksternaliseres og analyseres i en dialog mellem ledere og forskere. og som, når det lykkes, fører til synteser, der bliver teser for en fortsat udforskning på feltet. samtidig handler det om, at skal såvel ledere som forskere involveres i en sådan proces og udvikle et egentligt samarbejde om dette, kræver det, at det giver anvendelige resultater for alle. herigennem understreges projektets pragmatiske karakter. pragmatisk: hvad der virker pragmatisk kan her defineres som det, at noget virker. spørgsmålet er så, hvilke mål det virker for opfyldelsen af. for lederne er det ret tydeligt, idet deres kriterier synes at være, om de når nye erkendelser til gavn for virksomheden og for deres funktion som ledere. det er sammen med en vis portion nysgerrighed deres motivation til deltagelse. hvad der virker for forskerne, ud over at det er deres arbejde, er straks lidt vanskeligere at beskrive. det hænger sammen med, at metodikken ikke har til formål at beeller afkræfte teorier eller modeller. det gør praksis så at sige helt af sig selv. uanset hvor mange teorier eller modeller, der på det strategiske område menes at kunne udsige noget om, hvordan der skal handles i praksis, så tyder meget på, at de ikke i praksis giver ledere brugbare redskaber. derfor er det et formål i sig selv at kunne afdække praksisser og dermed den diversitet, der hersker. det gælder, selv om det aldrig kan føre i retning af nogen grand theory for strategi. den pragmatiske tilgang har også noget at gøre med, at eksempelvis de fire ledere, der deltager i straway-projektet – og det samme var gældende for de femten, der deltog i det tidligere straconprojekt, gør det med et forbrug af tid, der tages enten af deres øvrige arbejdstid eller deres fritid. qualitative studies, 1(2) 153 derfor skal de kunne opnå ny viden, der er til gavn for dem i deres arbejde. det er en forudsætning for at få et sådant projekt til at fungere. men det er samtidig en kilde til problemer, idet det betyder, at projektet hele tiden skal tage højde for den forståelse af ledelse og den omgangstone for ledere, som gælder i et sådan ”community of practice”. der er på den ene side en oplevelse hos lederne af, at det at beskæftige sig med deres egen verden på denne måde, er spændende. men der er også nogle utydelige grænser, som der måske kan skubbes til, men som ikke bør overtrædes. svagheder i metodikken den grænse, som mest tydelig har vist sig, kan siges at handle om kontrol. den er utydelig, hvilket særligt har vist sig i straway-projektet, fordi projektet løber over så relativ lang tid, og at forskerne og lederne – og lederne indbyrdes har lært hinanden at kende så godt, at vi har opbygget en form for fortrolighed til hinanden. det betyder, så vidt vi kan bedømme ud fra deres udsagn, at lederne optræder åbent, når de interviewes, og når de diskuterer cases. de er tillige åbne for at finde informanter til vore besøgsrunder i virksomhederne. de ved og accepterer, at vi til tider får meget forskellige og kritiske billeder af, hvilke opfattelser og forståelser der bevæger sig omkring i deres virksomhed. og de accepterer, at sådanne forskellige forståelser fremtræder i casene. der, hvor kontrolgrænsen går pt., viser sig, når vi gennem kladder til casene til juni 2010 seminaret rapporterede om synspunkter, forståelser og beslutningsprocesser, som vi hører og oplever dem specielt på strategimøder i virksomhederne. i flere tilfælde har arbejdet med at skrive en endelig casetekst ud fra sådanne data krævet møder og samtaler med flere af vore nøgleaktører. det hænger tilsyneladende sammen med, at usikkerhed omkring, hvilken strategi virksomheden konkret skal vælge, er ok at diskutere i en lukket kreds i en periode med alvorlig økonomisk krise. men noget, der ligner rod og uklarhed i møder blandt lederne, er tilsyneladende at komme tæt på en norm for god virksomhedsledelse. tilsvarende er konstateringer af, at forskerne som en form for ”neutrale” observatører, ser andre forløb i sådanne møder, end de officielle interne referatskrivere gør, noget, som kan ses som værende på kanten af et normbrud. hvis dette er en temporær eller måske permanent grænse i en sådan produktion af viden, hvad betyder det for en undersøgelse udført med en sådan metodik? svaret på det kan være todelt. den ene del af svaret kan være, at ledere gerne vil blive klogere på, hvorledes strategiske beslutninger og handlinger er præget af intuitive og erfaringsbaserede overvejelser, men de er ikke lige så villige til at vise andre ledere, hvor virksomheden eller ledelsen efter deres normer ikke slår til i mere operative forløb omkring analyse og beslutningsprocesser. den anden del kan være, at der er et slør, som ledere og andre aktører bevidst eller ubevidst ikke vil lade rive væk. at denne anden del kan være i funktion, er i sig selv en begrundelse for at forske på den måde, som denne metodik lægger op til. det hænger sammen med, at et sådant slør vil kunne være i funktion omkring alle observationer, interview og samtaler om kritiske emner uanset det paradigme, der ligger bag en undersøgelse, og den metodik, der anvendes. hvis det er således, skal metodikken ses som en hjælp til at få lettet lidt på et sådant slør. netop det at ikke alene forskernes interaktion med lederne i casearbejdet og ledernes indbyrdes interaktion på seminarerne skaber ny forståelse, men også det, at de forandrede syn på strategiske muligheder og problemer, som den samlede metodik giver, skaber forandringer, der i et lewinsk perspektiv er en betingelse for at forstå. qualitative studies, 1(2) 154 kritiske, men nødvendige svagheder dette rejser ontologiske spørgsmål. det hænger sammen med, at dette kræver af forskerne, at de går aktivt med ind i den produktion af viden omkring den tavse, erfaringsbaserede og internaliserede viden. hvis hverdagens til tider rodede gøremål skal undersøges, kan det kun gøres gennem, hvad jeg her vil kalde en fortolkningsbaseret version af aktionsforskning og action learning. en version, hvor forskeren selv indgår i direkte og aktive relationer med aktørerne på feltet, og hvor erkendelsen er, at den viden, der kommer ud af processen, ikke kan blive mere end det, som kan skabes i synergi gennem de analytiske evner og vilje, som findes hos henholdsvis aktører og forskere. pointen bag den metodik, der anvendes her, er, at enten accepteres det, at viden om sådanne processer kan produceres på denne vis. i så tilfælde er det en accept af en metode, hvor ledere og forskere sammen arbejder med at forstå processerne gennem at arbejde med disse. eller også accepteres en sådan tilgang ikke. i sidste tilfælde må det betyde enten, at andre forskere må udvikle andre metodikker baseret på andre ontologiske forudsætninger, eller også at opgive at beskæftige sig med sådanne uklare og måske ufærdige fænomener. resultater: forskellige, modsatrettede og sammenfiltrede billeder af strategiske processer det andet kritiske, ontologiske spørgsmål handler om, hvad det er, ledere og forskere ser. eksemplet kan også her være de billeder, som et strategimøde skaber. det handler om graden af fælles indforståethed, som udvikles i en ledelsesgruppe i en virksomhed. accepten hos lederne af, at der i interview og samtaler med et udsnit af ledere dukker mange forskellige og modsatrettede billeder af strategiske problemer op, kan ses som bemærkelsesværdigt. det gælder særligt, når der ses på den forsigtighed, som lederne behandler analyserne af strategimøderne med. det ligner en modsætning, og det er det måske også. pointen kan være, at i praktisk strategisk ledelse kan to billeder, som tilsyneladende er modsætningsfyldte, stå ved siden af hinanden. det ene peger på de mange forskellige og modsatrettede opfattelser om strategiske muligheder og problemer, der brydes i en virksomhed. det andet billede handler om den indforståethed om i fællesskab at arbejde med det meshwork, som gør det muligt at skabe en fælles retning ud fra disse mange forskellige billeder. det, som metodikken på den måde nærmer sig, kan være en forståelse af, at der inden for rammer, der er bestemt af virksomhedens historie, vaner, rutiner og af ledelsen forståelse af sin rolle, sideløbende kan bevæge sig flere strategiske diskurser og tillades indspark fra andre, f.eks. lederne i strawayprojektet. det hæmmer ikke, men fremmer den strategisk udvikling i virksomheden. afrunding denne artikel kan i sig selv siges at være et led i et udviklingsprojekt, hvor en metodik formes, samtidig med at den anvendes. metodikken var fra begyndelsen udarbejdet som et praktisk redskab, der samlede en flok forskere omkring et fælles tema, som var at undersøge, om strategiske teorier og modeller nu også blev brugt i praksis i små og mellemstore virksomheder. det startede en udviklingsproces, der først introducerede involvering af praktikere og derefter fælles skrivning af cases mellem forskere og ledere. det var en proces, hvor viden om feltets karakteristika fik indflydelse på den måde, metodikken blev sat sammen på. det var en pragmatisk fremgangsmåde, som gennem at arbejde eksplorativt skulle give noget til alle forskere uanset fag og paradigme. qualitative studies, 1(2) 155 på et tidspunkt viste resultater, at uformelle processer, intuition og erfaringsbaseret viden er meget betydningsfulde for den måde, ledere af små og mellemstore virksomheder arbejder med strategi. dette motiverer til at bevæge projekter i en fortolkende retning. eller sagt på anden måde, så inspirerer det de forskere, der arbejder inden for et sådant paradigme. det ændrer ikke ved den måde, de første eksplorative resultater kan forstås, men vægtede arbejdet med hverdagssprog, fortolkning og relationer for på den måde at kunne forstå det implicitte og erfaringsbaserede. udgangspunktet er den måde, ledere præsenterer og forklarer deres strategier. det er sjældent skrevet ned, det er ofte end ikke på forhånd formuleret mundtligt, og det er ikke overensstemmende med lærebogsmodeller. eksplicit viden om dette skal derfor produceres mellem dem, der praktiserer: ledere og dem, som er specialister i at understøtte en sådan produktion af viden: forskere. denne problemstilling åbner for at arbejde med det, som straway-projektet har udviklet som ambition. det er gennem at arbejde med de forståelser, der skabes gennem de relationer, der i virksomheder tillader og fremmer forskellige billeder af den strategiske fremtid, men tillige af en kompleks nutid og af et stadigt retrospektivt arbejde med at forstå og bruge virksomhedens historie. arbejdet med at forstå disse processer og relationer er alt andet end enkelt, specielt fordi mainstreamteorier og modeller betyder så lidt i ledelsespraksis. derfor kunne det være fristende at omskrive et kurt lewin citat til: der er ikke noget så praktisk som en 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(1989). case study research: design and methods. london: sage, 2nd ed. forfatter jørgen gulddahl rasmussen er professor på institut for erhvervsstudier, aalborg universitet. email: jgr@business.aau.dk article 5 marlene (trykkeklar) 150 “you see how good-looking lee ann is!” establishing field relations through gendered and racialised bodily practices marlene spanger abstract. by investigating the case of female thai migrants selling sexual services in denmark, i argue that ‘the victim’ versus ‘the empowered subject’ is an undesirable binary for analysing how female migrants perform gendered subject positions in their everyday life. the article suggests a poststructuralist feminist perspective, arguing that looks and bodily practices, based on different constellations of gender and sexuality and race and nationality, are important for the research situation. bringing in two different examples, the article analyses the field relations, and the implied power relations, between the researcher(s) and the studied subjects that are constituted through gender, sexuality, race and nationality. these relations form the premises for producing material. key words: fieldwork, subject positions, gender, race, migration, sex work please cite this article as: spanger, m. (2012). “you see how good-looking lee ann is!” establishing field relation through gendered and racialised bodily practices, qualitative studies, 3(2): 150-162. introduction this article1 investigates how the subjects’ looks and bodily participation in the process of fieldwork affect the interaction between the researchers and the studied subjects in particular situations. thus, the purpose is to render visible the process of producing material through participant observations and interviews among thai migrants selling sexual services in denmark. in order to investigate how the looks of the subjects is crucial in producing material, i focus on how different intersecting constellations of gender, race, nationality and sexuality constitute hierarchies that are established during fieldwork. migrants selling sexual services have been articulated as ‘victims‘ (aoyama, 2009; davidson, 1998), ‘modern female slaves’ versus ‘empowered women’ (chapkis, 1997; pheterson, 1996) or ‘entrepreneurs’. despite differences in the views on these female migrants, the conceptualisations all spring from a dichotomous thinking that refers to a question of victimisation versus agency, trafficking versus labour migration. this conceptual framework was established during the 1980s and has dominated the international literature on commercial sex and human trafficking, as well as the political debates on human trafficking, migrantrelated prostitution and global sex work (kempadoo et al., 2005; doezema, 1998; agustín, 2005; sanders, 2006; spanger 2010). likewise, in the context of social work in denmark, migrant sex workers are predominantly identified through the discourse of human trafficking and/or viewed as social problems (spanger, 2011). the disadvantage of such a dichotomy is the production of stereotypes of ‘good’ or ’bad’ women, which does not leave room for the highly complex narratives of the heterogeneous social group of migrants selling sexual services (testaì, 2008), in this case, female thai migrants. thus, selling sex is commonly treated and perceived as 1 the article is based on my phd thesis spanger, m. (2010). destabilising sex work & intimacy? gender performances of female thai migrants selling sex in denmark. department of society & globalisation, roskilde university. 151 an identity encumbered with prejudice and stereotypes rather than merely an incomegenerating activity (shaver, 2005; pheterson, 1996). in a present danish context the term ‘prostitution’ and ‘prostitute’ spring from a social policy discourse (spanger, 2011). however, ‘sex work’ and ‘sex worker’ are not predominantly terms that are used within social work. these terms spring from the professional organisations that represent women, who identify themselves as sex workers. moreover, the danish concept of ‘sex work’ and ‘sex worker’ derive from the international debate on ‘prostitution’ versus ‘sex work’ that has taken place since the 1970s (kempadoo et al, 2005; doezema, 1998). during recent years human trafficking and migrants selling sex have been hot issues in the danish media. consequently, within a danish context, the establishment of the figure ‘the thai woman’ is closely linked to the whore stigma, always willing to sell sex, connoting, on the one hand, a victim of patriarchy and, on the other hand, sexual promiscuity (petersen, 2009). these stereotypes affect thai migrants in different ways (see spanger 2010). however, the central paradox is the following: on the one hand, earning money through prostitution is a well-known practice within the thai community. on the other hand, this practice is socially taboo in denmark. furthermore, thai migrants in general have to struggle with the stereotypical picture of all thais as prostitutes. questioning the use and the reproduction of sex work and prostitution discourses that constitute the dichotomous fixed categories of ‘the victimised prostitute’ versus ‘the empowered sex worker’, the article aims for contributing to a more complex methodological approach within the literature on transnational prostitution and human trafficking. to do so, i draw on poststructuralist feminist studies (lather, 2000; lykke, 2008) arguing that the material is a result of power relations depending on the subjects’ bodily practices and appearances. i argue that in the study of thai migrants selling sexual services (see later) the researchers’ bodily practices and looks affected the power relations that were established in our interaction with the studied people. in particular, notions of gender, race, sexuality and nationality came into play as categories that lay the ground for our relations and interactions with the studied people. as the article will show, the different kinds of constellations and entrances resulted in multiple narratives of female thai migrants selling sex. bringing in difference as a premise for producing material, this article investigates the question: how do look and bodily practices become important in the research? the first section presents my ethnographic fieldwork, consisting of participant observations and interviews, day and night among thai migrants selling sexual services in denmark. the second section discusses positioning in fieldwork. the subsequent sections analyse two examples from my fieldwork, demonstrating how looks and bodily practices, based on different complex constellations of gender, race, sexuality and nationality, establish powerfulness and powerlessness, as well as difference and sameness between the researcher(s) and the researched subjects. ethnographic fieldwork among thai migrants selling sex this article springs from a study that aimed to investigate how the danish policy field of prostitution is linked to the way in which female thai migrants selling sex in denmark destabilise sex work and intimacy through their gendered performances. the study asks the following question: how do female thai migrants selling sex in denmark destabilise and reproduce the policy category of ‘sex work’ through their way of performing gender? 152 from september 2005 to april 2006 i conducted ethnographic fieldwork (hasse, 2000), in terms of participant observations and interviews, by once or twice a week following a counselling programme targeting migrants selling sexual services, participating in a coordinating meeting for all the actors involved in the counselling programme, and participating in meetings with social workers and consultants who were connected to the first action plan from 2001 of the government. in addition, i compiled policy documents that related to the policy issue of prostitution, migration and human trafficking. moreover, i visited massage parlours, strip bars and places and events that female thai migrant sex workers visit or participate in (thai concerts, annual thai festivals arranged by one of the temples, a thai super market, thai clubs and bars, one of the buddhist temples) i realised that the female thai sex workers are not an isolated social group within this migrant community.2 inspired by nencel’s (2001) ethnographic fieldwork on women selling sex in lima, i structured my participant observations and interviews in a day and night rhythm. visiting bars and participating in different events in the thai migrant community at night, and following the counselling programme during the daytime and visiting massage parlours gave me an opportunity to meet thai migrant sex workers in different everyday situations and settings that resulted in different kinds of narratives. moreover, i interviewed the migrants whenever they had time; be it day or night. together, the female thai migrants’ narratives draw a complex picture of their everyday lives. i asked specific questions relating to their job such as working hours and conditions in order to avoid reproducing the dichotomous thinking. i opened up the interview by introducing myself and underscoring that i was a researcher studying thais everyday lives in denmark and how they earned money. often children were a common theme since the majority of the women were mothers. having these considerations in my mind and being aware of the fact that sex work is a sensitive research field, dominated by prejudices and a stigmatisation of female sex 2 i have undertaken 14 interviews with thai migrants all defining themselves as female thai migrants. ten are biologically born women, three are transgendered persons (male to female) and one is a cross-dresser. all the female thai migrants were between the ages of 25 to 40 years old and had acquired residence permits through marriage. some have permanent residence permits, others were applying for residence permits, and others could not yet apply at the time i interviewed them due to the danish legislation on family reunification. some of the interviewees were divorced, others married, and one was a widow. all have sold or sell sexual services full time or part time in denmark at massage parlours or at bars as dancers and hostesses. besides interviewing female thai migrant sex workers i have conducted interviews with seven key persons from the thai migrant community: six shop/restaurant owners and one bartender who have close contact to thai migrant sex workers. interviewing those persons, who are not in the sex industry but who are key persons in the thai community, is relevant when gaining knowledge of the thai community from other perspectives. such a perspective contributes to a wider understanding of the female thai migrants’ everyday lives, given that they see themselves as a part of the thai migrant community in denmark. moreover, i conducted interviews with eight experts within the field of trafficking and prostitution (two representatives from the police, four social workers and two administrators) who all have contact to or knowledge about thai migrant sex workers. they informed me about female thai migrant sex workers in denmark, how they approach and view them. all interviews were recorded and lasted from one to two hours. 153 workers, i never used the word ‘prostitute/prostitution’, ‘victim’, ‘sex worker/sex work’, ‘empowerment’ unless my informants introduced the concepts themselves in our conversations. field relations are not always created simply between the researcher and the studied people. in this study, i employed two different gatekeepers (sanghera et al, 2008; reeves, 2010) positioned as a professional female social worker and an informal male ‘semi-insider’ (a student), who also functioned as my research assistant. by using two different gatekeepers i was quite aware of the fact that they represented different approaches to, and views on, migrants selling sex, which influenced the process of gaining access to the thai migrants’ stories. nonetheless, this article will only focus on the unfolding of field relations in situations where the informal male ‘semiinsider’ niels came along with me on field work. reflecting on, how i, as researcher, and my gatekeeper, are positioned in relation to the thai migrants selling sexual services helps me understand the complex premises for producing material within studies of transnational prostitution. positioning in field work a number of studies on method argue that social relations, created during the process of fieldwork, are based on the intersections of multiple categories like gender, race and sexuality (lykke, 2008; archer, 2002; yuval-davis, 2006). archer (2002) stresses that the ways in which the researcher and the interviewees perform gender and race during fieldwork imply ‘difference’ as well as ‘sameness’ that reflect power relations created during the interaction between the researcher and the interviewees. inspired by archer i pay attention to difference and the performance of gender and race in order to investigate how access is formed as a result of highly complex power relations between the researcher, the research assistant and the researched. i obtained access to the migrants selling sexual services in different locations: a social counselling programme targeting migrant sex workers as well as massage parlours and bars. conducting fieldwork in different locations and situations has resulted in different narratives. besides focusing on gender and race, i also include sexuality and nationality as categories that constitute difference and similarities. altogether, this leads to rather multifaceted empirical material in terms of narratives on gendered sex work. with reference to haraway’s (1991) idea of being deliberate about one’s own social positions, seeing that a social position can never be neutral, i argue that the construction of the subject positions of the male research assistant, the female thai migrants selling sex, as well as my own subject position during fieldwork derive from the intersection of a number of categories. thus, the article is inspired by an intersectional methodology (phoenix, 2006; spanger 2010). drawing on butler (1990), the construction of the subject is a process that relies on performance reiterating norms, practices, appearances. butler calls this process subjection, talking about becoming a subject, which signifies a process of power that subordinates the individual. at the same time, power provides for the existence of the subject, given that power forms the subject (see also jensen, this issue). as the article will show, the constitution and negotiation of my subject position within this space of commercial sex created possibilities and limitations with regard to investigating the ways in which the female thai migrants perform femininity. employing a poststructuralist feminist perspective the material is understood as being produced through active interchanges of meanings between the implied subjects (see e.g. søndergaard, 2002; haavind, 2000; lather, 1986, 2000). i argue that the researcher must be aware of the ongoing positioning and how we constantly negotiate possible subject positions that imply power relations. for example, the subject positions of ‘academic middle-class korean 154 adoptee woman’, ‘the third-world woman selling sex in denmark’ or ‘the white young academic male’ are all grounded in the categories of gender, sexuality, race, class, age, and they affect the complex power relations between the researcher, the studied subjects and eventually the gatekeeper. the research assistant niels studied thai culture and language, primarily focusing on thailand. thus, our respective focus was displaced, and a battle or competition about knowledge did not determine our relation and the way in which our positions were established within the field. as a point of departure, i hired niels and developed the framework for visiting bars at night, while at the same time being sensitive to niels’ suggestions and ideas, given that he knew a number of thais in denmark. moreover, having an academic background made it easier for us to discuss our positions at the bars and our encounters with the female thais selling sex and the danish male guests with regard to what to look for, whom we came in contact with and what we talked about with the danish male guests and the female thai migrants. thus, niels functioned as an informal semi-inside gatekeeper, since he speaks thai and has contact to key persons within the thai migrant community in denmark and has insight into the thai culture in denmark as well as in thailand. he introduced me to places and people in the migrant community. in particular, we visited bars together at night. entering the bars, niels and i represented a heterosexual couple. at first sight we were intelligible, so to say. with our looks, me representing an asian woman and niels representing a white danish man, we matched the predominantly racialised gender pattern; asian women from thailand and danish white men. this was also a part of my strategy during fieldwork at the bars. at the same time, we were positioned as an ‘odd’ couple since we were wearing everyday clothing, attending together, but did not signal that we were a couple (holding hands, kissing), and at the same time i look asian, but speak danish, while niels looks danish, but speaks thai fluently. the female thais became somewhat confused and had difficulties positioning us as respectively costumer and sex worker. sometimes the staff and the male guest positioned us as journalists or police officers. at the bars it was predominantly niels who established contact to the female sex workers and not me. considering him a young white heterosexual man, the female thai migrants selling sex were curious about him: why he spoke thai, and at the same time he was not interested in their sexual services, but in their private lives. if there were no potential clients at the bars, some of them talked to him. quite quickly the thai migrants realised that niels was not a potential client. rather, they found him interesting given that he represented a different masculinity that challenged the stereotypical notion of the white danish man within this location. conversely, the men at the bar sometimes made contact with me, often positioning me as one of the ‘thai or asian women’. quite aware of how the intersection of the categories of race and gender could position me as sex worker from the male customers’ gaze, i was calculatedly not wearing sexy or ‘provocative’ clothes during my visits at the bars at night, but instead ordinary jeans and a black or grey sweater with a polo neck, intending to perform ‘another’ femininity. by doing so, i deliberately tried to distance myself from the subject position of sex worker. rather, i attempted to establish the subject position of researcher. nonetheless, when the men addressed me, sexual undertones were in play. i found this rather unpleasant, given that such an attitude positioned me as a sex object, which i viewed as an inferior position. being within the space of commercial sex and seen from my position, (that of a feminist researcher), their gaze on me and how they started a conversation with me reproduced discriminating and sexist stereotypical notions of what davidson and taylor (1999: 38) call “western sex tourists’ fantasies of ‘docile’ and ‘willing’ asian women”. when they tried to flirt with me i rejected 155 them. nevertheless, some of the men still told me about their relationship to female thai migrants or their views on thailand. during such conversations, some of the men positioned themselves as victims telling me how the female thai migrants took advantage of their love and money. suddenly, the women were not positions as ‘docile asian women’, but rather as ‘sly and heartless’. thus, for me it was a balancing act to get insights about female thai migrants selling sexual services, and at the same time not being exposed to sexualised racism articulated by the danish men. representing different subject positions – brown (asian) female academic and a white male academic and talking to different subjects representing brown (asian) female migrant sex workers and white danish male guests, niels and i had access to rather different narratives within the space of commercial sex. these different narratives demonstrate the complexity of how the thai migrant selling sexual services may be positioned, and this complexity, i argue disrupts the dichotomy of ‘the victim’ versus ‘the empowered subject’. at the bars, niels and i were looking at how the danish male guests and the female thai migrant sex workers interacted and created or did not create relations, or tried to establish contact. i observed how some of the female thais were business-like, aggressive or friendly towards the male clients, what kind of clothes the female thais wore, who they addressed, and how they gesticulated. such superficial appearances display how gender is performed, and how different sexual encounters are established. i also had informal conversations with thai female migrant sex workers at bars or at massage parlours, and with male danes at bars. in particular, the informal talks at the bars with female thai sex workers were undertaken by niels. the ‘heterosexual liaison’ as the underlying norm at the bar, and speaking thai, became his way of getting them to talk. in contrast, the female thai migrants had no particular interest in talking to me at the bars3, but the male guests were very much interested in talking to me. thus, our way of performing gender and sexuality created conditions for producing material at the bars. these observations and interviews form the basis of my analysis of gender hierarchies between the different social groups of female thai migrant sex workers, be it female-born subjects, transgendered subjects (m-t-f) or cross-dressers. such premises for producing material were somewhat different from the participant observations during the daytime at the massage parlours or at the counselling programme together with the other gatekeeper, the professional female social worker. in this way, i acquired different forms of access to the sensitive narratives told by the thai migrants selling sexual services. the following two examples spring from my fieldwork. they demonstrate how looks became important in different research situations. i use them to analyse how difference, sameness and power relations were constituted through the different constellations of gender, sexuality, race and nationality as premises for producing material. 3 a number of methodological feminist studies argue that the same gender of the researcher and the studied subjects is an advantage in the interview situation and during fieldwork, based on the idea that the category of woman establishes a common understanding (archer, 2002). my experiences, on the contrary, demonstrate that the intersecting categories of gender, race, nationality, and education constitute different gendered subject positions, and that different constellations provide different inroads to interview situations. 156 destabilising the ‘heterosexual couple’ in the space of commercial sex by night the following example is taken from an ordinary thai bar, which is a well-known place in the thai migrant community. primarily, it is a meeting place for two social groups of guests: female thai migrants and danish men who relate to the thai migrant community through marriage, longer and shorter relationships and/or take interest in thailand by frequent holidays in thailand. moreover, it is also a place where concealed sex work takes place. at night, sexual identity came into play during our visits at the bars. as coffey (2005: 410) notes, our (the researchers’) “sexuality, emotional and physicals desires do not disappear on entering the field”. according to coffey, sexual identity can affect the process of undertaking participant observations. for example, she underscores that the marital status of female anthropologists has affected their access to the field (ibid.: 412). in the case of my participant observations, sexual identity did come into play. inspired by butler’s4 (1990) concept of gender, the components of sexual desire, sexual practices, body and social gender are relevant in the process of establishing field relations. through these field relations gender hierarchies are established and negotiated. one of the evenings at the ordinary bar we meet alicia. niels has met her before in the nightlife. he tells me that she has up to several times made a pass on him. niels assesses that she could be a relevant interviewee. alicia is rather tall (at least 1.80 meters) and slim with long dark brown reddish hair wearing a tight-fitting red miniskirt, shining high-heeled sandals and a top. she is transgendered from a male subject to a female subject. when alicia sees us, she heads for our table gives niels a hug, talking loud and kisses me on the cheeks. then she looks me straight in the eyes saying: “you are beautiful, but not sexy!”. niels introduces alicia to me in english, asking her for an interview. she does not answer him directly in english, but in thai she suggests that he spends a night with her. this he refuses in a polite way. five minutes later she leaves us to talk with some other (male) guests. after discussing which approach we should use to approach alicia, we agree that i should ask her for an interview without niels’ assistance. alicia sits between two men on a sofa, chatting when i address her asking if she has two minutes to talk in private. smiling, she accepts. outside the bar i present my project briefly, asking if she is willing to do an interview about her life in denmark and her views on gender and sexuality. without hesitating she accepts and we arrange an interview meeting. the week after, i conduct an interview with alicia. as agreed with alicia, niels participates although we speak english. openly, alica tells me about how the danish men she meets at the bars are attracted to her. proudly, she tells me that every part of her body face, legs, hips and hair is natural, only the breasts are imitations. she explains to me that she defines herself as a woman, underscoring how the heterosexual men find her attractive and sexy as a woman. according to alicia, the men particularly like the fact that she still has a penis. suddenly, she interrupts herself. addressing niels, she says to him: “i like her (marlene), she is nice”. thereafter, she continues telling me about her love life, femininity and the men. in this field situation meeting alicia in the bar and asking her for an interview gender performances and sexual identities are crucial in establishing field relations between the studied 4 see also spanger 2012 for an elaborating of butler’s (1990) concept of gender in relation to perceptions of the thai migrants selling sexual services in denmark. 157 subject, the researcher and the research assistant. niels and i represented a heterosexual couple at the bar, although we just related through our professional background as academics. this may have made it important to alicia to position me as a non-sexual object, someone who could not threaten her position as an attractive woman in niels’ eyes by stating: “she is not sexy”. when speaking alone with alicia, the gender hierarchy constituted by look, bodily practices and sexual desire disappear, as i am not a threat in terms of a potential rival. rather, i am in an inferior position wanting something from her; namely her knowledge about gender, sexuality and migration, and i have nothing to offer in return (not a night with niels either!). during the interview, i question alicia about defining herself as a woman through bodily practices (adjusting the body), looks, sexual relations and belongings. there were no explicit openings for asking about selling sex. presumably, i appeared as totally harmless not challenging her femininity or her probable concealed sex work, which is why she finds me nice. at the end of the interview, niels takes over, asking about her knowledge about prostitution at the bar. alicia’s answers are now suddenly snappy and her flirting attitude towards niels is gone. aiming to obtain narratives from the thai migrant sex workers, i was situated in a rather powerless position compared to my research assistant, who could approach the female migrants quite easily. however, it was different in the case of alicia. in the attempt to establish contact with alicia with assistance from niels, i was at first sight positioned as powerless due to us appearing to be a heterosexual couple. without niels’ presence, it was much easier to establish contact with alicia. thus, power relations were constantly at play during my fieldwork. however, being in a powerless position was not always a disadvantage for me when gaining access to the narratives of the female migrants selling sexual services. i will elaborate on this in the following example. negotiating femininity at kulap’s massage parlour the following narrative is an example taken from my visit to a massage parlour that clearly demonstrates how looks and bodily appearances, those of the female thai migrant sex workers and myself respectively, constituted hierarchies of power relations based on the intersection of gender, sexuality, race and nationality. besides selling sex, kulap is in charge of the massage parlour. two female thai migrants work there. they are asleep when i arrive around noon. today, two friends, lee ann and soi, are visiting kulap, too. often they drop by to play cards, watch thai films and eat together. they both have a past in the sex industry working as escorts and at a strip bar. all the migrants are in their 30s. during my visit, i experience that appearance and bodily practices very much preoccupy kulap and her two friends in their everyday lives. kulap is quite stocky and small compared to her guests who are tall and slim. during lee ann’s and soi’s stay at the massage parlour, they regularly check and adjust their make-up and clothes, which reflects how much effort they put into their looks. right at the beginning of my visit, lee ann gives me a puzzled look, unsure of my country of origin due to my look and my danish language. she has difficulties positioning me. perhaps my clothes underscored her bewilderment. during my participant observations both during the day and at night, i was wearing buttoned-up shirts or a sweater and no flashy make-up or high heels. lee ann states that kulap and i do not look like thais with our small eyes, round faces and light skin, rather we look japanese or chinese. such statements constitute difference based on a power hierarchy established by race and gender. i tell her that i am adopted from korea and have lived all my life in denmark, and that i am at the moment doing a study on thai migrants selling sex in denmark, focusing on their migration 158 and their everyday lives in denmark. like lee ann and soi, kulap seems very aware of how femininity is performed through their appearance and bodily practices. at kulaps’ place, looks and bodily practices are ascribed crucial meaning in defining femininity. during our conversation, lee ann brings up the issue of beauty and being attractive in between my questions. kulap says to me: “you see how good-looking lee ann is!” she repeats this several times during my visit, complimenting the body and face of lee ann. during the interaction and dialogue at the massage parlour, kulap reproduces the hierarchy suggested by lee ann which positions kulap in an inferior position to lee ann. by doing so, kulap’s exaggerated statement signals an acceptance of lee ann’s self-understanding as a beautiful woman. in this way, kulap creates a balance in negotiating femininity between her and lee ann. both lee ann and soi are transgendered persons (m-t-f). very proudly, lee ann explains to me how she underwent surgery. every part of her body and face has been adjusted, and kulap explains to me that not all men can see and feel that lee ann is transgendered. on the one hand, such a statement reflects again kulap’s inclusion of transgendered women and being loyal towards other thai migrants representing the sex industry. on the other hand, being positioned in an inferior position as less beautiful due to her asian look by lee ann, kulap strikes back: grounded in a heteronormative discourse, where gender is determined by the components of the body (biology, surface and looks), sexual desire and sexual practices, kulap emphasises that lee ann is not a ‘natural woman’ stating: “not all men can see and feel”. by doing so, kulap positions lee ann in an inferior position, despite her avowedly ideal look. in the meantime, soi has changed clothes from pants and a shirt to a dress that she has just bought and which could very easily be taken for a petticoat. now she is lying sprawled on the sofa watching a thai film. during my talk with lee ann and kulap about their lives, lee ann suddenly sits down on soi’s sofa and just for fun puts her arm around her, catching one of her breasts and stating with a laughing voice, “she has coconuts” – the breast does not move at all when lee ann squeezes it. soi just smiles, ignoring her, and continues to watch the thai film. before lunch, lee ann puts on more make-up, foundation and eye shadow. one of the sex workers, who were sleeping when i came, is awake. looking at her, lee ann suddenly tells me that this female thai migrant and i have the same hair structure – thick, dry and frizzy! i look at the woman. lee ann continues to tell me that she used to have the same hair structure, but after a treatment with a thai hair product, her hair became soft and not so bristle and frizzy. a little confused about her change of subject, i compliment her hair structure, and continue to ask about her former work at the bar. accepting her sudden statement and complimenting her hair structure i position myself in an inferior position, which i am quite aware of. doing so is my way to ensure that the dialogue between me and lee ann continues. accepting a more inferior position, based on the intersecting hierarchies of gender, sexuality, race and nationality, among the female thai migrants at the massage parlour was a way for me to signify that i was not a threat to how they perform femininity. it was a strategy to gain their confidence and to be accepted, which i hoped meant that i obtained insights into how they perform gender within the space of commercial sex. commenting on my look – the frizzy hair, small eyes and round face – and positioning me as chinese or japanese in relation to the thai migrants at the massage parlour, different gendered and racialised positions are established through the looks and bodily practices. this makes it 159 possible for me to analyse how they perform gender, as well as gain insight into their notions of ideal femininity within the space of commercial sex. furthermore, a central gendered demarcation between female-born persons and transgendered persons (m-t-f) is drawn during my visit. at the same time, lee ann establishes a hierarchy between her and the other transgendered woman, soi, based on their adjustment of the body. demonstrating the stiffness of soi’s breast by squeezing it, and at the same time emphasising that the men cannot see or feel that her body has been adjusted, she positions soi in an inferior position based on the discourse of the natural body. positioning lee ann as ‘beautiful’, kulap reaffirms a heterosexual gender hierarchy, where lee ann represents the ideal of femininity. this hierarchy intersects with a racial hierarchy, and reflects how processes of identifying and not-identifying subject positions take place. positioned as representing ideal femininity, having a reorganised face constructed to be a more white feminine face (larger nose, eyes constructed as caucasian eyes and an ovalshaped face), lee ann also reproduces a racial and gendered hierarchy by, stating that kulap and i look more chinese or japanese, which in this case positions us as inferior to white femininity. having no education, working in the sex industry, and having difficulties speaking the majority language (danish), the thai migrants at kulap’s place could easily be positioned as inferior to me, who represents a well-educated ‘female-born’ woman who also represents a wellintegrated ethnic minority group as a transnational adoptee speaking fluent danish. however, being aware of me as an outsider visiting their space (of commercial sex), kulap and lee ann’s negotiation of appearance, looks and bodily practices can be viewed as a way to gain dignity and create a power balance between the studied subjects and the researcher. moreover, when kulap says, “you see how good-looking lee ann is!” it can also be interpreted as a way of recognising her femininity. the ongoing negotiation among female asians (including me), based on gender, sexuality, nationality and race, establishes a racialised heterosexual gender hierarchy, and disrupts the dichotomy of ‘the victimised prostitute’ versus ‘the empowered sex worker’. conclusion i have demonstrated how looks and bodily practices become important in establishing field relations between the researchers and the migrant sex workers. these field relations, constituted by intersecting gendered and racialised hierarchies, formed the basis for producing material for my study of female thai migrants selling sexual services. positioned as inferior within such a racialised heterosexual gender hierarchy has both been an advantage and a disadvantage to me during the participant observations. in some situations, it was a disadvantage as i was dependent on niels to establish contact with the thai migrants. on the other hand, the inferior position facilitated insight into the competition in performing femininity between female-born subjects and transgendered subjects among female thai migrant sex workers in denmark (spanger, 2012). the different constellations of subject positions depended on specific locations and times, in this case, at bars at night or at massage parlours during the day. in particular, i was positioned as powerless in terms of establishing contact with the migrants in different ways, depending on the research location. being an asian adoptee, but not identifying myself as thai, and sometimes being assisted by a young white danish man speaking thai, such constellations of subject positions resulted in my increased awareness of how the informants ascribed meaning to bodily practices and looks through the categories of gender, race and nationality, and how they narrated their gendered and sexual 160 practices. from a poststructuralist feminist approach (butler, 1990; haraway, 1991; lather, 2000; haavind, 2000) this reflects how they construct and negotiate various subject positions that transgress and disrupt the fixed subject positions of the ‘victimised prostitute’ or ‘the empowered sex worker’, and thus question the prevalent dichotomous thinking within studies 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(2006). belonging and the politics of belonging. patterns of prejudice, 40 (3): 197214. author marlene spanger is assistant professor at the department of culture and global studies, aalborg university, denmark. email: spanger@cgs.aau.dk article 2 trine (trykkeklar) 97 irregular migration: mismatch between conceptualizations and lived experiences trine lund thomsen abstract. this article focuses on researching differences in relation to irregular migration and various methodological challenges and ethical considerations that arise when working in this type of research field. due to the precarious character of the migration and the vulnerability of the migrants, a large degree of responsibility is placed on the researcher in order to refrain from harming the researched group(s) further. yet, the need to access information about their life situations are of great importance to shed light on matters that otherwise would remain hidden and undisclosed. how do researchers recognize the implications of the methods used in researching irregular migration and other vulnerable people and sensitive subjects? how do we carry out research in this field without causing further harm to the subjects researched? what kind of differentiating categorization of migrants do researchers construct, produce and reproduce during the research process? this article addresses the above questions by looking at the construction and categorization of irregular migrants in both the research process and as the products of research conducted, using the biographical narrative method in order to obtain a deeper and more complex understanding of the social dynamics involved in the field of irregular migration. keywords: biographical narrative method, conceptualisation, irregular migration, social constructivism please cite this article as: thomsen, t. l. (2012). irregular migration: mismatch between conceptualizations and lived experiences. qualitative studies, 3 (2): 97-114. introduction the acceleration of globalization and differentiation of international migration has made the study of migration and ethnicity more relevant than ever (castles and miller, 2003). the escalation of mobility and migration over recent years has resulted in an increased focus on the processes, causes and consequences of these movements and the implications these transformations have on individuals and societies. however, scholars in this field have mainly been preoccupied with the production and reproduction of adequate theoretical frames for explaining and understanding migration-related developments. much less attention has been paid to methodology and the methods applied when researching migration. castles argues that basic methodological principles for a critical sociology of migration and ethnicity should increase awareness of general trends and alternative approaches to conducting empirical studies in the field of migration. according to castles, researchers need to take a holistic approach and to include the human agency of migrants, applying participatory research methods, giving migrants and other persons affected by migration an active role in the research process (castles, 2007). this notion applies to both regular and irregular migration, although there are exceptional conditions 98 regarding irregularised and vulnerable migrants that call for special attention to the ways in which we research these groups. the main concerns in this article are the production of knowledge about and the conceptualization of research on ‘irregular migration’, as well as the interrelationship between these aspects. in addition, the article will consider some of the methodological dilemmas and challenges that arise during the research process. the focus is primarily on how encounters with irregularised migrants require special attention to the ways in which researchers access and address irregularised migrants and, furthermore, how the information and knowledge obtained from empirical data, such as interviews, is brought into knowledge production about, and conceptualization of, a highly politicized area. these matters will be addressed by using my own research experience from doing field work in this area and through analysis of empirical data. experiences from my research will be discussed within a broader frame of academic research on irregular migration. apart from the methodological considerations and discussions, the purpose of the chapter is also to illustrate how data produced using the biographical interpretive method provide new knowledge and a deeper understanding of the problems and challenges faced by migrants through their own experiences from everyday life. the chapter will address the following issues from a methodological perspective: researching difficult to access groups; categorization and conceptualization of irregular migration; living irregularity; and production (and reproduction) of inequality and misrecognition – stereotyping and stigmatization. regarding the latter point, i wish to focus on issues of self-presentation and representation in the everyday life of irregularised migrants and how categorization and conceptualisation may lead to stereotyping, which in many cases produces stigmatization and marginalization. a distinction between migrants´ own selfpresentation and that of the representations produced through categorization can be identified in researching irregular migration. my experiences from interviewing irregular migrants show that their self-presentation and self-identity does not correspond with the view of irregular migrants in the political and public spheres, often as being both undeserving and deviant, and this view is to some extent also produced in the academic literature through framing and conceptualization. the main purpose of this article is two-fold and discusses the following issues: what are the main challenges of applying a biographical narrative method approach in researching irregular migration? how can biographical narrative interviews contribute to concept development or theory building in the research field of irregular migration? being reflective on the use and definition of concepts is vital in social research, and research on irregular migration is no exception. the concept of irregular migration is a legal, political and social construct of the current times. it is also a blurred concept, loaded with values, and highly politicized (koser, 2005; düvell, 2008a). the intricacies 99 of defining irregular migration, and the values attached to it, make conceptualization extremely sensitive and important, as it may have serious consequences for the people who inhabit this particular social world. living irregularity the research project that this article is based on is an explorative study of the migration experiences of polish workers in denmark, their motivations and strategies in relation to the migration process, and how these may be influenced by policies and opportunity structures. the research focuses on the migration process of the individual, from the motivating factors behind the choice to migrate, to the strategies used in the actual immigration process, and the consequences of the migration for migrants themselves and their families. the central aim of the research project was to explore how opportunity structures such as immigration policies and labour market structures affect the lives of migrants, and whether and how these may lead to irregular migration. the issues presented in this article mainly deal with aspects related to polish migrant workers’ experiences of access to and incorporation into the danish labour market, and only briefly refer to other aspects such as policies and opportunity structures. the study is limited to the period 2004-2008 and, therefore, does not include the consequences of the economic crisis since 2008, or the termination of the transitional agreement on 1 may 2009. studying irregular labour migration in denmark has become particularly important since the enlargement of the european union (eu) in 2004, when 10 new member countries acceded to the union. eight of these countries were east european, and many of the “old” member countries introduced transitional agreements in the initial 3-5 years of migration by migrants from the new accession countries. the transitional agreements of the ‘old’ member states were all restrictive to some degree, and denmark had one of the most restrictive agreements (holzman & münz, 2004). one of the main arguments for this was to protect the foreign workers from being exploited by employers and other labour market actors, by regulating the demand for work permits, as well as restricting their rights to social benefits in the transitional period. however, these regulations had a number of unintended consequences, because the restrictions themselves produced inequalities and irregularisation (thomsen, 2010). the method used in this research project on irregular migration in denmark was based on a triangulation approach using several types of data. qualitative interviews were conducted at the micro and meso levels, (biographical interviews and expert interviews, respectively), and policy documents were used as macro level data. the triangulation of the data from all three levels was done in order to capture a more nuanced perspective on the migration process, and to strengthen the validity of the results. at the macro level, policies and secondary data were included in order to situate the migration process within a contextualized political framework. different types of documents were also included as a means of accessing knowledge at all three levels. at the meso level, expert interviews were conducted with representatives from 100 various organisations such as trade unions (bat and 3f), the danish construction association (dansk byggeri), and from the catholic church and the polish association in aalborg. a group interview and individual biographical interviews with polish migrant workers were conducted at the micro level. the reason for doing interviews was to obtain rich and detailed information about how certain relations and circumstances during the migration process was experienced and conditioned the strategies and activities of the migrants. biographical interviews were conducted with 24 polish migrant workers representing different trades, mainly in construction, and the industrial and the service sector in aalborg, the fourth largest town in denmark. through the analysis of biographical narrative interviews it is possible to obtain information about how certain relations and circumstances during the migration process have conditioned the strategies and activities of the migrants. the interviews can, therefore, help determine how the migration process is shaped through identifying significant factors in the respective narratives and patterns that may occur among them. the interviews were conducted in 2006 and in 2008 starting with the representatives at the meso level. through some of these informants, initial contact to polish migrant workers in aalborg was established. the local catholic priest contributed with useful insights, but the intended strategy of gaining access to polish workers through the church failed. the chairman of the polish association in aalborg became a key person and the gatekeeper of contact with polish workers. together with an element of “snow-balling”, all informants were found through this one contact. a main concern of this one-sided recruitment of informants is that it is very possible they are not representative of irregularised polish workers and do not cover the diversity of the group. it is quite likely that they represent the most successful half of that group because the recruitment happened through someone who himself belonged to the more resourceful group like many of the other members of the polish association in aalborg. this may possibly lead to some degree of bias in the sample, and the case is therefore not representative of the whole group of polish workers in the low-skilled areas of the danish labour market. the biographical narrative interview method (bnim) was the primary method used at the micro level, with individual migrants. the main strength of the biographical method, from a methodological perspective, is that it facilitates a way of exploring subjectively experienced reality and conceptually reconstructs a changing world as interpreted by the social agents themselves (hoerning, 1996; kupferberg, 1998) providing a perspective from below. in order to understand the biographical experience and social action it is necessary to bring the articulated actions into a biographical coherence. using the biographical narrative interpretation method for obtaining knowledge about a particular area or phenomenon has certain implications for the research process. first of all, it is a method that is orientated towards the process of individual life courses, and secondly, it enables the researcher to link the subjects and the structures through the experiences of the individual. the biographical method aims to reduce the complexity of reality by extracting the significant, essential and selective topics from 101 the qualitative data material. on this issue, max weber acknowledges that reality, whether it is natural or social, is in length and depth infinitive, therefore, any approach to an analysis of any thinkable phenomenon is in reality always selective and guided by values (weber, cited in giddens, 1974: 7). following this methodological approach, research cannot be conducted in a valueless manner, and it, therefore, contains some degree of normativity. it can never be fully objective, no matter how hard the scholar tries to carry out neutral and valueless research. biographical narratives capture how labour migration entails turning points in the life trajectory of the migrants and, to various degrees, leads to a lack of autonomy and control of the person’s biographical project, when they find themselves in an irregular position. if, on the other hand, the migrant’s status is regular/legal, the level of autonomy and control is experienced as being higher. the interviewed polish workers all expressed their experiences of migration as leading to a lack of autonomy and control over their biographical project, and they also expressed the vital importance of changing this situation by revising their biographical project and changing their life plans by moving into other migratory ‘spaces’. the decision to concentrate on polish migrants was based on several aspects of the research process. first of all, there were considerations about mobility patterns and the representation of migrants from various eastern european countries, with poland being hugely over-represented as a sending country in comparison to other new accession states. secondly, the choice of limiting the researched group to polish migrants increased the possibility of making comparative analysis with other eu countries, as poles are also the largest researched migrant group from the new eu countries to the so-called ‘old’ eu countries. polish labour mobility has a long history both in europe and the united states. however, the recent flows of migration within europe after the eu enlargement are quite extraordinary both in terms of numbers and patterns. accessing and interviewing vulnerable migrants migration may produce both vulnerability and empowerment depending on how the migration process develops, and depending on the agency of the migrant. irregularised migrant workers are more vulnerable and exposed to exploitation than national workers due to their legal status and limited rights (stenum, 2010). working with this group involves particular challenges in relation to obtaining reliable and unbiased findings. it is, therefore, essential to access deep information about the specific situations and conditions concerning migratory processes from the various actors involved and, not least, to give the migrants themselves a voice so that their experiences of the migration process is exposed, and their narrations used as valid empirical data for understanding and conceptualizing irregular migration. getting in contact with migrants is often one of the largest challenges of researching irregular migration. one of the main reasons is that, due to the irregular character of the migrants’ status or activities, they have a vested interest in staying hidden from the authorities. there are safety and security risks, for potential informants as well as for 102 the researcher, and there is no reliable sampling frame or route for contacting informants. the difficult and limited access to informants has several consequences for the research design and methods, in terms of representativity of the researched group and the limitations of the used method(s) for the data collection. taking a quantitative approach and counting the irregularised is for example rather impossible. a second challenge is to establish a trusting relationship once contact has been made. in the first instance, trust was established through the polish contact person and translator, and secondly through the information given about the purpose of the research project in order to establish confidence in that taking part in the interview would not harm the interviewees in any way. in most cases further trust was established during the course of the interview, but in some cases it was rather difficult to get the interviewee to talk about subjects related to irregularity. one important challenge of conducting the interviews was the language barrier, which meant that translation from polish to danish, and vice versa, was necessary. the use of language translation when conducting qualitative interviews is challenging in a number of ways, depending on the type of interview and on the type of research. when conducting biographical narrative interviews, it may even be rather problematic. this is primarily due to the limitations in creating a dialogical style of interview where the interviewee is motivated to go into greater details about relevant issues through the interviewer´s responses to the narration. already at the beginning of the investigation it was clear that it would be difficult and even impossible to conduct interviews in either danish or english, as the majority of the participating migrants do not speak danish or have an extremely limited danish level, and i do not speak polish. most interviews were therefore conducted in polish, the informants' native language, which meant they could express themselves adequately, compared to if the interviews had been conducted in another language than their mother tongue. when conducting biographical narrative interviews it is especially important that the interviewees can express themselves in-depth and comprehensively, making their native language preferable. in the interviews conducted in polish it was necessary to use an interpreter. the interpreter's task is to "convey understanding between people who otherwise would not have understood each other because they speak different languages" (gal & gal, 1999: 15). furthermore, the interviews conducted with an interpreter are perceived as a conversation between three parties, where the interpreter's presence always influences the situation. the interpreter does not simply act as a ‘glass wall’ where the conversation is filtered through, and it is necessary to reflect on how the interpreter affects the situation and how details or phrases might be lost in translation. it was also necessary that the informant's narrative story was split into smaller parts; otherwise it was not possible for the interpreter to reproduce the conversation. eye contact is very important in order to maintain contact with the interviewee, despite the interpreter's linguistic contact with the informant. i tried, therefore, to maintain some level of eye contact with the informant, while the interpreter translated 103 the informant's narratives (galal & galal, 1999). the interpreter’s translation of the questions and remarks posed by the interviewer is quite impossible to check because of the language barriers. this loss of control over the interview is quite serious when conducting biographical narrative interviews, not only due to whether the translation from one language to another is correct, but also because the interviewer has little, if any at all, possibility of supporting the progress of the interview. conceptualising the ‘irregulars’ how we conceptualize issues and understand the concepts is central to knowledge production, which is closely related to the methodological approach (see also jørgensen this volume). both ‘illegal’ and ‘irregular’ are inequality-creating categories that are produced in certain historical and geographical contexts, making time and space important aspects when carrying out research in this field. being categorized as irregular never stands on its own, but is connected with other differentiating categories such as ethnicity, gender, religion and class. in relation to this, the concept of diversity serves as an umbrella for differences and inequalities. a concept is an abstraction – or symbol – a representation of an object or one of its properties, or a behavioral phenomenon (king, 1988). in practice, the researcher begins the process of research by using concepts as keywords for describing the empirical world, such as ‘irregular’, ‘social recognition’, ‘migrant’, ‘ethnicity’ and ‘integration’. concepts serve a number of important functions in social research. firstly, they are the foundation of communication in research, being a symbol of phenomena, and as such, they are abstracted from perceptions and are used to convey and transit information (nachmias & nachmias, 1997). the primary function is thus to enable researchers to understand each other by using the same interpretation of concepts through on-going negotiations of these. however, the exact definition of a concept may vary, creating on-going debates on how to describe and define a particular part of reality that is discovered or studied in the empirical world. moreover, concepts introduce a perspective, a way of looking at the studied subject in a certain way, meaning that through scientific conceptualization the perceptual world is given an order and coherence that could not be perceived before conceptualization. secondly, it permits the researcher, in a community of other researchers, to lift the idiosyncratic experience to the level of consensual meaning or intersubjectivity (denzin, 2009). thirdly, it enables the interaction of the individual with his or her environment; “he (or she) indicates to himself (or herself) what a concept means and acts towards the designation of that meaning. the concept thus acts as a sensitizer of experience and perception, opening new realms of observation, closing others” (denzin, 1989: 38). a fourth function of concepts is to allow researchers to classify, structure, categorize, order or generalize their experiences or observations. the functions of concepts are vital for the research process, not least when doing biographical research, because the theoretical concepts are utilized for in-depth description of socio-structural relations with the aim of understanding movements of societies (bertaux, 1981: 41). the need to transcend the legal aspect of irregular migration is based on the understanding that concepts themselves create significance in the production of meaning. the conceptualization of irregular migration in the research project is, therefore, developed 104 in a dialectic relationship between empirical data and conventional theoretical approaches, which cannot be completely separated, as they interact with one another through the research process. the distinction between regular and irregular migration is rather difficult to pinpoint, as it depends on national legal contexts and migration regimes (brunovskis & surtees, 2008). until recently, irregular migration in the nordic countries has mainly originated from the asylum system (koshravi, 2006: 290), but since the enlargement of the eu there has been a growing connection to labour migration. for example, due to the status of being eu citizens, polish workers have certain rights that migrants from outside of the schengen/eu area do not enjoy, but they may still become irregular migrants by not complying with labour market regulations (friberg & tyldum, 2007). in this sense, the distinction between regular and irregular migration becomes rather fluid when it is related not only to entry and stay, but also to activities that do not fully comply with the national rules and regulations. the perception of irregular migration has changed over time, and the regulation of unwanted foreigners has been guided by various political discourses in different immigration countries with reference to changing potential or imagined threats to society and the nation state (düvell, 2008a). the potential danger caused by the foreign ‘other’ has been influenced by issues such as religion, social cohesion and security, particularly after the 9/11 terrorist attacks in new york city. the construction of the ‘illegal’ other is closely connected to the ‘us-them’ dichotomy, between the established national group and the newcomers, in terms of one group (us) having (more) right(s) over the other (them). from a sociological point of view, the categorization of certain migrants as illegal, that is, as criminals, is related to a sense of social uncertainty, in which the unknown stranger is perceived as belonging to a ‘dangerous’ class and/or a threat to the social and political order (düvell, 2008b). the element of danger varies from country to country depending on the type of society and labour market, which the type of migration regime often illustrates (andersen, 2004). the common reaction of states to these threats is restrictive immigration policies even though the capacities of governments are rather limited, not least due to the nature of irregular migration (castles & miller, 2003). increased restrictions might even result in migrants becoming further irregularised in order to remain hidden from the authorities. in many cases, this, unfortunately, also includes covertness from the institutions that could protect migrants from exploitation and destitution (düvell, 2006). movement across borders is not the only legal concern of states. managing migration may also create dilemmas at various national levels. from this point of view, illegal or irregular migration are categories that are constructed in various spaces on global, national and local levels and are defined according to the particular context of the migration process. furthermore, there tends to be a more positive view of irregular migration in prosperous times, mainly due to labour shortage, when migration is not only tolerated or even encouraged by employers, but also by the authorities (ghosh, 1998). in that sense, the construction of various types of migrants change in terms of whether they are perceived as deviant subjects or accepted as contributing and deserving individuals. in order to capture changes over time it is necessary to apply a method 105 that has a longitudinal character such as the biographical method (see also bloksgaard this volume for other longitudinal research strategies). there seems to be a tendency to divide migrants into dichotic categories such as: ‘documented’ and ‘undocumented’, or ‘legal’ and ‘illegal’ migrants. these dichotomies, however, oversimplify the empirical reality, where the legal status of migrants may change over time. some migrants may, for example, enter countries through legal channels and later become ‘undocumented’ by overstaying their visas, while others may violate the terms of visitor visas by working without permission. the boundaries between regular and irregular populations are permeable and in constant flux because there is a constant flow of people on the move, and in and out of legal status (calavita, 1998). this categorisation is, however, also a product of the state’s criminalisation of certain activities that do not comply with the legal status of the migrant. it thus seems more appropriate to refer to illegalised or irregularised (rather than illegal or irregular) migrants in order to emphasize that the concept is constructed, and to protect these persons from further stigmatisation and marginalisation. the space of legality is carefully controlled by the law. admission to legal status requires certification by the state authorities, which is clearly stated within legislation. however, it is much less clear what it means to be an illegal migrant in terms of the law. the legal categorisation seem rigid in the sense that if a person does not fit clearly into the national definition of legal entry, residence and work, that person occupies a grey zone without the required certificates (guild, 2004). the political discourse and the attitude towards irregular migration and irregularised migrants changes over time. the change in attitude also illustrates the importance of structural conditions and their impact on the facilitation of irregular migration, as well as how these legal spaces are also social spaces, in which transboundary expansion also takes place. the transboundary expansion of social spaces is restricted to certain regions and involves clustering of transactions, exchanges, networks and interaction of actors in functional and geographical grouping of states (faist & özveren, 2004). the construction of irregular migration is mired in negative connotations, and when it comes to the political agenda immigration countries have focused primarily on control issues (miller, 1995; koser, 1998). in the discussion of the ‘outlaw as other’, it is argued that in post-industrial societies of the late 20th century, we returned once again to the concept of the ‘dangerous’ classes and the criminalization of the unemployed underclass. this categorization of the ‘other’ leads to increased inequalities between national and non-national workers, and creates various stereotyping of different ethnic groups (jenkins, 2004). the immigrant is often discussed as the ‘other’, and is furthermore constructed as an outlaw who, in some cases, becomes the stereotype of migrant workers. most irregular migrant workers find themselves marginalized and even stigmatized due to their inability to follow the accepted social rules, norms and practices (goffman, 1963, 1990), and at times their vulnerable positions force them into further irregularity and insecurity. however, many immigrants do not consider themselves ‘illegal’ and one could argue that the law creates irregular migration and 106 irregularises migrants for the purpose of protecting the state and law and order, and in this quest creates the ‘outlaws’ or the ‘other’. the discrepancy between the self-identity and the social identity can, if experienced negatively, lead to lack of self-esteem and may affect the psychological well-being of the individual migrant (goffman, 1969). the intersection of the dichotomies legal/illegal and licit/illicit illustrates how multiple types of ‘criminal’ spaces are produced (van schendel & abraham, 2005). the main consequence of this mainly politically-induced construction is the criminalisation of millions of migrants around the world. there are several important issues in relation to human aspects of the criminalisation tendency that need to be considered and addressed, such as handling forced migration and stigmatised identities. in the model, social responsibility by all actors involved in the migration process can be integrated in the comprehension, and, furthermore, allow for interpretation of the concept that goes beyond the legal (state-centered) perspective on migration issues. the relevance of adding the social perspective on irregularity becomes quite clear when researching irregular activities in the labour market, where the national workers, employers and other labour market actors, take part in irregular activities, but are, nevertheless, not labeled as ‘irregulars’ in the same way that foreign workers are. figure 1: the nexus between policy making at state level and the norms and praxis at the social level. (van schendel & abraham, 2005) the above table illustrates the multiple combinations of regular/irregular migration when various levels of compliancy are confronted with both the legal/illegal and the licit/illicit spheres. the spaces correspond with the different ways in which migration may be irregular, which means that only when migration is fully legal and fully licit is it regular. the incorporation of the social level in relation to irregular migration provides a broader frame for analysing all of the agents involved in the migration process, including employers, subcontractors/agencies and networks. state sphere social sphere legal illegal licit a b illicit c d 107 from ‘regular’ to ‘irregular’ – and back again in the biographical narrative interviews, the polish workers do not regard themselves as ‘illegals’ or ‘irregulars’, but as hard working and reliable workers. the following section addresses how the biographical method may provide useful details about living as an irregularised migrant, enabling a far more nuanced construction of irregularity. through the biographical narratives, which contain rich information about the experiences of the migration process, supported by the theoretical concepts, it is possible to identify correlations between different aspects in the narrations and discover patterns among the narratives. the analysis is structured around three cases of polish migrants who have taken up work in denmark during the period between 2005 and 2008. two of the cases are based on individual biographical interviews with piotr and marcin, and the third case is based on a biographical interview with a couple, ewa and darek. the three cases are chosen from the whole sample of interviews as exemplary cases of different narrations of migration. together, they represent patterns that emerge from the whole sample. most of the polish workers interviewed for this study have at one time or another been irregularised due to not being in full compliance with the legal and the licit level. marcin, aged 51 and working in construction, started working in denmark as irregularised because he did not have the required working permission. marcin had lived in denmark for more than three years but did not speak much danish. he was dependent on the employer to take care of the official arrangements with the authorities. marcin does not talk much about this period in his narration, and he does not go into details about the irregular aspects of his work situation. he says: “in the beginning i worked in a small building company. there was also another polish guy working there, and a danish guy, and the boss was danish. we worked six days per week and sometimes on sundays too, but that was more private work.” (interview 8) after the interview, the polish translator who knows marcin personally tells me more about the period when marcin was employed on conditions that did not comply with the regulations and norms of the trade, and that it involved moonlighting. the information obtained from the translator adds important aspects to the narration, and it also shows the vulnerability of the interviewed person, as well as the limitation of the method, when used across a language barrier. although the strength of the biographical method is the nuanced data and its explorative character, this example also reflects interviewees’ desire to give certain impressions of themselves and their potential motivation for leaving out parts of the biographical narration. the period that marcin focuses most on in his narrative relates to the time around and after he became self-employed. marcin talks a lot about this part of his migration experience, as he has an interest in narrating himself in a positive way. after a couple of years in denmark, he decided to become self-employed and through this occupational position create a change in his legal status. he now runs a small construction company and has been united with his wife and daughter, who is planning to study for a university degree in denmark. the change from being employed on irregular conditions to being 108 self-employed brings marcin from one migratory space to another. from a legal point of view, marcin’s original employment was illegal, because the necessary work permits were not submitted to the authorities. marcin’s narrative of his migration process in denmark highlights processes of jumping from one social and legal space to another. using bnim in data collection makes it possible to gain access to the migrants’ experiences of their lived life, and the fact that the migration situation for some of the polish workers has resulted in having to prolong their stay, and has in some cases pushed them into further irregularisation due to lack of opportunities and rights in the social space they inhabit. such a situation puts some migrant workers in vulnerable situations where they are easily exploited, by having to work very long hours, on dangerous working sites and even without being paid. “in denmark it is not possible to use my qualification, not even my experiences. here i am only cheap labour, but this is fine for me. i just need to earn the money, so i can pay back my debts and start over again” (interview 5) during the interview with piotr, a 47 year old qualified accountant who is unmarried and has no children, it becomes apparent that there are open and closed spaces in piotr’s narrative. when the conversation addresses issues of irregularity, he changes the subject or stops talking. the unequal power relation between myself as part of the established group with the right to categorise others, and the migrant as a newcomer who might possess stigma and is, therefore, a potential deviant, does certainly influence the interaction and communication between us. piotr’s (and other informants’) unwillingness to give detailed information about the actual situation of being irregularised made the used of the bnim approach even more suitable, because it is one of few methods capable of investigating issues, such as irregular migration, without asking directly about it. it is the direct and indirect changes that are expressed during the narration that makes it possible to identify the transformative character of irregular migration. connected to these processes are the ever present issues of time and space, captured in the account of the migration experience and the changes of moving from one migratory space to another. the exploitation by employers, which some of the polish workers mention in their narratives, might be legitimised by arguing that the wage paid is higher than the migrant would receive at home, and in this sense he or she is better off. this type of irregularity is characterised as being illegal on the one hand, but in certain environments it may be socially accepted by the actors involved in the activities. furthermore, the migrant might not always be aware of the usual level of salary for the particular job position and are not, therefore, in a position to argue the (un)fairness of the salary. the biographical narrative interviews show the significance of the asymmetric relationship of power and language barriers between the employer and employee, which makes it very difficult for the migrant worker to make any demands and enforce the equal rights that he or she is entitled to under eu legislation. 109 in the course of the implementation of the transitional agreement, some polish migrants shifted from being in full compliance with the legal requirements to various degrees of irregularised migratory situations, or the other way around, in the sense of not complying fully on either the state or social level, and in some cases both. at the same time, polish workers could have a legal status and still be an irregular migrant if, for example, the employer did not comply with the regulations in the labour market. a young couple, ewa and darek, chose to go abroad to work, despite both having university qualifications and relatively good job positions in poland within the marketing sector. the couple had decided in 2006 to travel to norway like many other poles at that time. on their way, they made a stop in aalborg in northern denmark, where they found jobs at the local newspaper. in the interview ewa explains: “when we came to denmark we found work as newspaper distributors and we worked there for about seven months. the pay was not so good because we didn’t work for very long every day, but we could manage.” (interview 1). like many other polish workers in this sector, they were employed for 15-20 hours weekly, which is not in compliance with the regulations of the east agreement (the danish transitional agreement) which requires that eu workers are employed for a minimum of 30 hours per week. in other cases, polish newspaper deliverers have been underpaid and some have been lured by the distribution companies promising more than 100 dkk per hour and 37 hours of work per week. even though wages may be in compliance with the agreements, there is a tendency for the polish and other eu workers to be paid a lower wage than national workers. this is not necessarily in noncompliance with the legislation, but a breach of the wage level negotiated for the particular sector and, therefore, does not comply with the licit level recognized by the trade union and union members. this wage pattern does of course not reflect illegal activities, but is rather an expression of an illicit (and legal) development, that does not meet the norms of the particular area. in this sense, it may not be considered acceptable and legitimate by the involved actors and institutions. the lack of recognition of the migrant workers´ skills by underpaying them is experienced negatively by the migrant worker, as it makes them feel less valued than the national workers, which affects both their self-esteem and self-confidence, because their irregularised position means they have fewer rights and possibilities of changing the situation. irregular migration is, furthermore, often the result of the migration process having resulted in migrants losing, to various degrees, autonomy and control of their own situation, and becoming victims of exploitation (lisborg, 2011). changes are identified in the biographical narrative interviews through the patterns of moving from an illegal/irregular space to a legal/regular space. an example of this pattern is when temporary migration turns into more permanent settlement, followed by an actual integration process. this often has a regularizing effect on the migrants’ position. almost all of the polish workers interviewed in the course of this study have 110 at one time or another been irregularised due to not being in full compliance on the legal and the licit level. in relation to such a situation, the rather restrictive policy seems to be a barrier for accessing the labour market. the rights and conditions that are attached to the status of the individual migrant shape the possibilities of being in full compliance with the rules and regulations. the large variations, depending on the type of stay, have caused some confusion and frustration for both employers and employees. as a result, during the time of the transitional period, many eu workers have been in situations of not entirely complying with the residence and/or working regulations and, therefore, not being fully legal. the workers may, however, not necessarily be aware of the legal aspects of their position and status as eu citizens. although the eastern agreement is considered a success, and is viewed as a political expression of the ambition to control and regulate wage and employment conditions, there have been many cases of irregularised migration of eu workers since 2004 (thomsen, 2010). the biographical narrative interviews show how different strategies are applied by the polish migrants, connecting opportunities for accessing regular spaces and gaining recognition with the desire to settle in denmark. the long-time strategy of settlement and integration is often related to the existence of better possibilities for familyand work life in denmark, because of the opportunity structures in the danish labour market. conclusion in light of my experiences of researching irregular migration using bnim, i suggest a multiple combination approach to researching irregular migration where various levels of compliance are confronted including both the legal/illegal (state) and the licit/illicit (social) sphere, which also should be reflected in the conceptualisation of irregular migration. the analysis of the biographical narratives of migration processes and experiences shows how the construction of categories of the deviant ethnic ‘other’ cannot be framed in a black and white manner of being regular or irregular or legal or illegal, but that the reality of the lived life is much more complex. the interviews illustrate on-going changes in social positions in migratory spaces over time. the biographical method contributes with valuable data and qualitative knowledge about migrants’ paths in regular and irregular migratory spaces. researching migrants who are categorized as irregulars entails various implications and challenges for the research process, and places responsibility on the researcher with regards to research conduct, ethics and reporting. both illegal and irregular types of migration are politically constructed, and are products of the management of national (often security-related) interests. the irregularisation of migrants as a consequence of state intervention through the legal system forms the formal normative frame for defining and constructing the ‘illegals’. the definition of irregular migration and irregularised migrants presented in this article includes both a legal and a social dimension of the concept, in order to go beyond a purely legal perception of irregular migration. conceptually, irregular migration has the potential to function as a terminology that embraces the various concepts applied in the literature on irregular migration, such as illegal, undocumented, clandestine, unauthorised. in this article, the social dimension of the concept of irregular migration is highlighted in order to ensure 111 the inclusion of all the various actors taking part in the migration process, as well as linking the micro, meso and macro levels. the attempt to transcend the legal aspect of irregular migration is certainly not an easy task, as the focus in this research area is mainly on how the legal system continuously criminalises migrants for their movement and activities. instead of solely focusing on the status of migrants (that is, on whether they comply with legislation or not), another perspective that is based on the activities and conditions that characterize the migration process would shift the focus from merely criminalizing migrants to including the various actors involved. this approach also opens up the possibility of accessing a deeper understanding of the relationship between actors at the micro level, as well as the relationship between micro and macro level. when it comes to immigration policies, states often apply a rigid understanding of irregular migration. simultaneously, the state often defines the very same concept that neglects recognition of the hundreds of thousands of border zone migrants who are living with changing and/or combined statuses (düvell & vollmer, 2009). the political construction of irregularity maintains these migrants on the edge of the economy, where they provide a ‘flexible’ labour force, as it may be referred to within policymaking. by including a social dimension, a constructivist approach to doing irregular migration research is introduced, and the discrepancy between the personal and internal identity of the irregular migrants and the external identification by others, such as the legal system 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(2005). illicit flows and criminal things. states, borders, and the other side of globalization. bloomington: indiana university press. 114 author trine lund thomsen is an associate professor at the department of culture and global studies at aalborg university, denmark. email: tlt@cgs.aau.dk barbara fersch (trykkeklar) 86 meaning: lost, found or 'made' in translation? a hermeneutical approach to cross-language interview research barbara fersch abstract. qualitative research that includes interviews in languages foreign to the researcher(s) has become increasingly common. however, there is surprisingly little reflection on the methodological implications of such research practices. furthermore, strategies on how to analyse crossand multi-language interview material are lacking. the aim of this article is to present possible ways of handling these challenges, focusing mainly on analysis. i propose a hermeneutical approach to the issue. first, i will discuss the epistemological/methodological foundations of the approach before proposing some 'tools' to help practically tackle the 'problem' of analysis using the chosen methodological perspective. rather than ignoring or trying to circumvent the question of foreign language and/or translation, in the proposed approach linguistic questions and questions of translation are the central focus. keywords: epistemology, methodology, hermeneutics, analysis, cross-language, translation please cite this article as: fersch, b. (2013). meaning: lost, found or 'made' in translation? a hermeneutical approach to cross-language interview research. qualitative studies, 4(2): 86-99. introduction no way to say warm in french. there was only hot and tepid. if there's no word for it, how do you think about it? and if there isn't the proper form, you don't have the how even if you have the words. imagine, in spanish, having to assign a gender to every object: dog, table, tree, can opener. imagine, in hungarian, not being able to assign a gender to anything. he, she, it all the same word. thou art my friend, but you are my king; thus the distinctions of elizabeth the first's english. but with some oriental languages, which all but dispense with gender and number, you are my friend, you are my parent and you are my priest, and you are my king and you are my servant whom i'm going to fire tomorrow, if you don't watch it, and you are my king whose policies i totally disagree with [...] and who the hell are you anyway...? samuel r. delany – babel-17 cross-language qualitative interview research has become increasingly common and in a growing number of research projects researchers are dealing with qualitative data collection and interpretation in more than one language. this probably does not come as a surprise at a time of ongoing globalisation. as the field's object of analysis is linguistic, the fact that two or 87 more different languages are involved and that (most of the time) the researchers are not native speakers or do not even speak one or more of the languages involved but make use of translators, therefore appears as one aspect of the research design that must be handled by and reflected in the methodology. thus, it is surprising how little the issue of foreign language is discussed and reflected on within the qualitative research community. as, for example, temple and edwards (2002, p. 2) put it: there is little reflection on the implications for qualitative research of language difference and the use of third parties in communication across languages. this is a strange omission given that qualitative approaches are steeped in a tradition that acknowledges the importance of reflexivity and context. even in the field of social anthropology, a discipline with a long history of fieldwork in foreign countries and a particular interest in language and communication, methodological discussion of the topic has largely been omitted: it seems rather ironic that ethnography, whose beginnings hearken back to the times of lone, mostly english speaking fieldworkers studying ‘primitive’ tribes in far-off places (the members of which most certainly did not speak english), appears to ignore the problematic issue of conducting research in a nonnative language. (winchatz, 2006, pp. 84-5) this lack of consideration can also be traced in concrete research practices, as allison squires (2009) found in her research review of nursing studies projects that faced some kind of language barrier and involved translation at some point in the research process: 33 out of the 40 examined studies contained multiple inconsistencies with regard to methodology, mainly stemming from a neglect of the issue of foreign language in the project design. despite a clear gap in qualitative research literature and the problematic negligence in research practice concerning language barriers and translation dilemmas, a small but growing academic debate has emerged in recent years. several aspects have been addressed, such as questions of representation (temple and edwards, 2002; temple and young, 2004; temple, 2005; hole, 2007), translation techniques and their validity (esposito, 2001), the development of interview guides in multilingual research projects (larkin et al., 2007), and questions of methodology and epistemology (hennink, 2008). however, strategies for how to approach and analyse crossand multi-language interview material remain lacking. this article aspires to contribute to filling this gap. the aim of this paper is to present a methodologically coherent way of handling the problem of analysis of cross-language qualitative (interview) data, including epistemological reflections as well as practical 'tools' for analysis. i propose a hermeneutical approach to the issue, rooted in gadamer's (1989) insights into meaning, language and translation. hence i will first discuss the epistemological/methodological foundations of the approach, before proposing methodological strategies for practically tackling the 'problem' of cross-language analysis on the basis of the chosen methodological perspective. rather than ignoring or trying to circumvent the question of (foreign) language and multilingualism, in the proposed approach, linguistic questions and questions of translation are the central focus. thus, i argue, foreign language interview material can be opened up to interpretation. furthermore, both the issue of multilingualism and the role of the researcher (and contingently, the translator) become almost 'automatically' subjects of reflection, an angle strongly advocated by, for example, temple and young (2004). finally, i will 88 describe various methodological 'tools' and provide an example of the analysis process from one of my own research projects in order to illustrate the advantages of a hermeneutical approach. the hermeneutical perspective on meaning, language and translation as holloway and todres (2003) point out, epistemological viewpoints should guide our choice of methods and design in any research project. furthermore, they argue, by 'applying and pointing out an epistemological position' (ibid, p. 355) in a coherent way the credibility and validity of the research findings are strengthened. epistemological perspectives also play an important role in the treatment of cross-language interview material (see hennink, 2008). in this article the proposed strategy and methods are rooted in hermeneutical epistemology. the specific perspective of hermeneutics is highly useful when it comes to foreign language data and translation dilemmas, particularly due to the discipline’s view of bias and the dialogical dimension of understanding (see below). in order to clarify the background of the subsequently proposed approach, in this section i shall discuss four topics of hermeneutical epistemology, based on gadamer's considerations in truth and method (1989). in a nutshell these are (1) the hermeneutical conception of the relationship between understanding and interpretation; (2) the hermeneutical stance on fore-meanings, biases or prejudices; (3) the dialogical dimension of understanding; and (4) translation as a 'greater hermeneutical difficulty'. hermeneutics sees reality as humanly interpreted, as referring to meanings acquired through life experience (1). however, the mere insight that any reality, any knowledge and any 'truth' that can be found is human interpretation does not make a given approach hermeneutical. what characterises a hermeneutical approach is that it not only acknowledges that any reality is human interpretation, but also interprets this interpretation as (an) interpretation (itself) (jung, 2001). thomas a. schwandt (2000) stresses this insight and elaborates on its everyday implications. according to schwandt, in hermeneutic philosophy, understanding is seen as the very condition of being human. understanding is interpretation. as gadamer (1970) explains, understanding is not ‘an isolated activity of human beings but a basic structure of our experience of life. we are always taking something as something. that is the primordial givenness of our world orientation, and we cannot reduce it to anything simpler or more immediate.'(schwandt, 2000, p. 194, emphasis in original) this also means that, from a hermeneutical perspective, the standpoint of the 'uninvolved observer' is not an option for the researcher. in the context of a multilingual research field, this means that the relative familiarity of the researcher with the languages involved in the research project also has an impact on the interpretation process. in this view, the researcher brings his/her own experiences and fore-meanings (vorverständnis) to the interpretation process (a vorverständnis that is influenced not a little by language) (2). however, in hermeneutics this is not a problem per se: hermeneutics does not evaluate prejudices, bias or fore-meanings as necessarily negative for the research process. in contrast to phenomenological efforts to get rid of bias and prejudice by being an uninvolved observer, hermeneutical theory argues that one's biases should be utilised in the quest for understanding. in hermeneutics, trying to get rid of these fore-meanings is an impossible undertaking as they are something internal and quintessential to every individual, including researchers. as gadamer puts it: 89 in fact history does not belong to us; we belong to it. long before we understand ourselves through the process of self-examination, we understand ourselves in a self-evident way in the family, society and state in which we live. [...] this is why the prejudices of the individual, far more than his judgements, constitute the historical reality of his being. (gadamer 1989, p. 278, emphasis in original) this quotation demonstrates the insuperableness of one's biases from a hermeneutic viewpoint, which is of special relevance in cross-language research projects. since language and language use are part of culture and embedded in society, the bias stemming from 'tradition', that is, the specific background of the researcher in a multilingual research field, is inevitable. in his article on inter-cultural research, jan kruse (2009) provides us with an example of how the differing backgrounds of the interviewee and interviewer can 'clash' even in a monolingual interview context. his example refers to an interview conducted in german of a lebanese migrant woman living in germany by a native german university student. kruse shows how the different understandings and traditions concerning the process of finding a spouse or life partner can be traced in language use and certain respectively different understandings of the words 'partner', 'husband', 'meet someone' and 'dating'. thus he offers the hermeneutical insight that it is not only the interviewees who necessarily understand themselves in the context of 'the family, society and state they live in', but also the interviewer and/or researcher who is biased by their personal upbringing and biography. we can easily imagine that this effect could play an even bigger role in research contexts where two or more languages are involved. as noted above, this is not problematic for hermeneutics as such. the hermeneutic treatment of this problem lies in the engagement of these biases: the point is not to free ourselves of all prejudice, but to examine our historically inherited and unreflectably held prejudices and alter those that disable our efforts to understand others, and ourselves. (garrison in schwandt, 2000, p. 195) gadamer states that this bias should be examined and analysed in the engagement process: [...] it is quite right for the interpreter not to approach the text, relying solely on the foremeaning already available to him, but rather explicitly to examine the legitimacy – i.e., the origin and validity – of fore-meanings dwelling within him. (gadamer, 1989, p. 270) however, the fact that we cannot free ourselves and our quest for understanding from such biases and prejudices does not mean that we necessarily seek only to reproduce them: on the contrary, the hermeneutical approach seeks to gain understanding by critically reflecting on such biases and prejudices. the hermeneutical research process entails that 'the interpreter risks those prejudices in the encounter with what is to be interpreted' (schwandt, 2000, p. 195). to sum up, reflecting upon and examining one's own fore-meanings is a necessary precondition for any researcher applying a hermeneutical approach, including those that are connected with language and language use. in a multilingual research context, questions of language and meaning are often connected to questions of translation as well – thus fore-meanings stemming from translation should become a subject for reflection, too. schwandt (ibid) stresses the dialogical dimension of understanding: prejudices and biases are 90 risked in confrontation with the alien or unknown meaning, and this happens in a dialogical and interactive manner this is the third relevant point in this section (3). this focus on interaction, which ascribes action to the interpreter as well, challenges the classical view that interpretation aims to reproduce meaning as immanent to the given object of interpretation. in hermeneutics, on the other hand, interpretation is seen as the production of meaning; which means that this meaning is produced through the involvement of the interpreter in the aforementioned dialogue. thus, meaning is produced in a mutual negotiation between the interpreter and the object to be interpreted (see, for example, ibid; jung, 2001). this emphasis on the role of the interpreter in the production of meaning implies several consequences for cross-language research: if interpretation is part of the production of meaning, then cross-language interpretation dilemmas are also part of the process of 'making' meaning. and if the process of interpretation is part of the production of meaning, what about the process of translation? is translation also a form of interpretation, and thus also of the production of meaning? in truth and method, gadamer takes up the issue of foreign languages (4) and writes about the question of translation, which, for him, is mainly an especially challenging instance of the whole problem of understanding: the fact that a foreign language is being translated means that this is simply an extreme case of hermeneutical difficulty – i.e., of alienness and its conquest. in fact all the ‘objects’ with which traditional hermeneutics is concerned are alien in the same unequivocally defined sense. the translator's task of re-creation differs only in degree, not in kind, from the general hermeneutical task that any text presents. (gadamer, 1989, p. 389) gadamer identifies understanding, as such, as the focal point of the hermeneutic problem in the search for knowledge. thus, understanding and interpretation in a language foreign to the researcher meet with the same kind of difficulties as in the mother tongue. although focused on finding understanding, the hermeneutical perspective does not assume that meaning can only be discovered in one's own mother tongue. likewise, a translator is also engaged in the process of understanding and interpretation. hence, translators working on a multilingual research project participate in the production of meaning, too. taking especially the two last points into account, a hermeneutical approach to multi-language research means that the production of meaning in translation should be taken into account in one way or another in the research design and the analysis. thus, the fact that translators have in some way been involved or that interpretation has taken place in a language that is foreign to the researcher cannot be ignored or left out – in order to reach understanding, this fact should be included in the analysis and thoroughly reflected on. in addition, hermeneutical crosslanguage researchers should try to find a way to examine their biases and fore-meanings, especially in the face of foreign language interview material. in what follows i will present a proposal on how to grasp and tackle multilingual qualitative data under the premise of the hermeneutical perspective. i will argue that an appropriate way to inspect biases and fore-meanings on the one hand, and to adequately shed light on the production of meaning in interpretation and translation on the other, is to include a focus on questions of language, language use and linguistic phenomena. 91 approaching the 'greater hermeneutical difficulty' as outlined above, hermeneutics urges us to inspect and reflect on our biases and foremeanings, as well as the production of meaning in processes of interpretation and translation. in the case of multilingual interview research, this can become more complex and challenging because of the 'greater hermeneutical difficulty'. how can we approach the analysis of multilingual qualitative data? how can we make the production of meaning in translation transparent and reflect on it? what methodological tools can be applied to grasp the 'greater hermeneutical difficulty'? for a methodological-practical conceptualisation of interview analysis, jan kruse (2009) proposes taking the 'principle of openness' (ibid, para 18, author's translation) seriously. by 'principle of openness', kruse means remaining reticent concerning our own systems of relevance, biases and fore-meanings (but not completely restraining them, as this is neither possible nor desired from a hermeneutical perspective – see the discussion above) when approaching empirical material. he argues that this is only possible if we sensitise ourselves to our own system of relevance. for kruse, this has two implications for research practice: firstly, fore-meanings and knowledge stemming from the study of research literature should influence our empirical research in a heuristic and not a deterministic manner; secondly, we should reflect upon our concepts of relevance and their influence on the research process. in other words, we must be thoroughly reflective concerning our ways of understanding and interpreting in order to understand the 'alien'. kruse writes: because otherwise we do not understand anything of the alien system of meaning, or rather only what fits with us, and therefore only what we already knew beforehand. (ibid, paragraph 18, author's translation) and what does not fit, because we do not know about it, will – as the pragmatics of everyday life shows us – be made to fit. (ibid, footnote to paragraph 18, author's translation) sensitising oneself to one's own system of relevance and its influence on the research process, however, can become more complex in the face of multilingual interview research. for instance, semantic and linguistic fore-meanings and biases that stem from the researcher's native tongue can have an impact on the analysis of the foreign language interview material. words translated into another language may have profoundly different connotations. how can we systematically include reflection on this in the process of analysis? on the other hand, the fact that the researchers might not be as familiar with connotations as native speakers might lead to a more thorough inspection of them and prevent them from all-too-early interpretations, which might be more tempting in one's mother tongue. in this sense, foreign language interview interpretation may not solely create problems, but offer opportunities or even advantages. where external translators are involved, this also requires sensitivity to the translators' biases and fore-meanings. temple and edwards (2002) offer an illustrative example of how translators’ biases can play a role in the research process: in a research project on homeless families and their use of children’s health services in great britain, the researcher employed several translators, as a substantial number of the interviewed homeless families were migrants with little or no english language proficiency. amongst others, a bengali/sylheti translator was hired to translate during the interviews of migrant families from bangladesh. the translator, a migrant from bangladesh herself, strongly emphasised her own middle-class background in 92 contrast to those of the interviewees: as she interpreted the interviewees' accounts of their difficulties and traumas in accessing and using child health services and other facilities, and chose the words best suited to convey their meaning to me, she constructed their social location [...] in opposition to her own in significant ways. (ibid, p. 14) this example clearly shows how much of an influence the translator's fore-meanings can have and how s/he participates in the production of meaning. hence, sensitivity to one’s own and the (hired) translator's systems of relevance, especially with regard to language and translation issues, appears to be necessary. how, then, can we thoroughly reflect on these issues throughout the research process and in the analysis? is it possible to systematically include tools in order to ensure that this sensitivity is included? in the following section i will propose and discuss some tools which i consider useful in the analysis of multilingual qualitative interview material. in their article, temple and young (2004) distinguish between two general possibilities in multilingual interview research, namely research in which researchers also translate on the one hand (dual researcher/translator role) and research in which researchers hire external translators for interviewing and translation (researcher plus translator). however, as i will argue, this dichotomy overlooks several other possibilities for interview research in a multilingual field. for instance, if the researchers themselves are fluent in all languages involved, the challenge might not be translation, but interpretation in a language that is not the researcher's native tongue.1 in what follows, i will propose several ideas and instruments that have been applied in the latter case. such tools can, however, also be useful when external translators are employed. investigating meaning 'made' in translation in this section i will elaborate on the ways in which it is possible to handle qualitative (interview) material that is to be analysed in a language foreign to the researcher. i will present an analysis design of my own which i applied when carrying out analysis in a language foreign to me (fersch, 2009). as mentioned above, i will argue that instead of ignoring or circumventing questions of language and translation, a special emphasis on these issues is beneficial. here, the challenge – as noted above – is mainly that the interview material on hand is in a language foreign to the researcher. the researcher, then, should be careful to not impose meanings and connotations from his/her native tongue on the analysis. furthermore, s/he should sensitise him/herself to the biases and fore-meanings stemming from the cross-language analysis setting. one possible way of systematically reflecting on these topics during analysis is to include some kind of 'semiotic analysis' (coffey and atkinson, 1996, p. 83). a semiotic analysis can include the investigation of several linguistic elements, such as figurative language (e.g. metaphors) and the use of words. in their account, coffey and atkinson suggest that a sensitive examination of such aspects of language use can illuminate how individuals 1 however, translation issues will certainly arise at other stages of the research process. 93 and groups organize and express their experiences. (coffey & atkinson, 1996, p. 84) as regards the issue of figurative language and metaphors, george lakoff and mark johnson (2003) have argued that not only our language but also our thinking, our concepts and our behaviour can be comprehended by way of the notion of 'metaphor': metaphor is for most people a device of the poetic imagination and the rhetorical flourish – a matter of extraordinary rather than ordinary language. moreover, metaphor is typically viewed as characteristic of language alone, a matter of words rather than thought or action. for this reason, most people think they can get along perfectly well without metaphor. we have found, on the contrary, that metaphor is pervasive in everyday life, not just in language but in thought and action. our ordinary conceptual system, in terms of which we both think and act, is fundamentally metaphorical in nature. (ibid, p. 3) thus, a thorough examination of the figurative language used in certain interviews or narratives can give an insight into how meaning is created in the use of language. the same is true for the examination of the use of words. the meaning of certain words and terms in the specific context of a certain narrative becomes understandable not only in the situative context of the respective interview but also necessarily in the broader context of the culture, language and society within which it is placed (see, for example, mannheim, 1982; kruse, 2009). the systematic application of such tools to foreign language interview material enables a constant reflection to take place on the language and linguistic devices that might be unfamiliar or difficult to understand for the non-native researcher. furthermore, it provides a useful contribution to further analysis and discussion. in the case of foreign language interview analysis, the inclusion of some additional methodological tools appears beneficial, such as consulting the relevant dictionaries and idiom lexicons and a discussion of meaning with native speakers. a semiotic analysis, then, helps to identify passages, figurative language and/or words and terms that are ambiguous to the researcher, which can then be discussed with native speakers and researched in dictionaries. discussion will certainly open up more dimensions of meaning than dictionaries, as situative aspects and immediate context can be taken into account. this modus operandi proved to be highly productive during my phd research into new media freelancers in denmark and germany, a project that included qualitative interviews in both german (my, the researcher's, mother tongue) and in danish (a foreign language for me as the researcher) (fersch, 2009). as a non-native danish speaker (albeit literate to a fairly high level) i collected and analysed several work-biographical interviews from freelancers in denmark. there were several instances in which the described strategy contributed to interpretation concerning the use of words and their connotations or idiomatic language. embedded in the overall hermeneutic approach, which additionally included a focus on the context of each interview, was a reflection on the interview’s context and the researcher’s role and contribution. in the following i provide a detailed presentation of the analysis process concerning one specific (and very important) topic. this process of analysis includes both mother-tongue interview material (in german) and non-mother-tongue interview material (in danish). it provides a description of the overall approach to the analysis, starting with reflections on the interview 94 design and collection process. as we will see, the inclusion of a closer look at linguistic phenomena in both languages proved to be crucial to the final interpretation.2 for the sake of clarity, i will provide some contextual information about freelancing and the interviewees. one of the most central and interesting findings of the research project (fersch, 2012) was established due to the overall hermeneutical approach, which, among other aspects, included the analysis of language use: the profound difference3 between the danish and german freelancers interviewed concerning the role and relevance of insecurity4 in their narratives. from very early on in the research process, during the interview phase, i was confronted by a very strange difference in talking about the topic of insecurity – whereas it was a very significant issue for the german freelancers, the danish freelancers did not seem as bothered by it. at this point i was confronted with my own german background: as i have – at least partly – been inspired by german research literature and had developed the research idea with the situation of german freelancers in mind, i had initially had some expectation that the issue of insecurity was going to play a role in the interviews. as i began with the interviews in germany, these expectations were confirmed. therefore when it came to denmark, i was already experienced in ‘freelancer interviewing’ and i had established routines and expectations of how such interviews would develop. in other words (in hermeneutical terminology), when approaching the interviews i had already established fore-meanings, which were then challenged by the ongoing research process. the main difference in the organisation of speech and narration was that the german freelancers (in contrast to the danish freelancers) brought up and problematised the topic of insecurity both unsolicited most of the time and very early on in the interviews. this was especially clear in the interview with petra5, a 40-year-old freelancer located in the ruhr area of germany, whose narration was strongly characterised by de-problematising nearly all of the potentially problematic topics in the interview. nevertheless, insecurity was the only topic she herself presented as a problem, defining it as the one big disadvantage of freelancing as a work form. she brought up the topic when asked about the advantages and disadvantages of freelancing, stating: the disadvantage is, of course, that one never knows when the next job is coming in. 2 here, again, i have been confronted with translation dilemmas, as i have had to translate idioms and specific terms, plus my understanding and interpretation of them in two different languages, into yet another – english. in the interview quotes normally used for publications in english idiomatic language has been translated freely, according to meaning. however in the two instances used to illustrate the analysis process, terms and idioms have been translated directly into english and the original german and danish quotes are provided as well, in order to provide insights into the process of analysis. 3 the interviews were collected in summer 2007 (germany) and spring 2008 (denmark), before the financial crisis became perceptible in both countries. 4 freelancers, or the solo-self-employed, who pursue a profession without any long-term commitment to a particular employer, constitute one of the most flexible parts of the workforce. as they have to sell their services on the market without being buffered by an employer, they are very directly exposed to market risks. hence the assumption that insecurity might constitute a problem for them. 5 all names used are pseudonyms. 95 [...] there is always this uncertainty [...] after having introduced and problematised the topic of insecurity, the german freelancers subsequently describe a lot of strategies and actions they undertake in order to deal or cope with this problem. and they actually do ‘do’ a lot in order to cope with it. for example, madhi, another freelancer in the ruhr area, talked about two dimensions of the ‘insecurity problem’ and identified two ways of handling it. the first one is a strategy applied to his working life, of acquiring additional customers or jobs as a ‘back-up’ to protect against meagre times. this has not proved to be a purely positive strategy, as madhi described the effect of it in busy times as leading to a lot of stress and to the need to pass some jobs or orders onto others: [...] and then, however, we were somehow partly afraid, and that was the mistake i think, to somehow continue to acquire jobs right in the middle and despite the high order volume, right? the other dimension madhi addressed refers to the more emotional or ‘coping’ side of the problem. in one part of the interview, he spoke at some length about his coping strategies. these can be summed up as ‘bearing up’, ‘feigning ignorance’ and ‘fatalism’. madhi states at one point: you know, it is all about emotional states, right? [...] if you do something like that [=freelancing, author] i think you have to bring with you a portion of stupor, as i would call it and maybe as well a bit of (.) trust in god or something, you know, accepting your fate or something like that, by saying ‘oh, every cloud will somehow have a silver lining’ and so on; [...] if you take everything too seriously [...] i don't think you are going to be happy with it. as this example illustrates quite well, the question of insecurity is thus a big issue, which obviously requires a lot of ‘work’ or activity from the german freelancers in order for it to be dealt with. this problem and all of its consequences can be found in different forms or embodiments in all of the german cases. the use of specific words by nina and elena (both freelancers from berlin) in this context is also rather interesting: nina talked about ‘existenzangst’ and how she had learned to cope with it, and elena described how the problem of insecurity had recently become ‘existenziell’ (existential) for her family. here a closer look at the connotations and language use appears promising: although one connotation of existenzangst refers to a more philosophical understanding of the fear of not living a life that makes sense or has meaning, a second, much more everyday understanding of the word, refers to the fear of losing one’s livelihood or being ruined economically. parallel connotations also exist for the word existenziell, including one ‘concerning one’s livelihood’ (duden online, n.d. a and b). the context of the two interviews makes it very plausible to conclude that the latter is the connotation to which the interviewees are referring. while interviewing the danish freelancers, however, the topic of insecurity was almost never mentioned unsolicited (with the exception of susanne, which is why i will discuss her case more closely later on in this section). with growing irritation over the fact that the interviews were not ‘functioning’ the way i was used to, i started to ask directly about the topic. when explicitly asked about it, some of the danish freelancers talked about the insecurity inbuilt in 96 the freelancing work form and the strategies they applied to combat it. however the topic was never assigned the relevance, gravity and existentiality that it was by the german interviewees. furthermore, and despite being directly asked about it, the danish freelancers did not talk very much about the topic. for instance, morten, a freelancer based in århus, described how he always has a financial cushion equal to a few months’ income in his bank account. however, he emphasised that this is not in any way a conscious or active strategy: i have actually not so much thought about that, so, this is actually a bit unconscious, i think. [...] it is running how it is running on a somehow unconscious level. so it's not like i actively think a lot about how much [money] it should be because of this and that. when it comes to the question of whether this financial insecurity and uncertainty makes him feel afraid, he strongly denied it. another danish freelancer, christian from copenhagen, uses his savings in a similar kind of security strategy in the context of the ‘bulimic career patterns’ of freelance work. this gives him the chance to be a little bit more relaxed, because i know very well that i am not screwed. this makes it possibly less hectic for me if i lose a bit of money in one month. the only danish freelancer who brought up the topic of insecurity and uncertainty herself is the aforementioned susanne, who is a 43-year-old freelance graphic designer who lives in copenhagen. however, on closer inspection of her situation there are several biographical reasons why she might be more sensitive to issues of insecurity (shorter experience with fulltime freelancing, being single mother, etc.). she mentioned the topic of insecurity when asked about the advantages and disadvantages of being employed in contrast to freelancing: so, the advantage of being employed clearly is that you get the feeling of having a secure framework. whether this is fake or not does not matter. it is a secure framework you are in. your pension is taken care of. so on and so forth. but i had been working as an employee at the theatre for 12 years when we closed down the department i started in. so in this way i would say i don't trust the [...] ‘employee labour market’ very much. for me, in the graphical branch, it is just as unstable as freelancing. thus susanne suggests that a (feeling of) security is indeed of relevance for her, and that it is in some way missing for her as a freelancer. aside from this, based on her experience, she does not view ‘employee security’ as ‘real security’ any more, as she defines instability and insecurity as something inherent in her branch of industry and not in the work form. in other parts of the interview it becomes clear that it is again the ‘bulimic career patterns’ which are a source of insecurity for her. in contrast to morten, for example, she has installed some quite thoroughly thought-through security mechanisms, which she also describes in depth in the interview. by reporting these reflected and thought-through safeguards against times with low orders or job offers, her interview differs from the other danish interviews. hence, we can sum up that insecurity indeed constitutes a problem for susanne, and that she has also created some mechanisms to safeguard against it. the subsequent course of action in the analysis process was to establish if there was any feeling of fear or anxiety connected with the reported problem of insecurity. when asked directly if this insecurity was also connected with fear or the feeling of being afraid, her answer was (directly translated from danish): 97 i am not afraid to go from house and home.6 at this point of the analysis a closer look at the meaning of this expression was very useful. following the lexicon (den danske ordbog n.d.), to ‘go from house and home’ means that someone is, because of economic problems, forced to leave or sell one’s own house. thus, it means to leave one’s house in the literal sense. however, in additional discussions with native speakers it was also mentioned that it can be used more generally in the sense of meaning ‘sinking into poverty’. this interpretation made sense in the direct context of the remark, in which susanne says: i am afraid, because it is so difficult to come back [...] in such a creative branch. if you have been dropping out, if you get on the wrong track, then there is not so much that sticks to you. and then that's just how it is. this contrasting comment indicates that what susanne is afraid of is not risking her livelihood, but of becoming excluded from the creative field or industry. in her presentation the issue of insecurity appears to be less dangerous, and the connected fears less serious, than in the case of the german freelancers. therefore, even though insecurity plays a role in her account on working and living with freelancing, the difference presented previously (though maybe in an alleviated form) between the danish and german freelancers' accounts on the topic of (in)security remains in her case. conclusions with this article i have aimed to contribute to a discussion of the methodological implications of cross-language interview research and to present a proposal for how to approach the analysis of such interview research material. grounding the proposal in hermeneutical epistemology, the production of meaning in translation and the need for its reflection has been emphasised. in order to thoroughly inspect the fore-meanings connected to language and to make the contribution of researcher(s) (and translator(s)) in the production of meaning transparent i have argued that, amongst other things, the inclusion of elements of linguistic analysis is highly useful. in this article i have given an example from my own analysis on how the inclusion of a close look at the use of words and idiomatic language within the analysis process proved to be extremely helpful. 1) the reflection of the researcher’s production of meaning, which, according to gadamer and the hermeneutical perspective, is a crucial part of the hermeneutic methodology, took place in several stages of the interview process: the expectation of the importance of insecurity, stemming from my, the researcher’s, own background and the research literature used, was somewhat not reflected upon at the start of the interview collection process. this was challenged by the interview experience in denmark. as a consequence of this, i began to ask directly about the topic in the interviews, thereby actively ‘imposing’ the topic on the interviewees. here my (the researcher’s) share in the production of meaning became very clear. in the following process of analysis, this selfreflection was used to further develop the argumentation that a profound difference in the importance of insecurity in the interviewees’ narratives could be found along country lines. this could be found not only in the content but also in the structure and dynamics of the interviews: whereas in denmark the topic had to be ‘imposed’ on the 6 in danish: jeg er ikke bange for, at jeg skal gå fra hus og hjem. 98 interviewees, this was not at all the case in germany, where it was a major issue that was almost always brought up by the interviewees themselves. 2) as the next analytical step i looked more closely at the only danish ‘outlier’ concerning the topic of insecurity, in order to clarify if the abovementioned difference might or might not be found here too. in this process of comparison, linguistic analysis was used, both for the native (german) language material as well as for the non-native (danish) material. here it became clear that there was a difference concerning the fears and anxieties connected to the topic of insecurity – even the danish outlier was not afraid of losing her livelihood, whereas this was a major issue for the german freelancers. the interviewees’ use of words and idioms (‘existential fear’ vs. ‘not being afraid to go from house and home’) and its thorough clarification made these differences between the interviewees very clear and provides further evidence for this interpretation. a hermeneutical approach thus provides a helpful method for cross-language (and cross-culture) qualitative research. the focus of hermeneutics on the production of meaning, which includes the researcher, is especially useful here. elements of linguistic analysis, however complicated they may seem, are a highly useful instrument for the hermeneutical analysis of cross-language interview material. references coffey, a. 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(2006). fieldworker or foreigner? ethnographic interviewing in nonnative languages. field methods, 18 (1): 83-97. author barbara fersch is an assistant professor at the centre for comparative welfare studies, department of political science at aalborg university, denmark. email: fersch@dps.aau.dk margit saltofte (trykkeklar) 72 at finde frem til det uforudsigelige etnografiske fortællinger om elevers kreative processer i skolen margit saltofte abstract. artiklen eksemplificerer feltarbejdsmetoders betydning for at undersøge og begrebsliggøre kreativitet i skolekontekster (saltofte 2010, 2012a). antropologiske feltarbejdsmetoder er designet til at leve sig ind i andres oplevelse af verden og dermed kunne tilgodese uforudsigelighed. metodedesignet må, for at undersøge og beskrive kreative processer, indebære mulighed for at studere såvel interaktionelle processer som strukturelle forhold. feltarbejde præsenteres som en erfaringsproces, der indebærer at finde begreber for det uforudsigelige. ”kreative processer” analyseres ud fra indsigt i såvel feltens eksplicitte betegnelse og implicitte anerkendelse. der fremanalyseres en forskel mellem, hvad der ved projektarbejde anerkendes af skolen som institution, og hvad der anerkendes blandt elever. det institutionelt anerkendte kreative fremstår i kraft af feltarbejdet, som noget elever kan opnå ved at tilføje produkter fra skolens musisk kreative fag. keywords: kreative processer, etnografi, feltarbejde, metodisk fleksibilitet please cite this article as: saltofte, m. (2013). at finde frem til det uforudsigelige: etnografiske fortællinger om elevers kreative processer i skolen. qualitative studies, 4(1): 72-85. på feltarbejde på friskole formålet med denne artikel er at undersøge, hvordan erfaringer ved antropologisk feltarbejde kan føre til at skabe tematisk begrebsliggørelse af hverdagspraksis. temaet for det konkrete feltarbejde er ”kreativitet” i skolen, hvorfor der i artiklen ligeledes fremkommer pointer om, hvordan kreative processer i skolen er positionerede og situeret, afhængig af relationer og institutionelle rammer. kreative processer, betragter jeg, som uventede og socialt betydningslagte interaktioner. at opleve såvel overraskelse som betydningslæggelse, hvor og hvordan den forekommer, kan opnås ved at være til stede som deltagerobservatør i en specifik kontekst. dermed kan man få indblik i de interaktioner, som er overraskende og betydningsfulde for aktørerne – i denne undersøgelse vil det sige: eleverne. i mit ph.d. projekt (saltofte 2010) valgte jeg på baggrund af to pilotundersøgelser af tværfagligt projektarbejde på folkeskoler at foretage fire måneders feltarbejde i 9. klasse på friskolen1, som en empirisk tilgang til at undersøge og begrebsliggøre kreative processer. tre uger inde i feltarbejdet på friskolen. jeg befinder mig i fælles området, hvor 9. klasses eleverne opholder sig i forbindelse med deres projektarbejde. jeg samler op på noter omkring, at eleverne ikke har produceret så meget til projektet i de forgangne lektioner. min store frustration lige nu er dog; ”hvad skal jeg kigge efter?!” jeg har en fornemmelse af, at det der ”kreativitets-begreb” blokerer. det er som om, mine observationer ikke rigtig får fat i noget, at det kun er overfladen. hvem og hvad skal jeg beskrive? det kunne være; hvad der engagerer dem i deres arbejde, men der er ikke så meget synlig energi eller engagement at styre efter. måske er det en følelse, en fornemmelse af fortættet 1 friskolen er anonymiseret og optræder dermed udelukkende som ”friskolen”, ligesom lærere og elevers navne er opdigtede. 73 stemning, engagement – men jeg har i al fald ikke ’fået øje på det’ i denne kontekst og vil meget nødigt definere det mere håndfast, for derefter at gå ud at få øje på det. (feltnoter 26/11 2007) jackson beskriver, at feltarbejde på samme tid kan være lystfyldt og engagerende, som frustrerende og kaotisk (jackson 1990), hvilket kommer frem af ovenstående feltnoter. de konkrete feltnoter kan betegnes som ”metodologiske notater” (tjørnhøj-thomsen & whyte 2007), der har til formål at overveje, hvordan metoderne kan tilpasses, så det i højere grad ’besvarer’ undersøgelsesspørgsmålet. tjørnhøj-thomsen & whyte (2007) sondrer mellem feltarbejderens deskriptive notater (eller observationsnotater), metodologiske notater samt analytiske (eller teoretiske) notater. min forståelse af ”kreativitet” forud for feltarbejdet var, at det udgjorde noget ’anderledes’, der dog i nogen grad havde afsæt i noget velkendt. anderledesheden forventede jeg kunne komme til udtryk i elevers fordybelse og engagement i interesseområder på tværs af fag, eller på kant af skolekonteksten. i min bagvedliggende forventning til forekomster af kreative processer i en skolekontekst, var vægtningen i højere grad på skabelsesprocesser end på produkter (i bred forstand) som nyskabende. desuden havde jeg på forhånd foretaget et valg om at fokusere på kreativitetens sociale og interrelationelle processer og udtryk. dette var overvejelser, der lå til grund for at vælge tværfagligt projektarbejde til at studere kreative processer empirisk. det velkendte (i det konkrete tilfælde: faglige tilgange og viden) forestillede jeg mig var afsæt, byggesten for det anderledes og nyskabende: projektarbejdets ramme, forventede jeg, potentielt foranledigede et engagement for elever i at gøre noget andet og at have større indflydelse på emne og arbejdsform. der kan i projektrammen opstå nye fagkombinationer, mere selvstændigt arbejde og mulighed for fordybelse. tværfagligt projektarbejde er karakteriseret ved at være noget andet end almindelig undervisning såvel i arbejdsform, lærerens strukturering og rolle, som forventninger til elevernes læreprocesser og produkter. skolen og rammerne for feltarbejdet var valgt for at kunne observere såvel almindelig undervisning, som tværfagligt projektarbejde. på samme måde som det er vanskeligt at undersøge ”kulturs” implicitte aspekter ved at spørge om det (hasse 2002), var det uhensigtsmæssigt i feltarbejdet at spørge direkte til ”kreativitet”. min hensigt var at opnå et datamateriale til at skabe fortællinger om kreative processer i en konkret skoleproces. min analyse af potentielt kreative processer fandt sted som en analytisk pendulering mellem at fremskrive mønstre ud fra empiriske data, refleksion over mine erfaringer og erkendelser på baggrund af feltarbejdet, samt læse mig ind på feltet kreative læreprocesser. min tilgang til dette feltarbejde er eksplorativt, at studere projektarbejde som ’det anderledes’ i skolekonteksten, og dermed potentielt kunne danne afsæt for at beskrive kreative processer, hvor de opstod og hvordan de fremstod. dette søgte jeg at indeholde i undersøgelsesdesignet ved at rette opmærksomheden mod såvel eksplicitte, som hvad der fremstod for mig som implicitte kreative udtryksformer og praksis. feltarbejde tilpasset undersøgelsesfeltet i min forskningsproces bevægede jeg mig hen til at betragte kreativitet som afhængig af sociale anerkendelseskriterier i sociokulturelle fællesskaber, af både formaliseret og mere uformaliseret art. erkendelsesprocessen, der mundede ud i den analytiske pointe om social anerkendelses betydning, startede med at følge og være til stede med elever, såvel når de havde undervisning eller undervisningsaktiviteter, som når de holdt pauser sammen. strategien med at følge først 74 og fremmest eleverne havde sin grund i en forestilling og forventning om at finde ind til kreative processer ud fra et elevperspektiv. min tilgang til at forstå kreativitet ud fra et livsverdens perspektiv kommer til udtryk i valg af observations fokus, analysen af mine empiriske data samt teoretiske begreber om kreativitet som situeret i en sociokulturel kontekst (saltofte 2010). hermed bliver undersøgelse af ”kreativitet” med en antropologisk tilgang ikke en foreskrivelse af, hvad der bør eller kunne foregå, men en detaljerig beskrivelse af, hvad jeg har observeret, og hvordan det bidrager til min metodiske tilgang til fænomenet ”kreativitet”. feltarbejde udgør antropologiens overordnede metodologiske strategier, mens deltagerobservation beskriver en særlig måde, antropologer forholder sig og undersøger på i felten. feltarbejdsprocessen kan betegnes som kaotisk, men ligeledes en åben og åbnende proces, hvor man sætter sig selv på spil i rollen som den uvidende og inkompetente i forhold til den praksis, der undersøges. man kan imidlertid ikke løsrive sig fra den positionering, man også tilskrives i felten. ligeledes oplever deltagerobservatøren misforståelser samt at ’begå fejl’ i forhold til at indgå i den konkrete kontekst. ved sådanne fejl ligger et potentiale for ’at støde ind i’ uventede forståelser. såkaldte fejl eller ikke intenderede handlinger indeholder i feltarbejde et stort læringspotentiale for feltarbejderen. feltarbejde og deltagerobservation påvirker såvel forskeren som de mennesker, der udgør undersøgelsesfeltet, og dermed undersøgelsen og skabelsen af viden. disse vilkår stiller krav om refleksivitet, dvs. en kritisk opmærksomhed på og synliggørelse af de valg og vilkår, der har indvirkning på det empiriske materiale og forskningens konklusioner. (tjørnhøj-thomsen & whyte 2007, p. 88) i mit feltarbejde blev mine indgående erfaringer med at have været elev, samt være forælder til børn i danske skoler som et væsentligt blindt punkt. jeg valgte derfor at observere projektarbejde på en international skole i holland, for dermed at få ’forstyrret’ min forforståelse af, hvad projektarbejde er og kan være. at sætte mig selv i en læreproces i forhold til, hvad tværfagligt projektarbejde også kan være, indebar en fornyet refleksion over, hvad der har betydning for, at kreative processer kan opstå og anerkendes i en skolekontekst. feltarbejderen søger at opnå indsigt i social og kulturel praksis i felten for optimalt set at ”forstå det de andre forstår” (dalsgård 2003). det, der adskiller feltarbejdet som metode fra mere strukturerede undersøgelsesmetoder, er, at man ganske ofte ikke kan spørge direkte, men må finde veje ind til at skabe sig forståelse, en orientering om et oplevet fænomen. som feltarbejder erfarer og erkender man noget uventet, som ikke ville være fremkommet uden at være i den tætte kontakt med felten og de aktører, feltafgrænsningen indebærer. etnografiske data udspringer af væren – til stede og med andre – og af viljen til at undergå forandring snarere end trangen til at beherske (dalsgård 2003, p. 333). det anses som såvel et vilkår som en kvalitet ved feltarbejdet, at det ikke altid er svar på det spørgsmål, man har stillet, der kommer ud af den enkelte udøvende antropologs søgen. det er meget ofte noget uventet, som ikke ville være fremkommet uden at være i den tætte kontakt med felten og de aktører feltbegrebet omkredser. … hvis man i forvejen alt for nøje har bestemt sig for, hvad man vil finde ud af, er der en vis risiko for, at man kun vil finde det man netop leder efter, og så kunne man lige så godt være blevet hjemme. (ovesen 1989, p. 90) samspillet mellem felt og feltarbejderen, i såvel feltarbejdet som i analysen, udgør en erfaringsproces for feltarbejderen. felten for den empiriske undersøgelse er defineret af undersøgelsesspørgsmålet, der løbende afgrænses af undersøgerens observationer af og interaktioner med informanter i felten. 75 betydningen af at være til stede i form af feltarbejde, kan karakteriseres som en kontekstualisering, hvor man lever sig ind med alle sine sanser, hvilket lægger sig tæt op ad fænomenologiens erfaringsprocesser. at kunne sætte sig dels i en andens sted og dels se en situation med en udenforståendes øjne betegnes indenfor fænomenologisk filosofi som at sætte sin forforståelse i parentes. deltagerobservation kan som undersøgelsesform og erkendelsesproces tage udgangspunkt i at forstå en livsverdensdimension. et væsentligt træk ved deltagerobservationen er netop dens lighed med hverdagslivets værensformer, hvorfor metoden knytter sig til fænomenologisk erkendelsesforståelse. den antropologiske praksis er kendetegnet ved de samme grundtræk som menneskelivet i øvrigt. dobbeltbevægelsen af distance og nærhed betegner gammeltoft (2003) som selve ”menneskelivets princip” med reference til filosoffen buber. oplevelser og erfaringer ved deltagerobservation indskriver sig i en livsverden, således som fænomenologien forstår og tilnærmer sig denne. antropologiske erkendelsesprocesser orienterer sig mod, at aktørers livsverden og dermed antropologisk vidensskabelse også viser sig i ”sprækkerne mellem ordene” (hastrup 2003, p. 102). i det følgende afsnit præsenteres, hvordan min analytiske forståelse af kreativitet i en konkret sociokulturel kontekst, erkendes og begrebsliggøres. kreativitet som et kontekstuelt fænomen forandringsprocesser, og dermed kreativitet, kan betegnes som et alment kulturelt princip, der følger alt socialt liv. sawyer beskriver i sin gennemgang af kontekstuelle tilgange til kreativitet den antropologiske indflydelse på denne tilgang som: cultural change always involves creativity. but this kind of creativity is very different from fine art painting or musical performance because it’s creativity of everyday life. in cultural creativity, novelty is a transformation of cultural practices and appropriateness is the value to a community. (saywer 2006, p. 139) antropologiske tilgange kan bidrage til at betragte ”kreativititet”, ikke som noget der ’er’ – men derimod noget, der betydningslægges og frembringes sociokulturelt. kreativitet er positioneret, og ikke et neutralt og naturalistisk begreb, der kan løsrives fra f.eks. en institutionel kontekst. hvem der udøver og besidder definitionsmagten i forhold til at identificere kreativitet, er i høj grad kulturog kontekstafhængigt. foranlediget af mine erfaringer fra feltarbejdet med forskellige sociale rum og dermed; forskellige udtryksog anerkendelsesformer, har jeg til min analyse anvendt sawyers (2006) begreber ”novelty” og ”appropriateness”, til at fremanalysere kreative processer. desuden har jeg tilføjet såvel ’overraskelse’ som ’betydningslæggelse’ for at påpege det interaktionelle aspekt i kreative processer (saltofte 2010). ”kreativitet” i skolen er noget, der afhænger af strukturelle forhold (saltofte 2012a), men også noget der åbner mulighed for, at elever skaber noget nyt ved deres konkrete handlinger. dette nye fører sjældent til institutionel omskabelse, men kan have indflydelse på kulturen i elevfællesskaber – såvel i forhold til hvilke udtryksformer, der indgår som fællesskabets repertoire. deltagerobservation kan være en måde, hvorpå man som forsker kan få indsigt i, hvilke underliggende kriterier der hersker for at anerkende det ”nye” som ”passende” i en konkret sociokulturel kontekst. fortællingen er del af måden at formidle den empiriske analyse, og fremstår som en form velegnet til at beskrive konkrete kreative processer. den gennemgående tråd i udvælgelsen af data fra mine feltnoter til brug i fortællingerne, er, at de udgør ”thick descriptions” (geertz 76 1973); betydningslagte erkendelser om kreative processer, som de fremtrådte for mig ved mit feltarbejde på friskolen. impressionist tales present the doing of fieldwork rather than simply the doer or the done. (…) tales often initiate an analysis of the nature of cultural understanding and the fieldworker’s role as a student. (van maanen 1988, p. 102) impressionist tales adskiller sig fra de to andre typer etnografiske fortælleformer van maanen (1988) oplister; ”confessional tales” og ”realist tales”, hvilke beskriver henholdsvis ’the doer’ og ’the done’. de tre former kan dermed sammenlignes med henholdsvis ”metodologiske notater” og ”deskriptive notater”, hvorimod ”impressionist tales” ligger tættere op ad ”analytiske notater” (tjørnhøj-thomsen & whyte 2006)2. i denne artikel vil en impressionistiske etnografiske fremstilling blive suppleret af en ”realist tale” tilgang. hermed betones såvel erfaringer med kreativitets sociokulturelle rum3, som analytiske erkendelser herved, som en læreproces. ’the doing’ af feltarbejde bliver dermed en indgang til at præsentere, hvordan kreativitet som en sociokulturel proces konkret kan komme til udtryk. på samme tid viser fremstillingen eksempler på, hvordan feltarbejderen qua sin læreog erkendelsesproces udgør et ’instrument’ til begrebsdannelse. ”hvor gives der i skolen plads til kreativitet som et udtryk for noget, man ikke på forhånd til fulde har defineret?” dette spørgsmål formet som ”analytiske notater”, stillede jeg mig forud for feltarbejdet. det fremstod ganske markant ved mine pilotundersøgelser af projektopgaven i to folkeskoler, at elevernes udfoldelsesrum og engagement i at forfølge egne interesser i høj grad gled i baggrunden under projektarbejder. anerkendt kreativitet var i projektarbejder hovedsagelig afgrænset i skolens musisk kreative fag, og tiltænkt at bygge ovenpå en faglighed indenfor de mere ’boglige fag’ (saltofte 2012a). et af de tydeligste udtryk for, hvordan kreativitet blev understøttet og ekspliciteret var i, at der på friskolen var en forventning om, at eleverne også præsenterede et ”kreativt produkt”. forventningen til et kreativt produkt var, at det skulle udbygge eller perspektiver den mere ’boglige’ fremstilling. betegnelsen ”det kreative produkt” indgik som en hverdagsbetegnelse blandt lærere og elever for den perspektivering, man ved musisk kreative frembringelser kunne tilføje sit projekt. problemformuleringsarbejdet i starten af projektarbejdet fremstår langt mindre lystog glædesfuld end arbejdsprocesser omkring ’det kreative produkt’. ’det kreative produkt’ sikrer i praksis en hel del mere selvstændig råderet for eleverne. de bliver her slet ikke i samme omfang ’rettet på’. der foregår i lærerelev relationen i højere grad en ’spørgen-ind-til’ og ’lytten til ideer’ fra lærerens side. selvstyret er tydeligere, læreren giver mere råd til håndtering af materialer, i forhold til selve udførelsen gives nogle gange ideer, men ellers er rammesætningen mere på tid, sted og respektfuld omgang med materialer. (feltnoter 10/12 07) 2 ”impressionist tales” kan imidlertid i sin mest veludførte form, som f.eks. geertz (1973) i skriveform ligeledes sammenlignes med litteratur. (van maanen 1988) 3 ’rum’ forstås her som såvel en forekomst i tid, sted som aktørernes interaktionelle handlinger i relation hertil. 77 i udarbejdelsen af kreative produkter viste sig noget af det engagement og en fordybelse hos eleverne, som jeg i starten af feltarbejdet på friskolen efterspurgte, for at kunne beskrive kreative processer empirisk.4 det strukturelle niveau i anerkendelse af kreativitet i skolen blev imidlertid ligeledes synligt i kraft af den institutionelle praksis betegnelse ”det kreative produkt”. produkterne blev understøttet fagligt og rammesat som arbejdsproces ud fra, hvilke musisk kreative fag og fagfaciliteter, der var på skolen. det var dermed et afgrænset og noget begrænset repertoire, der blev anerkendt som et ”passende” (sawyer 2006) såkaldt ”kreativt produkt”. refleksionerne fra feltarbejdet kan betegnes som analytiske, men får såvel metodiske som analytiske konsekvenser for den måde, jeg vægter at lægge mit fokus i mine observationer og løbende analyser af disse. i de følgende ”analytiske notater” (tjørnhøj-thomsen & whyte 2007) reflekterer jeg, på baggrund af mine feltarbejdserfaringer, over, hvilke kreative udtryksformer, der kan anerkendes ved projektarbejdet på de tre undersøgte skoler. i hver af de tre 9. klasser jeg har været deltagerobservatør i, har der været mindst en gruppe eller person, der har skilt sig ud ved at vise en særegen og meget anderledes præsentation. hvordan kan det være, at det ikke er videre udbredt, at projekt formatet ikke i videre udstrækning bliver set og brugt som mulighed for at ’folde sig ud’? (feltnoter 13/12 2007) refleksionerne over mere strukturelle sammenhænge i skolekonteksterne, foretog jeg mig under præsentationer af det første projektarbejde, jeg undersøgte på friskolen. i dette feltarbejde undersøgte jeg ud fra et elevperspektiv konkrete interaktioner, i udgangspunktet i relation til tværfagligt projektarbejde. min analytiske opmærksomhed og metodiske design bredte sig imidlertid ud til også at dække interaktioner udenfor projektarbejde, for ligeledes at kunne indeholde de af elever så betydningslagte ”mellemrumszoner”(saltofte 2012b).5 det vil jeg eksemplificere og sætte i forhold til, hvordan min løbende analyse af erfaringer og hændelser i feltarbejdet fører til en teoretisk begribelse af kreative processer. tematisk er præsentationen bygget op ud fra en oplevelse i feltarbejdet af en elevs ikke institutionelt anerkendte kreativitet. etnografiske fortællinger om den skjulte kreativitet i det forudgående afsnit har det været behandlet, hvordan kreativitet kan undersøges som et interaktionelt og strukturelt fænomen i en konkret kontekst. der findes i skolekonteksten institutionelle måder at understøtte og anerkende kreative processer på. ved at være deltagerobservatør fik jeg ligeledes indsigt i mere implicitte, og for mig uventede, kriterier for kreativitet. i det følgende vil der blive stillet skarpt på konkrete ”kreative processer” som de fortolkes og beskrives af feltarbejderen. ved at være til stede sammen med eleverne – til tider også i frikvarterer, er jeg på dette tidspunkt af feltarbejdet ved at bliver opmærksom på alt det kreative, der foregår udenfor almindelig undervisning og projektarbejde. på friskolen har lærerne netop givet nogle få instrukser til det videre arbejde i det langvarige projekt6. nogle elever har begivet sig hen til computere eller 4 se feltnoter præsenteret på nærværendes artikels første side. 5 ”mellemrumszone” interaktioner og positioner eksemplificeres i det følgende. 6 ved mit feltarbejde på friskolen undersøgte jeg to tværfaglige projektforløb i 9. klasse. det første strakte sig over en længere periode, med nogle ugentlige skemalagte projektarbejdsmoduler. det andet 78 andre steder i det fælles rum, et par elever sidder tilbage og snakker sammen. her befinder jeg mig ligeledes. jeg læner mig frem mod vibeke og spørger, hvad hun laver projekt om. hun foreslår, at vi går et andet sted hen og taler om det. da vi har bevæget os hen i en afsides del af fællesområdet, fortæller hun om, hvilke dårlige oplevelser, hun har bag sig fra en tidligere skole. de indebærer, at hun ikke kan koncentrere sig om at lave projekt. derfor har lærerne accepteret, at hun arbejder med noget selvvalgt i den periode, hvor der er projektforløb. jeg spørger hende, om hun var med til den fælles temauge for hele skolen, der har fundet sted en måned forinden. vibeke (lyser op):”ja. jeg var med til at male det der store maleri derovre.” hun peger på en bred frise, der dækker det meste af den ene væg i dette fællesområde. hun udpeger tre figurer på denne frise, som hun har malet. jeg: ”har du tegnet meget?” vibeke: ”jeg tegner også derhjemme. jeg har lavet nogle plakater. vil du se?” hun tager sin mobiltelefon frem og viser mig billeder af to plakater, hun har malet. jeg kigger på dem. det er figurer, der er blandinger af mennesker og dyr, der giver mig associationer til et fantasy univers. hun fortæller, at hun finder motiverne på nettet og sidder med computeren på gulvet foran sig, mens hun tegner. vibeke (smiler): ”nogle gang kan jeg få helt ondt i knæene! (af at sidde så længe)” senere på dagen på lærerværelset taler jeg med læreren finn. her fortæller jeg ham om, at jeg har set nogle af vibekes billeder. han var ikke klar over, at hun havde denne interesse. (feltnoter 18/12 2007) de ovenstående ”deskriptive notater” fremstillet som en ”realist tale” giver feltarbejderen afsæt for ”analytiske” og ”metodiske notater”, der præsenteres som en form for ”impressionist tale” her nedenfor (tjørnhøj-thomsen & whyte 2006, van maanen 1988). ”hvordan gives der plads til det dybtfølte, det skabende der ikke skal demonstrere et fagligt emne i skolen? er dette, og må det være: løsrevet fra undervisningen som sådan, også fra projektarbejde i og med, at det er temaet, der styrer og der derfor må være en klar faglig rammesætning? det kommer jeg til at tænke på i forbindelse med vibekes tegninger og den glæde det tydeligvis giver hende at lave dem. det er det modsatte af krav og frustrationen over ikke at kunne forstå kravene, og dermed ikke kunne leve op til dem – hvilket igen betyder manglende anerkendelse.” mine refleksioner i disse ”analytiske notater” over, hvilke kreative processer og udtryksformer skolen lagde op til, skrev jeg om foranlediget af samtalen med vibeke. skoleinstitutionen og dermed lærernes, ofte implicitte, definitionsmagt af ”det passende” (sawyer 2006), viser sig i dette tilfælde at have stor betydning for at en udtryksform som maleri, opleves som isoleret til enkelte ”kreative” fag og emnearbejder. (saltofte 2012a) var den ugelange lovpligtige projektopgave, som jeg også undersøgte i pilotundersøgelser på tofolkeskoler forud for feltarbejdet. 79 ved præsentationerne af 9. klasses projektopgaver viser det sig, at finn har foreslået vibeke at tage nogle af sine tegninger og malerier med. han har hemed handlet på, at jeg som deltagerobservatør har fortalt ham om vibekes interesse for at tegne. vibeke går og hænger sine malerier op i klasseværelset i en pause i projektpræsentationerne. efterhånden som elever, der kommer ind i klassen, får øje på dem, er der flere der overrasket spørger, om hun har malet dem. charlotte: ”hold kæft, hvor er du god til at male!” vibeke siger noget lavt (jeg ikke kan høre). charlotte (smiler og siger ironisk som et understatement): ”årh, det er da ingenting. det er bare noget fingermaling, jeg har lavet.” vibeke (smiler): ”fingermaling!”. (griner lidt) luke giver sig til at forhandle om at købe et af malerierne. to elever står og kigger på et billede, og spørger om det forestiller en fugl i et træ. dette bekræfter vibeke. andre spørger til en af hendes fantasy-inspirerede figurer, hun begynder at forklare om dette billede. der er efterhånden en del elever rundt om vibeke. nogle spørger, hvordan hun gør, og om hun selv finder på det. der står nogle elever og taler om, hvad de vil koste at købe, og hvilke de bedst kan lide. elevernes reaktion på vibekes præsentation af sine billeder er overraskelse, der særlig kommer til udtryk som en anerkendende betydningstillæggelse. hendes produkter såvel som iscenesættelsen af præsentationen udgør dermed såvel noget nyt som passende for eleverne. lærerne søger den vante struktur efter vibekes præsentation af malerierne træder lærerne ind i den velkendte rolle. de søger efter begrundelser for produkterne. lærerne lader ikke deres oplevelse af at se den ellers stille og tilbagetrukne elev vise sig fra en helt anden side, skinne igennem. frede: ”når du maler dem, hvad bruger du så?” vibeke: ”acrylmaling”. (hun leverer svaret hurtigt og kigger mod resten af klassen for at modtage flere spørgsmål og kommentarer.) frede: ”jeg mener, er det i tuber eller bøtter?” vibeke: ”i tuber eller…det er i bøtter. sådan nogle bøtter.” (synes at blive usikker over spørgsmålet.) finn: ”kan du fortælle noget om, hvorfor du har valgt de motiver, du har og dit valg af farver måske?” 80 vibeke (tøver og synes at have svært ved at finde ord): ”jamen altså, det er nok fordi, det er nemmere at lave de lange streger i kroppene i stedet for så mange detaljer. jeg kan godt lide at tegne kroppe.” christian (elev): ”er det halvt dyr og halvt menneske?” det bekræfter vibeke og spørger dernæst, om de også vil se hendes tegninger, hvilket der svares bekræftende på. hun bladrer igennem tegningerne, mens hun kort præsenterer dem. ved et af dem kommenterer hun: ”det her synes jeg er rigtig flot, da der også er skygger på.” en elev siger ”ja” med eftertryk, ellers er der helt stille. da hun har vist alle de medbragte tegninger, er dette et tegn til, at præsentationen er slut. der klappes endnu engang, rigtig højt. ud fra de ovenstående observationer fremstillet i analytiske notater, er det min hensigt at præsentere, hvordan vibeke viser en anden form for engagement end det projektfagligt anerkendte i skolekonteksten. hun er eksempel på en elev, der bliver bragt frem ved at kunne dykke ned i sin interesse og vise den frem. hvilket jeg, forud for feltarbejdet, forventede ville forekomme ved tværfagligt projektarbejde, som præsenteret i artiklens start. det skete ikke i særlig høj grad – vibeke udgør i den forbindelse en undtagelse. ud fra lærernes manglende anerkendelse af hendes produkter og præsentation, bliver det imidlertid tydeligt for mig, hvorfor det ikke forekommer så ofte (saltofte 2012a). hvis nogen af eleverne havde kritik eller ikke syntes om vibekes billeder, var det ikke noget, der blev udtrykt. de gav udelukkende udtryk for beundring og overraskelse. det stod i modsætning til lærernes interesse i at få forklaring på ’hvordan’ og begrundelser for ’hvorfor’. læreren frede ville have detailteknisk indsigt; hvilken maling hun brugte. læreren finn brugte en faglig betegnelse for hendes malerier ”meget ekspressive” og ville vide; hvad hun ville udtrykke med dem samt om de havde relevans for hendes emne. vibeke giver udtryk for, hvad hun godt kan lide at tegne, hvilket ikke er et vanligt argument for at begrunde et fagligt valg i projektarbejde. vibeke træder frem med stolthed over og engagement i sine malerier. hun kan ikke forklare sine valg i den projektfaglige diskurs, de synes meget implicitte for hende, da hun heller ikke tidligere har præsenteret sine udtryk i en skolefaglig kontekst. uden ’forklaring’ kan kreative produkter ikke vurderes som relevante og dermed anerkendes af lærerene. kreative produkter tillægges ikke betydning i sig selv på et 9. klasses niveau, de værdsættes i projektarbejde udelukkende, hvis de kan udbygge projektets pointer, uden at overskride strukturen (saltofte 2012a). jeg har heraf analytisk opstillet et modsætningsforhold, der kan beskrives som ”institutionaliseret kreativitet”, der anerkendes af lærere, og ”mellemrumszone kreativitet”, der udelukkende anerkendes af andre elever. (saltofte 2010) elevernes interne anerkendelse at modtage anerkendelse for nye udtryk indebærer, at nogen mere eller mindre eksplicit tilkendegiver at udtrykket kan tillægges værdi. i sagens natur indebærer det, at ikke alt kan anerkendes. nogle udtryk og statements vil tillægges mindre betydning eller måske vurderes som upassende indenfor den sociokulturelle kontekst, det finder sted i. blandt eleverne var der 81 en helt særlig fortættet stemning under vibekes præsentation; der blev udtrykt overraskelse over, at hun kunne noget sådant. stemningen strakte sig ind i pausen, hvor der blev uddelt knus til vibeke og elever samlede sig om hende for at tage hendes tegninger i nærmere øjesyn. de udtrykte deres beundring ved bl.a. at spørge om de kunne købe nogle af dem samt ved at de udpege, hvilke de synes var særlig flotte. elevernes handlinger i dette tidslige mellemrum , viser at ”mellemrumszone” interaktioner i skolekonteksten ikke er mindre betydningslagte af eleverne end de, der eksplicit og implicit vurderes i ”klasserumszoner” (saltofte 2012a, 2012b). der lægges et betydeligt engagement i at være del af og opnå anerkendelse i det sociale rum af andre elever. den tydeligste forskel i positionering i skolekonteksten er: lærer-elev. forskellen i roller kommer til udtryk som en forskel i den viden og erfaring de skaber. her finder jeg, at det mest markante skel viste sig i frikvarterer, hvor lærerne begiver sig til lærerværelser, mens eleverne her har en ’lomme’ i tid og rum, der ikke er institutionelt defineret af, at de forventes at foretage sig ’noget bestemt’. i ”mellemrumszoner” er interaktionerne og selve tilstedeværelsen i den konkrete situation af mere frivillig art. lærerne er sjældent til stede, og der foregår dermed ikke en vurdering af den art, som er relateret til karaktergivning og lignende. den vurdering der foregår, er mere implicit og af social karakter, relateret til anerkendelseskriterier og positioneringer i den sociale kontekst med andre elever. denne type anerkendelse er imidlertid konstituerende for elevers oplevelse af at høre til – i forståelsen at ens ytringer genkendes og anerkendes som betydningsfulde af de andre elever – en oplevelse, der har indflydelse på oplevelsen af at gå i skole. interaktionerne ved vibekes præsentation viser, hvordan nogle kreative produkter tillægges stor betydning af eleverne, samt at selve overraskelsesmomentet fører til en oplevelse blandt eleverne af noget såvel ”nyt” som måske ”passende”. det passende udgør her en sociokulturelt funderet anerkendelsesproces, hvor vibeke kommer til syne som skabende individ. de andre elevers reaktion viser anerkendelse af hendes frembringelser, såvel som af den situation hun skaber vibeke bliver hermed ’sat på landkortet’ blandt de andre elever. vibekes talent og engagement er også overraskende for projektlærerne. de ved ikke, at hun er god til at tegne. ved malingen af frisen til emnearbejdet, var det skolens billedkunstlærer, der vejledte. vibekes præsentation af sine – indtil da ukendte – tegninger og malerier beskrevet i ovenstående uddrag fra ”deskriptive notater” (tjørnhøj-thomsen & whyte 2007), gav et indblik i, hvordan lærerne og elevernes anerkendelseskriterier adskilte sig fra hinanden. der viste sig, bl.a. i dette tilfælde, at være parallelle ’diskurser’ i skolekonteksten. en institutionel, der refererede til en skolefaglig forståelse, og en form oppebåret af elevers umiddelbare engagement i hinandens interesser, udtryk og statements – der oftest kom til udtryk udenfor undervisningen. elevers respons på vibekes præsentation, viste sig ganske anderledes, og indikerede andre kriterier for anerkendelse af, hvad der er ”passende” (sawyer 2006) nyskabende. da betydningslæggelse af potentielt kreative udtryk kommer til syne i interaktionelle processer, vil det have betydning for undersøgelsen, hvordan man er til stede som undersøger og opnår kendskab såvel til strukturer og positioner som til aktørers konkrete praksis. ruten til forståelse af positionerede kreative processer ovenfor har jeg argumenteret for, at en etnografisk undersøgelse og antropologisk analyse kan undersøge og eksemplificere kreative processer, ved at vise eksempler på forbindelsen mellem feltarbejderens erkendelsesproces og metodiske og analytiske implikationer som følge heraf. processen med at ’designe’ et feltarbejde – såvel i metoder, som i analytisk og teoretisk 82 perspektiv – viser en metodemæssig fleksibilitet. det er dog ikke ensbetydende med at metode og analyse ikke fra starten har en substans. den forforståelse undersøgelsesperspektivet bygger på, er såvel af erfaringsmæssig karakter (faglig og personlig), som baseret på teori og videnskabelig viden. metodologiske problemstillinger relateret til antropologisk feltarbejde, har sit afsæt i, at deltagerobservation og interviews ikke er afgrænselige og strukturerende teknikker, der kan anvendes på samme måde i enhver kvalitativ undersøgelse. det er et væsentligt vilkår ved deltagerobservationsmetoden, at der sker en udvikling i ens undersøgelsesspørgsmål, hvilket foregår i det, wadel (1991) betegner som en runddans mellem teori, metode og empiri. den antropologiske analyse relaterer sig helt grundlæggende til at forstå, hvad de empiriske data kan udsige og hvilken form for begrebsliggørelse, data og erfaringer i felten kan føre frem til. en sådan ’runddans’ i min feltarbejdserfaring afstedkom, at jeg i teoriudviklingen løbende har arbejdet med at forstå ”mellemrumszonens” (saltofte 2012a, 2012b) anderledeshed, og hvordan anderledesheden i skolekonteksten kom til udtryk i, hvad der blev anerkendt som betydningsfuldt af forskellige aktører. det er ved feltarbejdet på friskolen, at det idealtypiske relationsog situationsbestemte begrebspar ”klasserumszone” og ”mellemrumszone” udvikles, og forståelsen af kreativitet som kontekstuel og udtryk for sociokulturelle processer og strukturer på samme tid eksemplificeres og fremanalyseres (saltofte 2012a). wadel betegner de fleste feltarbejder som rodede, i betydningen at det på ingen måde er ualmindeligt at justere og ændre teori og metode op til flere gange under et feltarbejde. han betegner det imidlertid som et ”kreativt rod”. det kreative i feltarbejdet består i, at det ikke bare er en metodisk praksis, men ligeledes en ”teoretisk praksis”. i betegnelsen teoretisk praksis ligger, at feltarbejdet indebærer mere end dataindsamling, det indebærer i høj grad dataudvikling. dataudviklingen sker parallelt med at feltarbejderen udvikler nye begreber, hypoteser og teorier (wadel 1991, p. 23). her er det dog i mindre grad selve parallellen mellem fænomenet ’kreative processer’ og ’feltarbejdserkendelsesprocesser’, der er mest relevant at påpege. at feltarbejdsmetoder og særlig penduleringsprocessen i analysen kan betegnes som ”kreativ” (wadel 1991, hastrup 2004b), skyldes mulighed for at begrebsdanne ved at skabe eller anvende teorier, der er ’passende’ for de fremanalyserede pointer og omvendt. min antropologiske tilgang til kreativitet indebærer, at fokus dels er på sociokulturelle processer, og dels på diversitet som et alment menneskeligt vilkår, der giver sig udtryk kulturelt. kreativitet indebærer et vist element af overraskelse – en rystelse, hvor man som modtager eller observatør bliver usikker på, hvad der nu følger. teoridannelsen skal derfor på en og samme gang være afgrænsende og fleksibel i forhold til at indramme de processer, der viser sig relevante for at kunne beskrive potentiel og konkret kreativitet. på den anden side må den teoretiske ramme være fleksibel i den forstand, at den kan udvides eller eventuelt helt erstattes, hvis analysen af empirien foreskriver en anden retning. det viste sig under mit feltarbejde at være mindst lige så interessant at være vidne til den kreativitet, der fandt sted udenfor eller på kanten af projektarbejdets aktiviteter. valg af feltarbejdsmetoder åbner mulighed for at skabe deres rammesætning (design) efter, hvad der ’passer til’ de fremanalyserede pointer. det vilkår må, på den anden side, siges ikke at være specifikt for antropologisk feltarbejde, men at være et væsentligt kriterium for undersøgelsesmetoder generelt. hastrup & hervik (1994) søger at skitsere ruten fra social erfaring ved antropologisk feltarbejde, der gør etnografen i stand til at opnå viden, ikke kun om ‘kultur’ og ‘samfund’, men ligeledes om den proces der fører til at kultur og samfund transformeres (hastrup & hervik 1994, p. 2). ’ruten’ til at forstå kreativitet i den specifikke institutionelle kontekst indebar at gå fra 83 udelukkende at undersøge tværfagligt projektarbejde, til også at analysere konkrete lærer-elev relationer og deres institutionelle forankring i tid og rum. i friskolens ”mellemrumszoner” herskede der andre samværsformer, et andet repertoire og dermed andre anerkendelseskriterier, end i ”klasserumszoner” (saltofte 2010, 2012a). det var desuden andre elever, der var iøjnefaldende aktører, end ved kreativitet anerkendt i undervisningskonteksten (saltofte 2012a, 2012b). de sociale erfaringer ved feltarbejdets deltagerobservation og interview har ført til en ”rute” (hastrup & hervik 1994), der kan fremskrives som en metalæring af at være til stede i felten. begrebet ”mellemrumszones” opståen kan, så at sige ledes tilbage retrospektivt til feltarbejdes løbende analytiske refleksioner. ’ruten’ til at betragte kreativitet som ’sociale rum’ i tid og sted, startede med at følge og være til stede med elever. mit fokus blev rettet mod organiseringen i interaktioner blandt 9. klasses elever, og hvordan improvisationer på baggrund af f.eks. stand up comedy, tv-reklamer og at spille musik var fremtrædende i mellemrumszoner. den form for ’væren i verden’, som jeg erfarer blandt 9. klasses eleverne på friskolen, bl.a. når de interagerede og improviserede med kammerater, adskiller sig markant fra elevernes tilstedeværelsesformer i undervisningens sociale og positionerede ’rum’. den viden, der i skolens ’sociale rum’ anerkendes som kreativ, er en situeret kulturel viden relateret til kontekst og positioneringer. situeret kulturel viden tillader mennesker at begå sig i konkrete kontekster (hastrup 2004a). otto var en elev på friskolen, der var tilbageholdende og fremstod noget anonym i faglige sammenhænge. han var imidlertid en fremtrædende aktør blandt en stor gruppe drenge, hvilket særlig kom til udtryk i ”mellemrumszoner”. han citerede brudstykker af stand-up citater og bryggede videre på dem, parodierede ret præcist episoder fra skolen ofte til stor morskab og anerkendelse blandt de andre drenge. hans frembringelser betydningslægges dermed socialt i interaktionen med drengene som ”nye” og overraskende, såvel som ”passende”. udtryksformerne florerer som en af de mest fremtrædende i drengenes interne interaktioner. han genog omskaber dermed på samme tid et produkt, som deres oplevelse af at være et fællesskab og være elever i den konkrete skole. da jeg i et interview spørger otto, om han bruger udtryksformer som stand-up i projektarbejdet, ligner han et spørgsmålstegn. det betragter han tydeligvis ikke som en mulighed. hans reaktion er overraskende for mig, og fører til at jeg ’støder ind i’ et kulturelt vilkår i skolekonteksten, som jeg ikke kunne have spurgt ind til, uden først at have foretaget deltagerobservationer. hans overraskelse, tolker jeg, er udtryk for at hans performance i ”mellemrumszoner”, såvel i form som indhold, hører til i en anden sociokulturel kontekst og hviler på andre anerkendelseskriterier og modtagere. de institutionelt uformelle sammenhænge i skolekonteksten giver anderledes viden med relevans for forståelse af kreativitet som et kontekstuelt begreb. min viden om betydningen og den stadige skabelse af og i ”mellemrumszoner” kunne ikke være fremkommet ved f.eks. at foretage interviews, da det forudsatte tilstedeværelse at få kendskab til denne form for implicitte erfaringer. det betydningsfulde fremstår i hverdagspraksis ofte som en tavs viden for aktørerne. denne ”sociale erfaring” (hastrup & hervik 1994) som deltagerobservatør udgjorde en betydningsfuld erkendelsesproces i forhold til at komme nærmere fænomenet ’kreativitet’ i den kontekstuelle sammenhæng. at være til stede som feltarbejder i en uvidende position er ikke kun noget, man ’må overkomme’.feltarbejdet udgør en position med et potentiale som læreproces til at få indsigt i sociokulturelt funderet og sanktionerede fænomener som f.eks. ”kreativitet”. i kraft af mit feltarbejde kunne jeg fremanalysere forskellige kreativitetsformer, der adskilte sig i forhold til; samværsformer, repertoire og positionering af aktører. ”kreativitet” har jeg derfor analytisk kunne fremsætte som et sociokulturelt fænomen, som har 84 afsæt i allerede eksisterende viden inden for en konkret sociokulturel kontekst. det er inden for de sociale og kulturelle fællesskaber, at potentielt kreative udtryk tillægges betydning. antropologisk undersøgelse som indsigt i diversitet af kreative processer jeg har sammenlignet kreative processer, som jeg har erfaret dem ved antropologisk feltarbejde i skolekontekster med de processer, man i etnografisk feltarbejde må placere sig i for at skaffe viden. en viden, som man ikke på forhånd helt har kunnet forestille sig, om end ens forforståelse og mulige position sætter visse rammer. den nye viden opnår jeg ved at tilstræbe at være uvidende, som del af sin antropologiske læreproces. jeg har undersøgt den situerede læreproces, der opstår ved, at man fra en position som nytilkommen til en konkret organisation eller institution, så at sige åbner behovet for at skabe orientering. mit valg af undersøgelsesstrategi er sket løbende, da jeg f.eks. ikke havde forudset, hvilken betydning elevernes ”mellemrumszoner” havde (saltofte 2012a). de kreative interaktioner, der finder sted i yderkanten af skolen som social og kulturel kontekst, er vanskelige at ’finde frem til’ med andre metoder end deltagerobservation. kreative processer er for aktørerne i høj grad ikke ekspliciteret og ofte ikke betydningslagt i termer af ”kreativitet”. der er hermed tale om, at feltarbejdet som metode besidder sin styrke i potentielt at kunne finde ind til det uforudsete og uudtalte, det kulturelt implicitte. en læreproces, der indebærer at kunne få indblik i tavs og implicit viden, der tillægges betydning af aktørerne i den eller de konkrete sociokulturelle kontekster, kreative processer studeres indenfor. ”kreativitet” er dermed ikke udelukkende en social og kulturel eksplicit praksis, man som feltarbejder kan spørge ind til. den må som andre sociale processer erfares eller opleves for at kunne begribes. empiriske data fra feltarbejdet har ført til en konkret og ekspliciteret begrebslig forbindelse mellem kreativitet og institutionel anerkendelse af, hvad der betegnes som kreativt og af hvem. feltarbejdets eksplorative tilgang har imidlertid også en begrænsning. den antropologiske analyses svaghed kan være at have begreber, der modsvarer de sociale og kulturelle processer (her: kreative processer) – og ikke kun fremskriver strukturer og mønstre. en sociokulturel kreativitetsteori synes dermed velvalgt til at undersøge kreative processer set i forhold til konteksten. den kan dog med fordel tilføres et interaktionelt perspektiv, således at det kan afdække konkrete processer – hvilket der er præsenteret eksempler på i denne artikel. litteratur dalsgård, a. l. (2003). teksten – kunsten at fortælle. in k. hastrup (ed.). ind i verden: en grundbog i antropologisk metode. københavn: hans reitzels forlag gammeltoft, t. (2003). intimiteten – forholdet til den anden. in hastrup (ed.). ind i verden: en grundbog i antropologisk metode. københavn: hans reitzels forlag geertz, c. (1973). the interpretation of cultures. new york: basic books hastrup, k. (2003). sproget – den praktiske forståelse. in hastrup (ed.). ind i verden: en grundbog i antropologisk metode. københavn: hans reitzels forlag hastrup, k. (2004a). refleksion – vidensbegreber og videnskab. in hastrup, k. (ed.). viden om verden: en grundbog i antropologisk analyse. københavn: hans reitzels forlag hastrup, k. (2004b). kultur – det fleksible fællesskab. aarhus: aarhus universitetsforlag 85 hastrup, k. & hervik, p. (1994). introduction. in hastrup & hervik (ed.) (1994). social experience and anthropological knowledge. london: routledge jackson, j. e. (1990) deja entendu: the liminal qualities of anthropological fieldnotes. journal of contemporary ethnography, 19: 1 ovesen, j. (1989). gæsten og storpolitikken: dialog med pashia-folket i afganistan. in hastrup, k. & ramløv, k. (ed). feltarbejde: oplevelse og metode i etnografien. københavn: akademisk forlag saltofte, m. (2010). kreativitet i klasserum og mellemrum – en etnografisk undersøgelse af projektopgaven i 9. klasser i forhold til kreative processer som skabelse af og ved situerede kulturelle vidensformer. upubliceret ph.d. afhandling. institut for læring og filosofi, aalborg universitet saltofte, m. (2012a). anerkendelse af kreativitet i skolen – men hvilken slags? in paulsen, m. & klausen, s. h. innovation og læring. aalborg: aalborg universitets forlag saltofte, m. (2012b). når ingenting sker – drenges improvisationer i skolens mellemrum. jordens folk, 4: 4-9. sawyer, k. r. (2006). explaining creativity: the science of human innovation. oxford: oxford university press tjørnhøj-thomsen, t. & whyte, s. (2007). feltarbejde, etnografisk metode. in vallgårda & koch (ed.). forskningsmetoder i folkesundhedsvidenskab. københavn: munksgaard van maanen, j. (1988). tales of the field: on writing ethnography. chicago: university of chicago press wadel, c. (1991). feltarbeid i egen kultur. flekkefjord: seek a/s forfatter margit saltofte er adjunkt på institut for læring og filosofi, aalborg universitet. email: margit@learning.aau.dk article 3 sune (trykkeklar) 115 “so, it is about how negative it is?!” understanding researcher/researched interactions as relations between intersectional social positions sune qvotrup jensen abstract. the article argues that interactions in qualitative interviews and ethnography can be analyzed as relations between intersectional social positions. it draws attention to the importance of class and geographical location in such analysis. it further argues that such interactions work through typifications, that they have a power dimension and that they entail processes of identity formation. the identities being offered through these processes can, however, be negotiated or resisted. the article then analyses such interactions as they were experienced in two research projects the author participated in: his phd project about young marginalized ethnic minority men, and the collective project interloc which focused on the interplay between gender, class, ethnicity and ‘race’ in an underprivileged danish suburb. it is demonstrated that relationality influences the assumptions research participants have about the researcher. it is also demonstrated that the research encounter entails powerful mechanism of identity formation. the informants, however, sometimes resist these processes resulting in blurred and unstable, sometimes antagonistic, power relations. it is finally argued that analyses of such interactions can provide central insight into the subject studied. keywords: ethnography, intersectionality, typification, location, class, gender, ethnicity, ‘race’, difference, qualitative methods please cite this article as: qvotrup jensen, s. (2012). “so, it is about how negative it is?!” understanding researcher/researched interactions as relations between intersectional social positions. qualitative studies. 3(2): 115-132. introduction: this article analyses the methodical experiences from two research projects: my phd project which focused on forms of masculinity among marginalized ethnic minority men in denmark, and the collective project interloc1 which focused on intersectionality and local citizenship in an underprivileged danish suburb. although these two research projects had different aims, they had in common that i, as a researcher, interviewed, or did ethnography among, people who were positioned differently from me in terms of class, ethnicity, ‘race’, age, position and geographical location. there were also similarities in the way the researcher-researched interactions turned out. the people i interviewed sometimes had quite specific ideas about my intentions, perspectives and ideas about them – even in situations where i had not yet informed them about the purpose of the research. they were also in some cases rather cautious, and occasionally the interactions were somewhat antagonistic. the aim of the article is to undertake a sociological analysis of the mechanisms structuring or conditioning such interactions between researcher and researched. the analysis draws inspiration from bourdieu’s sociology, poststructuralist theory, as well as järvinen & mik 1 intersectionality and local citizenship, see www.interloc.aau.dk 116 meyer’s (2005) version of interactionist qualitative methodology. the article makes two related points: firstly, that insight can be gained by analyzing researcher-researched interactions as relations between intersectional social positions, and secondly, that antagonisms which occur in such interactions can be considered important data (adler & adler, 2001; andersen, 2005, 2006; järvinen, 2004). while there has been some critique of the idea of problematic or ‘bad’ data (for instance järvinen & mik-meyer, 2005), the idea that experiences of antagonism can contain important information is still not part of mainstream qualitative method discussions. methodological and theoretical points of departure field relations are often discussed in literature on ethnography. this literature also describes how social categories such as gender, age and ethnicity can influence field relations (for instance kristiansen & kroghstrup, 1999; hammersley & atkinson, 1995). however, class is often omitted from the list of categories considered important to understand field relations. this is problematic, because research is often about groups which are situated at a lower class position than the researcher. in this article, i employ a multidimensional conception of class, which is mainly inspired by bourdieu’s sociology. bourdieu’s theoretization of class as a multidimensional continuum rather than a binary opposition, and the idea that class position is constituted by volume and composition of different forms of capitals, allow for grasping complex socio-cultural dimensions of class without excluding economic dimensions (bourdieu, 1986). another problem with the usual treatment of social categories and field roles in literature about ethnography concerns the tendency of listing (adding) categories. recent feminist theory has argued that social categories cannot be understood as separate entities which can simply be listed one after the other. on the contrary, social categories such as class, gender, ethnicity and ‘race’ are mutually constitutive in a non-additive way (staunæs 2003). this theoretical point can be considered the common denominator of the literature about intersectionality (crenshaw, 1989; 1991, phoenix & brah, 2004; mccall, 2005; gans, 2008; choo & ferree, 2010). following from this theoretical point, researcher-researched interactions may be understood as interactions between social positions which are themselves complex and intersectional. how are such categories activated in interactions between researchers and researched, and how do they structure interactions between researcher and researched? here we can draw on the classic phenomenological concept of typification (schutz, 1967). this concept implies that when we engage people who we do not know personally, we assign people into types. we then expect them to behave, think and address us, as our experiences tell us people who belong to the same type usually do. this is the case in principle for both researcher and researched. as järvinen & mik-meyer point out in relation to qualitative interviews: “both the interviewer and the interviewee expect, that the activities, characteristics and opinions of the other part will conform to common conceptions of the category he or she belongs to – these expectations will permeate both the interaction in the interview and interview-material which is produced” (järvinen & mik-meyer, 2005: 32, my translation) combining intersectionality with the concept of typification implies that any meeting between researcher and researched is a meeting between complex intersectional configurations of social categories; and these configurations are the basis of typifications when they are interpreted through the prior experience of the actors involved. 117 importantly, the concept of typification also implies that the sorting of other people into types is done pre-reflexively and that that it is something we cannot wholly avoid. the concept thus points to mechanisms which are not dependent on intentions of the researcher or the researched, but which are rather dependent on the way the actors are positioned in social space and the prior experience of the actors involved. the phenomenological conception of typification takes us some way in understanding how interactions between researcher and researched are socially structured. it is, however, necessary to include a perspective on institutional, historical and overall societal contexts, including how such contexts produce positions of power. here it is possible to draw on bourdieu, who suggests that we can think about relations as power relations between social positions rather than relations between personae. he argues that: “…if a french person talks with an algerian , or a black american to a wasp, it is not two persons who speak to each other but, through them, the colonial history in its entirety, or the whole history of the economic, political, and cultural subjugation of blacks (or women, workers, minorities etc.) in the united states” (bourdieu & wacquant, 1992: 144) if we apply this understanding of interactions as asymmetrical to the analysis of researcherresearched relations, it can be argued that these are also permeated by power and, furthermore, that this power is inscribed in the historical and social positions of the actors involved irrespective of their intentions and personal characteristics. bourdieu thus argues that the power relations between the social categories of actors who engage in conversation structures the content of what can be said, how it can be said, the style of speaking etc. (2005: 176 ff.). hence there is always power at play in researcher-researched interactions, qua the social positions involved2. bourdieu then offers an understanding of the structural power which stems from positions in overall society and permeates the research interaction. he furthermore offers an understanding of relationality per se, rather than relations in the broad sense of the term. however, without conceptions suitable for grasping how agency is possible in asymmetrical conditions, a bourdian perspective risks sliding into structuralist determinism. here one can draw on the conception of counter power. hence, foucault argues that there is never power without counter power (foucault 1983). however, a conception of counter power is perhaps not enough, as the blurriness and complexity of such relations is not merely a matter of turning the tables. this implies that power should be understood as unstable flows rather than as something social agents simply possess. one can also point to intersectionality itself as a source of complexity: because power relations are relations between configurations which are themselves complex and intersectional, the actual interactions are impossible to predict. informants may challenge the researcher by making otherwise muted or inactive categories relevant where the researcher is disadvantaged (see also kennedy-macfoy and pristed nielsen, this volume). it thus follows that both researcher and researched can be both dominant and dominated at the same time. 2 furthermore, the researcher has the power over the research – he or she decides which approaches to be taken, which questions to ask, how to interpret the data and how to represent the researched group in writing. 118 power and identity formation in research processes qualitative research entails processes of identity formation. such processes are particularly clear in interviews. identities are offered in interviews, as the researcher invites the interviewee to speak from specific subject positions (järvinen, 2005). we may think of this as processes of interpellation/hailing (althusser, 1971) or subjectivation(/subjectification3) (foucault, 1988; butler, 1990; staunæs, 2003; kofoed & staunæs, 2007). the concept of interpellation, central to althusser’s structural marxist theory about identity, denotes that actors are called upon to take up subject positions through ideological processes. similarly, subjectivation denotes how subjects are invited or recruited into being through discourse. as youdell argues “research practice is wholly implicated in processes of ongoing subjectivation (of both the researcher and the researched)” (2006: 514). it follows from taking relationality seriously that it is not the researcher who is doing the hailing or subjectivation. instead, i suggest that the hailing, or subjectivation, the invitation to occupy specific identities or subject positions, is the product of relationality; that is the consequence of the relation between the positions involved in the interaction. consequently, the hailing and the forms of resistance sometimes produced cannot be reduced to a question of problematic or improper interview technique4. on the contrary, we can think of such processes as consequences of the identities which the relation offers the actors involved, given the way they are positioned socially both in and before the interview. an example might illustrate this point: in some of the interviews for my phd project, the interviewees reacted in ways that indicated that they felt that they were being invited into a subaltern minority position. i argue that was the case because of the way both i and the interviewees were already socially positioned before entering the interview situation. this point is supported by the observation that parallel research projects have had similar experiences, notwithstanding differences in methodology, overall approach and location. the common denominator of these research projects was that the researcher was middleclass, adult, white ethnic majority, while the researched were young, working class, ethnic minority men (andersen, 2005; hviid, 2007; staunæs 2007). the observation that some of the young men5 reacted in ways that indicated they felt that they were being invited into a subaltern minority position implies that there are important discussions to be had here. the discussion of power above suggests that hailing and subjectivation must be brought into a dialogue with conceptions of complexity, counter power and agency, if one is to grasp the complexity of actual researcher-researched interactions. judith butler has problematized althusser’s understanding of interpellation for being overly deterministic by assuming that the hailing always succeeds in producing conforming subjects (1993, 1995). as mentioned earlier, a foucauldian perspective points to the importance of counter power. this means that we need concepts which can grasp counter power in identity 3 i use subjectivation and subjectification synonymously. the terms are used by different authors to describe the same processes. 4 i am not a perfect interviewer or ethnographer, and i have made methodological mistakes in both research projects. there was, however, no proportionality between the size of these mistakes and the resistance i encountered from some informants. likewise, resistance sometimes appeared before i had had the chance to make such mistakes. hence, one overall argument in this article is that it is besides the point to reduce resistance to a reaction to such mistakes. 5 in this text i, perhaps controversially, sometimes speak about the research participants in the plural (as ‘the young men’). i do this not to suggest that they are an undifferentiated mass, but as shorthand for speaking about patterns in their reaction to me which they had in common. 119 formation. i find beverly skeggs’ use of the concept of disidentification useful. this concept, and the verb to disidentify (skeggs, 1997), denotes an intentional, active and marked distancing from identity categories which have negative social value. it is therefore different from a mere absence of identification6. also, when it comes to the question of identity formation in research interviews, we need to understand power as complex, blurred and unstable. a useful theoretical approach is therefore to interpret interview interactions as powerful, asymmetrical, yet open-ended, negotiations about identity. hence järvinen and mik-meyer (2005) argue that qualitative research interviews, as well as conversations during ethnographic fieldwork, can be understood as negotiations of social identity, as well as negotiations of what the social reality is taken to be. context and methods the data stem from two research projects. my phd project (see jensen 2007, 2009, 2010, 2011) was mainly ethnographic. the research aimed at understanding masculinity among marginalized young ethnic minority men in denmark. it also included a wider perspective on hybridity and subculture. the fieldwork took place in three youth clubs and a social project for excluded youths, in three danish cities. fieldwork was carried out from may 2001 to november 2005. a total of 126 observations were conducted. in addition to informal conversations, a total of 23 young men aged 13-25 were interviewed in 18 taped semi-structured qualitative interviews. the youth clubs and the social project were chosen because of their locality and/or their social work with young people. two were ordinary danish youth clubs (first aalborg club, århus club), another a youth club assigned a special role in work with troubled ethnic minority youth (second aalborg club) and the last a social project offering marginalized young people an alternative way to finish school (copenhagen youth project). the young men had different ethnic minority backgrounds, with parents from somalia, turkey, kurdistan, palestine, iran, pakistan, ex-yugoslavia, iraq, ghana, gambia and other national contexts. given the nature of fieldwork, the phrasing of the invitation to participate in the research varied, but all informants were informed that i was visiting the clubs to do research. the young men were typically informed that the research was about ‘possible differences between boys and girls’ (reflecting an interest in gender) and that i was interested in ‘the culture that young people make themselves’ (reflecting an interest in cultural agency). during the interviews, interviewees were asked questions about friends, music, family, relations to girls, school experiences, although the content varied as i attempted to address topics that interested the interviewees. since the interviews took place in youth clubs and social projects, it is possible that some agreed to participate because of implicit pressure from social workers. hence the phd project can be problematized for obtaining what kvale refers to as ‘consent in institutions’ (1997). the other project is interloc (see christensen & jensen, 2011; jensen & christensen, 2012). this project aimed at understanding the interplay between class, gender, ethnicity and ‘race’ in aalborg east, a deprived residential section of aalborg. aalborg is a medium-sized danish city with approximately 120,000 inhabitants situated in the northern part of denmark. aalborg east, with 10,000 inhabitants, is the most multicultural area in aalborg. the proportion of immigrants and descendants of immigrants is 18% (skjøtt-larsen, 2008), with considerable 6 see also goffman on the related concept of disidentifyers (1963, p. 60 ff.). 120 variation between sub-areas. the area’s minority population is made up of people with somali, palestinian, turkish, kurdish as well as a broad range of other ethnic backgrounds. the interloc-project employed several empirical methods, but here i use material from the 27 semi-structured qualitative interviews conducted during the project7. the interviewees were sampled through a combination of personal contacts, random sampling and snowballing. snowballing was carried out from different starting points. contrary to the phd project, the interviewees in the interloc-project were under no pressure to participate in interviews. on the contrary, they volunteered in a way which may have caused a problem of self-selection: fieldwork data indicate that a substantial proportion of ethnic danes who live in the area are sceptical towards ethnic minority presence. however, these views are not much represented in the sample. interviewees were asked about a wide range of themes related to belonging to the neighbourhood, everyday life in the area, institutions and facilities, and relations between ethnic groups. it should be emphasized that the mechanisms analysed here are not in a realist or positivist sense representative of the interactions between researcher and researched in either of the two projects. indeed relations were often friendly and smooth. the data used in this article are, however, selected to pinpoint important methodological discussions about researching difference. what is the researcher expected to be interested in? in may 2009 we contacted potential interviewees for the interloc-project. when i phoned paul8, a 74 year-old ethnic danish male retired skilled worker who i later learned had lived there since 1969, he immediately responded with a somewhat grumpy, “so, it is about how negative it is?!”. this answer informed me about what paul expected outsiders to be interested in about his area of residence. although explicit questions like paul’s were rare, i consider them qualitatively important, not least because his answer was not the only answer of this kind: one potential informant simply explained to me that he had little to do with aalborg east and then refused to participate, and others were reluctant until i carefully explained that the research was not meant to produce a negative image of the area, and added that i had lived there for several years myself. this initial reluctance to participate indicates that some inhabitants of aalborg east were well aware that the area is, in the terminology of wacquant, subject to territorial stigmatization (wacquant, 1996, 2007, 2008; jensen & christensen, 2012). i further interpret these initial aassumptions about how the researcher might view the area as closely tied to the relation between the class positions of the actors involved in the interaction. after all, i was looking at a working class area from a cultural middle class position (see also faber in this volume). they cannot, however, be reduced to mechanisms related to class. on the contrary, they point to the importance of locality. in contemporary segregated cities, locality itself comes to be a marker of privilege, power and status (or lack thereof). locality as a form of socio-spatial differentiation 7 for ethical reasons, i use only material from the interviews that i (and not the other researchers on the project) conducted for the interloc project. 8 all names in the article are pseudonyms. 121 thus intersects with class and ‘race’ without being reducible to these. this is particularly true for aalborg east, which for a long time has been subject to territorial stigmatization that is explicitly based on ethnicity (since the 80s the areas had been nicknamed bangla desh), and perhaps more implicitly based on fears and fantasies about the problematic (white) underclass (jensen & christensen, 2012). counter power is thus often articulated as an inclination to defend such stigmatized areas. in other words, the potential informants’ expectations and reluctances were closely related to the non-additive intersection between my class position, ethnicity and the socio-geographical circumstance of me not living in aalborg east. the example thus points to the relevance of geographical space to intersectional analysis (valentine, 2007; pini & leach, 2011). accordingly, the reluctance could often be overcome when i explained that i had lived in the area for a number of years and knew it from within. compared to the informants of the interloc-project, the young men whom i met during my phd project were often far more explicit in their voicing of what they thought i was likely to be interested in. in one instance, i was explaining to a group of young men what my purpose for being in one of the clubs was. one of the young men then asked me with a slightly disapproving smirk ’so you’re going out with us to observe when we beat down old ladies?’ (the århus club, oct. 17th 2005). this example is illustrative of the way some of the young men reacted to the research. it thus implies what these young men expected that a type like me would be interested in about them. this typification can be understood by analyzing the relation between the categories present in the interaction. i was present as a white, ethnic danish, middle class person. i consider this a position of privilege and (although not undisputed) power, as well as a position of socially legitimated masculinity. the young men were ethnic minorities and occupied lower class positions. danishness, whiteness and middleclass status intersected and positioned me as a representative of normality, privilege and the majority in a way which cannot be understood as merely an addition of the categories at play. similarly, the young men were constructed as others – pathological, criminal, representatives of an inferior minority culture – because of mechanisms tied to the relation between actors which were already classed, racialized and ethnified prior to the interview. the young men, however, actively negotiated and sometimes resisted this positioning, often through ironically or sarcastically commenting on popular conceptions, such as that young ethnic minority men are likely to ‘beat down old ladies’. at the same time, comments like this can be interpreted as a way to address the relation between the masculinities involved; that is, a socially legitimated and allegedly peaceful white middle class masculinity and a perceived aggressive ethnic minority working class masculinity. overall this relationality led to different outcomes: some of the young men emphasized during the interviews that they and/or their families were quite normal, thereby disidentifying from the social identity as different in a problematic way. one interviewee strongly denied being part of any group, as though to pre-empt an assumption on my part that he was a member of a socalled gang9. at other times, however, the young men did not reject being perceived as criminals. on the contrary, they made comments which, if taken at face value, would confirm the idea of the criminal hyper-masculine ethnic minority young man. an example is from one evening when i had just arrived at the århus club. i was alone with the young men for a brief moment while a social worker who was also in the club was busy in the office. 9 see alexander (2000) and poynting et al (2001) for a critical analysis of the gang as a racialized concept. 122 “… i am alone with the 3 boys who have shown up until now. they are fighting and acting quite noisy. one of them shouts ’we are just so criminal!’ and pushes the other two.”(memo århus club, oct. 14th 2005) this was the first time i visited this particular club. i had been there for a few minutes and had not yet had time to introduce the phd project. in other words, there is nothing i could have said which can explain that the young man announces that they are ‘so criminal!’. i suggest that it is the categories present and the way they intersect which makes the young man assume that i the white, ethnic danish middle class man am probably there to obtain data about criminality. furthermore, the club is known for carrying out crime-prevention programmes. it is, therefore, not unlikely that the young men have prior experiences with white, ethnic danish middle class persons being interested in crime and crime-prevention. in this exchange, the young man does not openly disidentify from the social identity as a criminal person. on the contrary, he exaggerates and dramatizes the popular perception of the hyper-masculine young immigrant criminal man. this, however, does not mean that identity is not negotiated. i argue that what is going on here is, in fact, a negotiation of this popular conception. through caricature, the young man makes the point that he is well aware that powerful others might suspect him of being a criminal. in that respect, he is engaged in negotiating or resisting the identity as the criminal other which the relation is inviting him to occupy. at the same time, there is a power dimension to the setting. the reaction of the young men can be interpreted as an attempt to challenge and undermine the powerful position of the white middle class majority male by performing an aggressive ethnic minority masculinity. the challenge is based on a situational appropriation of popular representations, and amplified by the very concrete fact that i was alone in the room and a newcomer in the setting. another evening at the århus club, i was talking to some of the young men about cars. one of them was in the process of purchasing a honda, and i asked him if he was getting a civic10. when he confirmed that he was one of the other young men who was lying on the floor said ‘immigrant car’11 (the århus club, oct. 17th 2005). one interpretation might be that he is simply noting that this is a car which is often preferred by young ethnic minority men. however, i would suggest that my presence as a white, ethnic danish middle class male is central to understanding his remark. in that interpretation, he is making a comment, not on the car, but on the ethnic dimension of the situation, and he is demonstrating that he is aware that i am interested in them as ethnic minorities. in that sense, he is commenting on the presence of ethnic danish whiteness just as much as he is commenting on his friend’s choice of car. at the same time, there is a masculinity dimension to the interaction as the honda civic is a type of car associated with, and symbolic for, a specific type of masculinity, which is different from white, middle class masculinity. taken together these and numerous other episodes illustrate that the research was taking place in what krumer-nevo calls an ‘arena of othering’ (2002). othering can be defined as discursive processes by which subordinate groups are defined into existence in a reductionist way which ascribe inferior characteristics to them (spivak, 1985; riggins, 1997; jensen, 2011). because of my positioning, which came to represent privilege, normality and majority, i became a representative of firstness while the young men came to represent otherness. this was the result 10 honda civic is small, relatively cheap, and looks like a sports car when seen from the front. 11 in danish ’udlændingebil’. 123 of the mutually constitutive and reinforcing interplay between such categories as class, ethnicity and ‘race’. however, the young men did not react passively to the way the relation subjected them to othering. they dis-identified from the subject position as the other, and actively resisted othering (see jensen, 2009 for elaborations) and/or they played with hypermasculine imaginaries up against white middle class masculinity. in other words, the power present in the researcher-researched relation was not unchallenged (see kennedy-macfoy & pristed nielsen, this issue). in the next section i will discuss further the complexities of the power relations in both projects. power, counter power and reluctance as argued above, interactions between researcher and researched necessarily involve power. however, that does not mean that interactions unfold in a predictable way or that the researcher is always in power. one example from the interloc-project is when i phoned hanne, a 65 year old danish retired office worker and active social democrat. i had already been in touch with hanne at a local meeting where she volunteered to do an interview. when i asked her on the phone if we could make an arrangement she immediately replied “a dirty one?”, and laughed. in this exchange, hanne made sexual suggestions across age, class and gender categories in a way that momentarily unbalanced me. the way the categories of class, sexuality and gender intersect here, allowing for an older working class woman to unnerve a younger middle class man by pretending to make sexual suggestions, is itself an illustration of the complexity of intersectionality. in a sense, her response results in a destabilization of power relations: as a point of departure, i have the power to produce authoritative descriptions of the area where she lives – on the other hand, she has can make a sexual suggestion which cannot easily be responded to from the position of an ‘appropriate’, serious and gender reflexive young academic. the power asymmetry thus becomes blurred. as noted above, the complexity of the intersections at play in researcher-researched interactions can open a space for such blurring of power, not least because the informants may sometimes be positioned higher than the researcher on some dimensions. one example is from my phd project when i did ethnography at the copenhagen youth project. one morning i was present in the school which was part of the project: “the teacher says they have got a guest today […] i stand up and start to explain that i am a writer and a researcher. they are obviously impressed when i tell that i am from a university. i speculate that the young people don’t have a clear sense of what a university is, but they know it is something ‘posh’. when i tell that i am from aalborg, abed remarks: ‘aalborg man, then you’ve gotten on the wrong train’.” (memo copenhagen youth project, dec. 17th 2002) the excerpt is illustrative of how the complexity of the field relations leaves room for blurring social hierarchies. i am, as a starting point, positioned higher than the young men in terms of class (in terms of both economic capital and cultural capital, that is, being from a university), ethnicity and ‘race’. however, when it comes to locality, they are situated at the centre, the capital city of denmark. i, on the contrary, work and live in a provincial town. abed thus makes a socio-spatial distinction between centre and periphery relevant. it thus becomes possible for him to partially undermine my class position, and the outcome is a complex power relation where all actors present are both dominant and dominated, as well as both high and low status. 124 at other times, the researcher-researched interactions took the form of clear-cut provocations. one example is from an evening at the first aalborg club. “i am standing in a room with a group of boys. ammar, who’s got a lollypop in his mouth, starts to spit on the floor. or he pretends to be spitting. each time he looks at me, as if to check whether i react. it is obviously a provocation. when i don’t react, his spitting becomes more and more obvious and exaggerated. at one point he clears his throat and spits. “are you sick?” i ask him. “no, no” he mumbles. the moment after he spits, or pretends to spit, on my shoe. “oops sorry” he says with a facial expression that signals challenge and provocation rather than an apology. for a brief moment i almost lose my temper. i give him a stern look and ask: “what are you doing?”. then he starts laughing: “relax man, i was just joking. i’m not standing here spitting. do you think i’m a total jerk?”. i mumble something back. shortly after, i move into the hallway where there is more light. there’s no spit on my shoes or pants.” (memo first aalborg club, sep. 20th 2003) ammar’s way of challenging me can be analysed as an expression of counter power which is closely tied to the relation between the intersectional configuration of social categories present in the situation. i am white, ethnic danish and middle class. ammar has dark skin and curly hair, his parents migrated to denmark from somalia, and he is positioned lower in terms of class. in other words, a relation between the powerful and privileged, in contrast to the marginalized, structures the interactions in the field. i come to represent the white and classed authority, which results of my research published elsewhere (jensen, 2010b, 2011) suggest that these young men experience being excluded from. at the same time, this is an interaction between masculinities: a legitimated white middle class masculinity often imagined as rational and peaceful, as opposed to a youthful working class minority masculinity rendered socially illegitimate and imagined as potentially aggressive. analyzed in this light, it becomes understandable why ammar challenges my position. his reaction may then be understood as a form of resistance or counter power. at the same time, the incident contains important substantial information about the relations between the social workers and the young people at this particular club, which were somewhat antagonistic. the incident with ammar was not the only example of antagonistic field relations during my phd project. a few of the interviews were characterized by similar antagonisms. this was the case when i interviewed tariq, a 13 year old boy with pakistani parents. during the interview, which took place in the classroom of the copenhagen youth project, tariq was more than reluctant to participate. he commented on my questions, and called them ridiculous. at one point, i asked him whether he respected his parents. his reply was: ‘are you stupid or what?’. during the interview tariq was drawing doodles on the school table making no attempt to hide what he was doing – itself a provocation. however towards the end of the interview, he took on the attitude of a zealous teacher, accusing me of having drawn the doodles: tariq: “what have you done there?” sqj: “what?” tariq: “have you been given permission to draw?“ sqj: “do you want to stop?” tariq: “that is up to you” sqj: “is there anything you would sort of like to say?” tariq: “i have nothing. have you?” 125 sqj: “nope, haven’t got any more” (interview, copenhagen youth project, feb. 27th 2004) the interview with tariq contains several important analytical dimensions: it is clear that tariq, as ammar above, challenged my position as white authority. in addition, it is important that the interview took place in the classroom. in a sense, the setting of the interview, as well as the relation between the social categories, interpellated or subjectivated tariq as a pupil. as a consequence, tariq reacted to me as he would react to a teacher. this does not mean that tariq thinks i actually am a teacher, but i may in terms of ethnicity, age and the fact that i belong to the cultural fraction of the middle class, look like and be positioned as a teacher, and this activates a repertoire of resistance practices related to schooling. this is important because many of the young men, including tariq, had troublesome relations to school and some experienced school as othering and excluding (jensen, 2007; see also sewell, 1997; alexander, 2000 for analyses of ethnic minority masculinities and schooling). in other words, power relations related to schooling are an important institutional context for understanding this interaction. however, tariq does not only take on the role of the naughty or resistant pupil. on the contrary, he eventually claims the role of the teacher, the position of power and authority, and he then questions me about the drawing on the table. he then goes on to take the role of the interviewer, asking me if i have anything to say. in this excerpt, tariq goes from challenging the position of the teacher to challenging the interviewer’s privilege to ask questions. this leads to complex and ambiguous power relations. on the one hand, i may have the formal power over the interview situation (the right to ask questions etc.), but on the other hand, tariq makes it literally impossible for me to get data in the form of rich accounts (although the interaction is in itself important data). tariq challenges me, but does not succeed in anything else than making me annoyed. it is impossible to say that i hold power, but also impossible to say that the tables are simply turned. the interloc-project did not contain this type of explicit resistance. one reason may be that informants were not persuaded to participate in the same way as they sometimes were in my phd project. the relation between the positions involved did, however, shape the interaction in more subtle ways. as noted above, there was some explicit scepticism at the initial contact. but after that, informants were careful rather than openly resistant or antagonistic. one example of a reluctant informant was akram. akram was in his 40s, unemployed and has a middle eastern ethnic background. the interview with him was an extreme but illustrative case. how the interview unfolded was captured in my notes: “[i am briefing akram about the interview] i end by asking if it is okay that i record the interview. akram says that i can do that. but it does not take many minutes before he asks, if i can turn ‘that thing’ off ‘so that i can relax’. the recorder is put in the bag and stays there for the rest of the interview. he asks whether i can’t just take notes in writing, which i then do for the rest of the interview. the interview is generally influenced by – perhaps even hampered by – akram being very keen to protect his anonymity. several times during the interview he says something then immediately asks me not to write it down […] i also feel that he, as the interview progresses, is really cautious about what he says in the first place. and, as a third step of self-censorship, he afterwards asks me to go through the points i have written down. this time around he also asks me to omit information….” (interview memo oct.12th 2009) 126 once again this interaction can be analyzed as a relation between positions. a point of departure could be that this meeting takes place in a specific social and discursive context: contemporary public discourses in denmark problematize islam, ethnic minorities and socalled ghettoes (røgilds, 1994; wren, 2001; hervik, 2004; andreassen, 2005). when these discourses frame the interview, it is not irrational that akram was careful about what he said during the interview. the position of the researcher works in relation to akram’s position in a specific discursive context. however, the relation cannot be reduced to the effect of ethnicity; ethnicity intersects with class and location (i.e. the fact that the researcher lived outside the area) to form a non-additive configuration of privilege and power. akram is unemployed and lives in an area which outsiders often consider an immigrant ghetto. another condition, which is linked to both class and ethnicity, is akram’s limited mastery of the danish language. it is also a meeting between masculinities, one being white middle class and socially legitimated, the other subject to othering as muslim men have been marked as inappropriate in danish discourses (andreassen, 2005). taken together, these factors produce, in a non-additive and intersectional way, a strong power asymmetry. if akram has typified the researcher as a powerful representative of the majority, and at the same time as one who can produce authoritative descriptions of the area, akram’s caution is understandable. at the same time, it is likely that akram, like paul above, is worried that his area of residence will be stigmatized further. akram’s and paul’s accounts in the interview are, therefore, inscribed in a larger negotiation of what the social reality about aalborg east is taken to be. interviews with ethnic majority informants in the interloc-project unfolded in a very different way than the interview with akram. however, ethnicity also played an important role here. during some of the interviews, it was clear that some ethnic majority informants who experienced life in a multicultural area as problematic were somewhat careful in their wording. they seemed to be afraid of being labelled racist. one reason might be that the research was presented to them as being about life in a multicultural area. the informants may have interpreted this information as if the premise of the research – and the researcher – was promulticulturalism. another, and somewhat overlapping, reason is that some informants appeared to assume that the researcher was left wing. this was clear in the way informants on the political right accounted for their political affiliation. one example is henning, a 73 year old ethnic danish pensioner. during the interview, henning ‘admits’ several times to being on the political right. for instance he says that “…when it comes to opinions i am right-wing, i have to admit that, i might as well say that. you can discuss different parties, whether you are for venstre12 or konservative13 and stuff like that, but that is the wing i support. i’ve got to admit that i do not like de radikale14 very much. even if they have skills, i do not have a lot of respect for them…” (interview may 6th 2009) henning appeared to have a specific idea about the position he is talking to, at least in the sense that he assumes that it is likely that the researcher is not right wing. this perception of the interviewer shapes the way he speaks about his own political affiliation – without necessarily having consciously decided to do so. it is likely that the intersection of my class position (cultural fraction of the middle class), as well as my disciplinary affiliation as a sociologist, and 12 danish moderate right wing party with roots in economic liberalism. 13 danish moderate right wing party with roots in classical conservatism. 14 danish centre-left party with roots in political liberalism. 127 my introduction of the interloc-project led henning to ascribe certain characteristics and intentions to me. this means that henning adapts his answer to take into account which opinions i may likely have. the perhaps best illustration for this is the way he speaks about his antipathy of de radikale. de radikale is a centre-left party which is commonly perceived to appeal strongly to young academics from the fraction of the middle class with high volumes of cultural capital. thus, taking my position into account, henning may very well have assumed that i was sympathetic to de radikale. another example of the reluctance to problematize multiculturalism is from an interview with hanne (who was introduced above). sqj: “now we have been talking a bit about gender and…what is your opinion regarding ethnic minorities, immigration, refugees and stuff like that?” hanne: “i feel like, i think that….honestly i felt at some point that it was becoming too much. and i may still think so. i think those who come here because they need it, they should be allowed to stay here. they should be treated fairly. but i think those who come here only to do crime should be sent out […] it is not all of them i like, to tell you the truth…” (interview sep. 16th 2009) this excerpt illustrates that hanne is reluctant to address her skepticism towards the presence of ethnic minorities. it seems that she, like henning, assumes that the researcher is left wing and pro-multiculturalism. as a further dimension she is, as mentioned above, an active social democrat. her reluctance may therefore also in part be explained by her being at odds with the official party line. the excerpts from the interviews with henning and hanne illustrate how informants assume that the researcher is left wing and pro-multiculturalism. not necessarily because of something the researcher has said or done, but because of the relation between the positions. the reluctance and the admissions, however, clearly illustrate that there is a subtle form of power at play. henning and hanne are speaking to, and up against, a researcher who has the power to represent them as racists or nationalist. they relate to this power by attempting to find ways to speak of their opinions that cannot be normatively judged. from an identity perspective, henning and hanne are engaged in negotiating a viable identity: henning is communicating that he is a legitimate and knowledgeable subject who is aware that being right wing is considered problematic in some parts of society. hanne is communicating that she is a legitimate non-racist subject, despite her reservations towards some ethnic minorities. conclusion in this article i have argued that researcher – researched interactions can be analyzed as relations between social positions which are themselves complex and intersectional. in my phd project, ethnicity, class, age and masculinity seemed the most central categories for understanding these interactions, whereas in the interloc-project, ethnicity and class were extremely important, but could only be analyzed by taking geographical location seriously as a significant dimension of the non-additive intersectional configuration. it is obviously not possible to prove in any positivist or realist sense that such interactions are in fact relations between social positions. the aim here has been more modest, to suggest that insights can be gained from analyzing such interactions from this perspective. the illustrations have thus shown that mechanisms occur in the researcher-researched interactions which cannot 128 be explained without taking the inter-relations between positions into analytical consideration. in other words, methodological dispositions cannot account for the mechanisms which appeared during the research. this point is supported by other research projects carried out by other researchers parallel to the phd project having similar experiences. one main argument has been that interactions which are experienced as antagonistic can be valuable data. this does not mean that they are particularly pleasant when they occur, or that one shouldn’t strive to avoid them. however, if they occur, they may contain important information about the researched phenomena. to illustrate that such experiences are data, it is necessary here to include the wider findings of the projects. in the interloc-project, the interactions pointed towards ethnicity being extremely important for both minorities and majority, albeit, in quite different ways. the cautiousness of some minority informants towards the majority researcher implies that they felt excluded and othered in danish society. this resonates with another finding from the project: minority informants expressed a strong sense of belonging to the area, but felt excluded from denmark as a nation (christensen & jensen, 2011, 2012). on the other hand, a close reading of the way some majority informants accounted for their political opinions implies that they were skeptical towards the presence of ethnic minorities. taken together, these observations resonate with a major finding of the project: relations between ethnic groups in aalborg east were peaceful, but at the same time very little actual interaction occurred (christensen & jensen, 2012). another important observation from the researcher-researched interaction in the interlocproject is that the interviewees across ethnicities often assumed that the researcher would have a negative view of the area. they sometimes indirectly expressed fear that the research would contribute to the negative labelling of the area where they live. this observation makes up a central part of the overall finding that the inhabitants of aalborg east are painfully aware of living in a territorially stigmatized area (jensen & christensen, 2012). the researcher-researched interactions of the phd project similarly contain data. the young men sometimes reacted to me as if i was the symbol of a white ethnic danish society which they felt excluded from. at the same time, they sometimes had very specific ideas about which dimensions of their life i was likely be interested in. they did not, however, passively subjugate themselves to the authority of white middle class masculinity. on the contrary, they sometimes reacted with resistance or reluctance. on a concrete level, this is important data about their antagonistic relations to adult white male middleclass authority. on a more abstract level, this methodological experience was central to a main finding of the project: that the research participants experienced 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(2008) aalborg øst – en social og symbolsk profil. sociologisk arbejdspapir no. 24 spivak g. c. (1985). the rani of sirmur: an essay in reading the archives. history and theory, 24(3): 247-272. stanuæs, d. (2007) ’”i am right behind him”managing fear and boys in the time of the danish cartoon crisis.’paper at the socialand cultural psychological research perspectives on the intersection between individualization – identity – ethnicity. university of roskilde. october 2007 staunæs, d. (2003).where have all the subjects gone? bringing together the concepts of intersectionality and subjectification. nora, 11(2): 101-110. valentine, g. (2007). theorizing and researching intersectionality: a challenge for feminist geography. the professional geographer 59(1): 10-21. wacquant, l. j. d. (2008). urban outcasts – a comparative sociology of advanced marginality cambridge: polity wacquant, l. j. d. (2007).territorial stigmatization in the age of advanced marginality’ thesis eleven no 91: 66-77. wacquant, l.j. d. (1996). the rise of advanced marginality: notes on its nature and implications. acta sociologica, 39(2): 121-139. wren, k. (2001).cultural racism: something rotten in the state of denmark?. social & cultural geography, 2(2): 141-163. 132 youdell, d. (2006). subjectivation and performative politics – butler thinking althusser and foucault: intelligibility, agency and the raced-nationed-religioned subject of education. british journal of sociology of education, 27(4): 511-528. author sune qvotrup jensen is an associate professor in cultural analysis and ethnography at the department of sociology and social work at aalborg university, denmark. email: qvotrup@socsci.aau.dk acknowledgement: i thank stine thidemann faber, morten kyed and lene myong who provided comments and literature suggestions for this paper. i also thank ann-dorte christensen with whom i conducted the research in the interloc-project. the interlocproject received funding from the danish social science research council (fse). article 6 lotte (trykkeklar) 163 “no, gender doesn’t make a difference…?” studying negotiations and gender in organizations lotte bloksgaard abstract. this article focuses on methodological challenges and strategies with regard to studying gender in organizations. work organizations are often thought, theorized and talked about as gender-neutral arenas and, therefore, gender is often seen as irrelevant and of no importance in modern work-life. there is also often a discrepancy in relation to gender between discourse and practice, which makes it difficult to capture the significance of gender in organizations by the interview method alone. on the basis of two empirical studies, focusing on the significance of gender in negotiations of wage and parental leave in the work place, the article explores some of the challenges and complexities involved when researching gender as a social category of difference, which produces inequalities in organizations. furthermore, the article demonstrates and discusses how applying and combining different methods and research strategies – for example following specific negotiations to a conclusion provide insight into the production of gender in discourse and practice at the work place level. thus, the article argues that reflexivity and methodological plurality are important when studying gender in work organizations. keywords: inequality, difference, gender in organizations, work place negotiations, research relations, methodological strategies, mixed methods. please cite this article as: bloksgaard, l. (2012). “no, gender doesn’t make a difference…?” studying negotiations and gender in organizations. qualitative studies, 3(2): 163-180. introduction this article focuses on how to study gender as difference and as a basis for the production of inequalities in modern work-life. a number of researchers point out and document that modern work-life and work organizations in the western world are, to a large extent, perceived as genderneutral (e.g. acker, 1990, 1991, 2012; korvarjärvi, 2003; eriksson and eriksson, 2003; holgersson et al., 2004; smithson and stokoe, 2005; højgaard, 2008; bloksgaard, 2009). the term ‘gender-neutral’ refers to the notion that gender is of no significance within work organizations. work-life is built on apparently gender-neutral ideas and routines; researchers argue that human resource management policies (including competence assessments, wage determination processes and family friendly arrangements), for example, are assumed to be gender-neutral (acker, 1990, 1991; wodall, 1998; rees and garnsey, 2003; andersen and bloksgaard, 2004, 2006; bloksgaard, 2009). furthermore, in the nordic countries and especially in denmark there is a dominant discourse that “equality is already achieved” (borchorst, 2009). as a consequence of these notions, gender is often seen as having no impact on – and, therefore, not being relevant to work-life. at the same time, however, statistics show that gender has a high impact on modern work-life; labour markets and work organizations are, to a large extent, structured by gender women and men work in different sectors, jobs and positions, they receive different pay and are to a different extent absent from the labour market due to family obligations, just to mention some differences. still, these gendered patterns may often be ’invisible’ for us in our everyday lives in work organizations – 164 gender exists, so to say, as an implicit phenomenon in work-life1. as a consequence, research that focuses on gender in modern work organizations will be “looking for gender, where gender is not explicit” (korvarjärvi, 2003), and where, in addition, the significance of gender is often denied. this means that researchers face special challenges when researching gender in work organizations. an additional reason for considering the analytical perspectives and methodological approaches carefully when planning studies on gender in organizations, follows from the theoretical framework developed within the research field of ‘gender in organizations’. in the well-known work about ‘gendered organizations’ by joan acker, a central point is that gender is being created in processes at several different levels within organizations (acker, 1990, 2012). following acker, kvande develops a perspective suggesting that there may be an asymmetric relationship between the gendered processes at the different levels (kvande, 2007); for example there will often be a discrepancy between discourse and practice – that is, what we say we do, and what we actually do. this point is important to take into consideration when planning research projects on gender in organizations and choosing research strategies and methods. this article takes its point of departure from methodological issues and experiences arising from two danish research projects focusing on the significance of gender in negotiations for wage and parental leave within a number of specific work organizations. it explores some of the methodological complexities and challenges involved when researching gender as a social category of difference, which produces inequalities in organizations understanding themselves as genderneutral. the article demonstrates and discusses how ‘following specific work place negotiations to a conclusion’ and combining different sociological methods and research strategies are ways of gaining insights into how gender is produced at the work place level, both discursively and in people’s practices. finally, it discusses how discursive practices produced in interviews may be analyzed as performances of gender, contributing an understanding of some discrepancies between discourse and practice. researching gender as discourse and practice in organizations – how? many studies on the significance of gender in work-life are based on interviews. informants are asked about what consequences gender has or might have in work-life, or gendered meanings are analyzed from informants’ accounts about work-life in general. several analytical and methodological strategies to capture ’gendered meanings’ in or deconstruct gender in interview material have been developed (e.g. haavind, 2000; søndergaard, 1996, 2000; gunnarsson et al., 2003; martin, 1992, 2003). at the same time, a central discussion in the methodological literature on how to study gender is the adequacy – or rather the inadequacy – of the interview method in this research field. in the article ‘is it possible to gain knowledge about gender by interviewing?’ (2010) the danish researcher lis højgaard discusses the danger of producing gender stereotypes when asking about gender in interviews, and how to (try to) avoid this when using interviews as a method in research projects on gender – an issue which haavind, among others, has also reflected on (haavind 2000). 1 ellingsæter and solheim point out, that gendered structures of meaning and differences are ”taken for granted and therefore remains unreflective, even if they may be visible enough. paradoxically, they are so obvious that we don’t even notice them” (ellingsæter and solheim, 2002: 62). 165 concurrently, a number of researchers on gender (in organizations) emphasize the importance of studying gender as a social practice – cf. also the development of concepts like ‘doing gender’ and ’gendered practices’ (west and zimmerman, 1987; acker, 1990, 1997; rantalaiho and heiskanen, 1997; martin, 1992, 2003; connell, 1987, 1995; morgan, 2002; kvande, 2003; gunnarsson et al., 2003; korvajärva, 2003). as mentioned above, central to acker’s theory about ‘gendered organizations’ is the point that analytically, the construction of gender can be seen as occurring in several different and interacting organizational processes (acker, 1990, 2012). following acker, kvande argues that ”gender in organizations is constructed and must be analyzed at different levels and taking into account the fact that gender can have different meanings at these different levels” (kvande, 2007: 101). for example, there is often a discrepancy between the discursive and practical levels in gender constructions. hochschild refers to this distinction by using the terms ‘gender ideology’ and ‘gender strategy’. gender ideologies are women’s and men’s cultural ideas of how to act and prioritize, for example regarding family and work life, whereas gender strategies refer to how women and men really act (hochschild, 1989: 190-203). the different terms illustrate the difference between what we think women and men do or should do, and what they are actually doing. in continuation hereof, i will argue that, from a methodological perspective, it is important for researchers to get not only the accounts of the people who act in organizations, but also to gain insights into the actual organizational processes and the interactions in which gender is also produced for example by observing or participating in these (goffman, 1989; west and zimmerman, 1987; hammersley and adkinson, 1995; kristiansen and krogstrup, 1999). as goffman states: “i don’t give hardly any weight to what people say, but i try to triangulate what they’re saying with events” (goffman 1989: 131). in the rest of the article i will unfold and discuss different strategies and methods for capturing gender, as both discourse and practice, in organizations based on experiences from two specific research projects. two danish research projects: gender in wage and parental leave negotiations the methodological reflections and discussions in the article are based on two empirical studies: ‘når køn forhandler løn’ [gendered wage negotiations], (andersen & bloksgaard, 2004) and arbejdsliv, forældreskab og køn. forhandlinger af løn og barsel i tre moderne virksomheder [work-life, parenthood and gender. negotiations of wage and parental leave in three modern work places] (bloksgaard, 2009). both studies focus on the significance of gender in negotiation processes in modern work-life, and both are based on field work in a number of large, modern work organizations from the private labour market in denmark. the first study2 focuses on the processes of wage formations in four large danish companies and the significance of gender therein, especially in individual wage negotiations. the second study includes and expands on the former, by adding a case on negotiations of parental leave in three of the four participating companies. this study also contains transverse analyses of assessment of work participation, absenteeism due to parental tasks and gender in these three work place contexts. the participating companies are characterized by all having implemented individual wage systems and to a varying degree family friendly policies and incentives (for example parental leave incentives). 2 this study i conducted together with a colleague, pernille tanggaard andersen. however, in the interests of consistency of this article, i use ’i’ when discussing the methodological challenges and considerations in relation to both of the studies, which the article draws on. 166 in general, negotiations of wage and parental leave are both understood as gender-neutral and objective processes within work organizations (andersen and bloksgaard, 2004; bloksgaard, 2009). in the danish labour, market employee work place agreements increasingly take place in individual negotiations between individual employees and their manager (due and madsen 2004, 2006). furthermore, the two different types of negotiations are chosen on the basis of an assumption that gender may be a disadvantage to women with regard to negotiations of wage3, whereas genderspecific expectations and gender-stereotypes may constitute barriers for men with regard to prioritizing family life, in this particular case taking parental leave4. thus, the two types of negotiations make it possible to gain broad insights into how gendered differences and inequalities are created at the work place level. one overriding aim in the two studies has been to analyze the individual negotiations, with the researcher conducting the research from as close to the negotiating table as possible to gain insight into ‘the direct meeting’ and the social interaction there. the intention was to gain a broader knowledge than existing interview studies have provided about the complex dynamics which are at play at the work place level, and which contribute to the production of gender inequality in relation to wage and parental leave. to gain insight into how gender is created both discursively and through people’s practices in the work place, a number of specific women’s and men’s negotiations are followed to a conclusion. this research design, i argue, is a methodological strength, taking the point about asymmetry between discourse and practice into account. the fact that a number of specific wage and parental leave negotiations are followed to their conclusion means that the meaning of gender is settled5 in this specific situation, just as the consequences of gender with regard to wage and parental leave are revealed. so, the studies explore women’s and men’s actual choices and actions regarding wage determination and parental leave, and not just speculations on what individuals might have done in an imaginary situation. this research strategy opens a space for analyzing how gender is given meaning during the negotiations, as they happen. the meanings of gender must necessarily be captured and analyzed ‘in the specific context in which gender is given meaning’ (gherardi, 1994). accordingly, the studies analyze how gender and gendered inequalities are created in negotiation processes in a number of specific work place contexts. in the process of following specific negotiations to a conclusion, the studies combine and apply several different methods and research strategies: field work, observations, interviews, document analysis, statistics and longitudinal research strategies6. the rest of the article will demonstrate and 3 in denmark there is a gender pay gap of 18 % (larsen, 2010). 4 danish men only take 7,7 % of the complete leave period (nordic statistic yearbook, 2011). 5 at least the meaning which is ascribed to gender is determined in the situation, even if employee and manager not necessarily agree on the offered positions (see also davies and harré, 1990). the two studies are based on a social constructivist approach according to which one must study both how gender is constructed or ascribed meaning in relation to ‘ideas of appropriate gender behavior’ and how these constructions acquire social consequences, as they influence women’s and men’s practices in interaction (west and zimmerman, 1987; burr, 1995; berger and luckmann, 1999). 6 the empirical material consists of observations of 30 individual wage negotiations and 84 interviews with employees, managers and trade union and management representatives, documents regarding wage and parental leave, statistics on the use of parental leave and notes from the field work and from informal observations and conversations in the work place contexts. 167 discuss how these different methods and strategies have provided insights into the production of gender as discourse and practice at work place level. first, however, i will reflect on some of the challenges one might meet and strategies one may use, when as a researcher, you wish to access gender as a social category of difference which creates inequalities in work organizations. accessing gender in work-life: gender as an explicit and non-explicit theme as described above, there is a widespread notion in modern work-life and work organizations that gender is not relevant. i have often been met with surprise or even resistance, when i raise gender as a subject in danish work organizations. acker describes the resistance in this way: ”people who work with equality problems in employment seem to be faced with an often unspoken resistance that could be articulated as ’what more do women want? they have gotten everything they asked for. it’s boring to talk about this anymore’” (acker, 1994: 43). these types of attitudes mean that getting access to companies as research fields or cases may imply special challenges when gender is the research subject. in the two studies, access to relevant companies was characterized by a number of particular barriers and challenges. the first hurdle was a more practical one: to find private companies, which had actually implemented a decentralized wage system and individual wage negotiations. the next challenge was to convince the few relevant companies to consent to participating in the study. when i approached the boards of directors and gatekeepers in the companies with a request to participate in a study, first on wage negotiations and later parental leave, gender was mentioned explicitly as a theme in the research. in most companies it was necessary to negotiate about the relevance of this as a research topic. to a large extent, i was met by the immediate rejection of the idea that gender should be a cause of differences in their organization – “no, gender doesn’t make a difference…?” was the typical reaction, people being almost surprised that i suggested this. there was also a lack of interest in gender issues or equal pay, or an attitude that “there are no inequalities here”. it was soon obvious that wage is one of the ‘toughest bones of contention’ in terms of employment issues, and it is, therefore, difficult to get access to do research about this. the attempts to gain access were further complicated by the fact that i asked for permission to observe the actual negotiations. this request caused some controversy within some of the boards of directors of the companies approached. in the end, however, i managed to get access to the number of companies i wished to conduct studies in7. having a focus on the significance of gender in work-life does not mean that the researcher should necessarily address gender explicitly with informants. in accessing informants in the two studies, i used a strategy of treating gender as a non-explicit theme. this was partly due to the widespread view within companies that gender is irrelevant in work-life. besides, if you present yourself as a gender researcher to informants in specific work organizations and address gender directly, you make gender relevant and ascribe certain meanings to gender yourself (højgaard, 2010). for that reason, i intentionally sought to avoid making gender relevant in the informants’ consciousness, trying to prevent them from seeking to ’do’ gender according to the cultural ideas of “gender appropriate behavior” (west and zimmerman, 1987) for example in the wage negotiations. i applied a similar strategy in the interviews. thus, as a rule i did not ask explicitly about gender 7 for further information on and considerations about the type of participating companies in the studies and the possibility for generalization see andersen and bloksgaard, 2004; bloksgaard, 2009. 168 (until the end of the interviews8, see haavind, 2000; højgaard, 2010) but about processes of wage and parental leave, ‘the good employee’, ‘the parent’, and other general employment-related topics. i used similar interview guides for men and women, and formulated the questions in the same way, regardless of the gender of the informants, and irrespective of whether i asked about the practices of women or men. this strategy provided me with valuable knowledge about the production and impact of gender in the presumed gender neutral processes of wage and parental leave. the strategy caused no trouble with regard to the questions about wage, whereas it was more difficult in the questions about parental leave. as a researcher, you often automatically feel the need to formulate the questions differently when asking about men’s parental leave practices, than when asking about women’s – for example you may typically ask men if they have taken parental leave, whereas you will most often ask women for how long they took parental leave. as i wanted to examine how presumably gender-neutral categories are ascribed gendered meanings, i used gender-neutral interview guides to ask both women and men if they had taken leave – a formulation which felt very unnatural to the interviewed women and which often resulted in answers beginning with ”yes, off course i have taken leave…..?” (danish women are legally bound to taking two weeks of maternity leave after the birth, and as mentioned above, they generally take the main part of the complete leave, as well as the sharable parental leave). this finding before and during the interviews gave me a good understanding of how strongly a connotation of femininity is attached to parental leave practices, which was precisely what i intended to examine by using gender neutral formulations of questions. thus, already at this stage in the study i found that gender does make a difference in work-life. wage negotiations: combining field work, observation and interviews9 in the study on wage negotiations, the analysis is based primarily on field work in the participating companies, observations and interviews with people from ‘both sides’ in the negotiations (employees and managers) as well as trade union and management representatives. field work is applied as a method to achieve a broad knowledge about the social fields that the companies constitute in the study, and to gain insight into the wage negotiation process and the production of meaning in the different work place contexts (maaløe, 1996; wadel, 2001; järvinen and mik-meyer, 2005a). observation method gives researchers opportunity to study direct interactions and negotiations between people, thereby providing access to studying not only people’s discourses but also their practices (järvinen and mik-meyer, 2005b). larsen and haldrup argue that “compared with interviews, observations better capture the […] quality of practices because they focus on immediate physical doings and interactions rather than retrospective and reflexive talk about how and why such performances took place, and what they meant” (2010: 38-39). therefore, observation is well-suited as supplement to interviews, as “observation studies bring us one step closer to the analyzed situation, than the interview is able to” (dyrberg et al., 2000: 331, my translation). in the 8 the researcher, haavind points out, should not ”bring up the theme [gender] by asking about the person’s perceptions about the significance of gender. […] when it is seen as a methodological advantage not to ask about what gender means it is because we look for the multiple in gendered meanings […] the informants’ thoughts about what gender might mean as a stereotype, as an ideal or as a reference for his own self may be added later, and preferably in the end of the interview” (haavind, 2000: 20). 9 the combination of different sociological methods in the study of wage negotiations and the knowledge this research design provided is more thoroughly discussed in andersen et al. 2009. 169 study, both ‘informal’ participant observation – spending longer time periods in the companies, participating in and observing ‘every day organizational life’ – and ‘formal’ observation of the individual wage negotiations were conducted. observing the wage negotiation situations, i sat at the back of the room, usually behind the employee so that he or she could not see me, in an effort to try to minimize the effect of my presence10. interviews were conducted with employees and managers after the wage negotiations, and were related to the assessment and wage determination which had just taken place. thus, the main purpose with interviewing was to get the actors’ own explanations and interpretations linked to the observations, and to gain insight into how gendered meanings are constructed discursively in interactions (see below). the research strategy of following a number of specific wage negotiations in the work place and applying different methods has been crucial for the results and the production of new knowledge about the formation of individual wage in the danish labour market (and the production of unequal pay). instead of interviewing managers about how they would in principle distribute wage among their employees and the criteria they use to reward employees, it was possible to observe and ask questions about the individual managers’ actual distribution of an actual payroll among a group of specific employees in an ongoing wage process, and to hear the managers’ explanations thereof. thus, it was possible to confront the explanations used by the managers in the negotiation situation towards the employee, and the explanations the managers revealed in the subsequent interviews. the combination of field work, interviews and observation made it possible to study both ’the sayings’ and ’the doings’ of the managers (and the employees) – discourse and practice. the combination of methods documented clearly that these two levels are not always consistent – a result which emphasizes the importance of using several methods to gain a broad insight into the significance of gender in wage formations and assessment of employees at work place level. thus, combining field work, observations and interviews provided a broader insight into the criteria used by managers for distributing the payroll than could have been achieved by interviews alone. for example, the field work and the analyses of wage documents show that family needs and family friendly incentives are not thought of as a part of the reward systems and the reward criteria. however, the observations show that family needs and gendered ideas of parenthood do sometimes have consequences for pay. the following sequence is from a wage negotiation between birgit and her somewhat younger male manager: manager: “what do you expect to get” birgit: “10 dkr [1,35 eur] extra per hour” manager: “is that what you expect? what are your arguments for that?“ birgit: “i think i cover a large area and i’m responsible…are you surprised?” manager: “yes i am. ....and to be honest, 10 dkr is way too much, it is not possible for me to give you that much. and don’t misunderstand me, but in your job function 14 dkr more per hour than minimum wage is too much.…i’ll also have to say that because of your working hours i simply cannot justify giving you such a large pay raise, so that’s also a part of assessing the wage….” 10 however, an elimination of the ‘researcher effect’ (kristiansen and krogstrup, 1999) is never possible in social research; it is, therefore, important to always reflect on the consequences hereof on the research results (as i discuss below). 170 on the basis of the observation of the wage negotiation, it was possible for me to ask the manager about his arguments in the follow-up interview. he explained that in the day-to-day work in the department, birgit did not live up to his expectations of ’a good employee’, because, in his opinion, she did not prioritize the work place high enough compared to her family needs (she had two children) – a fact that he also refers to in the negotiation situation by saying that he cannot justify a higher pay “because of her working hours” (she works 37 hours per week, which is the general norm, but the working hours are ‘family friendly’, from 7.00-15.00). the combination of interviews and observation shows that family needs can be a factor, which may have negative consequences for wage. the research design following specific negotiations to a conclusion and the combination of methods showed that wage formation, which is assumed to take place on the basis of a number of objective and gender-neutral criteria, is happening as something relational, where ideas of gender, competence and parenthood may have an impact. so, the applied design and methods provided new knowledge of how wage formation takes place at the work place level, and how gendered inequalities are produced in this process. men’s parental leave negotiations: a longitudinal research strategy in the study on parental leave negotiations, the analysis is based on field work in the participating companies, interviews with people from ‘both sides’ in the negotiations (employees and managers) and trade union and management representatives, as well as documents regarding parental leave. additionally, statistics on men’s and women’s use of parental leave in the participating companies were analyzed. statistics were used to gain insight into practice, as the field work revealed that negotiations of parental leave between employee and manager in the work place are very informal, and often take place in an unplanned fashion11 –therefore, these are not easily studied by observation methods. the combination of statistics and interviews identified a discrepancy between the ideals of men and their actual leave practice (see bloksgaard, 2009, 2014), which other research has also identified in the research field of ‘men and parental leave’ (e.g. bekkengen, 2002; brandth and kvande, 2003). in a swedish study, haas et al. conclude that men’s use of parental leave is significantly affected by the organizational culture of their work place (haas et al., 2002), and they suggest that further research on determinants of father’s use of parental leave should focus on the relations between the employed parent, his/her employers and work groups, and ideally follow him/her longitudinally to get a better understanding of how negotiations in the work place affect fathers’ leave use. in the following, i will demonstrate and discuss how applying a longitudinal research strategy, and thus, following the actual sequences of the negotiation process between male employees and managers in the study provides an understanding of the discrepancy between men’s ideals and leave practices, and of how the unequal distribution of parental leave between women and men is being reproduced in the work place. i will illustrate this using the empirical case of ‘ulrik’: ulrik is a male manager in a retail company whose parental leave negotiations i followed longitudinally. i interviewed ulrik three times over one year. in the first interview, approximately one month before ulrik was going to become a father, he explained to me that he planned to take the two weeks of paternity leave, and also one or 11 the field work also uncovered that in denmark typically only men will have to negotiate parental leave in the work place, whereas women get leave ‘automatically’ (bloksgaard, 2009). 171 maybe two months of the parental leave12 at the end of the leave period, so that his wife could get back to her job. ulrik is the first man in his work place who wants to take more leave than the two weeks of paternity leave, that is, to take some of the parental leave, and ulrik tells me that “hr said: ‘we’ll have to figure out how we do that…’ but i think they’ll accept it (…) 80 percent of the employees being women here, i think they’ll be more generous about parental leave”. the second time i interviewed ulrik, he had become a father to a little girl one month earlier, and he had taken his two weeks of paternity leave. in this interview he still expressed an ideal about ’the present father’ (brandth and kvande, 2003), as one who takes leave: ”no matter if there is fire and brimstone [at the work place], i would take leave, i had decided that for sure, it was so important to me. cause i will not be that father of whom you say ’this guy, he’s always working’ – damn it, i want to be there. it might sound like an old romantic speech that will not actually happen, but hell, i mean it!” ulrik was promoted at work around the same time he became a father. later during this second interview, i asked him about the one or two months of parental leave that he had indicated he would take in the first interview. he answered: ”i’m totally new in this position, so now we’ll have to see about that … there’s a new managing director who i report directly to ….and i haven’t discussed it with him yet, there have been so many other things that have been more important …. but of course i’ll suggest it and hear about the possibilities and then try to …to get that period. […] but the last month of the leave period that’s in december, and that’s the busiest time of the year being in retail, so i cannot take time off there, that’s for sure!” ulrik indicated that he would still like to take a month of parental leave at the end of the paternity leave period, but that it would be problematic for him to be absent from the work place in december (when i asked female managers in the same company if they tried to adjust their leave period to busy periods at work, they totally rejected this idea, bloksgaard, 2009). the third time i interviewed ulrik, his daughter was almost one year old. in this interview he explained that for personal and family reasons, and because of his new position at work, he ended up not taking any parental leave. ulrik’s actual sequence of negotiation and the interviews during this process with ulrik, his manager and the hr-director in the company, show that ulrik ended up not converting his original fatherhood ideals into parental leave practice. the longitudinal research strategy provides insights into how men are adapting to gendered cultures in the work place (and society), which make it unlikely for men to take parental leave. it explains how, at the same time, there might be goodwill among men to take parental leave at the 12 under danish legislation, two weeks of paternity leave is reserved for the father right after the birth of the child. there is 32 weeks of parental leave for each of the parents with a right to unemployment benefit for 32 weeks in total – in practice this means that 32 weeks is the possible leave length that the parents will have to share. however, danish mothers take the majority of the parental leave (for more details about the danish legislation on leave see bloksgaard, 2009, 2014). 172 discursive level, while very few men take parental leave in practice. following specific negotiations to a concrete conclusion using a longitudinal research strategy provides insight into why this is so showing how men’s use of parental leave is influenced by several concurrent factors, and continuous and complex negotiations both in the work place and in family life (bloksgaard 2009, see also bloksgaard 2011, 2014). thus, it helps to explain the low number of danish men taking parental leave (nordic statistic yearbook 2011). the categorizations which take place in relation to gender in the work place mean that men may possibly be sanctioned if they behave in ‘not genderappropriate ways’ in the work place, for example taking parental leave. the example of ulrik indicates, however, that men may perceive it as a choice of their own, when they end up not taking any of the parental leave. seemingly, tendencies towards, and discourses of, individualization and ’freedom of choice’ in denmark blur the structural aspects in the production of gendered differences and inequalities in organizations (for an elaboration of these points, see bloksgaard 2009, 2014). analyzing performances of masculinity in the interview situation as earlier mentioned, gender may be understood as something men and women ‘do’ or practice in interaction but in relation to cultural ideals of what masculinity and femininity ‘is’ (west and zimmerman, 1987; connell, 1995; morgan, 2002; kvande, 1995). accordingly, men and women develop their individual masculine or feminine identities under influence of dominant gender ideals in society and at work place level. thus, men’s fatherhood and leave practices and masculine identities may be seen as the outcome of negotiation processes, for example in the work place (brandth and kvande, 2003). according to järvinen (2005), the interview situation is an example of interaction where people’s presentations of self (goffman, 1974) or performances of (gendered) identities (butler, 1990) become particularly visible. interviewees seek to present themselves as reasonable and sense-making human beings – ‘a competent manager’, or ’a good father’, for example. thus, the articulations of an interviewee can be seen as attempts to negotiate as meaningful a social identity as possible in the interview situation. these performances of identity should not be seen as a problem, but rather as important data, as they offer insight into how identity is constituted in interaction (hydén, 2001; järvinen, 2005; søndergaard and staunæs, 2005; see also jensen this issue). in this last section, i will discuss how the interviews with the male employees and managers in the study on parental leave can be analyzed as performances of masculinity, and thereby provide insight into how gender (masculinity) is produced in interaction; here how men negotiate masculine identities and parental leave practices in parental leave negotiations in the work place. following the understanding presented above, the interview situation may be understood as one forum for men’s presentation of self, one arena (out of several) for ‘identity work’, and it thereby presents “an opportunity to study masculinities in the making” (allen, 2005). taking the same perspective as järvinen, schwalbe and wolkomir, i concur with the argument that “…it would be a loss, we think, to treat the identity work men do in interviews as noise that must be filtered out to get the real data. instead, we suggest that this identity work be treated as data – the first step being to see it, in the form of how and when men try to signify masculinity in interviews” (schwalbe and wolkomir, 2001: 92). so being aware of and analyzing interview material from the male interviewees not only the content but also with an eye to the identity and positioning work going on within the interview may provide further insight into the production of gender in interactions. 173 by default, an interview situation must be seen as a relation of power – where the interviewer is in command by setting the agenda for the interview13. the interview situation is an opportunity for men to signify masculinity, but at the same time men especially may experience the interview situation as threatening: “this threat may be heightened if the interviewer is interested in gender since this increases the salience of the participant’s identity as a man. […] reactions to such threats are more likely to be matters of self-presentational habit than conscious strategy” (schwalbe and wolkomir 2001: 91-92). applying these thoughts to my interviews with the male employees and managers about parental leave, forms the basis for further reflections on the discrepancy between men’s ideals and leave practices. the fatherhood ideal as one who takes leave expressed by ulrik and several other men i interviewed, may be interpreted as them delivering performances of ‘the present father’ to ‘make sense’ to me, the researcher, in the interview situation. given that the interviewees’ leave practices as men was the primary focus of the interviews, the male interviewees may have had a heightened awareness of how they were performing gender in the interview situation. in denmark, and the nordic countries in general, there is a strong equality ideal, including the ideal of ‘the present father’, which has gained strong legitimacy during the last decade (brandth and kvande, 2003; bekkengen, 2002). therefore, it may be difficult for male interviewees to express opinions about not taking parental leave, and risk being seen as ‘not a modern and politically correct man’. this also means that in other situations, contexts and relations, and towards people representing other positions than the ones the male interviewees positioned me in, (some of) the men may express other fatherhood ideals. however, as mentioned above, the idea that people are performing different identities in different social relations is central to the understandings of gender, on which this article is based (goffman, 1974; west and zimmerman, 1987; connell, 1987, 1995; kvande, 1995). the recognition of the impact of the relation and the interaction between researcher and the researched emphasizes the need to also be reflective about the impact of the social categories that both researcher and researched bring into the research relations, for example the interview situation (staunæs and søndergaard, 2005). as stated by williams and heikes: “interview, like any other interaction, always take place in a gendered context – the context of either gender similarity or gender difference (…) gender is constantly ‘there’. the question is therefore not if gender makes a difference but, rather, how gender matters?” (williams and heikes, 1993: 282). whereas class, to some extent, may be ‘neutralized’ or down-played by the researcher in the interview situation (see faber, this issue), gender is a social category which cannot be treated in this way. when two people meet, one of the first things they notice about each other is the sex of the other. this categorization is accompanied by certain expectations about how the other will behave in the interview situation, just as the categorization will also imply that the individual expects a certain behavior from him/herself in the relation (berger and luckmann, 1999; west and zimmerman, 1987). so, gender is a category of difference in the research process which becomes a premise for producing empirical material. accordingly, it is relevant to reflect on how my female gender may have influenced the interviewed men’s performances of masculinity in the interview situation and, thereby, also the research results. several studies have found that male interviewees present 13 the interviewer is sometimes also better positioned with regard to education level, job position, etc. see jensen as well as faber in this special issue. 174 themselves differently to researchers of a different gender (mckee and o’brien, 1983; williams and heikes, 1993; sallee and harris, 2011). sallee and harris document that american men interviewed by female researchers present themselves as more thoughtful and rejecting of stereotypical gender roles than when interviewed by male researchers (sallee and harris, 2011). on the basis of a swedish study, nordberg emphasizes that when women interview men, aspects of equality are more often actualized. she finds that men very actively relate to and use the ideal of equality when presenting themselves to a female interviewer – “in this way he may present himself as a socially desirable and equal man to the female interviewer” (nordberg, 1999: 68, my translation). applied to my study on men and parental leave, this suggests that the fatherhood ideals of taking leave expressed by several of the male interviewees may be part of performing a ‘socially desirable (male) identity’ towards me, the female researcher. at the time of the interviews i was not only a young (33 year old) woman, but i was also pregnant with my second child – a fact that enhanced my position as a female subject. this may have made it difficult for the men to express a negative attitude to taking parental leave in the interviews. such an analysis of the gendered performances in the research relation and of the impact on the research results (haraway, 1988) may explain some of the difference in discourse and practice in the research field of ‘men and parental leave’. it is important to reflect on how performances of social categories are produced in the research relations and take these into account when analyzing our empirical data – these being valuable data of the production of these categories of difference, here gender14. conclusion this article has addressed some challenges and complexities when researching gender in work organizations. in modern work-life, organizations will often be seen as, and understand themselves to be, gender-neutral entities. accordingly, research projects on gender in work-life will be studying gender as ‘a non-explicit phenomenon’ in organizations, and be up against notions of gender as not being relevant in organizations and the things going on therein. on a theoretical and analytical level, the construction of gender in organizations can be understood as taking place in different and interacting processes at different levels: for example in discourses, and in men’s and women’s practices and interactions. these conditions constitute the premise for doing research, which need to be considered and dealt with methodologically when planning and conducting studies on gender in organizations – for example, these make it difficult to capture the construction of gendered differences and inequalities in organizations using interviews as the sole research method, which is the case in many studies of gender in organizations. 14 when reflecting on the meaning of gender in the research relation, though, it is important not to forget the intersection with other social categories at play (valentine, 2002). taking an intersectional perspective it is important to reflect on how not only gender, but also other social categories – class, race, ethnicity, generation, sexuality or disability – are woven together and gain significance in different ways, sometimes downplaying the significance of gender. such a perspective has not been applied in this article but see, for example, jensen in this special issue and bloksgaard, 2014. in the field of organizational studies, still very few studies acknowledge the importance of intersectionality and reflect on the methodological challenges of studying intersecting social categories in organizations (exceptions are e.g. acker, 2006, 2012; holvino, 2010; healy et al. 2011; mulnari and selberg, 2011). 175 the article has argued that ‘following men’s and women’s specific negotiations to a conclusion’ in organizations, and combining different sociological methods and research strategies are ways of gaining valuable insights into the production of gender as discourse and practice in the work place. the applied research strategies and methods have provided insight into both the ascribed meanings of gender and the social consequences of gender with regard to wage and parental leave – uncovering examples of how ‘gender is continuously said and done’ in the work place. thus, gender-neutrality, as something that is taken for granted in organizational contexts, does not mean that gender is not an important factor in work-life – not even in denmark, one of the scandinavian countries which are often considered to be ‘world champions of equality’. this points to the importance of understanding and studying gender differences and inequalities as something which is produced in everyday interactions in the work place, also in modern work-life. finally, looking closer at the discursive practices in the interviews with my male informants, the article has demonstrated how the interview situation can be understood and analyzed as a central context for performances and negotiations of identity, such as gender. the article has illustrated that reflecting on not only what is said in interview relations but also by whom, to whom and why it is said – taking the perspective of positionality into consideration may provide further insight into the ways gender is produced in interactions in the work place, and, thereby, help explain research results, such as the identified discrepancies between gender as discourse and practice. thus, the article argues that reflexivity and methodological plurality are important when studying gender in organizations. references acker, j. 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(1998). human resource management and women: the vision of the gender-blind? in b. towers (ed.): the handbook of resource management. oxford: blackwell publichers inc. author lotte bloksgaard is assistant professor in the dept. of culture and global studies, aalborg university, denmark. email: bloksgaard@cgs.aau.dk article 4 hpn-mkm (trykkeklar) 133 “we need to talk about what race feels like!” using memory work to analyse the production of race and ethnicity in research encounters madeleine kennedy-macfoy and helene pristed nielsen abstract: this article is about the production of race and ethnicity in research encounters. it is based on a type of retrospective, comparative memory work, through which we analyse, compare and contrast our respective experiences of moments when race and ethnicity have been produced during our interactions with research participants. we suggest that adding memory work to the analysis of research experiences is one way of exposing the production of race and ethnicity in research interactions, and that a comparative approach to memory work can help clarify how positionalities may not always be good predictors of processes of racialisation in research situations. we also suggest that by looking for instances in which we have felt (or been made to feel) our own ‘difference’ or ‘sameness’, power or a sense disorientation, we may contribute to destabilising the categories and categorisations, which might otherwise go unquestioned in research encounters. our analysis makes clear how we cannot assume any fixation of where, in whom, or in which topics race or ethnicity is located. we suggest that memory work is a useful tool for learning about the production of race and ethnicity, and comparative or contrastive memory work in collaboration with other researchers differently positioned from oneself is a useful approach when engaging in ‘researching differences’. keywords: feminist memory work, race, ethnicity, racialization, difference, sameness please cite this article as: kennedy-macfoy, m. and pristed nielsen, h. (2012). “we need to talk about what race feels like!” using memory work to analyse the production of race and ethnicity in research encounters. qualitative studies, 3(2): 133-149. introduction we (helene and madeleine, the authors of this article) met at a conference in sigtuna in sweden in the autumn of 2010. as we discussed the morning’s presentations on the first day of the conference, and made our way to lunch, our conversation turned to our respective experiences of conducting interviews with people who were, a priori, positioned as ‘different’ from or the ‘same’ as us in terms of race or ethnicity. as we spoke about the research encounters we had each experienced, we agreed that it would be interesting to extend our dialogue about how each of us had experienced the production of race and ethnicity in our research encounters, given our different positionalities vis-à-vis race, as we both felt we could learn more from such a dialogue. following the tradition of much feminist scholarship, we wanted to reflect on the research process as not remaining untouched by our own ‘intellectual autobiography’ (maynard, 1994: 16). however, our aim is to get beyond “examining [our] individual identities [as] researchers”, and focus instead on “how such identities intersect with institutional, geopolitical and material aspects of [our racialised and ethnic] positionality” (nagar & geiger, 2007: 2) in research interactions. feminist researchers, inspired in the first instance by the work of haug and her colleagues during the late 1980s, have developed a methodological research tool or approach most commonly referred to as ‘memory work’ (see haug et al. 1987). jansson et al. argue that: “in many ways, memory work is in line with the feminist epistemological critique of conventional 134 understandings of the scientific researcher as an objective and distanced observer of the world/the object of study” (2008: 231). in practice, doing memory work “involves the writing of personal memories of particular episodes related to the topic under investigation” (berg, 2008:216). commonly, the reason for doing memory work is to use the analysis of the memories to inform the theoretical framing for a piece of research, or the analysis of research findings (berg, 2008). so memory work usually takes place prior to, or as part of the research. the article builds on research by nordic researchers in which feminist memory work is employed, especially berg’s (joint) work on using memory work in research on processes of racialisation (see berg, 2008). we add a comparative dimension to berg´s approach, and further expand it to cover the related, though different, theme of ethnicity. our added comparative dimension highlights the differences and similarities between how race or ethnicity is produced in research interactions when the researcher is racialised as black (madeleine) or white (helene). however, the type of memory work that this article is based on differs from the traditional approach to memory work, as explained by berg. the article is based on a type of retrospective, comparative memory work, through which we analyse, compare and contrast our experiences of moments when race and ethnicity have been produced during our interactions within research settings. we have chosen to engage in memory work in this way because we are interested, firstly, in problematising our naturalised (racialised or ethnic) positions, in order to “learn more about the production of race” (berg, 2008: 220) and ethnicity. secondly, we are keen to draw comparisons and contrasts between our respective research experiences in order to tease out some of the nuances of ‘difference within sameness’ and ‘sameness within difference’ that can often be overlooked when discussing the production of race or ethnicity simply from one position (such as, black or white, danish or british sierra leonean). through the joint analysis of our own and each other’s memories, we aim to problematise our own and our interlocutors’ assumptions about positionality (theirs and ours), and how these assumptions produce meanings about race or ethnicity in research encounters. following alcoff, we view positionality as “a location for the construction of meaning, a place from where meaning is constructed, rather than simply the place where meaning can be discovered” (alcoff, 1988:434, emphasis in the original). accordingly, positionality necessarily frames and has an impact on whom and what we research, as well as informing how we conduct and analyse our findings; indeed, positionality determines to a greater or lesser extent, why we do research at all. our focus here, however, is on the relationship between our positionality, and the production of race and ethnicity during different types of research interactions. our way of doing memory work consisted of each of us separately writing down our memories1 of particular instances when we have been conducting research, and our own or our research participants’ race or ethnicity has been brought to the fore during the interaction, 1 we recognise, of course, that ‘memories’ themselves are not stable repositories from which we are able to ‘pluck out’ ‘the truth’. rather, we share ahmed’s view that: “writing of the self in the form of an individuated memory may serve to de-stabilize the boundary between the subject and its others” (1997:153). she also notes that the performative act of remembering is “critical, affirmative and selective, (and) places boundaries and edges around the story, giving it its seeming internal coherence”; and the story that is remembered and retold “entails its own elisions, its own figuration, its own forgettings” (1997:162, emphasis added). we argue that this is one of the places where the added value of comparative memory work is most salient, as our joint discussions of each our memories contributed to questioning the boundaries and edges we each placed around our stories. 135 even though neither race nor ethnicity was the topic of discussion. we then met face to face on two separate occasions to discuss what we thought was ‘going on’ during these interactions, and how we might analyse them. the article is based on these face to face and remote dialogues; after a brief discussion of the relevant theoretical framing of the main themes in the article (race and ethnicity), the textual layout of the article emphasises the individuality of our respective research experiences, but analysed in dialogue with each other. race and ethnicity in research encounters2 although ethnicity, race and processes of racialisation are often overlooked in analyses of research encounters3, they have profound impacts on field relations, as well as on research outcomes. the analysis of our research experiences is informed by gunaratnam’s postcolonial approach to researching race and ethnicity. she views research as a discursive practice, which means that research is a part of social and historical relations, and it is productive rather than simply reflective of what we research (gunaratnam 2003: 7). conceiving of research on race and ethnicity as a discursive practice presents the researcher with an analytic opportunity to interrogate their own “current understandings, interests and research practices” (gunaratnam, 2003: 8). this type of analytic interrogation has three main benefits: a) it challenges the “view of research as an unlocated and transparent reflection of some pre-existing, stable ‘reality’”; b) it adds complexity to the analysis because the research becomes a process of understanding “knowledge as an emergent property of the interactions between and among differently constituted and located individuals, who include the researcher”; and c) knowledge claims based on the research will be situated relative to social and historical relations (gunaratnam, 2003: 8). it is the second of these benefits that this paper focuses on: we discuss how race and ethnicity are produced during research interactions, highlighting the particular themes or discourses that framed the expressions of racialised and ethnic identifications (and disidentifications) during the interactions. in this article, we understand race and ethnicity as: “concepts, ideas referring to social and political (but not biological) distinctions made between people” (knowles, 2003: 18). as such, they are both social constructs that are not intrinsically meaningful or important, but have real and material effects because they are “linked to relations of power and processes of struggle” (frankenberg, 1993: 11). both terms have “real, though changing effects in the world and a real, tangible, and complex impact on individuals’ sense of self, experiences, and life chances” (frankenberg, 1993: 11). race and ethnicity are, of course, analytically distinct from each other and differently constructed; however, they often operate together and tend to be subsumed into each other. the emergence of the category of race has been traced to the scientific racism that marked the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries (mcclintock, 1995; rattansi, 1995; modood, berthoud and nazroo, 2002; st louis, 2005). human beings were categorised in a hierarchy in which non-europeans (non-whites) were viewed as being from distinct, sometimes sub-human, races, sharing a common stock and phenotype (see gilman, 1992). hence the inextricable link between race and biology; as alcoff suggests, race is “marked on the body through learned perceptual practices of visual categorization, with significant sociological and political effects as well as a psychological impact on self-formation” (alcoff, 2007). however, in addition to being closely tied to perceived biological differences between human beings, race has historically also 2 our discussion in this section is mainly based on british and anglo-american literature; scandinavian literature in this field has slowly been increasing over the last twenty years or so – see for example hylland eriksen, 1993; gullestad, 2004 and keskinen et al., 2009. 3 some exceptions to this include phoenix, 1994; bhopal 2001; egharevba 2001 and carter 2004. 136 been closely linked to conceptions of national and cultural uniqueness (see brooks higginbotham, 1992; brah, 1994; hall, 2000). in contrast, ethnicity is a term that derives from the greek term ethnos, which originally meant a heathen or pagan; thus, from the outset, a reference to ethnicity signified ‘the other’ (brah, 1994). alcoff views ethnicity as a term that signifies “a group's relationship to historical experiences and cultural practices, and they are indicated more by practices than by physical appearance” (alcoff, 2007). thus, race and ethnicity are generally distinguished from each other by linking the former to biology, and the latter to culture, religion and kinship. however, this ‘neat split’ has increasingly been challenged and re-thought, as the complexities of both categories and their relationship to each other have been exposed both theoretically and empirically (gunaratnam, 2003:4). this can be seen, firstly, by noting that invoking the notions of shared origin or ‘kith and kin’, references to ethnicity can also be used in ways that depend on quasi-biological conceptions (rattansi, 1995:258). secondly, people are categorised through processes of racialization on the basis of their race or ethnicity, which can lead to discrimination or attacks, inter alia; therefore, in many instances, ethnicity is racialised (modood, berthoud & nazroo, 2002:420). thirdly, people can be racialized in different ways within either of the black or white racial categories, as exemplified in the racialization of irish people in the uk (see hickman and walter, 1997), and in the contestations between american citizens of caribbean descent and african-american citizens over who can legitimately claim to be ‘african american’ (see st louis, 2005). fourthly, ethnicity can take many forms: it can be signified through language, food, clothing, a person’s general appearance or the apparent colour of their skin. whatever the form that ethnicity takes, it is always context specific: in the example given by modood, berthoud and nazroo, ethnic conflicts in belgium, bosnia herzegovina, northern ireland or rwanda were not based on skin colour differences (2002:422). finally, both race and ethnicity can simultaneously be self-assigned by groups and individuals, or internally/externally ascribed to groups and individuals by (modood, berthoud and nazroo, 2002). the research interactions we discuss here bring to the fore “the complex overlapping and crosscutting of boundaries that characterises the formation of ethnic and racialised identities” (rattansi, 1995:258). the interactions we discuss specifically highlight the ways in which ethnicity is used in everyday and research interactions (though we focus on the latter here), both implicitly and explicitly, to refer to processes or instances of racialization. individuals and collectivities draw on a wide range of cultural repertoires to construct, express or perform raced or ethnic identities, resulting in a ‘slippery slope’ relationship between the two categories, which are, therefore, easily subsumed into each other in practice. what we discuss below shows some of this ‘slipperiness’, and the ease with which race and ethnicity can emerge and ‘masquerade’ as each other in research interactions. in so doing, we aim, as gunaratnam suggests, “to address and to account for the specific relationships between our analytic categories and subjective, social and material relations” (gunaratnam, 2003: 5, emphasis in the original). in what follows, we describe and analyse our research experiences based on the on-going dialogue we have had with each other. using memory work as an analytic tool alerts us to how race and ethnicity are ‘always already’ (lewis, 2006) present in research encounters, although, as our analysis will show, we can never in advance predict how, where, by whom or from which perspective either category will be produced in any given interaction. we compare and contrast our respective memories and experiences in light of our different (re)positionings. this 137 is done in relation to three key themes, which emerged during our discussions about how the production of race and ethnicity was framed during our interactions. the themes are: constructing difference, power imbalances and disorientation. constructing difference: between researcher and researched madeleine: during the interviews i conducted with school pupils in ‘inner city’ london for my doctoral research, i asked pupils to answer this question: “which place are you a citizen of?” one pupil responded by saying: “i am dutch, but i was born in somalia and now i live in england. there are people like you in my country…like… they are like…black. i am a white somali”. in this exchange race is produced within a black/white dualism. however, what is interesting in the interaction is the fact that my interviewee’s whiteness is geographically located outside of the west/non-western or global north/south divides that habitually underpins the black/white binary. rather, the category of ‘white somali’4 (a racialised ethnicity) evoked by my interviewee highlights frankenberg’s point that “whiteness as a site of privilege is not absolute but rather crosscut by a range of other axes of relative advantage and subordination; these do not erase or render irrelevant race privilege, but rather inflect or modify it” (frankenberg, 2001: 76). it also exemplifies what twine and gallagher have argued is a ‘third wave’ perspective on whiteness studies (originating in the united states), which “rejects the implicit assumption that whiteness is only an unconditional, universal and equally experienced location of privilege and power” (twine and gallagher, 2008: 7). as such, they also note that as a source of power and privilege, whiteness ‘travels’ between different geographical locations, including between western countries and erstwhile colonies (twine and gallagher, 2008: 10). this travelling is made evident in the interviewee’s remark: she tells me that she is dutch (she is a citizen of the netherlands), but was born in somalia and was living in england at the time of the interview. in relation to me, and people ‘like me’ in ‘her country’ (one can assume she was referring to somalia), she identified as white. this is despite the fact that she would be classified as a nonwhite ‘ethnic minority’ in both the uk and the netherlands5. identifying as a ‘white somali’ meant she could distance herself from other (black) ethnic minorities in the european countries she has lived in (and perhaps also in a somali context). in effect, this was a “strategic deployment of whiteness” (twine and gallagher, 2008: 13), by someone who, in the uk or dutch context, would ordinarily be located at the racialised ethnic margins of the nation. it could also be read as a power move, to shift the imbalance of power between me (an adult researcher) and the interviewee (a school pupil). by pointing out that i am black and she is white, the interviewee catapulted us and our relationship to each other beyond the classroom and the interview into the wider world, which is riddled by racialised relationships of dominance and inferiority. the interviewee could certainly have ‘passed’ as someone from the near or middle east, countries such as turkey, lebanon or syria, who in turn could ‘pass’ for, or be considered as 4 it should be noted that there are somali people who are said to be of portuguese descent, so it could be that this pupils was from one of these groups, which could explain why she selfidentified as white (see luling, 2006). 5 in the netherlands, she would be classified as an ‘allochtoon’ (allochtonous in english). this is a dutch word, which emerged as a racial-ethnic label in the mid1990s in the netherlands, to mean the opposite of ‘autochtoon’, who are those that are ‘indigenous, native, authentic’ dutch people (essed and trienekens, 2008: 57). 138 white, at least in relation to someone of a darker skinned complexion. as we noted earlier, there are further racialised hierarchies within the stratified racial categories of black and white. the pupil had a fair-skinned complexion; i could not see the colour or texture of her hair because she wore a headscarf (hijab). racial passing has been theorised in academic writing, and addressed in literature, generally from north american perspectives (see gates, 1997 and larsen, 1929, roth, 2000, respectively). it is the phenomenon of people with lighter skinned complexions choosing to present themselves as white, or being mistaken as such. in my interaction with this pupil, i was equally surprised by her telling me that she was somali (from her looks and her headscarf, i assumed she was from a near or middle eastern country), as her identifying specifically as a white somali (i had never encountered anyone who identified as such before). the pupil could certainly have been aware of the assumptions people made about her based just on her looks, assumptions i was also guilty of making, although i did not communicate them to her. so she found a way of asserting her identity, even though this was not directly what i had asked her about. her response showed clearly the complex links between racialised ethnic identification, whether self-imposed or ascribed, and a sense of citizenship/belonging. the pupil claimed formal dutch citizenship, and also claimed england and somalia, her place of residence and birth, respectively. i theorised this as a claim for a form of diasporic citizenship6, based on the results of the study that the pupil was part of. based on the earlier interviews i had conducted with pupils at this school, i had come to expect that many of them would talk about a multi-faceted understanding of citizenship. however, i was taken aback by this particular pupil’s construction of a racialised ethnic difference between herself and me during our interaction. helene: i did my phd research in australia and new zealand. the project was about experiences relating to the inclusion of indigenous interests in politics in both countries. i had an appointment for an interview with the head of an aboriginal education department in australia. below is a short research diary entry i made about the interview, followed by an extract from the interview. he appeared to be a very busy man; he emerged from one meeting and went straight into the meeting with me (in a very flashy air conditioned office, with lots of aboriginal art and the aboriginal flag next to an australian one at the entrance of his section of the building). he repeatedly looked at his watch while talking to me, which is why i kept it short [...] he was very correct both in speech and appearance, spoke very fast and i got the feeling that in some ways he was delivering the ‘official’ pre-prepared speech. “i think one of the things we have to be clear about here is that i am an aboriginal person myself – if you want to learn about my culture, i´ll take you out in the bush and i will show you what my culture is all about. [...] but if aboriginal kids are going to learn about western culture, which they must do, they have to do it in the same environment as non-aboriginal kids are doing it, 6 the study was my doctoral thesis in sociology (2008), entitled ‘”the citizen thingy”: becoming diaspora citizens in inner city london and in a paris banlieue’. it was a qualitative study of perceptions and experiences of ‘citizenship’ amongst minoritised young people living and attending school in marginalised parts of suburban paris and inner city london. my thesis builds on and expanded understandings of the relationship between diaspora and citizenship in these two metropolitan centres. 139 and that is in the schooling environment. what we have to do, is to make that schooling environment as inclusive of aboriginal kids as possible. [...] schooling in western australia for aboriginal people started in 1965, and was compulsory. so it is really, we´ve only been doing it for 40 odd years. [...] so we are looking at two generations here, the initial generation – my mum for example [...] she is part of the stolen generation, so that went through missions, so their concept of schooling is very different from my concept of schooling that i have had with my daughter. unfortunately, people at my age, between 45 and 50, have had a range of experiences with school, most of which were not desirable, were not good experiences”. here aboriginality is constructed in a number of ways. structurally (my respondent is head of the aboriginal education department); spatially (i have to enter a specific wing in a big government building, and this section of the building has different types of decoration from the rest, as does his office); and in terms of a personal narrative (my interviewee tells me that he is aboriginal, and mentions that his mother is part of the ‘stolen generation’)7. i remember this personal narrative of my respondent´s own aboriginality very vividly from the interview situation because i was so surprised by it at the time: it seemed unnecessary and irrelevant (to me) for the purpose of the interview, which i had announced in advance as being about “the extent to which the educational systems helps shape citizens who feel their voice and opinion would matter”. the construction of ethnic difference in this interview, between the interviewee and me, was interlinked with constructions of other types of difference that were neither related to race nor ethnicity. first of all, the interviewee indirectly underlined our age difference. secondly, immediately after he made the statement above, the interviewee ‘turned the tables on me’, and asked about when compulsory schooling started in my home country. the interviewee’s response can be read as him underlining the racialised and ethnic differences between us (he explicitly told me about his aboriginality), and as challenging the power positions in the interview situation (when he took on the role of interviewer by asking me questions)8. i had arranged this research encounter because of the structural construction of aboriginality within the australian state’s administration: the education department had a separate aboriginal education department. aboriginality was not part of the construction of the mainstream – it was literally dealt with in a separate wing of this building. however, i was unprepared for the respondent´s personalised expressions of aboriginality. according to gunaratnam, interrogating race and ethnicity as a discursive practice has the advantage of adding complexity to research analysis, since it becomes necessary to consider, amongst other things, the location of individuals (respondents and researchers alike). she argues that it is valuable to examine the spatial dimensions of difference in research encounters (gunratnam, 2003: 157). making aboriginality so symbolically present in my interviewee’s office space could 7 meaning that she was forcefully removed from her own aboriginal mother due to being ‘halfcaste’, and needing to be ‘rescued’ from aboriginal culture, since being ‘half white’ meant that she had the potential to be a ‘white person’ – a job the mission stations were entrusted with (see mccarthy 2000, day 2003, and read 2006). 8 in fact, this was a common occurrence in this study, which i undertook whilst in my mid-20s and far away from my country of origin, more often than not interviewing high ranking senior public officials. in several of these interviews, respondents also started quizzing me about denmark´s relations to its former colony greenland. 140 be read as a legitimising strategy, or one of authenticity, used to assert his own identity, and the identity of the communities that he represented, accentuating a racialised specificity. this specificity was further emphasised by his drawing in of the wider geographic context of the interview, which clearly positioned me as an ethnic foreigner, who was additionally racially different from him. in both our memories, the wider geography of global power relations where unexpectedly drawn into the space of the research setting. race and ethnicity were produced in these encounters when our interlocutors highlighted the racialised ethnic difference between themselves and each of us. in both cases we feel that we did not explicitly invite these productions of difference, and we were both, in fact, rather surprised by their occurrence. race and ethnicity were produced and deployed in ways that neither of us could have predicted: madeleine did not foresee that the pupil in front of her would self-identify as ‘white’, nor did helene foresee that a public official interviewed because of his administrative responsibilities and experiences would ‘confess’ his ethnicity during the interview. however, such seemingly ‘unexpected’ deployments of racial and ethnic categorisations in research encounters are useful and important to dwell on, because they attest to the ways in which, despite our personal understanding of race and ethnicity as social constructions, they continue to be filled with ‘common sense’ meanings and attributed with high levels of symbolic and material significance in everyday life. as st louis has argued: “…an awareness of the analytical exhaustion of race has not weakened the energy of the affective investments it enthuses” (st louis, 2005: 361); we suggest that the same applies to (racialised) ethnicity. power imbalances madeleine: i was in guinea, visiting a newly formed organisation working on the eradication of the practice of female genital cutting/mutilation (fgc/fgm) amongst refugee communities who had fled the war in sierra leone during the 1990s. the organisation i worked for in london had funded some of the work done by the organisation in guinea; i was there to assess and evaluate the work. during the second day of my visit, the staff gave individual presentations of their area of work. one staff member was an older man, a teacher, who was responsible for the organisation’s literacy programme. after the presentations, i chatted informally with members of staff. we were talking about the work that ngos do in african countries, and the fact that african countries needed this type of far-reaching civil society involvement. the older male teacher said to me: “you know we also have good people here, africans, men like me who are teachers with many years of experience. all of the know-how is not only in europe. i have a degree from university you know. what about you?” i told him that i had also been to university, and that i was half-way through my phd. he exclaimed his shock and surprise that someone as young as me was “almost a doctor!” he said that from then on, he would call me ‘madame’, rather than use my first name. my interlocutor brings to light the otherwise unspoken power/knowledge nexus, with which my position as ‘an expert from europe’ representing a donor organisation was imbued. his challenge was gendered and linked to ethnicity (“africans, men like me”), and he seemed to suggest he (or other men like him) could have been more qualified to do the type of work i, a young woman who may not even have a university education, was doing. my interlocutor’s response brought to the surface real and perceived discursive and material imbalances of power between europe/europeans/diaspora africans in europe and africa/africans in africa. however, the fact that i was in the process of doing doctoral studies caused him to re-position me as ‘powerful’, through his insistence that my level of academic study meant that he could 141 not treat me as his equal by using my first name. this is a significant turn-around in a west african context where hierarchies are central to social life. it was no small thing for an older, educated man to deign it appropriate to refer to me, a younger woman, as ‘madame’. helene: the consent form that i used before starting interviews in a study of immigrant women´s associations in denmark, described my study as “an investigation of participation by muslim and other immigrant women in various types of organisational work and (local) politics”. one respondent i contacted due to her prominent position in an iranian women´s organisation reacted forcefully to this formulation in the earliest stages of the interview, saying: “is that a truth that iran is an islamic country? but you cannot single out all individuals and then say because you are ‘from iran’ you are ‘muslim’ […] but it is something about denmark, you see things from outside right? then you see muslim women. you could formulate it as ‘women from muslim countries’”. i agreed with her that her suggestion for a different formulation was better. during another research encounter within the same project, a woman of somali origin told me right at the beginning of the interview that she had participated in numerous long interviews with various researchers, who never got back to her with feedback or told her about the findings from their work. as she pointed out, these people received a salary for conducting the interviews, while she was simply expected to volunteer her time with researchers. she added: “it would be easier to get the ideas from the people if you pay them a little bit […]. but i don´t make any conditions”. both of these examples show that the respondents wanted me to know that they were aware of the imbalance of power in the interview situation. in the first example, as researcher, i was the one who defined the terms of the interview and had the power to ‘label’ interviewees (see jørgensen, this volume). in the second, i was the only one getting any type of benefit (as the respondent says, her ‘ideas’) from the interview, and potentially not giving anything back to the interviewee, who does not or cannot “make any conditions”. in both examples, the interviewees show how the power imbalance in the interview setting is directly linked to the low positioning of racialised ‘immigrants’ in denmark. however, the picture is complicated by the fact that neither of the two respondents were ‘typical immigrants’: both were researchers themselves, working respectively for a danish university, and on an eu contract for a project on combating female genital mutilation among the somali diaspora. this is not to claim any ontological or experiential similarity between my position as an interviewer and the position of the respondents. rather, it is to say that because these respondents were positioned as powerful in some ways, they were able to challenge my taken-for-granted and unarticulated position of power, and question the authenticity of my re-presentations of their ‘ideas’ in my research analysis. this leaves open the question of whether i should simply have refrained from undertaking these interviews. in her paper ‘the problem of speaking for others’, alcoff (1991-92) discusses the intricacies of subject positions and power relations in acts of speaking for others as well as for one self (see also faber, this volume). although highly attentive to the risk of repressing or presuming authenticity of subject positions when speaking for others, alcoff concludes that retreat from re-presentation is not a satisfactory solution either. following spivak (1988), she concludes that the best option is to ‘speak to’, rather than ‘speak for’ or ‘listen to’, although both options retain an essentialising approach to the subject positions of the less powerful. the notion of ‘speaking to’ allows for the possibility that the interlocutor will produce a ‘counter 142 sentence’. it is only through addressing others, including racialised others that we create opportunities for counter sentences to appear. järvinen (2005) discusses how the researcher invites the interviewee to speak from specific subject positions, and how identities are thus ‘offered’ in interview situations (see also jensen, this volume). by revisiting memories of previous research encounters, we can look for instances when, as interviewers, we have been ‘offered’ specific identities by our respondents, and consider how the identities offered in these cases may have altered the terms of engagement between ourselves and our interlocutors. as our examples above illustrate, we are sometimes offered specific positions by our respondents and we may be ‘spoken to’ or addressed in specific ways. here, our interactions can be seen as instances of ‘hailing' or ‘interpellation’ (althusser 1971)9 of us in response to our own initial hailing of our interlocutors. hall has argued that identification “means that a person is ‘called’ in a certain way, interpolated in a certain way: ‘you, this time, in this place, for this purpose…’” (hall, 1997: 292). in research interactions, both parties ‘speak to’ each other in particular ways, although the researcher retains the ultimate power both by initiating the interaction and by ‘speaking for’ the researched when publishing results. what is perhaps most important for researchers is to remain aware that research interactions are bound in time and space (“you, this time, in this place, for this purpose”), although the results of the interactions are by no means predictable. revisiting (new time and new place) old research data to investigate processes of racialisation or positioning in relation to ethnicity in research encounters (new purpose), is a useful way of investigating the effects of hailing. by expressly searching for memories in which we have been openly hailed in ways that emphasised specific aspects of our ascribed identities, it is easier for us to recognise how we also hailed our respondents. although the opportunity for a real dialogue with our respondents about the effects of hailing has long passed (we are dealing with memories), it is still possible to develop a dialogue with other researchers ex post about hailing and the (sometimes racialised or ethnicity-linked) power relations implicit in such practices. a sense of disorientation madeleine: part of the empirical research for my doctoral thesis was conducted in a secondary school, in a suburb (banlieue) south-east of paris. after a period of participant observation, i interviewed a number of students, who were ‘volunteered’ for the interview by the classroom teacher. one of my interviewees was one of the very few white french girls in the classroom. prior to being interviewed, during break-time chats, this pupil had self-identified as an ‘anglophile’, and she was eager to speak to me about england. during the interview, we had the following exchange: m: “what does being a french citizen mean to you?” l: “well, it means…erm…yeah, freedom, yeah freedom and equality, yeah… i’m free to go where ever i want, to do what i want…” m: “are what re the other advantages to being a french citizen?” l: “speaking a beautiful language, living in a beautiful country.” m: “are there any disadvantages?” l: “disadvantages…i’d say…..hmm…i’d say having to have foreigners who…erm...i’m not racist, right, but sometimes there are foreigners 9 in althusser´s understanding, ’hailing’ refers to how ideologies position subjects in certain ways. however, as we do not share althusser´s structuralist starting point, we focus instead on relational/inter-personal understandings of the concept of hailing. 143 who…who…even french people, who don’t respect the laws of france…i don’t like that at all, not one bit.” during this interview, i was completely caught off guard and felt somewhat disorientated by the pupil’s response to my question about what she considered to be the disadvantages to being a citizen of france. i did not expect to be confronted with such views from such a young person (she was 14 years old), and particularly since i was ‘a foreigner’. my disorientation stemmed from the fact that i struggled to maintain my researcher/listener stance as the pupil spoke, without challenging what she said to me. there was presumably also some discomfort felt by the pupil as she spoke, because even though she managed to tell me her opinion, her statement was punctuated by hesitation, and she paused frequently between her words. in order to express her thoughts on the subject i raised, my interviewee had to negotiate the ‘elephant in the room’: the fact that i was or could be construed as one of the ‘foreigners’ that she referred to. to this end, she qualified her statement by saying: “i am not racist, right…” it was perhaps also ‘easier’ for her to tell me her thoughts because i was a ‘different type’ of foreigner: i was only in france temporarily, and she felt some affinity with me because of my britishness and her own enthusiasm for all things anglophone. helene: my work on my phd thesis took me to a university in new zealand, where i spent two months as a visiting doctoral fellow in a close-knit community of researchers. we all shared the ups and downs of our research experiences with each other. one day i returned to office after an interview that i thought was particularly successful, with a group of five people. before the interview started, they had suggested that everyone introduce themselves, and i was more than happy to oblige. what i had not foreseen, was that for three of the five respondents, an introduction included announcing their whakapapa (their ancestry). back at the office, i bumped into a pakeha (white) colleague who asked me how the interview had gone. i replied “fine” and laughingly added that, of course, i would hardly understand anything from the first 10 minutes or so of the interview recording, as most of it was in maori. she replied: “you realise they did that to intimidate you, don´t you?” i was completely thrown and disorientated by this remark. it did not relate in any way to how i had experienced the interview situation. rather, here is a research diary entry i made on the day after the interview: tuesday june 22nd 2004 – post interview reflections: “i have thought quite a lot about what impression the maori incantations made on me yesterday at the meeting at nzei [new zealand education institute] – mainly, i think, because when i told [‘georgina’] about it, she suggested that it was part of a strategy to intimidate me. but i didn´t feel intimidated – awed rather. this morning when i was walking to the bus stop i was thinking about it, and it struck me that it rather felt like when i was a child and listened to my grandfather´s bible readings before meals. i remember that feeling of not really understanding what was going on, but knowing that it was important and you had to be quiet, and that it meant that somehow we were not alone when eating the meal.” my sense of disorientation was produced in the interaction with my colleague, who implied that i ought to have been intimidated or disorientated by my research encounter. it was this interlocutor, marked by racial ‘sameness’ with me, who produced the sense of disorientation, rather than my maori interlocutors. ahmed argues that “whiteness is an orientation that puts 144 certain things within reach [...] not just physical objects, but also styles, capacities, aspirations, techniques, habits. race becomes, in this model, a question of what is within reach, what is available to perceive and to do ‘things’ with” (2007: 154). my colleague suggested that my interviewees were trying to intimidate me by enacting the ritual of whakapapa, implying that they might have felt the ritual was beyond my reach or outside of my understanding due to my whiteness/foreignness as a danish person in new zealand. however, this was not how i experienced the research encounter, neither at the time it occurred, nor when i reflected on it afterwards. i felt disoriented by my colleague’s interpretation of the encounter, which left me wondering whether she was implying that my danishness was a handicap, especially when it came to interviewing maori people. it felt more like my colleague was challenging my ability to engage with maori people, than (as she suggested) that the maori interviewees had challenged me through their enactment of whakapapa. juxtaposing our respective research experiences highlights their differences as well as their similarities. in helene´s case, her foreignness is highlighted in interactions with both maori and non-maori new zealanders, although only the second interaction leaves her feeling disoriented. in madeleine´s case, she is disoriented by her interviewees paradoxical, hesitating reference to ‘foreigners’ during the interview, which simultaneously situated her (madeleine) both inside and somehow also outside of the category of ‘foreigner’ (on the spuriousness of categorisations, see jørgensen, this issue). whiteness was not explicitly named in either scenarios, but it was the unmarked ‘elephant in the room’, that framed and accentuated the ‘foreignness’ alluded to or remarked upon by our interlocutors. the examples also show how racialised difference can be invoked by people positioned as racially ‘similar’ to oneself, as well as by those positioned as ‘different’. like baldwin (1984), hooks (1990) and frankenberg (1993), we view whiteness as a constructed identity that can be contested as well as deconstructed, and we would argue that “the epistemological stickiness and ontological wiggling immanent in whiteness” (hill, cited in ware, 2002: 29) is an obstacle best overcome in dialogue with others – for example in dialogue with other colleagues about the effects and affects of racialisation in interview situations. in out of whiteness, back suggests that a sense of disorientation could be viewed as an interpretive position from which to conduct research (back, 2002: 59). in helene´s example, her disorientation led her to reject her colleague’s interpretation that her whiteness/foreignness could be perceived as disqualifying her from conducting research on maori lived experiences. in madeleine´s example, the disorientation caused by the pupil’s opinion called for a reassessment of how she was perceived, and, therefore, interacted with, as a visitor from britain. the ‘unexpectedness’ that characterised these interactions is what triggered a closer reading of the ways in which race and ethnicity were produced. taking disorientation as an interpretive stance is also akin to the methodological approach advocated by lather, who argues that researchers should get “lost” and approach their data with “rigorous confusion” (lather, 2007: 137). we have found engaging in comparative post-research memory work in dialogue with another researcher who is differently racialised from ourselves to be a useful approach to ‘getting lost’ in our research. our discussions about how to interpret the memories and whether or how our experiences differed or were similar contributed to the rigour of the exercise. in general, lather advocates ‘member check’, and she speaks about: “inviting the women in [their] study to see themselves being studied” (2007: 42), something she refers to as “looking-at-beinglooked-at-ness”. lather considers this a useful exercise in leaving both the researcher and reader open to scrutiny about what we think we know. we suggest that a ‘colleague check’ is an equally useful exercise. in getting lost, lather asks “what might feminist knowledge projects look like that work within and against identity categories, visibility politics, and the romance of 145 voice?” (2007: 36). we suggest that one version of such feminist knowledge projects could include engaging in comparative and contrastive memory work, as we have done here. concluding discussion the research experiences in this article show that the production of race, ethnicity or racialised ethnicity cannot necessarily be predicted in advance of research encounters. we cannot tell in advance the situations in which either or both categories will be produced and given meaning, what will trigger it, or who will voice it. in addition, despite being positioned as ‘racially and ethnically different’ from each other, we have memories and research experiences that show many commonalities. despite our demonstration in this article of how racialised and ethnic identities may be produced through research interactions, we also wish to emphasise that those identities are not ‘natural’ or fixed; they are socially constructed and produced/reproduced in a constant negotiation in interactions with other people. this, however, does not mean that they are without impact. alcoff reminds us that: “race [or ethnicity] may be a social construction without biological validity, yet it is real and powerful enough to alter the fundamental shape of all our lives” (alcoff, 2006: 207). focusing on the ways in which race and ethnicity are produced in research interactions, helps us to remain mindful of the constructed nature of race and ethnicity, both inside and outside of research encounters. we have found it useful to juxtapose our memories of research experiences in this exercise, in line with the feminist calls for careful, relevant and rigorous reflexivity in research (see for example, gunaratnam, 2003). feminist memory work is an approach to reflexivity which requires us to not leave personal experiences and feelings ‘at the door’, but to bring them into the room of the research, as part of the arsenal of tools that can help researchers to avoid essentialisation. apart from the question of how we are met by our research field, there is also the question of how we meet the field. a central challenge for any social science researcher is to resist the impulse to render ‘exotic’ or ‘other’ (brah and phoenix 2004: 79) those they are researching. the question is of course, how to do that? assuming similarity or even likeness can be potentially just as violent as representations of, or a focus on, difference. we would suggest that it is possible, and even fruitful, to direct the impulse for rendering ‘exotic’ at oneself – and, following lather, to get a little lost. in recalling research situations in which we have felt (or been made to feel) our own ‘difference’ or ‘sameness’, or when the power imbalance in research interactions have been highlighted, or we have simply felt disorientated, an opportunity is created for destabilising categories and categorisations which may otherwise go unquestioned. frosh, phoenix and pattman suggest exerting ‘energy’ in the encounter between researcher and research subjects (frosh et al, 2003: 49). they also state that: “subject positions are coercive and complex” (frosh et al, 2003: 52), but if we invest energy in our encounters with others, we may be able to challenge the coerciveness of those positions and expose their contours from within. we need to engage and invest energy in feeling the presence of race or ethnicity in our research encounters. it is our contention that using memory work in the analysis of research 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(2002), out of whiteness: color, politics and culture, chicago: university of chicago press. authors madeleine kennedy-macfoy is a visiting researcher at the centre for gender research, university of oslo, norway. email: madeleine.kennedy-macfoy@stk.uio.no helene pristed nielsen is associate professor in globalisation, gender equality and diversity at the department of culture and global studies at aalborg university, denmark. email: pristed@cgs.aau.dk pernille almlund (trykkeklar) 39 the unequal power relation in the final interpretation pernille almlund abstract. this article addresses the power relation in qualitative research and especially the importance of taking into consideration the problematic aspects of the power relation when executing the final interpretation of qualitative research. the methodology literature examines the unequal power relation in qualitative research by focusing on how society has become an interview society and on the lack of equality in interviews. although the literature recommends being aware of asymmetry between research participants, it fails to look at how to address the final interpretation of qualitative research if the interpretation also takes the unequal power relation into account. consequently, interpreting the researched in a respectful manner is difficult. this article demonstrates the necessity of increasing awareness of the unequal power relation by posing, discussing and, to some extent answering, three methodological questions inspired by meta-theory that are significant for qualitative research and qualitative researchers to reflect on. this article concludes that respectful interpretation and consciously paying attention to the unequal power relation in the final interpretation require decentring the subject, dissociating from the ideal of intersubjectivity, being descriptive instead of normative, accepting the unconquerable distance between the researcher and the researched and looking at the entire research process and analyses as an undeniable coproduction and interpretation. keywords: qualitative research, power, power relation, final interpretation, decentred subject please cite this article as: almlund,p. (2013). the unequal power relation in the final interpretation. qualitative studies, 4(1): 39-55. introduction the unequal power relation in the final interpretation in qualitative research is an aspect that must be taken into consideration when you carry out qualitative research. the purpose of this article is thus to define and explain why the unequal power relation is an important factor as well as how to address it in research. most qualitative researchers prepare e.g. interviews and observations expecting to understand the subject or the phenomenon in question, and normally they do not deliberately dominate the researched. qualitative researchers express gratitude toward those who take the time to provide information and enter into dialogues. however, in spite of all this they must bear in mind the presence of power, especially in the final interpretation, in qualitative research. the point here is that if we are not aware of the presence of power as a condition and despite our efforts to equalize researcher and researched and interpret in a respectful manner, we will not be fully responsible for the unequal power relation and eventually make and publish offensive and problematic interpretations. the final interpretation should here be understood exactly as the published interpretation and not as the ending or finalizing story about the researched. many methodological researchers focus on the ’interview society’ and describe how interviews have come to play a dominant role in late-capitalist society (brinkmann & kvale, 2005; denzin, 2003; briggs, 2003). the interview society is seen as the result of the central role different types of media play in daily life. increasingly, the media, market researchers and social scientists 40 produce their information using interviews. denzin (2003) explains that, ‘the interview society has turned the confessional mode of discourse into a public form of entertainment’ (denzin, 2003, p. 144). focusing on the interview society means taking into consideration both how society is influenced by interviews and how interviews are influenced by society. having reflected deeply on the work of foucault and bourdieu, briggs (2003) has come to the conclusion, ‘that it is the circulation of discourse among a range of institutional contexts that imbues interviews with the power to shape contemporary life’ (2003, p. 246). further stressing how this gives researchers a powerful position as they gain control over the recontextualization of interviews, briggs states, the power of researchers thus lies not only in their control over what takes place in the interview itself but particularly in their ability to use that setting as a site that is geared toward creating a broad field for the circulation of discourse (2003, p. 248). his assessment of the interview society demonstrates how the dominant discourse or importance of interviews is both discursively formed and forming. this implies two different aspects of the power relation, namely: 1) the powerful influence of discourse on a particular interview; and 2) the researchers’ power to create a field for circulating discourse when they form and distribute the final interpretation of the interview in publication and lectures. these statements are compelling reasons for taking the presence of power in qualitative research into account. particularly important is it to reflect upon the power relation in the final interpretation as this field is defectively described and analysed in the literature. the point from briggs and further elaborated in this article is that we need to observe the relation of power between researcher and the researched as a matter of specific interaction and not as a relation of power between two particular subjects. in that sense it is not a question of whether the researcher or the researched possesses the most power as it is not a given who the most powerful or the most strategic person is in the actual relational interaction. i will leave this question open for future research as few examples exist in the literature on how to handle powerful interview respondents (neal & mclaughlin, 2009; rice, 2010; stephens, 2007). the main assumption in the article is thus to see the power relation in qualitative research as a specific kind of interaction between the researcher and the researched and to see how this kind of interaction influences the final interpretation. even though the relation between a researcher and a researched is dynamic, influenced by the specific context and should be seen as a coproduction of researcher and researched (atkinson & coffey, 2003), the power relation in qualitative research is a situation in which the researcher always sets the agenda and makes the final interpretation. this relation displays permanence: the relation or interaction usually involves a researcher who initiates the research, decides the main topic and sets the overall agenda. in addition, the researcher carries out the final interpretation and conclusion and publishes the final report or article. all of these steps represent some of the specific elements that are important to accomplish qualitative research in general. these elements especially raise the question of responsibility in the final interpretation because most people can handle a bad experience during an interview or when they meet a less than stellar qualitative researcher, but they would most likely respond with dissatisfaction if they appear in a published interpretation of poor quality. 41 taking these elements into account corresponds to creating greater general awareness of the power relation, which in turn must be enhanced by examining how the specific position of the researcher makes the specific interaction in qualitative research an unequal1 power relation. to be aware of this unequal power relation especially regarding the final interpretation is to be aware of our methods and reflections of interpretation. often we assume that empathy, openmindedness, a respectful focus at the subject etc. help us to analyse and interpret in a respectful manner. in the next section we will see how this is no guarantee. this article will then suggest further reflections in a meta-theoretical perspective in order to go beyond such operative methodological reflections potentially capable of producing more respectful interpretations of qualitative research. the article poses and handles three methodological questions inspired by meta-theory regarding the meaning of interpretation, regarding interpretation without disrespect and regarding the meaning of subject. with these objectives in mind and an awareness of the unequal power relation, and especially the unequal power relation in the final interpretation, this article begins by showing how power relations in qualitative research are described and used in the literature. after this short state of the art, the article will present the empirical case from which the concrete examples will be drawn. next, this article discusses and to some extent answers the three meta-theoretical questions. last, the article makes some concluding remarks about respectful interpretations. the power relation in the literature the literature on the power relation in qualitative research looks at how to pose questions and meet the researched as well as the specific context and the discourse of society and only few mention the power relation in the final interpretation. as shown above it is mentioned directly by briggs (2003) and more indirectly by denzin (2003) and below a few more will be presented. even though it is a theme in the literature, the literature is weak in providing insight into how to handle the power relation in the final interpretation of the data produced. this section presents these statements in literature about power relations in the final interpretation, and, in addition to that, issues related to the discussion of power in qualitative research. the unequal power relation in the final interpretation should not and cannot be regarded in isolation from other important issues of power relations in qualitative research because the final interpretation is influenced by the whole research process. to start with reflection about the interaction between researcher and researched in qualitative research, kvale (2002) and brinkmann & kvale (2005) bring up reflection upon the asymmetrical power relation in qualitative interviews and label such dialogues as oppressive. they focus on how dialogue has become idealized and how it represents the need for a relation between parties such as employers and employees and counsellors and clients to solve conflicts or equally share knowledge and experiences with one another. dialogue in this context may create an impression of equality in the types of relations where the asymmetry of power is obvious. consequently they talk about dialogue as a power instrument defined by soft power exertion and power concealment (kvale, 2002; brinkmann & kvale, 2005). regarding the final interpretation kvale (2002) and kvale & brinkmann (2005) point out the researcher’s monopoly of the interpretation. 1 i use the term ‘unequal’ instead of ‘inequal’ because unequal means not equal in an inherently permanent way, while inequal means not equal due to impermanent social differentiation, e.g. varying levels of income or education, factors we in principle have the opportunity to alter. 42 other researchers bring up issues that are important and challenging for the power relation of the specific relation and interaction of researcher and researched. one of them is finlay (2002), who explains how ’negotiating the swamp’, a metaphor for interviews, is a challenge reflexivity poses in qualitative research practice. she illustrates how handling deconstructions, selfanalysis, and self-disclosure in qualitative research is not a given, nor is evaluating the ways in which intersubjective elements transform research. qualitative researchers are unsure about the necessity and extent to which they succumb to what pierre bourdieu negatively calls ’the diary disease‘ (2000).2 finlay offers five maps of reflexivity for navigating the swamp, namely: ‘(i) introspection; (ii) intersubjective reflections; (iii) mutual collaboration; (iv) social critique; and (v) discursive deconstruction’ (p. 209). opposite to finlay, abell et al. (2006) show how self-disclosure in interviews for the sake of similarity often produces difference instead. they show how self-disclosure designed to promote dialogue risks emphasizing the difference between the interviewer and the interviewee in terms of e.g. age differences and the negotiation of category entitlement within interview interactions. with this in mind, it is important to be aware of the risk of ‘diary disease’. another important issue in literature regarding the power relation is that watson (2009) maintains that, ‘much qualitative research is predicated on the ideal of the elimination of the difference between self and other’ (p. 108) and pinpoints that this derives from a concern with the power differential between the researcher and the researched. the search for the elimination of the difference is built upon the assumption that power is in the hands of the researcher and should be applied with tools such as empathy when conducting interviews. watson questions this use of empathy as a tool of qualitative research, stating, ‘the assumption of empathy of the possibility of entering into another’s situation can give rise to complacency in research terms’ (p.114). according to watson the ideal and use of empathy build on the assumption of a ‘univocal and monological interpretation of the meaning underlying social interactions’ (p. 106). she states this as a paradoxical situation in today’s postmodern milieu. further elaborating on the use of empathy as one of the aims of qualitative research, watson highlights how the search for commonalities and identification is especially in danger of doing the opposite of what is intended, namely hiding the actual differences and reproducing structures of oppression. as it is shown, researchers examine a variety of aspects in their analysis of qualitative research. as demonstrated the methodological researchers bring up aspects such as asymmetry, intersubjectivity, empathy, self-disclosure, interpretation – univocal or not– respectful or not as important issues for the debate of unequal power relation in the final interpretation. moreover, researchers also consider the researcher’s privileged role as monopolizing interpretation. despite the focus on all these influencing aspects, the existing literature tends to not cover how to handle this privileged role in the final analysis and interpretation. further the examples show how reflections upon the power relation in qualitative research often disclose the problems of the initiative taken precisely to go beyond the problems of the power relation. if a more coherent interpretation of qualitative analysis on the power relation is desired, we can take our departure in issues such as asymmetry, intersubjectivity, self-disclosure etc. mentioned 2 ’diary disease’ refers to descriptions of the lived experience of the researcher that are rife with narcissism and explicitness and that fail to include the reflexive layer that bourdieu recommends every analysis contain. bourdieu calls the reflexive layer ’participant objectivation’, which is a systematic and profound reflexive analysis of e.g. the role, status and position of the researcher carried out by the researcher (bourdieu, 2000). 43 above and frame operative methodological questions with inspiration from meta-theory. in that respect i frame the following three methodological questions in the article: what exactly do we mean by ‘interpretation’ in qualitative research? how can we approach the phenomenon or person who is the focus of the interpretation without showing disrespect? how do we understand the term ‘subject’ in qualitative research? with input from niklas luhmann, pierre bourdieu and hans-georg gadamer3 it is beneficial to discuss these methodological questions and in connection to them focus on the mentioned issues and rethink how to handle the unequal power relation in qualitative research. the discussions of these issues are based on questions of interpretation, of approaching the phenomenon in focus and of ‘the subject’ at an operational level where the three theories all present a non-univocal and respectful approach to interpreting and are working with a decentred subject. even though these theorists express quite different theoretical traditions, they all draw on the phenomenological tradition of martin heidegger (clam, 2002; callewaert, 1997; gulddal & møller, 1999). this common source of inspiration eases the opportunity to let the theories supplement each other on these specific issues and is founded on similarities at the level of meta-theory and the theorists’ reflections of society, constructivism, structuralism, ontology, epistemology, etc. before going into the discussions of these methodological questions inspired by meta-theory and concrete examples illustrating the importance of these discussions, the next section presents the empirical study on the foundation of which these thoughts were elaborated and from where the concrete examples are drawn. presentation of an empirical study the empirical study was primarily based on a meticulous case study (flyvbjerg 2004; 1999; thomas 2011) of a large enterprise, ecosoap,4 which provides useful illustrations of the importance of such meta-theoretical reflections. ecosoap, one of the world’s leading providers of cleaning, food safety and health protection products as well as services for the foodservice, healthcare and industrial markets, works with both the production of chemicals and the development of cleaning solutions. my goal was to study environmental communication in environmentally front-running enterprises, of which ecosoap was an excellent example, in order to establish an approach to do that, and to define the understanding of environmental communication. the first person i had contact with in the company was the environmental manager in denmark. ecosoap is an american-owned company, but the role of the environmental manager was solely a european undertaking and the position was with the danish enterprise. in his attempts to garner concern for the environment in the whole company, the environmental manager was trying to find out why the sales consultants did not pay much attention to environmental issues, the company’s environmentally friendly products or the company’s iso 3 the theorists mentioned are an important source of inspiration for this article and my previous work. nevertheless, the methodological suggestions and meta-theoretical discussions in this article are of general importance in all methodological considerations and are possible to consider with inspiration from other theories and theorists. 4 a pseudonym to ensure anonymity. 44 14001 certification in their daily collaboration with costumers. he wanted to know how these areas could be given higher priority. as a result, i initially asked: how can the environmental manager encourage the sales consultants to work more purposefully with environmental issues in their selling practices? after three informant interviews (kvale, 1997) with the environmental manager this research question turned out to be narrow and focused too specifically at the sales consultants. already from the beginning has the research question identified the sales consultants as the problem. the question did not explore what the problem was or how different employees contribute to the problem. as a result, i discarded the question and raised another: how are the environment and environmental issues understood in the company’s organizational practice? this question is openended and does not place responsibility for the problem on any specific group but rather opens the path for further exploration in the enterprise as a whole. then this new research question became the foundation for further exploration. the study was concentrated on one section of the enterprise to ensure the depth of the study and to involve employees within different positions involved in the environmental work. in addition to the interviews with the sales manager i conducted three focus group interviews (halkier, 2008) with sales consultants and four individual interviews with different managers at different levels. moreover i conducted a small survey (fink 2003; hansen & andersen 2000; olsen 1998; 1998a) with all the sales consultants and carried out participant observation (bourdieu 2000; 1994; kristiansen & krogstrup, 1999) by participating in sales meetings and in six different sales consultants’ daily routes of selling and consulting. all these interviews, surveys and observations make up the empirical data of the study and should ensure an open path for exploration. as we will see in the following three sections addressing the three weighty questions posed earlier, the final interpretation must be grounded on the entire research process and on metatheoretical reflections about the entire process to handle the unequal power relation. without such reflections we can unintendedly deepen the unequal power relation in the final interpretation. the following sections will then reflect upon interpretation, respectfulness and ‘the subject’ and let the case study illustrate the importance of such reflections. what exactly do we mean by ‘interpretation’ in qualitative research? the final interpretation of qualitative research will always remain the researcher’s interpretation – the people who are the objects of the research in question will leave the interview or the observed setup with their own interpretation of what occurred, but their version will most likely remain unpublished. this is the primary reason why researchers have a serious responsibility to be respectful in the final interpretation. in his philosophical hermeneutic hans-georg gadamer underlined the importance of being aware of one’s own prejudices and using them in a productive and conscious way in interpretation. gadamer’s observations urge us to observe how our own interpretation is influenced by our own experiences and our own expectations, which in turn should be allowed to be an obvious part of our interpretation. thus, to understand a person is to understand the subject matter. it means understanding what the subject is saying and not reliving this person’s experience (binding & tapp, 2008). even if never being able to grasp the true meaning, experience or understanding of another person or a phenomenon is a permanent condition, awareness of prejudices will help us to understand how we reach a specific interpretation. 45 without this awareness, we risk confirming our own prejudices in the interpretation (gadamer, 1999; gulddal & møller, 1999). the awareness of prejudices and of the conditional understanding as influential to interpretation helps us to undertake a respectful interpretation in qualitative research. in that sense, we cannot be content to make a final analysis and interpretation at the end of a research project. instead, the final interpretation must be grounded on the entire process of the research project. by focusing on the process, prejudices and gadamer’s idea of understanding, we can accept the restricted access to the true meanings or thoughts of other people and ’what the interviewee really meant’ with respect to the concern about the interviewer’s monopoly of interpretation, as kvale (2002) and brinkmann & kvale (2005) put it. accepting restricted access underpins why this manner of interpretation is respectful to the people or phenomenon in focus and also takes into consideration the power relation. kvale and brinkmann moreover launch the idea that ’the interview is often an indirect conversation‘ and this underlines the importance of focusing on the process and accepting that access to what the interviewee really means is restricted. kvale and brinkmann accentuate how the research interview often pursues a more or less hidden agenda, stating that, “the interviewer may want to obtain information without the interviewee knowing what the interviewer is after, attempting to – in shakespeare’s terms – ’by indirections find directions out”’ (kvale, 2002, p. 4). this can of course be the strategic approach, but even with the ambition to clarify the intentions, we notice with gadamer’s concept of prejudices and understanding in mind that the case might be that what the interviewer is searching for is not fully known to the interviewer himor herself. people always carry with them a certain pre-understanding and set of prejudices that they are not necessarily aware of. in that sense it might not be completely obvious to the interviewer what he or she is looking for. this is why gadamer recommends being aware of our own prejudices and using them in a productive way in interpretation. he argues that we will subsequently come closer to an understanding of why we interpret the way we do (gadamer, 1999). with this in mind, indirect conversations are indirect in more ways than one when the researcher sets the agenda. indirect conversation can be both a conscious and unconscious agenda of the researcher. an interview conducted, as part of the presented case study provides a useful illustration of how easy it is to overlook the indirect conversation and not be aware of own prejudices (almlund, 2007). this was the case for the interview with the chemicals manager. during his interview the manager was congenial as we jointly worked to alter employee attitudes towards the environment and the work of the sales consultants. this perception of a common goal apparently made him feel free to make brief, patronising remarks about the sales consultants. he told me that he thought they were slow in adapting new sales procedures. he also explained that the sales consultants had come up with the central environmental criteria themselves at a meeting. in a surprised tone, he explained that they formulated these criteria themselves so they are able to express what to do in words and we continuously set new goals about the environment. it is self-evident. i think it is interesting that they could independently select the criteria. 46 the chemicals manager was not aware of the changed research question and still focused on my initial question involving the sales consultants, obviously believing that the purpose was to affect the sales consultants and convince them to take environmental issues into account in their daily sales procedures. if he had been aware of the change and if he had known i was trying to gain a more general understanding of environmental issues, he would probably not have talked about the sales people in such a patronising way. in that sense i was not aware of the importance of explicitly explaining that the focus of my work had changed, from which followed that i asked indirectly but received direct answers. in addition the example with this indirect agenda shows how i worked more jointly with the sales consultants than i did with this particular manager without consciously intending to use it in the interview. i was not aware of my own prejudices. this specific interview emphasizes how the power relation is an important issue in general as we often expect a manager to be more powerful or even manipulative during an interview. we expect him to be aware of the role as an interviewee (fivelsdal, 1990). communicating the change unambiguously could easily have meant that the manager would have dissociated himself and dropped his congenial attitude. his response could then have been different. if the power relation had been more visible to both parties, then the outcome of the interview might have been fairer to the manager. both the response i got and the response i could have received had i been more overt about my altered focus were and would surely have been what the manager meant although neither of the responses would have been truer or closer to what he really meant – just different! this is one reason why it is important to keep in mind that the final conclusion or interpretation should be no more final than always being part of a continuous process (frank 2005). this particular manager should also have had the chance to shape what took place and not be finalized as a highly patronizing person. furthermore this example shows how important it is to be aware of the power relation in the full research process as the final interpretation would have been different and somehow more respectful, had i presented my altered research question. how can we approach the phenomenon which is the focus of the interpretation without showing disrespect to the research participants? with respect to this interpretative condition and acceptance of a distance to ‘a true meaning‘ as stated by gadamer, we may ask ourselves how to approach a phenomenon when we work qualitatively without showing the research participants disrespect. being aware of our own prejudices is an important step to take, but according to bourdieu and luhmann we can do even more. their ideas supplement each other when the purpose is to be respectful in the research process and the final interpretation. bourdieu’s work contains solid theoretical arguments about how the acceptance of restricted access to the true meaning of what other people think is a more respectful research approach. according to luhmann, on the other hand, this acceptance of restrictedness is concrete because we only have the option of analysing and interpreting communication. according to bourdieu, we have to distinguish theoretical praxis from practical praxis as theoretical praxis is research praxis and practical praxis comprises all of the practices we have the ability to study. in making this distinction, bourdieu shows how researchers are condemned 47 to distance from the researched – we only have the possibility to approach and not to capture the practitioner’s praxis (bourdieu, 1997). he also points out how maintaining distance respects the dignity of other people (bourdieu & krais, 1994). taking this condition, which is similar to the philosophical hermeneutics’ proposals for interpretation, into account, we realise that the praxis theory of bourdieu has more recommendations. bourdieu’s praxis theory emphasizes that not even the person or practitioner entirely understands his or her own praxis. if you ask people why they do what they do, they will often answer the question in mecconaisance, or with a misunderstanding of their own motives (bourdieu, 1977). that is why it is better to ask people about how they did what they did instead of asking them why they did what they did. they will be able to describe themselves to some extent, but usually they will be unable to give a useable answer as to why they did what they did. thus neither researchers nor practitioners are able to provide a definitive explanation, but we do have the ability to approach an authoritative answer. the type of question asked in an interview is one way to emphasize the importance of process and of being descriptive instead of normative. asking why questions focuses on the solution and takes ‘common sense understanding‘ for granted, whereas how questions focus on the process up until the ’common sense understanding‘ is a reality. why questions are normative, which is in contrast to the descriptive nature of how questions. emphasizing how questions are necessary when doing interviews, but this is also true when posing research and analytical questions. emphasizing how questions does not mean that why questions should be neglected as they show the interviewee’s own version of their reasons. however, emphasizing how questions weight the process higher than the final solution and work as a framework for the research. luhmann’s theoretical work puts an even more distinct focus on being descriptive rather than normative. drawing on his theoretical focus and concepts, we are only given access to observe communication and not the reason for actions nor thoughts or feelings of subjects when we search for insight into society broadly understood. this kind of restrictive access forces us to concentrate on the phenomenon in focus of our investigations and not be disturbed of subjects’ individuality. then to be non-normative and focus strictly on the phenomenon through observations of communication must be a tight description of the communicated phenomenon and the full description will show the general understanding and aspects of the phenomenon instead of individual understandings and aspects. in this manner luhmann suggests to be descriptive as this according to him is a way to be non-normative and give a more precise description of the investigated phenomenon. combining the suggestions from bourdieu and luhmann respectively show us the importance of being descriptive by posing descriptive how-questions more than normative why-questions and to observe only what is distinctively observable, namely communication. as mentioned earlier one of the research questions in my phd dissertation was: how are the environment and environmental issues understood in the company’s organizational praxis? this question is open-ended and asks for a variety of descriptions and explanations. as a result, it questions the common sense. i could also have posed the question as: why do they understand the environment and environmental issues as they do in the company’s organizational praxis? this question is difficult to answer if we want the real explanation of why. asking people in the enterprise what the answer is will at best give us some guesses or common sense answers usable for further interpretation. at worst it can lead to taking common sense answers as real 48 explanations, consequently elevating the common sense understanding to the level of a real explanation. instead of gaining insight into why environmental issues have low priority in the enterprise in general, i would have ended up with the impression that the enterprise was exceptionally environmentally friendly. to pose the research-question as a how-question established a descriptive approach which then permeates the whole research process and then the entire interviews carried out. the interview questions were then focused on all aspects of the phenomenon, namely the understanding of environment and the environmental work in the enterprise. in that respect the questions were questions such as: how do you experience environmental work in the daily work of ecosoap? how do you understand the environment in ecosoap? what kind of consideration is the environmental consideration in ecosoap? this type of interview questions favoured the descriptive answer and invited the interviewee to describe and reflect upon the mentioned aspects of the phenomenon. the point was not to collect a series of individuals’ specific opinions, but to coproduce the general and common understanding of environment and environmental work in the enterprise. regarding the analytical questions posed in the phase of interpreting the produced data, they were equally focused on the process and the descriptions by being primarily how questions. the analytical questions were questions such as: how do they articulate environment? which kind of understandings of environment do we find in this articulation? how do they categorize environment? how do they shape environment in their daily work? these analytical questions made it possible to stay focused on the descriptions and as a result also on the common understanding of environment. the interview questions and answers made up the larger part of the observable communication for this search of a definition to understand and an approach to investigate environmental communication. to gain a broad and general insight into the understanding of environment it was necessary to observe and then coproduce communication about the phenomenon broadly in the enterprise. this was the reason to carry out so many interviews and observation on different levels in ecosoap. only communication was observed, whether it was communication in the interviews, at the sales meetings or in the work days of sales consultants i followed. through such observations of communication one gains the wanted insight into the generally, common and common sensual understanding of environment in the specific division of ecosoap. if we are descriptive and primarily pose how questions and focus on what is actually being communicated, we will see how the phenomenon or theme in focus is recognized and used by the researched. in addition we will establish a broad and open but still sharp image in opposition to a closed and finalizing image of the understanding of environment in the enterprise. this is a way to be more respectful in the final interpretation and to take the relation of power seriously as we only have access to this level of understanding and not to the true story. we can and should, however, be approaching the understanding of the interviewee. how do we understand the term subject in qualitative research? a precondition for a respectful interpretation is moreover to understand the subject as decentralized and to dissociate from the ideal of intersubjectivity. we will never be able to fully understand the researched person and their thoughts; hence we should not try to pretend it is possible. the interview, the observation or the transcription enables the researcher, and if 49 published, the environment, to observe the communicative mise-en-scene, but not the consciousness nor the thoughts of the interviewee or observed. gadamer focuses on the subject’s limited ability to fully understand ’the other‘ and how this understanding will always be an interpretation depending on conscious and unconscious experiences, one’s history and language. according to him we are as human beings thrown into a world where history, experiences and language are existing facts to be built upon (heidegger, 1994; 1999; gørtz, 2003; gadamer, 1999). bourdieu’s work also examines the distance that hinders complete understanding, in addition to focusing on the process involved in desiring the production of new knowledge. he also focuses on relations and dependency on history and experiences in his concepts of field and habitus (bourdieu, 1977; 1985; 1994; bourdieu & wacquant, 1996). focusing on the subject in particular was never covered in his extensive analyses of different aspects and parts of society. luhmann’s work focuses on being descriptive using his concepts of observation and of communication and there is also dissociation from intersubjectivity in the notion of observing communication as the only possibility for describing society (luhmann, 1997; 2000; kneer & nassehi, 1997; åkerstrøm andersen, 1999). luhmann’s concept of communication is then a non-individual concept of communication that dissociates itself from the idea of intersubjectivity. at the same time the concept of communication and the concept of observation jointly propose a way to handle this. as stated above, communication is what we have the ability to observe if we want to know something about society. this would, according to luhmann, also be the case in qualitative research. we cannot get any further than observing communication as we have no access to the thoughts of other people. this is the reason why luhmann recommends being descriptive and abandoning the idea of intersubjectivity. this underlines that we are observers more than participants in other people’s lives. this observer role we have to accept in respect for the interviewee and then make the dilemma of the interviewer as being between a participant role and an observer role, mentioned by brinkmann & kvale (2005), easier to handle. this should be accepted as a condition for qualitative research. the acceptance of distance from the researched and then of the dissociation from the idea of intersubjectivity open up the possibility of a respectful interpretation without an ambition to reach a univocal and monological interpretation of the meaning underlying social interactions. the acceptance of distance in the observations and interpretations further underline how a focus at subjects is limiting instead of clarifying and discloses how important it is to closely describe the phenomenon in focus of the investigation. when i discarded my first research question, how can the environmental manager encourage the sales consultants to work more purposefully with environmental issues in their selling practices? and replaced it with, how are the environment and environmental issues understood in the company’s organizational practice?, i posed an open-ended question and asked for different descriptions and explanations, hence questioning the common sense. at the same time, i substituted the environmental manager and the sales consultant’s responsibility with a more organizational responsibility, subsequently focusing on a specific issue, topic or phenomenon instead of specific subjects. i worked intentionally with a decentred subject to investigate ’what is going on’ instead of ‘who is going on’. the many interviews and observations at different levels in the division of ecosoap were then important for more than the possibility of being descriptive. the many interviews and observations were also necessary to secure the mentioned focus on the organizational 50 responsibility not to be narrow-mindedly focused at the responsibility of the sales consultants. in that way this more broad focus decentred the individual responsibility and was one of the aspects making it possible to work with a decentred subject in practice. additional aspects influencing this possibility are: the descriptive approach, the observation of communication about environment and the accept of distance from the researched, all of which were conditions for keeping focus on environment and the common organizational responsibility and not at specific subjects’ responsibility, thoughts, actions etc. my interview questions were posed with the intention to let the interviewee describe how they prioritized and worked with environmental issues in their daily work in the enterprise. i asked them to describe actions, responsibility, use and understandings of environment and environmental approaches, but solely in relation to the enterprise and the common level and not on an individual level. in that way the final interpretation solely presented the common understandings and actions in the division and separated understandings and actions in different groups such as sales consultants and managers. when i asked them how do you experience environmental work in the daily work of ecosoap i got a lot of different answers from the sales-consultants such as our company takes no initiatives to reward sale of environmental products. there are methods to control that stuff, so that if you do a lot to sell environmental products, you will get bonus. in that way, we are not pressured by the company to go out and do it. they should focus more on it. it is also true, what xx says, when we launched these swan-marked5 products, they focused on it in one or two meetings, and then it died. nobody stands up and says – ‘it is not good enough. we need to speed up’. you run the risk of driving around a whole day where nobody mentions environment, but that is also instructive, since afterwards you can say ‘why the hell don’t they talk about it?’ we raise or profile a lot on environment. we are regarded as very environmentally friendly in the market. we have environmental products all over the line. it is on the agenda. no doubt, that when new products are developed, environment is an important element. i don’t remember any new product during the last 1 or 2 years, where environment is not an important element, if not the most decisive. when we have had a sales meeting, they have had one hour’s discussion on environment. every time we have a new product, environment is included… so, for that reason alone, there is a now sort of brush up, every time a new product comes up. then we are told what the environmental dimension of the product is. it has been one or two hours – not more. 5 the swan-mark is a nordic label for environmentally friendly products. 51 the ambition with the question was exactly to focus on the common organizational level and not on individual motives for working with environment as they do and the important conclusion from these answers and statements was not to understand each person’s intention with the answer but exactly to combine the answers and conclude how they in common understand the environmental work in ecosoap. from the three first answers, and many more alike, it became obvious how the environmental work was not highly prioritized in their daily work and this priority was not solely defined by the sales consultants. from the two last answers, and many more alike, it was underlined how environment was categorised as environmentally friendly products as the common understanding of environment. the focus on understandings of environment and environmental issues in both interview questions and in the final interpretation is furthermore an important descriptive trait and approach, which emphasizes the work with a decentred subject. with a focus on understandings of environment it became more obviously clear on which part of the environmental issues they based their work as a common condition either in the whole division or group wise. understandings are in that regard seen as opposite to individual opinions, which could not give us this insight into the basement of their work and priorities because it is difficult to ask individuals about the common organizational understanding. with this kind of stringency we are able to investigate the phenomenon in focus and keep our attention on that and dissociate from the intention to interpret the individuals. this is a precondition to handle the unequal power relation in a responsible way because this is an acceptance of distance between researcher’s results and the researched’s integrity. with this stringency it is furthermore unnecessary to take the methodological steps towards empathy, disclosure, intersubjectivity etc. as finlay (2002) presents them. especially because these steps never save us from the unequal relation. as shown by watson (2009) and abell et al. (2006) these methodological considerations even disguise the unequal relation and in that way enhance it. understanding the subject as decentred is a precondition for focusing on the interpretation as gadamer defines it, by being descriptive as well as by working to approach and see the power relation as a particular interaction and not as a relation of power between two specific subjects. decentring the subject in the final interpretation requires our attention to this understanding through the whole study or research process. simultaneously it underlines the fact that accessing other people’s thoughts is impossible, and even more importantly, that the thoughts of other people are not the way to understand society or different phenomena worth studying.6 concluding remarks what kind of insight can researchers produce by using qualitative methods if we take these three discussions and suggestions into consideration? i am not sure that the production of data only will be influenced if we have an awareness of these methodological and meta-theoretical discussions. i see the impossibility of intersubjectivity, the continuous interpretation and the 6 doing the opposite, namely focusing on or ’centring‘ the subject and searching for other people’s thoughts is a search for a truer story about people. emphasizing the interpretation as a condition and being constructivistic in the understanding of data production will therefore never match an understanding of a centred subject and the effort to achieve intersubjectivity. 52 researchers approach to the practitioner’s praxis as conditions we can never leave behind. opposite, being aware of these factors emphasizes the importance of humility, executing the final interpretation more respectfully and may even make approaching the topic more successful. keeping this in mind, the answer to the question posed above is: we can gain insight into what is happening by being descriptive and by focusing on the processes. we can gain an impression of relations instead of insight into the thoughts of the researched, their mind and consciousness. we can observe how the topic in focus is described. we can concentrate on a specific issue, problem or topic instead of what we think other people think or feel. this kind of insight gives us a unique opportunity to critically question the common sense of the issue, problem or topic. the analysis of the interviews and observations of managers and employees at ecosoap, for example, made asking them if their actual work with environmental initiatives and steps match their understanding of being a frontrunner in the field of environmental responsibility an obvious question. this kind of critique is not to be confounded with critical normativity, but provides the opportunity to heighten the level of reflexivity and underline how the research project should not finalize a continuing process. in conclusion, respectful interpretation and conscious attention to the unequal power relation in the final interpretation of research results requires decentring the subject and dissociating from the ideal of intersubjectivity as well as being descriptive instead of normative and accepting the unconquerable infinite distance between the researcher and the researched as a condition. finally, the whole research process and analysis must be looked at as a coproduction and interpretation that cannot be left behind. references abell, j., locke, a., condor, s., gibson, s. & stevenson, c. 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(ed.), valg af organisations-sociologiske metoder – et kombinationsperspektiv [choice of sociological methods specific to organizations a perspective of combination]. samfundslitteratur, copenhagen. 54 flyvbjerg, b. (2004). five misunderstandings about case-study research. department of development and planning. unu.print, aalborg university. flyvbjerg, b. (1999). socrates didn’t like the case method. why should you?. soochow journal of philosophical studies, no. 4 p. 101-115. frank, a. w. (2005). what is dialogical research, and why should we do it?. qualitative health research, 15(7): 964-974. gadamer, h. g. (1999). forståelsens historicitet som det hermeneutiske princip [the history of understanding as the princip of hermeneutics]. in j. gulddal & m. møller (eds.), hermeneutik. en antologi om forståelse [ hermeneutics. an antology about understanding]. copenhagen: gyldendal. gulddal, j. & møller, m. (1999). fra filologi til filosofi introduktion til den moderne hermeneutik [from philology to philosophy – an introduction of the modern hermeneutics]. in j. gulddal & m. møller (eds.), hermeneutik. en antologi om forståelse [hermeneutics. an antology about understanding]. copenhagen: gyldendal. gørtz, k. (2003). tankens åbenhed om centrale temaer i martin heideggers sene værk [the openness of the thought – about central issues in the late work of martin heidegger]. copenhagen: samfundslitteratur. halkier, b. (2008). fokusgrupper [focus groups]. 2. edition. samfundslitteratur. hansen, e. j. & andersen, b. h. (2000). et sociologisk værktøj. introduktion til den kvantitative metode [a sociologic tool. introduction to the quantitative method] . hans reitzels forlag. heidegger, m. (1994). hvad er metafysik?. copenhagen: det lille forlag. translated from the german edition ‘was ist metaphysik?’. vittorio klostermann, frankfurt am main 1955. heidegger, m. (1999). to paragraffer fra sein und zeit [two articles from sein und zeit]. in j. gulddal & m. møller (eds.), hermeneutik. en antologi om forståelse [ hermeneutics. an antology about understanding]. copenhagen: gyldendal. kneer, g. & nassehi, a. (1997). niklas luhmann – introduktion til teorien om sociale systemer. copenhagen: hans reitzels forlag. translated from ‘niklas luhmanns theorie sozialer systeme. eine einführung’, wilhelm fink verlag, münchen 1993. kristiansen, s. krogstrup, h. k. (1999). deltagende observation. introduktion til en forskningsmetodik {participant observation. introduction to a research method]. hans reitzels forlag. kvale, s. (2002). dialogue as oppression and interview research. nyhedsbrevet no. 32. center for kvalitativ metodeudvikling v/ department of psykologi, århus university. kvale, s. (1997). interview. en introduktion til det kvalitative forskningsinterview[interviews: an introduction to qualitative research interviewing]. copenhagen: hans reitzels forlag. 55 luhmann, n. (1997). iagttagelse og paradoks. essays om autopoietiske systemer. copenhagen: moderne tænkere. gyldendal. translated from ‘risiko und gefahr’, soziologische aufklärung 5. konstruktivistisches perspektive, westdeutscher, opladen, 1990. luhmann, n. (2000). sociale systemer. grundrids til en almen teori. copenhagen: hans reitzels forlag. translated from ‘soziale systeme. grundriss einer allgemeinen theorie’. suhrkamp verlag, frankfurt am main 1984. neal, s. & mclaughlin, e. (2009). researching up? interviews, emotionality and policy-making elites. journal of social policy, 38(4): 689-707. olsen, h. (1998). tallenes talende tavshed. måleproblemer i surveyundersøgelser [the striking silence of figures. measuring difficulties in surveys]. akademisk forlag. olsen, h. (1998a). det mindst ringe spørgeskema? [the least weak questionnaire]. dansk sociologi no. 1/1998. rice, g. (2010). reflections on interviewing elites. area, 42(1): 70-75. stephens, n. (2007). collecting data from elites and ultra elites: telephone and face-to-face interviews with macroeconomists. qualitative research, 7(2): 203-216. thomas, g. (2011). how to do your case study. a guide for students & researchers. sage, london. watson, c. (2009). the ‚impossible vanity’: uses and abuses of empathy in qualitative inquiry. qualitative research, 9(1): 105-117. åkerstrøm andersen, n. (1999). diskursive analysestrategier. foucault, koselleck, laclau, luhmann [discursive analytical strategies: understanding foucaul, koselleck, laclau, luhmann]. copenhagen: nyt fra samfundsvidenskaberne. author pernille almlund is associate professor in the department of communication, business and information technologies at roskilde university, denmark. email: almlund@ruc.dk marius veseth et al (trykkeklar) 21 how i found out i had a bipolar disorder: a reflexive-collaborative exploration of the process of identifying that one is struggling with a severe mental health problem marius veseth, per-einar binder, marit borg & larry davidson abstract. research indicates that it may take up to 10 years between onset of symptoms of bipolar disorder and receiving correct diagnosis and treatment. what is this period like? how do individuals experience the process of discovering that they have a bipolar disorder? in this study we utilized a hermeneutical-phenomenological approach developed within a reflexivecollaborative framework to explore these questions. in-depth interviews with 13 participants who reported both bipolar i and bipolar ii diagnoses were conducted. we analyzed our data in collaboration with a group of 12 coresearchers who have experiences of mood disorders, and through reflexive dialogue with this group we validated and expanded our results. we describe three phases through which participants manoeuvred from (a) “uncertainty and confusion” through (b) “grasping the novel and unusual experiential states” to (c) “giving meaning to the lived experiences of intense ups and downs.” these results are discussed in relation to theory, research and practice. keywords: bipolar disorders; recovery; hermeneutics; phenomenology; reflexivity; collaboration; service user involvement please cite this article as: veseth, m., binder, p.-e., borg, m. & davidson, l. (2013). how i found out i had a bipolar disorder: a reflexive-collaborative exploration of the process of identifying that one is struggling with a severe mental health problem. qualitative studies 4(1): 21-38. introduction bipolar disorders are heterogeneous mental illnesses with a lifetime prevalence of about 3.9 % of the adult population (kessler et al., 2005). people who struggle with these mental health problems are typically burdened with periods of severe depression, mania or hypomania, as well as mixed episodes. according to diagnostic criteria, bipolar i disorder is characterized by at least one lifetime manic or mixed episode; bipolar ii disorder by at least one lifetime hypomanic episode along with at least one episode of major depression; and cyclothymia by two or more years of alterations between hypomanic and depressive symptoms that do not meet criteria for hypomania or a major depressive episode (american psychiatric association, 2000). the disorders are accordingly often described as a continuum of severity (cassano et al., 1999). bipolar disorders have frequent co-morbidity and hold the highest suicide rates of all mental health conditions (proudfoot, doran, manicavasagar & parker, 2011). as such, the disorders are a considerable source of distress and suffering to persons struggling with it. studies indicate that it may take up to 10 years from onset of bipolar symptoms to receipt of a correct diagnosis (hirschfeld, lewis & vornik, 2003; suppes et al., 2001). the delays between emergence of symptoms, seeking professional help, and acquiring a diagnosis and treatment, may be a significant barrier to recovery, as well as contributing to the torment of people affected (skjelstad, malt & holte, 2010; woods, 2000). in the present investigation, we aimed to explore how the process of identifying a bipolar disorder is experienced from the first person perspective. the article extends findings presented in a previous paper in which we examined what persons suffering from a bipolar disorder do to promote their own processes of recovery. 22 we found that their efforts toward improvement and growth could be summarized and described in the following themes: (a) handling ambivalence about letting go of manic states; (b) finding something to hang on to when the world is spinning around; (c) becoming aware of signals from self and others; and (d) finding ways of caring for oneself (veseth, binder, borg & davidson, 2012). bipolar disorders have been described and explained primarily within a biomedical framework for the last few decades (miklowitz, 2008; scott, 2006). little research has been conducted outside of this perspective during this period, and, as such, there is a need for developing new perspectives and ideas. because of the hypothesis-generating potentials of qualitative methods, these approaches may be particularly important and useful in this context. we draw on indepth interviews conducted with 13 participants who reported both bipolar i and bipolar ii disorders, and offer findings from sections of these data that focus on what it is like finding out that one is suffering from a bipolar disorder. the study was designed and conducted with a group of 12 coresearchers who all have firsthand experiences of mood disorders. the background for collaborating with these service users was to enhance the quality of the research project (faulkner & thomas, 2002; trivedi & wykes, 2002). most importantly, we aimed to strengthen the ecological validity of the study by ensuring that the research questions and themes were relevant and meaningful to persons who have lived experiences of mood disorders, as well as to have our views and perspectives confronted and challenged throughout the study in an ongoing dialogue with this group of coresearchers. as such, we utilize the knowledge of two distinct groups of service users in the present investigation: the participants who shared their experiences in qualitative interviews and the coresearchers who engaged in developing and implementing the study (see also veseth, binder, borg & davidson, 2012). the aim of the present study was to explore first person perspectives on identifying a bipolar disorder: how do individuals experience the process of discovering that they are struggling with a bipolar disorder? what does it mean for the person to find out that their symptoms and distress are in line with descriptions commonly seen as a severe mental illness? method we utilized a hermeneutical-phenomenological approach developed within a reflexivecollaborative framework to explore our research questions. this approach holds a phenomenological aim as we seek to generate knowledge about the lived experiences in finding out that one has a bipolar disorder. it is directed toward describing and exploring everyday experiences on a concrete and jargon-free level (binder, holgersen & nielsen, 2010; kvale & brinkmann, 2008; van manen, 1990). we can, however, only progress toward this aim through a hermeneutical process of interpretation in which we as researchers actively negotiate the meaning of the lived experiences – initially through engaging with the participants in the interview situation and later through a dialogue with the transcribed text (gadamer, 1989; heidegger, 1962). from a hermeneutical-phenomenological perspective, meaning is therein conceptualized as co-created by researchers and participants, and as such, the researchers’ experiences and subjectivities are acknowledged as an unavoidable part of every study (alvesson & sköldberg, 2000; finlay, 2002; 2003; malterud, 2001a; 2001b). the researchers’ preconceptions and intentions are, however, not only sources of errors in this approach – they are also seen as providing the researchers’ means to understand the participants’ lived experiences (heidegger, 1962). 23 in order to enhance the trustworthiness of our study, we have aimed to make our preconceptions and intentions explicit in the present article. this is in line with a reflexive framework (alvesson & sköldberg, 2000; finlay, 2002; 2003), which has been the guiding methodological principle in carrying out the research project. when the researchers’ preunderstandings are seen as giving direction to the way in which studies are planned, performed, and presented, exploring and reflecting upon these preconceptions are of importance to the quality of the research. in the present study, collaboration with our coresearchers provided us with an important tool for considering such researcher effects in detail. the different positions that we as researchers and the service users as coresearchers represent, contributed to an increased focus on this reflexive attitude. through dialogue with our coresearchers we also became increasingly attentive to our own participation in the research project. as such, this collaboration held potential for creating a metaperspective, which again is an important strategy for continuously articulating questions to the subject matter (malterud, 2001b). researchers and coresearchers the researchers have experience with therapy in the field of mental health care and qualitative research on topics within this area. the first, second and last authors as clinical psychologists and the third author as an occupational therapist; the first author as a research fellow in clinical psychology, the second and last authors as professors in clinical psychology, and the third author as a professor in mental health care. the group of 12 coresearchers was selected from the largest service user organization in the field of mental health care in norway and from the local health trust in the western part of the country. they all have firsthand knowledge of mood disorders and processes of recovery. many of them have experience as service user representatives in the mental health system and most were active within service user organizations. participants thirteen informants, seven women and six men, participated in the study. their age ranged from 27 to 65 years, with a mean age of 47 years. all were ethnic norwegians residing in the western parts of the country. the participants reported both bipolar i and bipolar ii diagnosis; and many described co-morbid clinical problems such as anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder, psychosis and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder. the participants recounted that they had struggled with symptoms of bipolar disorders over the past 2 to 30 years, with a mean period of 18 years. exclusion criteria for participation were alcohol or substance abuse as a primary diagnosis and inpatient and/or electro convulsive treatment within the past six months, so that none of the participants were in a severe episode of illness at the time of interview. data collection ten participants were recruited through their local outpatient clinic and three through advertising in the largest local newspaper in the western parts of norway. all participants selfidentified as having experiences of recovery from bipolar disorders and contacted the first author by telephone or e-mail after reading the newspaper ad or receiving initial information about the study from their therapists. individual in-depth interviews were chosen in order to facilitate an open exploration of participants’ lived experiences. the first author conducted the interviews which ranged from 45 to 110 minutes, with most lasting about 80 minutes. they were audio-taped and transcribed verbatim. 24 data analysis in line with our hermeneutical-phenomenological approach, we aimed at generating knowledge about the lived experiences in finding out that one is struggling with a bipolar disorder, and to attain a reflexive position where we, through collaboration with our service user coresearchers, aimed at being aware of our own participation in the research process. our analysis was technically supported by nvivo 8 (qsr international, 2008), and proceeded through the following steps inspired by alvesson and sköldberg (2000), finlay (2002; 2003), kvale and brinkmann (2008), malterud (1993), and van manen (1990): 1. the first author noted his initial impressions after conducting and transcribing each individual interview, and discussed important topics that arouse with the second author. 2. the first, second, and third author thereafter read all the transcriptions to obtain a basic sense of them (malterud, 1993). 3. exploring those parts of the interview that were of relevance to the research questions, the first author identified units of meaning that represented different aspects of the participants’ experiences and discussed them with the second author (kvale & brinkmann, 2008). 4. the first author then developed codes or keywords for those units of meaning. 5. the meaning within each of the coded groups of text was thereafter interpreted and condensed into everyday language by the first author (kvale & brinkmann, 2008). 6. the content of each code was summarized into overall descriptions of themes and meaning patterns that reflected the first author’s understanding of what emerged as the most important aspects of the participants’ experiences (van manen, 1990). 7. for validation and reflexive purposes (alvesson & sköldberg, 2000; finlay, 2002; 2003), the first author then presented these themes along with de-identified extracts of the transcribed text to the coresearchers in a two-day collaborative meeting in which the second and third authors also participated. 8. the second author led a process in which the group of coresearchers critically audited the themes and negotiated a common orientation to the phenomenon of study (van manen, 1990). this process was recorded by the first author in notes in which he aimed to pay attention to both the homogeneity and heterogeneity of the group’s interpretations. 9. the first author thereafter reorganized the themes and discussed the research process and resulting meaning patterns with the last author. 10. finally, the themes were formulated and agreed upon by all authors, and presented for a concluding validation at another collaborative meeting with the coresearchers. ethics the study was approved by the regional committee for medical and health research ethics western region and the norwegian social sciences data services. informed consent was a requirement for participation. before the service user coresearchers were presented extracts of the transcript material, they signed a declaration of confidentiality and all identifiers were removed. the participants were informed of the coresearchers roles and participation in the project. findings in the individual interviews, the participants described how they first experienced various symptoms and problems that they later identified as a bipolar disorder. this process of learning 25 and recognizing their distress was experienced as a challenging and enduring enterprise. for some it was a sudden shattering of their worlds, for others a lurking feeling that something was wrong. all of them, however, described this process as hard and demanding, as it required that they began to give meaning to the intense experiences of not knowing what was happening to them. in their efforts, the participants gradually started to acknowledge that their emotional and psychological distress was in line with descriptions commonly seen as a severe mental disorder. this was a strenuous and painful task for many, but it also created an important momentum to discover what they actually could do to overcome their symptoms and distress. in our presentation, we have organized the participants’ descriptions of how they found out they were struggling with their mental health into three phases through which they manoeuvre from (a) “uncertainty and confusion” through (b) “grasping the novel and unusual experiential states” to (c) “giving meaning to the lived experiences of intense ups and downs.” “i didn’t recognize myself anymore” – uncertainty and confusion an initial state of not knowing what was happening to them was a common description among participants in the present study. all of them highlighted a phase of uncertainty and confusion in their lived experiences of finding out they were battling a mental health problem. for some of the participants, this phase was characterized by a growing feeling that something was wrong. they had for some time noticed experiences that were difficult to comprehend and relate to. others described the onset and unveiling of their symptoms as an acute breakdown. suddenly they were hammered by intense experiences they could not understand. in both cases, participants experienced various symptoms and problems as both extremes of moods – high and low – started to affect their lives in new and different ways. these evolving bodily, emotional, and psychological phenomena puzzled and confused them. a description of how a blurring and novel feeling of sadness developed as a boyfriend left one of the participants can illustrate this: when this man left me, i gradually became more depressed. and that was kind of a new experience to me. i had been sad earlier, but this time my thinking started to become… i didn’t manage to do things, organize things the way i had been able to earlier. and it was very chaotic. very chaotic. it was an unfamiliar feeling to me, but i didn’t think of it like a depression, i wasn’t able to see it from the outside. in another interview, a young woman reflected on how she experienced the unveiling of her first episode of elevated mood. as in the description above, this participant highlighted the sense that something was going on, and at the same time she felt that she was not able to understand what it was. for her, the “something” was experienced as originating in her body. it was a kind of tingling or distress that she was struggling to figure out and comprehend. in the following account she described how she suddenly found herself shaky and distressed at a holiday trip with a friend: when i had been there for about three days, i felt there was something happening to my body, and my friend felt like she didn’t know me at all. she was wondering if i had been doing drugs or something, and was very upset with me. actually, i had only been drinking water and eating some fruit, i hadn’t been liquoring up at all, so i didn’t understand what was going on. that’s when we found out we had to go look for a hotel so that we could get some peace and quiet as an alternative to the motel we were living in. . . . and as we were out looking, i felt a tingling in my body. i thought i was having some kind of sun stroke or something. i was really off. 26 for many of our participants, not being able to make sense of these experiences was challenging. a growing awareness that something is happening to oneself and at the same time not getting hold of what it is, can be scary – particularly so when the experiences are as colorful and intense as they can be in periods of elevated mood. a female participant described her first experiences of these vivid and altered psychological states as a frightening feeling of her mind being like a high speed rail that was running continuously. however, she did not realize what was going on as she just thought she was “all stressed out.” this uncertainty and confusion created an increasing need to respond to the psychological and emotional state that developed. in the interview she described how she eventually stepped in and started the process of addressing what was going on in her life: then i thought this isn’t working out, i had only a few hours of sleep night after night. i got up in the morning, started at about five a.m. and was full of energy. i had only slept an hour or two, three, four hours. that was when i thought – this isn’t normal, this isn’t who i am. i have been all stressed out before, but i have never been like this. the participants’ need for awareness and understanding was met by engaging others who could help them in this process. as such, the uncertainty and distress seemed to drive many to make connections that could enable them to understand more of what was going on. a male participant, for example, described that even though he had no prior experiences with psychiatric treatment or services, he intuitively felt the need for mental health care when he experienced a new and different kind of pressure: interviewer (i): can you tell me about how you first found out you had a bipolar disorder? participant (p): then we’ll have to go back several years. . . i was working full time, and got a lot of work from my employer. that is, it was a lot of pressure [at the time], and suddenly, in only a few weeks, it all built up. and i had never heard about psychiatry or anything, but i understood that something was wrong and got to see my company’s on-site doctor. instinctively i understood that i was in need of psychiatric assistance, i didn’t know what it was, but i knew i needed psychiatric help. participants’ first step toward awareness and understanding was in this way an active one. by deciding to communicate their uncertainty and confusion to others, the participants initiated a movement toward the next phase in finding out what their unusual experiences were about. the interview with the young woman, who was on vacation when a novel and intense state of elevated mood developed, can help to shed light on this. she described how she started to talk to her friend about her experiences. together they then agreed upon making contact with the local health authorities: that’s when we talked about that something was not right. i was in despair, i didn’t recognize myself anymore. i was very stressed and very shaky. . . . and that’s when we found a small local hospital where we got help immediately. “now you’re either manic, mum, or you’ve won the lottery” – grasping the novel and unusual experiential states we have interpreted our participants’ commencing efforts to grasp and understand their experiences as the second phase in the process of finding out they were battling a mental health 27 problem. in order to move beyond their feelings of uncertainty and confusion, the participants approached their experiences through discussing them with others. some of them initially talked to their family or friends, but eventually all made contact with health care professionals. for some, these relationships were established quite quickly, but most had suffered symptoms and pain for many years before they got in touch with the health care system. as a first step toward grasping their distress and relieving their despair, the participants in this phase disclosed their experiences and feelings. one of them described how she explicitly had thought about the possibility that her symptoms and distress could be coined a bipolar disorder. however, despite her suggestions and proposals, she still did not receive health care that could meet her needs: i’ve had problems with mental fluctuations and depressions since i was young, and i’ve had many turns with the health care system, to medical doctors, referrals to clinical psychologists. that is, i approached many people and said that there is something i need help with. . . . i don’t think i ever got a thorough screening, but what i knew was that my grandfather was manic-depressive and that some of his brothers and sisters were ill too. and that there was something… i knew my mother had struggled with depressions and that there was something with my own experiences of… i didn’t think in terms of mood, i didn’t use that vocabulary at the time. but there still was something that made me think – is there something to it? at one point i asked a psychologist i was in treatment with openly. . . . but i didn’t get any answers. it was on the one hand like this, and, on the other, like that. most of our participants, however, did not have as concrete ideas or straightforward approaches as this woman. as such, many of them described spending years battling the system as well as their symptoms in this process. their initial feelings of uncertainty and confusion made them anxious and insecure, and for many this anxiety was enlarged and prolonged as they experienced that others were also unable to understand what was going on. this was particularly pertinent in relationships with professional health care workers – the kind of others the participants expected and counted on to be capable of offering them some help in relation to their distress. many of the participants in this study highlighted negative experiences related to this. one of them described, for example, being given medication for gastroenteritis while presenting a major depression, another how a nurse at an intensive care unit tried to talk her out of transferring to a mental hospital because she could be in danger of disappointing her family and friends. a third participant elaborated this point further. she had initially thought her mood fluctuations were the effect of premenstrual syndrome or possibly the aftermath of an infertility treatment. gradually she then started to develop a feeling that there had to be something more to it: p: i summoned my courage, i realized that it was mental, and went to a medical doctor who stood with her back onto me, arranging her hair, and… i spilled my guts, i divulged my soul and secrets, for the first time i talked about it. and when i was all set, at first i was there to do some samples, and when i was all set i received a letter that i might be anemic. at that moment i fell apart. because the prize of making my problems known was very high at that time, and she didn’t see the issue at all. i: what did you say to her? p: i told her that i had the most gorgeous child, i had a sweet and supporting husband, i had a nice house and all. but nevertheless, i was in the dumps. i cried from the time i left work on friday until sunday afternoon, i was desperate and everything was off. 28 and when i went to work i just stood in the resting facilities shedding my tears, hoping that no one could see me, because then i would have broken down. and then she says that i might be a little anemic. one of the male participants had until recently very similar experiences with the health care system. he had received little or no help from his doctors besides symptomatic medication, and described how he over a long period of years had moved from one episode of illness to another. eventually he was not able to put up with his demanding position as a leader and had to take sick leave. at the time he had massive digestive problems and struggled to catch on to how these complaints were related to his mental health. this time, however, he met a general practitioner who was able to help him start to grasp these experiences. in the interview, he described how he felt the relationship between his stomach-related problems and his mental health issues got uncovered by his doctor: how i first found out i had a bipolar disorder? let me put it in a different way – how i got unmasked by my medical doctor who then intervened and helped me. and in that process, i was diagnosed with bipolar disorder as well as generalized anxiety, social phobia and post-traumatic stress disorder. . . . but i had my first downers when i was about 18 or 19 years old, maybe even earlier. what happened then was that i saw our family practitioner who gave me a box of pills, antidepressants i think, which i ate and perhaps got a little better. thereafter i had new setbacks and got new boxes of pills. but i never knew that i had a disorder in any way, it was just that i had a hard time and needed help to get back on my feet again. . . . and when my doctor looked at me and said: are you depressed? at that point she unmasked me, she brought light to what the problem was. to approach and grasp such confusing periods of bodily symptoms and extended sadness was, however, not sufficient to find the appropriate treatment and care for the participants in the present study. for some of them, identifying these episodes of depression only led to a temporary feeling of being understood, as treatment with antidepressants was of little help for their problems and distressing life situation. instead, this seemed to worsen the course of their symptoms, as it triggered for many participants an intense period of elevated mood. they were once more left feeling uncertain, confused and not being listened to as their symptoms and distress escalated and intensified. the following account describes how a female participant experienced the onset of a manic episode. she was at the time trying to communicate her growing feelings of anxiety and despair as psychotic symptoms emerged. paradoxically, it was ultimately her son who identified her unbearable complaints as a manic episode: p: i started on [antidepressants] and was supposed to talk to my general practitioner again. . . . i made contact with my doctor, i don’t remember how many days i used the medication, but i responded extremely from day one. i made contact with my doctor and said that i’m not sure that i have nerve to use the medication any more because i’m going crazy, i’m afraid of becoming psychotic. . . . because there is something strange going on that has never happened to me before. but no, i shouldn’t stop taking my medication, i shouldn’t stop. . . . i observed by myself that there was a change and that… and then, then i became very ill. i: what was it that changed? p: well, i became psychotic. everything was… i went to my doctor and said that everything was fantastic, all my problems were going away. . . . and at the same time as 29 i felt that all my problems were going away, i had a panic attack. when i tried to communicate to her how i was doing, i used two images, because there was something going on that i had never experienced before. the first was that i was running on ice and i had to run faster and faster to keep me from falling. the second was that i felt like a runaway horse. at that time i was psychotic. and before i got hospitalized, i sat in my kitchen, and my son said, he suspected it, that now you’re either manic, mum, or you’ve won the lottery. communicating these confusing states associated with the extremes of moods in mania and depression can be hard. the experiences that the participants had not yet developed the words to describe, can for many of them have triggered a need to simplify and concretize their complex experiential world. this, in turn, may have created challenges in their communication with the health care professionals. as such, the participants were clearly in need of an especially attentive and caring health professional at this point in the process of discovering their mental health problems. “i’ve been wondering if that’s enough, am i thereby manic-depressive?” – giving meaning to the lived experiences of intense ups and downs as our participants moved from their initial feelings of uncertainty and confusion, through a phase of seeking help from others in starting to grasp their novel and unusual experiences, they eventually arrived at a place where they began developing ways of giving meaning to these extreme bodily, emotional and psychological states. one example of reflections that characterize this phase can be drawn from an interview with a female participant who retrospectively tried to relate her lived experiences of intense ups and downs to the diagnostic terminology of a bipolar disorder: i: what’s it like to think back on this period now? p: no, it’s… it’s emotional, of course, because it’s not something i reflect much upon today. . . but i’ve thought about it like… okay, the first thing that happened, that was a depression. but then what… and then a manic period followed, that’s true. but i’ve been wondering if that’s enough, am i thereby manic-depressive? because it’s kind of… at least it felt very natural. after being in a state of void and meaninglessness, when i once again felt meaning and worth… it seems to me more of a normal reaction. i: for you it felt like… you think of it as natural. p: yes. and also the thing that happened afterwards, the [childbirth] . . . they say it is normal to have special reactions . . . because of the hormonal changes. people make sense of their experiences in different ways. as such, the phase of giving meaning to the states in both extremes of mood was built up by a multitude of views and reactions. some of the participants weighted their responses to the diagnosis in this process. it could be experienced as carrying stigma and sometimes like a prophecy of doom. others, again, focused on how their growing understanding of what was going on could be a comfort and relief. for many of them, recognition and acceptance enabled them to work on their problems and distress. in the interviews, most of our participants described nuances of both these polarities. we have termed the subthemes “challenges in defining one’s symptoms” and “recognition as a step toward recovery.” challenges in defining one’s symptoms. being diagnosed with a mental illness can be a demanding and challenging exercise. some of the participants in our interviews put weight on this aspect in 30 the process of giving meaning to their experiences. for them, understanding and labelling their symptoms and distress as consequences of a bipolar disorder was not necessarily helpful. one participant elaborates on this point in the following words: p: the only thing is that i don’t feel i have gained something when trying to understand myself. being given that diagnosis with… that it… it is, you know, categorized as serious, isn’t it? i: well… p: serious or severe or something like that. and that… being given that label without anyone trying to make me more comfortable with it or help me increase my understanding of it… what kind of consequences this may have… it’s just that i’m left with too many questions in relation to this. other participants went even further with regards to this. for them, the diagnosis became another painful problem they had to deal with. a male participant described it initially as doubling his burden, as he already had an anxiety condition he had spent years battling, and a female participant highlighted how difficult it was to integrate and relate the diagnosis to her sense of self: that’s part of my suffering right now, the pain related to the diagnosis. i know that this is different from person to person, but to me it wasn’t a relief being given the diagnosis. i thought it was totally awful because it carries so many conceptions in me and in the society too. . . . totally awful that my children must have a mother with this diagnosis, that’s the worst part of it. but i acknowledge that there has been too much drama in my life. i do see that there are things that support the diagnosis. . . . it’s not that i’m of the opinion that the diagnosis is wrong, but it’s been extremely difficult for me to relate to. they introduced it as, i’m not sure whether they called it bipolar or if they used the term manic-depressive. it’s possible that they called it bipolar, but anyway, manicdepressive, severe mental disturbance. no, that was… to integrate that as part of self… that is – i am severely mentally disturbed? dear god, i am… and then i thought – no, that means that everything is over, i have nothing to look forward to. at the same time, this woman acknowledged that her diagnosis was important as something she could relate her experiences to, as well as to provide information on how she could navigate in her daily life to keep well. but still, identifying with the diagnosis and integrating it as part of her sense of self was a difficult and utterly distressing task. another female participant responded similarly when the interviewer posed a question about what the process of assessment and being diagnosed was like. she found acceptance particularly challenging as a family member she was displeased and sickened with had had the same diagnosis of bipolar disorder: i didn’t like it. i didn’t like it at all. and that was probably because of the knowledge i have about it through my brother. i don’t look at myself like that at all. but i do appreciate that professionals have assessed me, and in my experience no one wants this, most people deny it, and i guess i think it’s better to accept that i have this and work from that position rather than battling the diagnosis. recognition as a step toward recovery. an important part of giving meaning to the experiences of mania and depression was to find ways of relating to the multifaceted aspects of these 31 phenomena. many of the participants had experienced loneliness and alienation in the process of finding out that they were battling a bipolar disorder, and these difficult feeling states were enlarged and prolonged as they recognized that others were unable to help them understand what they were going through. with regards to this, discovering that they had a bipolar disorder could be a relief, as the participants finally experienced that they were not alone and detached anymore. one of the participants highlighted this process of identification as she described the value of a group-based intervention she attended at her local outpatient clinic: even though they didn’t have the same diagnosis as me, they had other problems and other diagnoses. and… to put a face on mental illnesses and meet other people who were like me. normal… all kinds of ages and life situations and… a lot of young ladies… to be able to talk together and be together, that was very important. yes, it was. previously i felt like i was the only one being ill, and then i arrive and meet so many others who live well organized lives, just like everybody else. that gave me courage to keep fighting. figuring out and being able to give meaning to their experiences was also comforting and reassuring to many of the participants. they contrasted their present symptoms and distress with the uncertainty and confusion that coloured their first experiences of the emotional and psychological shifts of intense ups and downs. said one participant: had i, when i first became ill, known that i was ill, i would probably not have tried to commit suicide. do you get it? i didn’t know that i was ill, i was just not worth anything. that’s what’s helped me later – that when i’m ill, i know i’m ill, that there is help out there. as such, for many of the participants, discovering their symptoms and distress created an important momentum in their recovery. one of the participants underscored this period as a turning point in her processes of healing and growth: i: thinking back on this process, when was it that you first felt you were improving or that you were in recovery? p: i think it was when i received the diagnosis. i think it was then, when i was given proper medication. i think that’s when i felt that i was able to see the light in the tunnel and start to work my way back to life. . . . i: so it was in the beginning, when you received the diagnosis and started on the medication. that was an important period. p: that was a hard period. to kind of accept that one is ill. but it was also… it sort of lit a fire at that point. now i have received a diagnosis, now i have got my medication, and now i can start. discussion what do our findings tell us about the experience of finding out that one’s problems and symptoms can be understood as a bipolar disorder? how is this exercise of giving meaning to one’s distress related to the processes of recovery? and what are the implications of our findings for practice? in this study, we have presented the process of discovering a bipolar disorder from a first person perspective. we have identified three phases as our participants move from (a) “uncertainty and confusion” through (b) “grasping the novel and unusual experiential states” to (c) “giving meaning to the lived experiences of intense ups and downs.” 32 these phases are seen as themes that describe an epistemological movement through which participants start to create a new understanding of who they are and what they can become. we interpret this progression towards recognition as both a challenge as well as a drive in the participants’ processes of recovery. from feeling lost to the ambiguity and diversity of finding out what is happening to me? why does everything seem so grey and dull? what is going on? why are my thoughts and feelings racing away? these are questions the participants asked themselves in the initial phase of “uncertainty and confusion.” a sense of being lost arouse for many as their lives and experiences were suddenly unknown and incomprehensible. in order to approach and understand this phenomenon, we may turn to heidegger’s (1962) notion of unheimlichkeit in which he describes and explores experiences of uncanniness and unhomelikeness. this concept has been seen as important to understand the phenomenology of illness (svenaeus, 2000a; 2000b) and as notable in the process leading up to an existential breakdown in exhaustion disorder (jingrot & rosberg, 2008). finlay and molano-fisher (2008) have moreover demonstrated how it also can be of significance in comprehending other phenomena, as they argue that the concept is helpful in approaching the existential anxiety that can follow the transformed lifeworld after a cochlear implant. according to heidegger (1962), we have a fundamental familiarity with our lifeworld, a homelikeness, that co-exists with uncanniness and unhomelikeness, feelings of being alienated or not at home: “this is my world, but it is also at the same time not mine, i do not fully know it or control it” (svenaeus, 2000b, p. 215). heidegger (1962) argues that this basic unheimlichkeit may lead to existential anxiety, moments in which the world looses its meaning. in his presentation and interpretation of heidegger’s philosophy, svenaeus (2000a; 2000b) makes use of this concept in understanding health and illness. illness is here seen as a rupture in the familiarity, balance, and rhythm that characterize good health. feelings of being unhomelike and out of tune will gradually emerge as illness sets in: “where there was earlier a homelike attunement, there is now the growing despair of uncanniness” (svenaeus, 2000a, p. 12). in our participants’ process of finding out they were battling a bipolar disorder, many described how they were not able to recognize themselves anymore. they highlighted frightening sensations of something happening to their bodies and unfamiliar feeling states that suddenly seemed to arise. as such, our participants described a growing anxiety and alienation – what may be described as an evolving state of unheimlichkeit. these experiences of being lost, strange or out of control were in our material further amplified as people around the participants were also unable to understand and give meaning to their experiential world. why do not my family and friends recognize me either? and what does it mean than not even my doctor or therapist seems to know what is going on? the participants’ lived experiences of not being able to understand and control what was going on in their daily lives were in some ways validated and confirmed through their initial meetings with others. many described how no one seemed to be able to help them make sense of their symptoms and distress. as such, the described phase of “grasping the novel and unusual experiential states” that emerged in the participants’ lives prolonged and enhanced their feelings of uncanniness and unhomelikeness, their experiences of not knowing and not controlling their own lives. according to lam and wong (2006), it is often observed in clinical work with persons with bipolar disorders that depression can spiral down and mania can fuel itself. as such, this kind of existential anxiety can be an important aspect in the first person 33 perspective of battling such mental health problems. a particularly crucial challenge when facing bipolar disorder may therefore be to find ways of taking charge in one’s own life. but how can individuals wrestling a bipolar disorder go about resuming control and promoting their personal recovery? how can the person regain his or her feeling of homelikeness? in the present study, we find that two different roads characterize participants’ experiences in the phase of “giving meaning to the lived experiences of intense ups and downs.” while the participants were similar in their descriptions of the first two phases, their experiences of developing ways of understanding their symptoms and distress were more varied and divergent. as such, we may say that a heterogeneity characterized their experiences of this phase. many of the participants felt comfort and relief as they eventually were able to recognize and understand that they were battling a bipolar disorder. others emphasized that they struggled to find themselves at home in the diagnosis and descriptions of a severe mental disorder. thus, knowledge and recognition seemed to be important to, as well as a challenge in, the participants commencing processes of recovery. the security of knowing what is going on in one’s life can in many ways be seen as principal to initiating one’s personal recovery. several studies have shown that accepting that one is struggling, being able to manage one’s symptoms and resuming control in one’s daily life are important to processes of improvement and growth (davidson, 2003). acceptance, management and control presupposes, however, that one is able to recognize what is happening in one’s life. for some of the participants in our study, recognition also indicated that they were not alone as they found an implicit ‘we’ in the diagnosis. to them, the phase of giving meaning to symptoms and distress may therefore have been an important answer to the loneliness, alienation, and anxiety they had experienced. at the same time as the participants weighed these favourable sides of recognition and understanding, they had clear experiences of not wanting the label that the diagnosis constituted. deegan (1993) describes similarly how she experienced that others suddenly got blind to the person she was and tended to see her only as an illness when she was diagnosed with a major mental illness. this was particularly challenging with regards to initiating her processes of recovery: once a person comes to believe that he or she is an illness, there is no one left to take a stand toward the illness. once you and the illness becomes one, then there is no one left inside of you to take on the work of recovering, of healing, of rebuilding the life that you want to live (deegan, 1993, p. 9). from this perspective, recovery is not necessarily about finding a homelike feeling in one’s symptoms and distress, but may as well be about building a new house that one can call home. following this line of thinking, davidson et al. (2007) have defined recovery as “a process of restoring a meaningful sense of belonging to one’s community and positive sense of identity apart from one’s condition while rebuilding a life despite or within the limitations imposed by that condition” (p. 25). methodological limitations and strengths in order to ensure the integrity and increase the validity in qualitative research projects, monitoring and evaluating one’s own presence in carrying out a study is of importance to the quality of the research (finlay, 2002). in many ways, this is an exercise of sidestepping in which the aim is to make one’s position and preconceptions explicit and transparent to both oneself as well as the audience. this may provide what malterud (2001b) metaphorically calls “the 34 knower’s mirror” – a frame in which researcher and readers are offered the context of the study so as to be able to evaluate and understand the whole process of carrying it through. in the present study, we have given relatively many quotations to enable the reader to see the ways in which we have reached and understood our findings. collaboration with our service user coresearchers provided us with an important tool for working with a reflexive attitude throughout the research process. the approach also holds, in our opinion, the potential of both validating our results as well as expanding our understanding of them. as the coresearchers and participants were two distinct groups of persons, we were able to keep close to the phenomena of study by maintaining the context and references that firsthand knowledge may represent, and at the same time the approach made possible the necessary distance for approaching and understanding differences in such experiences. when analyzing one’s own experiences, for example, this may be particularly challenging. one example of contributions from our coresearchers can be drawn from the meetings focusing on data analysis. in the initial interpretation and condensation of the first phase of “uncertainty and confusion,” the first author weighted anxiety as a central aspect of the participants’ experiences in the process of finding out that they were battling a bipolar disorder. in their auditing of the data, however, the coresearchers put equal weight on solitude and alienation at this point in the process. where we as researchers saw illness in our interpretations, the service user coresearchers then saw existential themes – where we emphasised anxiety, the coresearchers also made us aware of the loneliness in this phase. through this process, then, the coresearchers both endorsed our interpretation of the data and elaborated on our understanding of the phenomena (see also veseth, binder, borg, and davidson (2012) for an additional discussion on our experiences of collaboration in this research project, and moltu, stefansen, svisdahl, and veseth (2012; 2013) for a study of the coresearchers experiences of doing collaborative research). in the present study, the participants highlighted the health care system as important in their efforts to give meaning to their intense experiences – both for good and for bad. it is possible that for some persons battling a bipolar disorder, other institutions could have played an equally important role in these processes. spirituality or faith may, for example, hold potential for contributing to the development of meaning in many people’s lives. however, because most of our participants were recruited from within the health care system, we were not able to reach persons who could have described and elaborated more on these experiences. furthermore, it is also possible that the interviewer’s background as a clinical psychologist may have influenced the dialogue in direction of focusing on experiences within the health care system. if the study had been conducted by a social anthropologist or a religious leader, it may be likely that we could have found other ways of giving meaning to one’s symptoms and distress that were equally important. another possible limitation in the present study is the relatively small and homogenous group that our participants constitute. they were all adult ethnic norwegians who lived under the same cultural horizon. the participants had battled their symptoms and distress during the same period of time and had dealt with a more or less identical health care system. however, as we have aimed at being transparent in our methods, as well as in our presentation of our findings, the reader can independently evaluate if our findings and interpretations can be translated to his or her particular cultural context. 35 implications for practice a key finding in our presentation is that the experience of discovering that one’s symptoms and distress disclose a bipolar disorder is a diverse and multifaceted process. we believe that one important consequence of the present study is that it underscores the need for a multitude of treatments and ways of supporting individuals in their own personal recovery. this may be particularly pertinent in bipolar disorder as the diverse and multifaceted process traditionally has been met by a uniform approach to therapy in which medication has been described as the only real treatment option. another important finding in our study is the significance of giving meaning to the lived experiences of symptoms and distress. we are of the opinion that professional helpers should put more weight on this process when conducting treatment. our findings indicate that it may be of importance that therapists give the person battling a bipolar disorder time and space to initiate his or her own process of creating meaning. in this way, professionals can become a complementary part of the joint creation of new understandings of the person’s problems and processes of recovery, instead of being in danger of imposing their own therapeutic perspectives onto the individuals. conclusion in the present study, we have explored the lived experiences of finding out that one’s symptoms and distress are in line with what is commonly described as a bipolar disorder. we have interpreted this process as three phases through which the participants move from (a) “uncertainty and confusion” through (b) “grasping the novel and unusual experiential states” to (c) “giving meaning to the lived experiences of intense ups and downs.” we have discussed our results in relation to theory and research, considered the process of conducting the present study, explored possible strengths and limitations, and finally outlined some implications for clinical practice. acknowledgements we are indebted to the participants in the study for sharing their views and experiences. in addition, we thank our coresearchers for their valuable contributions. funding the project was financed with the aid of extra funds from the norwegian foundation for health and rehabilitation. references alvesson, m., & sköldberg, k. 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(2000). the economic burden of bipolar disease. journal of clinical psychiatry, 61, 38-41. authors marius veseth (department of clinical psychology, university of bergen, norway and moodnet research group, haukeland university hospital, bergen, norway), per-einar binder (department of clinical psychology, university of bergen, norway), marit borg (moodnet research group, haukeland university hospital, bergen, norway and department of health sciences, buskerud university college, drammen, norway) and larry davidson (program for recovery and community health, yale university, new haven, usa). corresponding author: marius veseth. email: marius.veseth@gmail.com article 1 martin (trykkeklar) 78 categories of difference in science and policy – reflections on academic practices, conceptualizations and knowledge production martin bak jørgensen abstract. categories of difference have a crucial position in academic research as well as policymaking. they serve to distinguish and differentiate between groups in society. they can appear in the shape of crude dichotomies or in complex and sophisticated forms resting on constructivist and intersectionalist perspectives. nevertheless, using categories of difference also creates something into existence and there may be implications through the particular application of specific categories. this article reflects on how categories of difference are constructed and employed in research, legislation and policy discourse. by looking at different approaches used by qualitative and quantitative researchers, as well as at how specific concepts enter policy-making and legislation, i want to address a number of questions about how we as researchers understand and work with categories of differences. the article will mainly consist of a theoretical discussion, but will use two main empirical examples of race and religion. the article aims to provide tentative answers about what the consequences of particular uses of categories and concepts could be. keywords: categories of difference; methodological challenges in qualitative and quantitative studies; enumeration; reflexive sociology; policy-making; race studies; studies of religion please cite this article as: jørgensen, m. b. (2012). categories of difference in science and policy – reflections on academic practices, conceptualizations and knowledge production. qualitative studies, 3(2): 78-96. introduction1 this article reflects on how categories of difference are constructed and employed in research, legislation and policy discourse. by looking at different approaches used by qualitative and quantitative researchers, as well as at how specific concepts enter policy-making and legislation, i want to address a number of questions on how researchers understand and work with categories of differences. my aim in this article is to put forward questions that could serve as a basis for reflection, rather than to provide definitive answers for my own questions. as researchers within the field of research on minorities broadly, and on categories of difference, we are all engaged in such analytical practices. hence, i want to provide an analysis of how different fields of academia employ categories of difference and identify the dominating discourses in the particular fields. the article will mainly consist of a theoretical discussion, but will use two main empirical examples of race and religion. the examples will contextualize the theoretical discussions. the first one will focus on the dispute of ‘race’ as a category for enumeration and as an analytical concept. the second one will look into how the category of religion is used in academia. both sections will relate to the theoretical discussion of the article. the article aims to provide tentative answers about what 1 i would like to thank the editorial team of this special issue for a very dedicated and productive editorial process. i am also grateful for the helpful and constructive comments and suggestions from the peer-reviewers. 79 the consequences of the use of categories and concepts could be. while we can easily point to both historical and contemporary pitfalls we can also point to several studies taking a highly productive and constructive perspective. this article will point to some of the methodological challenges to be met in this field and following from this discussion will point to some of the answers offered by studies which potentially could present a forward-looking perspective. the material analyzed consists of academic texts, ongoing research projects, policy documents from academic associations, calls for papers for conferences, legislative and policy documents, statistics, interviews, and academic websites for popular dissemination of research. researching categories of difference policy discourses revolve around central distinctions between deserving and undeserving groups, for instance on who has access to a country and who has not, who is entitled to rights and services, and so on (yuval-davis, 2006a). such distinctions may be based on categories of race, ethnicity, gender or social divisions. what is common for these is that they are categories of difference which serve to position the particular individual or group in a social and economic location. similarly, what is common for most of the different academic approaches despite disciplinary demarcations and intentions of wanting to analyze discrimination, marginalization or inequalities, for instance is that in order to study immigrants and ethnic minority communities, the focus necessarily ends up being on differences. in order to enter this research field, studies inevitably reproduce various distinctions between ‘us’ and ‘them’. academic approaches ‘write differences’, so to speak, into the texts they produce (nayak, 2006; rosenblum and travis, 2008). research may itself construct categories of difference, for instance by racializing research (ali, 2006). from a normative position, research should arguably have as one of its aims to be responsible for knowledge production, which is made available and relevant for policy-makers. this, in theory, would help to inform and improve policy-making. however, political and academic discourses overlap to some degree, and many academic studies reproduce the very categories of difference that they may be seeking to challenge within policy. we might, therefore ask questions such as: does government funding for research have an effect on academic conceptualizations and terminology relating to difference (see jørgensen, forthcoming)? is this a problem, and if so, how do we then write about difference at all? conversely, we can also find research which seeks to deliberately spur social change and deconstruct popular myths. categorization is not only an ‘evil’. it is also a means of identifying problems and social issues and put them back on the agenda. moreover from a theoretical scientific perspective one can claim that all (social) research builds on categories and there is no way to escape the use of such. the task is, therefore, to make sure that reflexivity – following bourdieu’s objective of reflexive sociology – is integrated into theory, design and analysis. categories that matter? 1. those that belong to the emperor, 2. embalmed ones, 3. those that are trained, 4. suckling pigs, 5. mermaids, 6. fabulous ones, 7. stray dogs, 8. those included in the present classification, 9. those that tremble as if they were mad, 80 10. innumerable ones, 11. those drawn with a very fine camelhair brush, 12. others, 13. those that have just broken a flower vase, 14. those that from a long way off look like flies (borges, [1942]). this list is taken from a 1942 work by borges. borges claims that this list appears in an ancient chinese encyclopedia entitled celestial emporium of benevolent knowledge, where it was discovered by a translator and later found by borges himself. the taxonomy will seem absurd and in no way comprehensive for any system of classification for most people. borges’ point was precisely to illustrate the arbitrariness and irrationality of cultural systems of categorization and classification. however, this taxonomy also triggers reflection. are these categories really less applicable than the classification systems that we meet, for instance, in policy-making or in the social sciences? we see repeatedly how specific categories are used to divide, distinguish and enumerate different individuals and groups, and some of these create, if not unintelligible, then arbitrary positions. one striking example taken from danish legislation was the adoption of the so-called ‘tunisian law’ (tuneserloven) from 2008.2 this particular law was adopted to restrict the movements of a 36-yearold tunisian man living denmark at the sandholmlejren detention centre close to copenhagen as he was perceived to be a threat to the illustrator of one of the muhammad cartoon pictures, kurt westergaard.3 as westergaard felt threatened and a political majority felt it necessary and just to make sure that this category of persons did not move around, a new law proposal was made and later adopted.4 the category of ‘the tunisian’ in danish society was thus legally brought into existence, to ensure that one person behaved in a specific way. to sum up, society makes use of classifications that may be more or less incomprehensible to most of us. categories are social constructs which define who and what is included and excluded. they can serve as means for securing privileges and dominance of the powerful over the less powerful. at the same time they can reveal inequalities and social problems and produce empirical knowledge on social divisions and help to deconstruct established hierarchies by de-naturalizing what we take for granted. yuvaldavis writes about categories, such as gender, race, class, and nationality, and argues that ‘these are not just different categories of social location, but categories that also have a certain positionality along an axis of power, higher or lower than other such categories’ (yuval-davis, 2006a: 199). 2 the law is an amendment of the aliens act, which restricts the movement of people on so-called tolerated stay (tålt ophold), by imposing daily reporting duties. by breaching this declaration a person can be sentenced to up to one year imprisonment. people positioned in this category are not wanted in the country, but cannot leave either because of threats to their security in the country of origin. 3 in 2005 the daily newspaper jyllands-posten asked a number of cartoonists to draw the prophet muhammad. jyllands-posten declared that this publication was an attempt to contribute to the debate regarding self-censorship and criticism of islam. the cartoons led to a controversy and global protest. 4 the tunisian man was allegedly seen close to the home of westergaard, who had previously been attacked in his home. as westergaard lived in different region of the country from where the detention centre was located, legislators could find no reason why the tunisian man should be at that place (near westergaard’s home) at that time, which legitimated the legal action. 81 categories of difference hence establish specific positions which are defined by specific attributes. foucault has described these as subject positions (foucault, 1969): subjects are offered a position by the people, systems (and discourses) they interact with. some positions are recognized and accepted and others are resisted or redefined (davies and harré, 1990; jensen, this issue). an individual does not only belong to one identity category, however. people are simultaneously embedded in different categories. as yuval-davis argues, it is important to acknowledge that “while all social divisions share some features and are constructed by/intermeshed with each other”, they are not reducible to each other (yuval-davis, 2006b: 200; see also walby, 2007; also jensen, this issue). not all categories of identification may be important at the same time. selfidentifying as religious when crossing the doorstep of the church may carry more importance than one´s class position at that particular time and place. institutionally embedded categories of ethnicity and citizenship status will be difficult to transgress, whereas other categories will be possible to resist. furthermore, the question of which categories matter becomes crucial when turning the perspective to the research practices. when students and scholars single out a specific category as important and employ that category for understanding and analyzing social relations and identities then they – and all of us engaged in this field – also write specific differences into the story. the construction of collective groups from such categorizations and identity markers may be both crude and misguiding. labeling, categorizing or, in short, discursive practices also have social and material consequences, however, as they relate to practice. categories and positioning in this sense are connected to practice. categories are not only formal classifications that can be ascribed (socially and politically through discourse, or legally, as in the tunisian law discussed above), but they are something that people do or practice. this relation between discursive and social practice has long been a focus for the social constructivist approaches within social science and humanities (e.g. berger and luckmann’s seminal book from 1966). the social constructivist5 position is prominent among the researchers of ethnic and racial relations (see contributions in ferrante and brown, 1998). many articles will begin with a disclaimer, saying that such categories have no objective existence e.g.: “[t]here is no such thing as race" writes nayak, for example (nayak, 2006: 411; italics in original). constructivist approaches hence regard differences as socially constructed and arbitrary. they look into the classification system itself and ask how it was made and by whom. who are the categorizers? writing and talking about differences also creates difference. that categories of difference do not have an objective basis (for the constructivist position) does not imply that this recognition has lessened the impact of for instance “racialization as mode for the social organization and regulations of human society through capital and labour” as nayak writes after his initial positioning (ibid: 411-412; also kennedy-macfoy and pristed nielsen, this issue). the essentialist perspective, in contrast, regards categories of difference as ‘essential’ in fundamental ways, for example, on the basis of race, gender, or sexuality. here, differences have an objective material basis. this perspective takes into consideration what causes people to be different, rather than how such differences are constructed (see jenkins, 1996 for a discussion). this would be a conventional point of departure for statisticians. differences are viewed as natural, and what can be analyzed is how categories of difference become a basis for repression and segregation. within policy-making, 5 i do not distinguish between constructivism and constructionism here. 82 categories are viewed as an essential element, which determine how entitlements or redistributions are organised. categories are the basis for understanding laswell’s famous dictum when he describes politics as “who gets what, when and how” (laswell, 1936). we meet categories in political life and policy-making where they construct “hierarchies of civic stratification” to use morris’ terms (morris, 2002). policies are designed to have an impact – positive or negative – on specific groups. sometimes the target group may be the population as a whole, but at other times, the target group may be narrowly defined, as the case with the tunisian man illustrates. researchers also work with categories of difference. it is difficult to imagine a scenario where researchers did not work with categories of difference, however, this is particularly so within the research fields of minorities, international migration and ethnic relations, including studies on religion. here, the point of departure will often be on differences between one group (national, ethnic, or ethno-cultural, for instance) and another. some of these differences may hold derogative connotations and/or sediment differences between ‘us’ and ‘them’ and others may help to identify inequalities and systems of exclusion or deconstruct popular myth about particular target groups. is it really possible to get beyond the use of such concepts? the answer would be no, but neither would it necessarily be beneficial. categorization is a crucial element of social sciences. categorization can have both repressive and empowering effects but it is first and foremost a methodological and theoretical challenge rather than a matter of trying to get beyond categories. the solution is not to do away with categories but showing awareness of the epistemological assumptions implied in analysis. if, for instance, we view racial or ethnic differences from a perspective of cultural politics of differences, as hier and walby do, race and ethnicity will be analysed as real and determinant of the power dynamics of the dominant society (hier and walby, 2006:84). however, a perspective linked to a social politics of redistribution grants explanatory importance to differential access to resources on a collective level: race and ethnicity are analysed as subordinated to other categories. for hier and walby the aim is to carve out an approach that is “capable of negotiating the intricacies of multiple processes of individual and group formation and social incorporation in a way that refrains from essentializing ethnicity/race or from reducing race/ethnicity to another level of effectivity” (ibid: 102; for a similar argument see fraser, 2003). this section has outlined how categorization can be understood within different paradigms – the social constructivist and essentialist – and how it is linked to practice. deconstructing the ontological basis of categorization does not solve the problem of categorizing, however. in the following sections, i will look more closely at the use of categories and knowledge production within scientific fields and the links to policy-making and knowledge production, and discuss different rationales identified for working with categories of difference. for the sake of…? statistics – ‘science without scientists’ bourdieu used the notion of ‘science without scientists’ specifically about statistical research approaches (bourdieu, 1990). his basic claim was that this type of research has stopped being reflexive due to exaggerating the ‘systematicity’ of the studied phenomena. according to bourdieu they – the researchers have stopped reflecting on how researchers themselves import biases into the studies. this is not a repetition of the somewhat trivial critique of quantitative studies coming from qualitative studies. bourdieu´s argument was not that quantitative studies are positivistic and therefore ‘bad’. rather, he suggests that all researchers should engage in a reflection on the biases and prejudices they carry with them, and consider how to challenge these. disregarding the last 83 disclaimer we obviously can discuss if bourdieu was correct in his diagnosis. the risk here is to draw up a caricature or a ‘straw man’ which is easy to refute but which might not bring the discussion forward and even worse – risk overlooking what statistics can do. as best has argued we need statistics—good statistics—to be able to talk sensibly about social problems (best, 2004). the solution, then, is not to give up on statistics, but to meet the statistics which we encounter and produce reflexively and critically. statistics can be defined as conventions representing legitimate (and normative) divisions of the social world. they are used for designing policies, for representing societies and for building ‘objectivation’ of social processes (cf. bourdieu; rallu, piché and simon, 2006). working with statistics demands that we ask extremely fundamental questions such as: should we count, why should we count, and how should we count? (callister et al., 2009) within the field of migration and ethnic relations, the answer to these questions differs immensely. in denmark, the political perception of the increasing complexity of the ‘immigration issue’ also creates the need for more subtle definitions in order to direct policy or legislation towards specific groups. thus, in 1991, (inspired by norway), statistics denmark introduced a distinction between ‘immigrants’ and ‘descendants of immigrants’. the reasoning was that it was necessary to have more refined categories in order to ascertain how many people with a foreign background are incorporated in danish society (jørgensen, 2009). in contrast, ‘descendants of immigrants’ are included in the official statistics of the statistiska centralbyrån in sweden. it can be argued that the distinction between ‘immigrants’ and ‘descendants of immigrants’ essentializes the ‘otherness’ of immigrants, as well as of their descendants. as people born in denmark, the latter groups are kept in a status of being ‘not quite danes’. statistics denmark also distinguishes between immigrants from western and non-western countries. this can be considered a very crude dichotomy. despite having different nationalities, we could expect immigrants from for instance japan, russia and ghana to differentiate on many other socio-economic characteristics all ignored in the dichotomy of western and non-western countries. in germany, until recently, there was a strong reluctance to count ethnic minorities due to the historical trajectory and experiences with nazism. statistics contained no information on descendants, but the reconfiguration of the mikrozensus has made it possible, since 2005, to also trace the descendants of immigrants, and consequently made longitudinal analyses possible. this possibility has been perceived very positively compared to the situation in denmark, where the category has been criticized for marking people with an ethnic background other than danish as deviant. in the german context, it has revealed marginalized people who are not part of the statistics.6 a last example from southern europe is portugal, which does no counting whatsoever, with the result that there are no policies for protection against discrimination, as there is no data on the scope of discrimination. the approach is that not counting makes the problem disappear. that was also the case in brazil, to take an example outside europe, where the category of race was abandoned, with the result that racism is no longer recognized, despite obvious divisions between racialised groups within brazilian society.7 subsequently, it would be too 6 interview with ulrich raiser, der beauftragte des berliner senats für integration und migration, berlin, december 2006. 7 as also discussed in a recent article ‘affirming a divide’ in the economist january 2012. http://www.economist.com/node/21543494 84 simplistic to conclude that statistics are either good or bad because they can have (intentional and unintentional) positive or negative effects. the proliferation of data – is it better? the demand for data has increased as migration and integration policies have become institutionalized throughout europe (in particular). policy-makers and governmental bodies at the european level have asked for comparative quantitative data for monitoring and evaluation of the effects of policies. the adoption of the ‘regulation on community statistics on migration and international protection’8 by the eu member states was a leap forward in harmonizing data collection of immigration and asylum statistics. today, there are several datasets available at the national and european levels. the compstat and prominstat projects have mapped these datasets, and assessed their comparability. however, the request for harmonized data is not without dangers. when breaking down the possible classification of population groups according to characteristics that refer to migration or foreign background, kraler and reichel in the final report issued by the prominstat project found that this provided no less than 18 distinct categories (prominstat, 2010: 37). this will make it possible not to ‘lump’ people together in a few crude aggregated groups, but it also provides an overload of categories for the researcher to work with. generally, the data increasingly include additional information on migration-related information beyond citizenship and country of birth. data allowing for more detailed breakdowns are becoming available. this is a consequence of the eu regulation and work by statistical agencies like eurostat to standardize national systems for data collection. similar exercises have been undertaken in relation to statistics on discrimination at the eu level and in relation to gender issues. data on gender is also becoming desegregated according to various social, legal and identity categories for women (see yuval-davis, 2006b). however, introducing more categories also brings out more complexities. adding, for instance, membership to a religion or a religious community may be very ambiguous. many people would associate with more than one religion, at the same time (for example in japan). expressing data on religious affiliation could be dangerous for some people, where specific religious traditions are suppressed by the state, for example christians and the falun gong movement in china. the same could happen with regards to ethnicity. anderson’s historical analysis has shown the often devastating effects that the introduction of mutually exclusive census categories has had on colonial societies in which peaceful coexistence depended on categorical fluidity (cited in yuval-davis, 2006b: 205; see also anderson, 1991). opening up the pandora’s box of more categories may have further implications. groups and persons not necessarily interested in being recognized or identified as part of a social group may be compelled to do so. the consequences of counting? we still need to reflect on how categories are constructed and what the implications of the individual categories are. when the category of non-western immigrants is applied by policymakers and researchers alike, what are the consequences? or what is the implication of the category of ‘bilingual students’ (aidt and hervik, 2009)? rallu, piché and simon (2006) point to four different uses of counting and not-counting. firstly: counting for dominance and exclusion this mode of enumeration was used in particular countries (such as britain, netherlands, portugal, inter 8 regulation (ec) no 862/2007. 85 alia) with a colonial past and the apartheid system in south africa. the second type is deliberately not counting in order to promote national integration and assimilation (as in france) so that newcomers become like the majority population and not stand out statistics; counting would emphasize differences instead of commonalities, and unification requires invisibility. thirdly, counting in the name of multiculturalism and national hybridity differences should be visible. lastly, counting should be done for the purposes of anti-discrimination, serving a policy monitoring function. it is important to be explicit about why counting is necessary. it can be a tool for identifying and combating discrimination and racism, but conversely it could be used, and has been used, to divide the nation, to stigmatize and it can lead to prejudice and discrimination (callister et al., 2009). another problem pertaining to the use of statistics is the mismatch between different disciplinary understandings of the categories such as ethnic, national, or cultural, and people’s self-chosen identities. overemphasizing one category of difference (and identification marker), e.g. studying ‘muslims’, is only one side of the coin, however; we also find situations where claims for a specific identity are rejected as st louis has shown in his research (2005). hence, the challenge lies not only in reflexivity and sensitivity when applying categories of difference analytically, but also in understanding the dynamics of contention found in identity politics. in various disciplines working on the field of migration and ethnic relations (anthropology, ethnography, sociology, political science, human geography, and cultural studies), the social constructivist paradigm has become dominant in explaining and understanding various forms of categorization. at the same time, processes of globalization and transnationalism have created new types of belonging and selfidentification based on hybridity and mobility, and new types may constantly be emerging. we accept these new categories in our research. we study them and make analyses of transnational and cosmopolitan identities, but when we turn to statistics, problems arise. can statistical categories at all capture multi-dimensional identities, and should they? they do present a methodological challenge pertaining to distinctions between subjective identifications and objective categorizations. mobility brings forth a problem of reliability as the same person risk turning out up several places or only stay within a specific territory for a limited time; self-identifying with multiple identities does the same (simon, 2011). there are many difficulties, but the solution is not to turn to methodological nationalism (wimmer and glick-schiller, 2002) and once again focus on the nationstate as the only ‘container’ organizing the social world and social divisions. i would suggest that there are still more benefits to counting than not, drawing on the arguments above, but the research communities need to develop and refine the categories used for the particular types of counting. in the next two sections i will contextualize the previous theoretical discussion in two different cases as also described in the introduction. the first section will focus on the dispute about race and look into how race has been applied as a category for enumeration and as an analytical concept within academia. the subsequent section discusses how the category of religion (and especially islam) has reignited the problems embedded in the concept of race – or at least call for similar types of reflections and analytical sensitivity. the dispute about race the question of race has been central in the consideration of the office of management and budget (omb) in the us when seeking to improve the collection of data in the second part of the 20th century. in the end, omb issued the statistical directive no. 15 ’race and ethnic standards for 86 federal statistics and administrative reporting’, which defined four racial categories and one ethnic category: american indian or alaskan native, asian or pacific islander, negro or black, white, and hispanic (us census bureau, 1977; see also rosenblum and travis, 2008: section 1). diversity has increased in us society since the 1970s, and in the 2000 census a person could list him/herself as being member of more than one racial group. still, there were obvious problems: people from middle eastern countries still had to register in the racial category ‘white’, as there was no ethnic category for arabs or middle eastern people. the directive from 1977 was changed in 1997 after a long series of hearings, which also included critique from research communities but discussions have continued.9 the contentions over the category of race reveal different positions between different fields of science. the american anthropological association’s (aaa) response to the omb directive 15 was: “[the aaa] recommends the elimination of ‘race’ from omb directive 15 during the planning for the 2010 census. during the past 50 years, ‘race’ has been scientifically proven to not be a real natural phenomenon. […] social categories such as ‘ethnicity’ or ‘ethnic group’ are more salient for scientific purposes” (american anthropological association, 1977). in 1998 the aaa issued a new statement, which describes the current policy: “racial beliefs constitute myths about the diversity in the human species and about the abilities and behavior of people homogenized into ‘racial’ categories” (american anthropological association, 1998). the association takes over the antifoundational constructivist position on race, and is in line with scholars like yuval-davis, and, furthermore, recaptures thomas’ theorem with the statement that: “how people have been accepted and treated within the context of a given society or culture has a direct impact on how they perform in that society” (ibid.). rightly so, but does avoiding using race as a social category, as an analytical concept or as a category for collecting data change that phenomenon? the american sociological association (asa) holds the opposite opinion. data on race should be collected. in a statement on colleting data and doing social scientific research on race from 2002, it is stated that: “the failure to gather data on this socially significant category would preserve the status quo, and hamper progress toward understanding and addressing inequalities in primary social institutions” (american sociological association, 2003). the asa refutes the argument that racial categories embedded with a negative history should not be studied, and argues that race as a social phenomenon “shapes social ranking, access to resources, and life experiences” and, therefore, should be studied, and data based on categories of race should be collected (ibid.). this is in line with the fourth reason for counting outlined by rallu, piché and simon above (counting done for the purposes of anti-discrimination). academic discussions on race have been less heated and less dominant in europe; race as a category has not gained the same academic prominence as in the us. race has a particular position in us history and contemporary society that is not similar to the history of the european countries, which do have widely varying historical colonial legacies (for a discussion of colonial histories in the nordic region, see gilroy, 1992; keskinnen et al, 2009; said, 1978; 1993). race has been very visible in political claims-making and identity politics in the us, whereas ethnicity has played a larger role in european countries, where these contestations have also emerged later than in the us (lentin, 2008). speaking from a european (or indeed norwegian) 9 see http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/fedreg_notice_15 and http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/fedreg_directive_15 for a summary of the criticism. 87 perspective marianne gullestad argues that anthropologists primarily have referred to ethnicity rather than race but that in doing so race unobtrusively slips in through the backdoor – and the same can be said for social class and gender (2002; here referred to by eide, 2010). the uk is a european exception, however, where race still ‘matters’ politically and as a research field (squires, 2007: 161). the irr – institute for race relations – has been in existence for many years, and is responsible for the ranked journal ‘race & class’. the highly ranked journal ‘ethnic and racial studies’ is also published in the uk. even in the uk, however, research on race is rare. this brief overview of the debate on race shows that there might be reasons for using race as a category for collecting data and explaining social relations. rosenblum and travis write that we should be careful not to assume that what is counted is real: “while census data contribute to the essentialist view that the world is populated by distinct, scientifically defined categories of people […] not even those who collect the data make that assumption” (rosenblum and travis, 2008: 11-12). the omb for instance puts this very clearly: “the racial and ethnic categories set forth in the standards should not be interpreted as being primarily biological or genetic in reference. race and ethnicity may be thought of in terms of social and cultural characteristics as well as ancestry” (omb, 1997: 2). still, one need not read many lines by scholars like huntington or lewis to learn that the world is divided between different cultures with distinct cultural and religious characteristics. this line of thought can be traced back to german romanticism, (for example in herder’s work), and is not a new invention. yet it is being reproduced, and researchers contribute with essentialist analyses of difference alongside the constructivist outputs also described. can we get beyond either perspective? or is this depiction offered here based on too crude positions coming closer to stereotypes than ideal-types? should we stop writing about race? gilroy has long called for the reformulation of race and offered a new political language for getting beyond race and racism (for instance gilroy, 1992; 2000). in a similar manner nayak advocates critical dialogues between the different positions, and offers a post-race framework (nayak, 2006). lieberman argued, from the perspective of physical anthropology and human genetics, that a no-race theory is accepted (1968). different perspectives dismiss race, but the question is, if this is indeed the way forward. if race is felt by persons identified by this category, voluntarily or involuntarily, should we then not study it? and as critical whiteness studies show the question may be equally pertinent for persons who do not ‘feel’ race (kennedy-macfoy and pristed nielsen this issue; see also nayak, 2007). can we only do so by using numerous apostrophes ‘….’ around all our central analytical concepts? researchers working on ethnicity will experience similar problems. categories of social division in general carry the danger of being ‘naturalized’, of being taken for granted. yuval-davis argues that: “what is common to all these discourses of naturalization is they tend to homogenize social categories and to treat all who belong to a particular social category as sharing equally the particular natural attributes (positive or negative) specific to it” (yuval-davis, 2006b: 199). in the next section, i will argue that the category of religion in many ways, and particularly so in europe, has replaced the previous focus on race, and likewise, is intermeshed with categories of ethnicity, and provides an example of how religiosity becomes naturalized in the study of immigrant groups. from race to religion– same same or different? 88 islam has once again entered the political agenda, spurred by events like the 9/11 terrorist attack in the us, the london bombings of 2005, the 2004 murder of theo van gogh in the netherlands, the ‘arab spring’; by political issues such as different national discussions on integration, riots in the french banlieues in 2005, transnational marriages, but also recently in nomenclature like ‘euromuslims’. race seems to have fallen out of the headlines. the riots that took place in august 2011 in london did highlight the category of race as a possible explanation, but most commentators dismissed racial and ethnic explanations (see for instance guardian, 2011; see the discussion by murji and neal, 2011). however, racialization is, nevertheless, dominant in the (crude) modes of explanation as illustrated by british historian starkly’s explanation for the 2011 summer riots in england (see bbc, 2011). neither is race prominent in calls for papers, workshops, conferences, special issues in european contexts. researchers have argued that islamophobia has replaced racism (although these categories very likely intersect with each other). perhaps illustrating the focus on religion, the center for race and gender at berkeley, university of california has recently initiated ‘the islamophobia research and documentation project’ (irdp) and launched the new islamophobia studies journal. are the times really a-changin’? it is undoubtedly true that focus on religion, especially islam, has increased both among scholars and policy-makers. what is the explanation for this focus? part of the explanation is likely to be the same story as with race: categories are ‘naturalized’. within the field of migration studies, ethnicity was coupled to culture, and cultures easily end up being described as static (see the critique raised in baumann, 1999; and jørgensen, 2009). gullestad describes this tendency as culturalization, implying that culture becomes a language which is applied to interpret social differentiation and inequality, but thus risks contributing to the concealment of the underlying structural contradictions and hierarchies (2002: 57-58; cf. the discussion by hier and walby mentioned previously). she further claims that most people, including researchers, make use of both essentialist and constructivist notions of culture but in studies on migration the first type of explanations tend to be most common (ibid.). in a now much quoted article stolcke makes a similar argument (1995). my aim here is not to point a finger, but to draw attention to how research contributes to specific understandings of social categories. religion has somehow now entered this equation. people coming from countries with predominantly muslim populations are understood first and foremost as muslims. bringing that identity into receiving non-muslim societies with other values, (for example, being secular and ‘modern’ see mørck, 1998) can create problems and lead to crises of national identity. this is probably not an uncommon phenomenon, but it is probably not a general fact either. my point here is that religion may now have become that concept in relation to which other social indicators or identity markers have an epiphenomenal status. consequently, my argument is that this category should also be met with great sensitivity and reflexivity. focusing too much on religion may take attention away from for instance the legal and economic situation of immigrants. overemphasizing religion? the diaspora mailing list, which is “a discussion and information channel for scholars interested in immigration and religion”10 had an interesting example of this logic. in march 2011 a danish scholar posted a call for proposals for papers and discussants for a conference in copenhagen under the title: ‘making european muslims: islam and the struggle over beliefs, perceptions and 10 http://www.diaspora.fi/mailing-list.html 89 identities among children and young people in western europe’. the call, which was not different from many other calls for papers on similar topics, nevertheless triggered strong reactions. one scholar wrote that “we” (researchers) should be far more reflective and be aware of “implicit extrastigmatization” by taking over dominant discourses of populist sentiments and bringing it into research. other scholars argued that we should not avoid collecting data on muslim communities, but be careful not to put the dominating discourse into our questions – resembling a form of neoorientalism. a consequence of this would also be a poorer knowledge production, as by focusing on some particular issues, we remain ignorant of many other important aspects of muslim life. one scholar stated quite blatantly that: “i am so fed up with conferences on integrating muslims in western society, it is feeding an agenda that presupposes there is a problem”.11 were the respondents overreacting here, or are they actually making an argument that deserves attention? i would think the latter. when researching immigrants, both in relation to participation in different spheres of society (labour market, education, and politics) and everyday life, today the religious dimension is given more attention than previously. a possible consequence is that research produces knowledge, which indicates that immigrants are far more religious than they actually are, and immigrants are identified and positioned according to religion only (see schmidt, discussed later in this article). the categorizers in this specific case come from the research communities themselves. this is perhaps more a hypothesis requiring further research than an empirical claim; we do of course find several studies also presenting a balanced view on religion. it should also be admitted that public attention on religion may not have the same character as the attention paid by research. nevertheless, a focus on religion will inevitably lead to more research being conducted focusing on religion thereby confirming that religion plays a larger role in the life of immigrants than in the life of natives. this issue will be discussed further in the next section. methodological flaws – sampling on the dependent? when the literature on migrant transnationalism started to emerge in the late 1990s and early 2000s (see levitt and khagram, 2007 for an overview), and several studies showing evidence of transnational ties, identities and formations were published (some going as far as to claim that we are all transmigrants now (castles, 2002), portes published an interesting response to the development of the transnational literature in the journal global networks (portes, 2001). he argued that many of the studies found transnational ties because they were explicitly looking for them. if a researcher goes, for instance, to an immigrant organization with social, political and economic ties to the homeland he/she is bound to find evidence of transnationalism, but to draw the conclusion that all migrants have the same types of ties and affiliations would be flawed. portes warned against “sampling on the dependent”, i.e. looking only for the data (transnational affiliations) which confirm the theory and disregard the data which does not. such a biased sampling may led to flawed research results. some researchers of religion have begun to acknowledge this as a potential risk. in an article published on videnskab.dk, a site where research is disseminated more broadly beyond academia, schmidt12 put forward exactly this reading of the literature. one thing is 11 all these examples are taken from the debate (that is ‘reply all’ answers to the initial mail). the list does not contain any archive; hence the conversation is not saved anywhere. 12 garbi schmidt is a danish professor with an academic background in science of religion. 90 that the political and media discourse has stigmatized muslims, but schmidt claims that research in this field also carries some responsibility (ebdrup, 2011). she says that due to an increased interest in religion, this dimension has been overemphasized in studies on immigrants. when researchers need to find muslims, they often go to the muslim organizations and muslim spokespersons. such organizations of course will address the religious issues, but on the other hand, we lose out on the non-religious aspects of immigrants’ lives. migrants may identify themselves as muslims in a ‘cultural’ sense but in general understand religion as having a minor role in their life. the risk is that we limit ourselves to talking to the same persons again and again, and ignore the wider communities. likewise, there has perhaps been much more focus on headscarves, rituals and mosques than on everyday life, than, as schmidt says, on ’non-organized’ muslims’ (ibid.). this type of research has also triggered a reaction from the research subjects , the ‘muslims’, some of whom have reacted to being labeled solely as religious beings, (as ‘muslims’). akdogan, a socialdemocratic politician with a turkish background wrote in a feature in the newspaper information that: “when we arrived in the 1970s, we were guest-workers. today we are just muslims. it was far better to be a guest and worker than to be reduced to one’s religious standpoint” (akdogan, 2011). the sentence captures this dilemma well. we do need research producing knowledge on religious life and practices among muslims and likewise for members of other religious traditions. at the same time however, we need to reflect on how we address these issues, as the debate on the diaspora list also shows, and should be sensitive to the fact that we are dealing with a group being highly politicized. studying muslims under one heading, e.g. ‘muslims in the uk’, might have consequences. are those who are left out really all equally religious, and what does such a study tell us? caldwell’s essentialist description of muslims in europe (caldwell, 2009) is illustrative of this type of study, but there numerous examples. the above discussion on over-emphasizing religion should be seen as a starting point for future studies as we still need more evidence to be able to draw stronger conclusions. here i use the warnings offered by portes as an analogy to a tendency i see emerging. in search of a conclusion researching categories of difference is extremely complex and contains many pitfalls. as i have argued throughout this article, researchers are in a difficult situation when we want to study, analyze and disseminate knowledge about minorities and categories of difference in general. as the ethnographers have put it, we ‘write differences’ into being when we undertake our studies. whether we work with the categories of race, ethnicity, gender, religion or class, we need to be reflexive about how we use these categories, and what the implications could be. i have tried to illustrate some of these consequences with examples from studies on race and islam. if the subjects of research feel alienated and stigmatized by such studies, we cannot simply put our concepts into even more apostrophes and think that this will underline that we really do consider all categories to be socially constructed. this is especially pertinent if our writings sometimes also reify the categories and link them to social practices with real-life implications for the people we study. it is difficult to dispense with these categories, and it is not rare to experience unintentional uses. what would be the way forward or at least the way to deal with these ontological, theoretical, methodological, empirical and analytical challenges? i cannot provide definitive answers, i will, however, conclude by briefly bringing attention to a number of strategies derived from studies which i believe deal with at least some of these challenges and which also could be taken up in qualitative research studies. 91 comparative approaches often some groups are stigmatized in specific ways locating the ‘problem’ in the group itself, for example as based in a particular culture, religion or ethnicity. in the nordic countries, for instance, it is often repeated that somalis do worse (in the labour market, inter alia) than other groups. however, studies like the one published by benny carlson on somalis in sweden and in minneapolis in the us show, through a comparative approach, that if, indeed, the same group performs with marked differences in two different settings, then we should seek explanations in the structural frameworks rather than in the categories of religion or ethnicity (carlson, 2006). normalizing – everyday life – instead of conducting research which explicitly forefronts the differences between groups, we could situate the differences within regular everyday life. the debate on islam points toward this approach. instead of approaching religious spokespersons, we could talk to people engaged in everyday life situations (rather than approaching them at the mosque) or even to non-practitioners. recent studies by jeldtoft and nielsen, and holm pedersen and rytter’s edited volumes illustrate two such examples (jeldtoft and nielsen, 2011; holm pedersen and rytter, 2011). both volumes acknowledge the diversity of muslims, have a nonessentialist stance, put emphasis on the many different aspects of life as a muslim and have special focus on everyday life. giving the subjects a voice – let the people we study into the research (also faber, this issue). letting subjects have a larger role will at times disturb what we take for granted. an example is the ‘at home in europe project’. the project is funded and hosted by the open society foundation and “focuses on monitoring and advocacy activities that examine the position of minorities in a changing europe” (at home in europe project, 2011). the strength of this project is that it engages with researchers, policymakers and communities, and explores issues involving the political, social, and economic participation of muslims and other marginalized groups at the local, national, and european levels. the project is currently examining the level and nature of integration of muslims in 11 cities across europe. the copenhagen case study showed that the group who identified as muslims did not place as much importance on religion and what it means to be a muslim as the media and sometimes research do (open society foundations, 2011). “it’s not the economy stupid” – as the work of yuval-davis and other researchers (e.g. crenshaw, 1991; mccall, 2005; yuval-davis, 2006a; 2006b) working on intersectionality has shown, different categories are not reducible to each other, and nor is there one underlying grand explanation for inequality. so, for example, the marxist understanding that everything can be reduced to the economic system may not be the most productive for analyzing categories of differences. rather, we should try to integrate the intersectional perspective when working with categories of difference. this, indeed, is something (some) statisticians have been doing for a longer time, but qualitative studies have been working in a far more segregated manner on single categories. hier and walby (2006) and gullestad (2002) mentioned previously likewise connect to this approach. transnational perspectives – we should be careful not to fall into the trap of explaining categories with strict reference to the nation-state, such as processes of integration, and thereby reproduce methodological nationalism. focusing on processes which transgress and transform contemporary societies, for example, transnationalizing civil societies as faist has phrased it (faist, 2000), will also 92 make it possible to show how categories are dynamic and flexible. on a micro-level there is neither anything won by describing immigrants as torn between homeland nostalgia and complete assimilation but it is exactly the negotiations and the in-between and hybrid identifications which offer an analytical terrain. expanding the scope of the research – instead of singling out a specific minority group or social division, we can think more broadly and design studies which investigate the relations and interactions between different groups (minority and majority) in specific settings. for example, not investigating muslims in a single city, but all religious denominations and traditions in that particular city; focusing on diversity and not on the difference of a single group. martikainen’s study on immigration and religious diversity in the city of turku, finland is an example of this approach (martikainen, 2009). thinking beyond racism in race theory – pitcher’s work on race theory shows that race theory has been structured by an ontology inevitably motivating critiques of racism and thereby installing a dichotomy between racism and non-racism which might be too reductive to capture the complexities of the category of race. race has wider meanings than racism, e.g. in relation to consumption. anti-racism is extremely important, and if it looks like racism it probably is racism, but avoiding the category of race does not make it disappear and race continues to signify and to be a part of our social repertoire of meaning-making, therefore we should reflect on how to use race not solely in relation to racism.13 in sum, the 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(2006b). intersectionality and feminist politics. european journal of women’s studies, 13 (3), 193-209. author martin bak jørgensen is an assistant professor at the department of culture and global studies at the university of aalborg, denmark. email: martinjo@cgs.aau.dk johanna kiili_7 5 (trykkeklar) 56 “it’s almost like official” children’s participation as a relational and spatial question johanna kiili abstract. in recent years, more attention has been paid to the opportunities that children and young people have for participation in their communities. the present article explores children’s public participation in the finnish town of tampere. tampere was the first town in finland that had a municipal children’s parliament. the organisation of the parliament is based on electoral and representative democratic principles. the key event in the organisation and action of the parliament is the general meeting (suurkokous), an event organised twice every year in a council hall. inspired by pierre bourdieu’s field theory, the paper concentrates on analysing the spatial and intergenerational arrangements of the general meetings. the results of the study support the emerging body of research indicating that representative models provide possibilities primarily for those children who are already in an advantaged position and have many cultural and social resources. key words: children’s participation, space, intergenerational relations, resources, field theory please cite this article as: kiili, j. (2013). “it’s almost like official” – children’s participation as a relational and spatial question. qualitative studies, 4(1): 56-71. introduction in recent years, children’s rights and opportunities for participation in civil society have been widely discussed. children’s participation is doubtless firmly on the national agenda in many western countries, including finland. this article explores children’s participation in the finnish town of tampere. it was the first town in finland that had a municipal children’s parliament – the tampere children’s parliament (tcp), founded in 2001. the parliament aims at operating as an intermediate domain and as a democratic dialogue space among and between children and local authorities. the key event in the organisation and action of the parliament is the general meeting (suurkokous), which is organised twice every year in a council hall. currently, children’s public participation is a widely examined area of research and it follows that critical insights are gaining more scope as well. in western countries, child and youth participation primarily takes place in formal public structures, which are usually pre-planned and developed by adults for children and young people. among scholars there are many critical points made regarding these electoral arrangements and representative models, as they are fairly often tokenistic – sometimes disempowering, they are used mainly for educational purposes and that disadvantaged children are usually unequally represented (e.g. cockburn, 2007, 2010, theis, 2010, turkie, 2010, wall, 2011, wyness, 2009). along with the emerging critical literature many scholars are particularly interested in the role of adults and different spaces in the process of children’s participation (e.g. cockburn, 2010, mannion, 2010). this is also the main interest of this paper. in spite of the research-based criticism towards representative models – at least in finland – they are 57 the main forums for children’s public participation (kiili, 2011). in that sense it is vital to evaluate them further by paying attention to the spatial and intergenerational arrangements of the action. participation, relations and space in the present article, pierre bourdieu’s field theory will be used as a methodological thinking tool. a field can be defined as a network of objective relations between positions and it can be seen as a social space or a social microcosm that is structured by specific properties, relations and processes. the field can be mapped out in terms of relations between particular key institutions and agents. ‘field’ is a relational concept as it reminds the researcher that the object of research is not the individual as such, but the field in which individuals exist as socially constituted agents. the structure of the field can be explained by identifying the distribution of the specific forms of capital (resources) that are active in the field. capitals can present themselves as three fundamental forms: economic, cultural and social. by analysing the forms of capital it is possible to “differentiate everything that there is to differentiate” (bourdieu, 1986, p. 242; bourdieu and wacquant, 1992, pp. 97–96, pp. 107–108). can children’s public participation in one town be seen as a field? there is no indisputable notion of the proper way to define a field in the bourdieusian sense, although there are some basic criteria, such as the field should be autonomous and should have an inner logic (bourdieu & wacquant, 1992, p. 102). with social spaces there is always the problem of field borders, as they are typically fuzzy and contested (thomson, 2008, p. 78). space as a term is used here both literally and metaphorically. the concept refers to a physical space that carries practical and symbolic meanings for children (alanen, 2011, p. 93). children’s participation is also studied as a social space, or here identified as a subfield among local decision-making. in this case, children’s participation as a formal institutional structure constitutes an identifiable model of how children’s participation on local decision making is organised. as a methodological tool, field theory helps to identify the key agents and characteristics that define children’s actions. the idea of a field theory allows to capture the role and socio-temporal orchestration of the general meetings. although the event takes place only twice every year, it operates as an embodiment of the subfield of children’s participation in tampere. this critically important event brings together the participants into a spatially and temporally bounded event, and in doing so renders visible the wider characteristics of children’s participation, such as the norms and boundaries of their action and different positions, and the resources (capital) children have when they participate in the action (entwistle & rocamora, 2006, p. 738). general meetings are organised in a centre of the city in a public building and more precisely in a council hall. the hall is part of the action and because of that it is vital to analyse what forms of behaviour it allows, and what kinds of identities inhabit it (cockburn, 2010, p. 311). in the article, meetings are observed and analysed as a spatial and relational phenomenon. children’s participation is seen to be interconnected with both children’s individual agency and the social relations within which they act. participation takes place in relation to the social and material environment; therefore spatial dimensions will be explored. spatial dimensions make a difference to how children perform in meetings; their actions cannot be purely social, nor purely spatial (lussault & stock, 2010). a relational approach means that analytical emphasis is on the interaction between the children’s generation and that of the adults, as well as the impact these two have on 58 each other (alanen, 2001, mayall, 2002). in analysing spatial and relational aspects it is vital to note how relations, identifications and spaces are reciprocally linked as they co-evolve. child-adult relations are co-constructed by both, and also affected by the places and spaces that these groups co-inhabit or inhabit separately (mannion, 2010, pp. 333–338). inspired by the field theory and from a relational perspective, the research questions in the article are: how does the space, the council hall, define children’s actions? what are the valued resources that are also held important and legitimate in general meetings, and do they function as capital for children? mapping the field: the evolution and structure of the tampere children’s parliament tampere is the third largest city in finland with over 210,000 inhabitants. at the end of 2010 the number of 7 to 15-year-olds totalled 16,209. the tampere children’s parliament (tcp) was established in 2001 and began as a 3-year pilot project funded by the ministry of education, the finnish slot machine association and the city of tampere. (child and youth participation in finland, 2011). the formal model of the tcp was created by two experts working on the pilot project. the main aims of the project were to help the schools in setting up school councils and to create a municipal model for children’s (7to 12-year-olds) participation based on representative and democratic principles. after the project the city hired a youth worker responsible for children’s participation. she has a key role in facilitating children’s meetings and actions. the city allocates a certain monetary amount (10,000 €) for the use of the tcp. the structure of the tcp is representative and it can be described as a ‘pyramid model’. figure 1: structure of the tampere children’s parliament the base of the pyramid is formed out of 41 primary schools. the structure of the tcp is strongly based on a co-operation with schools. each school has its own school council, which is directed and 59 overseen by the teacher. in general there are two pupils from each class in these councils and they are usually elected by voting. the youth worker supports school councils, she for example organises training days for teachers and also for councillors; the training is organised separately. all supervising teachers have one joint training day per year and they generally concentrate on issues regarding how the council meetings are directed. teachers exchange ideas and experiences of different methods and initiatives together with the youth worker. councillors’ training is also organised once per year and the youth worker usually teaches the children the basic principles of the representative model of the tcp and also some basic conference protocols and guidelines. the middle of the pyramid is formed of general meetings organised twice every year. school councils can send two representatives to the meetings. they are usually elected by voting, but in some schools the teachers choose the representatives. most of the children attending are 10 to 12 years old. meetings take place in a council hall and they last three hours. the meeting itself is based on familiar and well-known structures of official meetings. children are also advised to use the computers, electronic voting devices and microphones in a same manner as members of city council. this formal structure was created by the adult experts working on the pilot project. the board of tcp organises and prepares the meetings together with the youth worker. they make and send the invitations and agendas to school councils in advance. at the beginning of each meeting, representatives will elect a chair, secretaries, scrutinisers of the minutes and vote counters. these persons are chosen by electing from the children who stand as candidates for the jobs. they can be board members or representatives, but as a rule they tend to be board members. during the meeting every child has one vote; children also have the opportunity to make initiatives. the board of the tcp represents the top of the pyramid. members of the board are elected in the general meeting once every second year; each member is elected for a two-year period. there are 15 members on the board and the children are ordinarily 10 to 12 years old. the election is formal, as each pupil participating in the general meeting has one vote and can stand as a candidate. the board have meetings twice per month; it can be described as the key group of the tcp. these children are usually invited to different kinds of meetings and workshops organised by the city administration and other partners, such as the local and national ombudsmen and ngos. they also prepare the general meetings by making budgets, actions plans and reports of the tcp. empirical material and method the empirical material for the article was collected during the period of 1.4.2010–9.12.2010. written and oral consents for the research were applied for and granted from the administrative body of the municipality and also from individual research participants (i.e. written consents from the municipality and parents as well as oral consents from the children and teachers). prior to the interviews it was stressed that the research subjects have the right to stop the interview at any point. in addition, the ethical principles of the study (anonymity, data protection) were explained to the research participants. the research material comprises interviews of children and teachers and observations of two general meetings held in may 2010 and november 2010. the observations took place in the council hall where the meetings are organised. i as a researcher sat at the back of the gallery, where invited guests were seated. i took field notes as i was particularly interested in the organisation of the meetings and the rules and codes of conduct during the meetings. as well, i attended one training 60 day for teachers held in september 2010, at which 20 teachers were present. i made observations during the group work of teachers and i discussed with them the organisation of the tcp. i also conducted one group interview during the training day, but because of the tight schedule there was no time for further interviews. during the autumn of 2010 i interviewed altogether 8 teachers and 27 children (10 to 12 years old). fourteen of these children were board members and 13 were councillors. most of the children were interviewed in groups or in pairs. children could decide themselves if they wanted to be interviewed by themselves, in pairs or in groups, and most chose pairs. ten children were interviewed in groups of three or four and only one boy wanted to be interviewed alone. interviews of board members were carried out during a training weekend at a nearby leisure centre organised for the board. councillors were interviewed during a school day in their own schools. teachers were interviewed in schools or in cafes in the city centre. three teachers were interviewed as a group during the training day and the rest individually. the interviews were semi-structured and partly based on the observations made in may during the general meeting. the children’s interviews lasted from half an hour to one hour and the teacher’s interviews lasted about an hour. the topics covered were: (1) the subject’s background (age, personal history in school councils / children’s parliament); (2) the selection of representatives (methods, evaluation of these methods); (3) the action and organisation of school councils / tcp (meetings, training days and weekends, initiatives, co-operation among children and with adults, etc.) and (4) evaluation of different aspects of the action and organisation of the school councils and tcp. interviews were recorded and transcribed. inspired by the social studies of childhood (alanen 1992; james et al., 1998; mayall 2002), which emphasizes research with children rather than on children, the study aimed to discover which mechanisms promote or hinder children’s public participation. during the field work i became convinced of the benefits of a dialogical approach both in conducting the interviews and during the analysis. i started the field work with observations and during the interviews afterwards i had the opportunity to discuss with the children and teachers the observations made during the general meeting and the teachers’ training weekend. as a concrete method, the dialogic approach also requires that the researchers evaluate their conduct so that they do not control the conversation, as adults often do (christensen 2004, p. 174). this was particularly important with the children. as there were usually two or more children present when i conducted the interviews, it was easier to form a dialogical relationship with them – they complemented and challenged each other’s ideas and thoughts. i also emphasised that there were no right or wrong answers; i was interested in their experiences and views of the organisation and actions of tcp. with the use of qualitative methods, i have committed to the idea of respecting and promoting children’s and also teacher’s entitlement to have their opinions and views heard. in my view, research as a practice has a role in moving children’s voices into the spheres of public policy and practice (see also graham & fitzgerald, 2010, pp. 135–137). currently the board members, councillors and youth workers are planning to make some changes to the organisation of the tcp. along that process i have discussed with children and local authorities the findings of my research. 61 analysis the research material is qualitative in nature, and for that i have applied the adaptive theory and the orientating concepts essential to the adaptive analysis created by derek layder. the adaptive method combines pre-existing theory and theory generated from data analyses in the formulation and actual conduct of empirical research (layder 1998). in adaptive analysis the preconception of the phenomenon, the theoretical assumptions and the research data form a dialogue-like process. my analysis is based on a dialogue between research material and theory, particularly in the form of orientating concepts, the purpose of which is to help the researcher organise the data and its themes (layder, 1998, pp. 17–25, 108–109). adaptive method is used here in two senses. first the analysis is sensitive to empirical phenomena. when organising the research material, i have worked in an inductive way as it is important to remain open in order to understand the material (reay et al., 2010, p. 111). for the article a systematic analysis of the transcriptions and observations were carried out concentrating on issues regarding the general meetings. i was looking for expressions, evaluations and areas of agreement and disagreement regarding the ways in which the general meetings are organised and carried out. when i analysed the material further i concentrated on organising it into the following categories: expressions about the space (council hall), the code of conduct and rules in meetings, co-operations among children and co-operation with adults. based on these observations the key question for the analysis was: during the meetings, why are particular forms of resources valued more than others? the inductively formed categories and the question about resources were analysed from a relational and spatial point of view. with the help of bourdieu’s field theory, i examined the norms and boundaries of children’s actions and the different positions and resources (capital) children have when they participate in the action. the concept of capital was used as an orientating concept when analysing the material. participation, space and adults in general meetings whose space? the aim of general meetings is to gather children together to decide on matters of importance to them. children need to have a recognised position as councillors in their own schools before they can enter the event. in other words, it is not a public meeting open to all children of the municipality. meetings are organised in a council hall. the space, the sitting order and electronic devices among other things clearly define the way in which children are to behave. the formal model of general meetings is based on an idea that children can use the space in the same way as adults, they only need to be informed and educated to use it in order to be legitimate ‘opiniongivers’ (de castro, 2012, p. 54). this assumption trusts the capacities of children to acquire the same skills as adults. children also commented on the space and the code of conduct in meetings. there are children who think it is “cool” and effective to work in a space like this. it is definitely and above all the space – the council hall – that gives the meeting the importance it should have. children saw the space as a valuable resource and a vital part of their actions in meetings. children used this locally important and recognised space as a tool when they were aiming to convince adults of their actions and decisions. one girl, who has attended at least four prior meetings, told me that in order to make decisions that adults take seriously, it is necessary to work, behave and use the space like 62 adults do. meaningful action means formal ways of behaving and working. board members also felt that the meeting is such an important event that it is only fair that they are able to use the council hall. i like general meetings; i think it’s cool that we do things the same as adults. i think adults will take us much more seriously when we do things almost like officially. and we also have the right to use the council hall; it is not just for adults but for all of us all who live here, also for children (interview, boy, board member). there were also critical points made about the space and organisation of the meetings. there are children who think the meeting is surprisingly formal and thereby also exciting and sometimes even intimidating. in addition, few children thought that the meeting “was just boring”. it is far from the everyday life of children. usually these children attend the meetings only once, as they decide not to apply there anymore. for them the organisation of the meeting was not a pleasant or interesting experience; on the contrary, it was seen as useless or uncomfortable event. i was there once; it was last year’s meeting. i didn’t like it. i mean i did like the space; it was cool. but we just sat there for hours. i didn’t say anything, i just voted a few times. i don’t even remember what it was about, what i voted. it was useless, the whole thing. (interview, boy, councillor) we usually have three to four pupils who are eagerly willing to participate in the meeting. but when they come back they usually say that that’s it. they didn’t like it, it was too formal. for them the council hall was an interesting place but they didn’t like the meeting. they just sat there for one day and that’s it. (interview, teacher) the board members and the representatives who felt comfortable in the meetings told me that in a meeting they behave differently compared to other spaces, such as their homes, shopping centres or in school. in the council hall they feel more mature and independent, almost like adults. children who talk too loudly or disturb others, who just sat there and did not have the courage to speak or who have difficulties in using the voting devices and microphones are deemed too childish to attend the meetings – these children’s behaviour is not mature enough. “mature enough behaviour” was seen as resembling that of the adult council members’ behaviour as one board member told me that “you need to cope with the space” in order to take an active role. children saw for example voting as an expression of political maturity as “we decide things by voting just like adults do”. children’s views can be seen as a strategy of how to use the space and the setting provided for them; they can’t change it so they need to cope with it. it is really a special place, like no place i have ever been before. somehow it is intimidating, but also exciting. imagine, they allow us to use it! but you also need to know how to behave there, it is not a playground. you must be old enough to go there; it is not for little children. (interview, girl, councillor) particularly those children who enjoyed the meetings assumed that they need to behave like adult council members in order to have the attention and respect of local authorities; children want to be taken seriously. although all children attending the meetings are councillors in their own school 63 councils, and in that sense they are interested in making a difference, part of them nevertheless felt uncomfortable in general meetings. it was not something i liked; it was too long and boring. i don’t know… once was enough for me. (interview, girl, councillor) these children didn’t have the same interests as others or they were not willing to play by the rules set down by the local authorities. instead, they usually decide to stand back from the action. this presents an example of a situation in which children find it easier, more beneficial or more familiar not to participate (mosse, 2001, p. 49). whose decisions? one of the main aims of the general meetings is to form a dialogue with local authorities and among children and to decide matters together. one example of this was a discussion concerning the campaign called “tampere k-18”. k-18 means “forbidden under the age of 18”. the campaign attempts to prevent substance abuse by children and young people. the main aims of the campaign are to encourage adults not to buy alcohol or tobacco for minors and to encourage different enterprises to not sell to minors. the campaign also wants to generate critical discussion about the alcohol use of children and young people. the main organiser of the campaign is the city of tampere and its preventive unit, but it works together with local actors such as the youth forum, ngos (red cross, parents’ associations), the police and the local newspaper. the tcp decided a year earlier in a general meeting that they would support and work together with the campaign. as one concrete method the campaign uses stickers – grocery stores, kiosks, supermarkets or other such places can have stickers with the k-18 logo stamped on their doors or counters if they commit themselves to the campaign goals. for example board members have been touring around the city centre asking different enterprises if they want to join the campaign. it has been quite a successful campaign and many of the stores have joined in. there was active discussion among the children of the goals and achievements of the campaign. this issue was on the table during the general meeting held in november 2010. at the meeting one adult, a city official was present to introduce the campaign and also inform those children who were attending the meeting for the first time. after that the chairman opened a discussion. children presented individual statements in favour of and against the idea of the campaign. the critical statements were present and there were at least eight children presenting them. most of the criticism was directed at the fact that selling alcohol to minors is already illegal, so it is a waste of money to have a campaign like this – the problem has already been taken care of by the law. the money should be used directly to something that works in favour of all children, for example improving the libraries, parks or cycle tracks. all those children presenting the critical statements were representatives. how does this campaign help the situation of children in general? this is already illegal, so why are you using your money on stickers? stickers are of no use, they make no difference. there should be something that really grabs the attention of young people! (observations: comments by the representatives) 64 the board members on the other hand made several statements in favour of the campaign, stating how important it is to prevent alcohol abuse with different methods. additionally the city official made several statements in favour of the campaign. it is really important to prevent alcohol use by children and young people. we have had great cooperation with board members this year. the stickers are like symbols for young people – when they see one they know they have no chance to buy anything illegally. (observations: comment by the city official) in spite of the critical points made by the representatives, the campaign continued to be one that the tcp supports and works with. the board members were in control of the discussion as the critical statements did not have any concrete impact, not even in the form of voting on the future of the cooperation. this likely happened because there were no demands made about voting. it can be asked whether the representatives were properly informed of their opportunities and rights during the meetings and whether they even knew that they had the possibility to make a countermotion. apparently the modus operandi was not familiar to those children who presented critical views. this example demonstrates the different positions held by children in meetings. the process of how to handle the agenda in meetings is obviously unclear to some of the children. it can be asked whether the model of participation is ethical enough as the electoral process and the code of conduct generates inequalities among children, even though the aim of the tcp is to exist as a democratic space for dialogue and decision-making. board members have recognised positions and also more knowledge and experience in terms of conference protocols and guidelines compared to representatives. in that sense they also have more resources to rule the space and meetings. whose knowledge? in tampere the mayor has issued a permanent order stating that children’s views must be considered in municipal decision-making. the aim of the general meetings is to give the local authorities the opportunity to gather knowledge produced by children. general meetings are used as one of the most important forums for gathering children’s views. based on the representative model, the meetings are made up of a small number of children who represent the interests of their age-related peers in these regular meetings. however, it can also be asked whether the meeting is an instrument that can bring the diversity of children’s local knowledge to the table. ‘local knowledge’ is highly differentiated in terms of who produces it and in terms of different ways of knowing (mosse, 2001, pp. 19–22, 38). to be honest i think these guidelines for the meetings are ok, but there is a group of children who never say anything, they are so shy and quiet. they should tell us what pupils in their schools think about different things. in that sense they might have many opinions that we know nothing about. the aim is to get everybody’s opinions heard but that is not the case. (interview, girl, board member) for the city administration it is rather easy to make inquiries into different topics in general meetings or to ask the opinion of the board. but these children do not represent the entire spectrum of children living in tampere. as the previous extracts show, even the representatives had different and quite strong ideas about the k-18 campaign, but the critical statements were mostly overlooked 65 by the board and by the city officials. also the overall structure of the tcp and the decision-making process are unclear to some children. there are many representatives who have quite vague ideas of what happens to the discussions and initiatives after the general meetings. where do they go, who will handle them, how and when? we have talked a lot about the quality of school lunches and we have made an initiative about it. i don’t know what has happened after that, i don’t know. maybe my teacher knows, i don’t know. (interview, girl, councillor) i don’t know much about the work of the board or what the children have decided in general meetings, i have no idea what they decide and what happens to their initiatives. our pupils rarely have anything concrete to say about the meetings; they just talked about the space, how they used the voting devices, etc. (interview, teacher) the tcp board handles the initiatives that are decided upon in general meetings and after that they will move them along to the responsible city officials or other actors in question. but this was not clear to those representatives that i interviewed. the overall organisation and structure of the tcp and general meetings seems to be quite challenging for many children. adults in meetings one of the official aims of the general meetings is to form a dialogue between generations. on the basis of the permanent order issued by the mayor, it can be argued that in tampere there is a confidence that the knowledge of adult experts and council members is not enough. however in meetings there are very few adults present and they can be divided into three groups: guests who sit at the balcony and have no right to speak; visiting authorities who arrive and leave during the meetings; and youth workers who help children during the meetings. sometimes reporters are also present. local authorities are seen as key partners, but in meetings they are usually present very briefly and only when there are topics that concern them. they arrive to present their own agenda and after that children can ask questions and give comments to the adults. children are expected to give their statements by asking permission to speak and after that they need to wait for their own turn. the only method is to speak in public into the microphones. after the specific issue is dealt with the local authorities usually leave the meetings. this routine trusts the assumption that children and young people will be willing and able to share their wishes, beliefs and views with local authorities if they are provided with specific structure and spaces in which to do so (also cockburn, 2010, p. 311). co-operation and dialogue between children and adults is clearly one of the major challenges of the meetings, as one representative (boy) told me that “i don’t know what to say there, you must decide really quickly what to say, i’m not that fast in my thinking”. dialogue among 65-75 children and between children and adults is as such an ambitious aim. if dialogue means talking and commenting on each other’s ideas, this happened only very briefly, under strict rules and timetables, and by those children who had the courage or who were willing to take a stand and speak in public. 66 i always say something, i usually have many questions but they (local authorities) don’t always have enough time to answer to all my questions. (interview, boy, councillor) when children participate they tend to do so in their own groups. children’s worlds are separated from those of adults (percy-smith, 2010, p. 114). this is the case also in tampere. there is an assumption that the few minutes local authorities spend in meetings is enough, as it is a children’s meeting. there is also a strong belief that the brief conversation between children and adults is enough for both parties (see also thomas, 2012, p. 11). in some respects, adults are quite overlooked in general meetings, as very little attention has been paid to the role of adults. on the one hand this is understandable because there is a fear that adults will rule the meetings if they are invited to be involved more intensely. but on the other hand, children’s meetings and behaviour is expected to be almost the same as that of the council members. in that sense the process of children’s participation is based on adult-like conduct and manners, which are evidently directing the way in which children behave and use the space provided for them. valued resources as spatial capital based on the findings expressed in this article, children have different kinds of experiences of the general meetings. there seem to be two groups of children – board members and active representatives (meaning those children who attend the meetings more than once) – compared to those representatives who attend the meetings only once. meetings provide possibilities mainly for those children who are ready to work along the formal structures created for them by local authorities. according to the teachers the board members and active representatives have similar characteristics. they are usually those children who do well in school, who are interested in making a difference, who are outspoken and who have many friends. i have been around for many years and i can really say that usually the active children are active in many ways, they are the most active ones in school councils, and you can really see them enjoying themselves. but they are usually those children who do well in school also – i don’t mean that they are necessarily the top students but they are good students. and they have a lot of hobbies, sometimes i think maybe too many. (interview, teacher) in other words, they are not marginalised children or those children who are really shy or who cause trouble in school or have difficulties with school subjects, teachers or other children. it has been discovered that in many western countries the formal electoral arrangement and models suit those children who have certain advantages, such as material and cultural resources (wyness, 2009, p. 549; turkie, 2010). why is that? why do these formal models favour those children who are already privileged in one way or another? this question can be approached as a relational and spatial issue. children attending the meetings have different kinds of resources, interests and skills. children’s resources are unequally valued because certain forms of action were more valued and received more approval than others. they were particularly valued by teachers and local authorities because of the structure; the rules and the setting of meetings were created by adults. there is a risk that participation of these ‘well-off-children’ might reproduce and deepen social inequalities. teachers did admit that most of the active children attending the school councils and general meetings are well-off, but they didn’t consider it to be a problem. 67 the system of tcp, i think you need certain qualifications in order to get by there. i also really think that it is good we have this kind of a model where also those children who do well in school have something extra; they have extra-attention from adults as they also need attention. usually you only have enough resources to concentrate on those children who badly need help in school. (interview, teacher) teachers saw the tcp as an opportunity and extracurricular activity for those children who have the capacity to represent the children in tampere and individually to take most advantages of it for themselves. teachers also saw it as an educational assignment aiming to form more informed citizens who are and who will be better able to engage with local policy-making in the future and thus benefit the entire community, as “at least few of these children are future politicians, you can see that already now” (also wyness, 2006, turkie, 2010). moreover, the active children themselves stated that representatives attending the meetings should be active, outspoken and interested in making a difference. the meeting was not designed for little or childish children because “it is not a playground”. children who felt comfortable in general meetings had many kinds of valued resources that they could use as capital. in particular the strong role of school as a fundamental basis for children’s participation is clearly visible here; the resources that are valued in school are also valued in general meetings. although schools are not responsible for the practical organisation of general meetings, the relations among children and between children and adults were characterised by the broader configurations and values of schooling. in meetings these resources convert into specific, field-related capital, which is here referred to as spatial capital. the capital is made up of cultural and social resources and it is an ability to make use of a space. it enables more than just an entry to a site; it empowers the individuals to make meanings regarding its usage (centner, 2008, p. 198). spatial capital captures spatial and relational aspects of children’s actions in this given setting. by ‘spatial capital’ i refer to social and cultural resources which children can use and utilise in this officially organised meeting and in this particular space. these skills and resources are not only place-bound but also socially acquired during the life history of an individual in different settings such as the home, school and hobbies (bourdieu & wacquant, 1992). the valued cultural resources were both academically achieved and embodied (bourdieu, 1986, p. 47). most of the active children do well academically and they also feel comfortable in school. children also told me a lot about their after school activities and hobbies. many of them have a wide variety of hobbies in which they are regularly educated or tutored by adults (such as music, dancing, the scouts, swimming, team games, etc.). in that sense they are used to being instructed by adults in different settings. i’m used to this kind of a thing that you need to listen to others and wait for your own turn. and that you do things together, also with adults. it is the same in scouts where i go once a week. you need to work together and listen to the instructions that adults give you, for example when we go camping together. (interview, girl, board member) these children perceived themselves as mature and capable enough to be part of the general meeting and they had different kinds of embodied cultural resources and skills here referred as 68 “mature enough behaviour”. because the meetings are organised in an official manner mimicking the council meetings, these children had the resources needed to cope with the setting. board members and active representatives enjoyed the meetings and the formal structures and were eager to speak in public and use the electronic devices. they were really enthusiastic about the importance of the space and the code of conduct in meetings. these children also have social resources as they are quite popular amongst their classmates and they have been councillors, representatives or board members for many years. they have recognised positions in school, and because of that teachers and classmates trust the capacities of these children. children’s embodied actions and the use of spatial capital can also be analysed with the idea of habitus, which is one of the key concepts in bourdieu’s field theory. in short, habitus is a mental, cognitive and internalised structure which reflects among other things the age, status and history of an individual. habitus develops over time and is linked to the life history of an individual (bourdieu, 1984, pp. 466–484). as an open concept it indicates the socially developed capacity to act appropriately (rawolle & lingard, 2008, p. 731). habitus becomes active in relation to a field and it is through the workings of habitus that practice (agency) is linked with different resources (capitals) and the field. in different fields different kinds of capitals actualise. one of the essential features of habitus is that it is embodied – it is not composed solely of mental attitudes and perceptions (reay, 2004, p. 432). the ‘fit’ or correspondence between the field and habitus can be used as a tool when analysing children’s engagements or disengagements (alanen, 2011, p. 95). children had different kinds of thoughts and views about general meetings and they had embodied reactions in meetings. board members in particular clearly thought that the space and organisation of meetings are functional and things that they truly valued. they were like fish in the water when using their spatial capital. on the other hand the meeting was quite disempowering to those children whose resources during this particular event were limited. even though they were members of school councils, the meeting was seen as an uncomfortable or useless experience. they didn’t feel relaxed and they “just sat there for hours”. these children’s habitus encountered a field which was not that familiar to them, and as a result it produced ambivalence, frustration and uncertainty (reay, 2005). they usually resolved this unpleasant experience by standing back from the meetings. conclusion western democratic societies are based on political representation. in this respect it is understandable that the tcp is based on electoral processes and representation. it is also fair to ask why children’s participation should be morally superior to that of adults. with this i mean that there are only a few marginalised adults (uneducated, minority groups, etc.) present for example in municipal decision-making processes. by contrast, one of the current topics in “adult structures” is the fairness of electoral representation. in that sense also adult structures are under constant negotiation and evaluation, and new forms of representation are emerging such as expert advisory bodies and citizens’ forums (hendriks, 2009). the tampere children’s parliament and the general meetings aim at giving children a concrete arena and a democratic space where they have the opportunity to practice public participation. in finland there are also other municipalities that have organised children’s participation via representative and electoral arrangements. on the basis of the analysis it is vital to critically 69 examine the electoral arrangements, the use of the spaces and the adult-like code of conduct as part of children’s participation. particularly spatial and intergenerational considerations, such as the meeting places and roles of adults, are important elements of the participatory action and they need to be taken into consideration critically, more explicitly and, above all, together with children. open, not predetermined approaches are needed when developing children’s participation (see also turkie, 2010, p. 269). in conclusion, it can be argued that the present model of children’s participation in tampere is not transformative but instead reproductive, as it reproduces the traditional forms of civic participation and the problems therein as well. the formal model of tcp assumes that all children should be able to operate under the norms and rules of a representative democratic model created solely by local authorities. the tcp should offer a sense of transformative possibility for all children, and at the same time it should be kept in mind that it is not the individual who is in need of transformation – rather, it is the system of participation (mills, 2008, p. 83). references alanen, l. 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(2010) more than crumbs from the table: a critique of youth parliaments as models of representation for marginalized young people. in: percy-smith, b. and thomas, n. (eds.), a handbook of children and young people’s participation. perspectives from theory and practice. london & new york: routledge, 262–269. wall, j. (2011) can democracy represent children? towards politics of difference. childhood 19 (1), 86–100. wyness, m. (2006) children, young people and civic participation: regulation and local diversity. educational review 58 (2), 209–218. wyness, m. (2009) children representing children. participation and the problem of diversity in uk youth councils. childhood 16 (4), 535–552. author johanna kiili has a phd in social sciences (social work) and she currently works as a post-doctoral researcher at the department of social sciences and philosophy, university of jyväskylä, finland. email: johanna.j.kiili@jyu.fi funding this work was supported by the academy of finland, project ‘children’s participation and intergenerational relations: the case of children’s parliaments’, (project no. 251173). (torgé ready for publication) 100 using conjoint interviews with couples that have been living with disabilities and illnesses for a long time – implications and insights cristina joy torgé abstract. this article discusses conjoint interviews and takes its starting point from a study with nine older couples who have been living with disabilities for a long period of time. conjoint interviewing where dyads are interviewed together produces a different kind of data from individual interviews – specifically data that conduce different ways of talking about “we-ness” and produce interaction between the participants. this article discusses how this appeared in a study that was interested in the understandings and actualizations of spousal care when both have a disability or illness. the method leads to an analysis centered on mutuality and has potential to problematize traditional caring tasks and caring roles in the context of living with disability or chronic illness. potentials and limitations of the method are discussed. keywords: couples, conjoint interviews, dyadic methods, spousal care, disability please cite this article as: torgé, c. j. (2013). using conjoint interviews with couples that have been living with disabilities and illnesses for a long time – implications and insights. qualitative studies, 4(2): 100-113. introduction individual interviews are still somewhat taken as the norm in the social sciences. this is illustrated metaphorically in kvale and brinkmann’s well-cited textbook on qualitative interview research through rubin’s image of figure/ground (representing the interaction between the interviewer and the interviewed, and the meaning created between them). the interview is also defined as “literally an inter view, an inter-change of views between two persons conversing about a theme of mutual interest” (kvale & brinkmann, 2009, p. 2). consequently, even relational phenomena such as love or cooperation are studied from a collection of individual views (kenny et al., 2006). but what kind of data, and what other kinds of knowledge can arise when study designs presuppose mutuality? there is a need to reflect the mutual dimensions of relationships more directly in research, through using interview methods that are also inherently relational, such as dyadic interviewing of couples (eisikovits & koren, 2010). this article focuses on dyadic interviews, as a method directed at specific types of relations, and which produces data of certain characteristics. the discussion takes its starting point from a conjoint interview study on spousal help and support made with partners who had both been living with disability and illness for a long period of time. the article’s aim is two-fold: it aims to discuss the kind of data produced in these conjoint interviews, but it also aims to explore how the resulting dyadic data can provide insights on spousal care and support in a disability context. there are three questions to discuss: what are the characteristics of the data generated in these conjoint interviews? how can the resulting data contribute to understanding care in disability contexts? and what are the potentials and limitations of the method? i begin by describing how dyadic interviewing is increasingly being used in the field of health and illness research – especially regarding spousal care. this is followed by examples from my own data of how conjoint interviews shaped stories centered on relationality. “we-ness” and “we-talk” emerged in the interviews, but these are also results that help one understand the couples’ perspective on mutual spousal 101 caring. the interview data were also interactive and performative, which gave insights into the possibilities and difficulties in caring with disabilities. by showing how the data shape analysis, this article shows how conjoint interviewing and the resulting dyadic data are useful for generating further insights regarding informal care in disability contexts. dyadic interviews dyadic interviews have been discussed as a potential alternative to individual interviews for the last 30-40 years, both in social sciences and family research (allan, 1980; bennet & mcavity, 1994; arskey, 1996). it has been used to study different pair relations, such as couples, best friends, siblings, parents and children, or even co-workers (some examples: mauthner, 2000; rosenblum, 2000). like focus groups that have not been used in early social science research, dyadic interviews have not been widely used until recent years although it was an established interview method in therapeutic contexts (bennet & mcavity, 1994; morris, 2001). until today, interviewing dyads may still often be met with negative attitudes and skepticism, possibly because of the dominance of atomistic views of the self (bjørnholt & farstad, 2012). dyadic interviews are directed at specific types of relations. a condition for a group to be called a dyad is the experience of a “‘we’ relationship”, formed through having shared time and space together (eisikovitz & koren, 2010). the pre-existing relationship between the interviewed dyad is thus, rather than a contingency, a premise in the dyadic interview. compared to focus groups that usually rely on ‘ad hoc’ groups of people that might not previously know each other (morgan, 1996; hydén & bülow, 2003), dyadic interviewing is directed at naturally occurring pairs. as with focus groups, the topic of the interview is determined by the researcher. however, rather than keeping a moderator role, the interviewer asks questions directed at the dyad, as individuals or as a pair. this allows the researcher to gain insight into the dyad’s construction of a “concurrent framework”, at the same time that the participants can “represent themselves not just as individuals but also as concurrent participants in a relationship” (morris, 2001, p. 558). in other words, the researcher can capture individual views as well as shared perceptions of common experiences, for example regarding family life and family history (bennet & mcavity, 1994). this contributes another difference to focus groups, as the pre-existing relationship takes on an added layer of significance in the dyadic interview situation through the researcher’s aim to understand the dyad’s “joint” view. dyads can be interviewed together, separately but simultaneously, or separately at different occasions (eisikovits & koren, 2010). dyadic interviewing can also be used in combination with other data collection forms (arskey, 1996). generally, however, when the interview method is named, the term “dyadic interview” seems to refer to any interview method involving dyads as the unit of data collection and analysis, whereas “conjoint interviews” (or sometimes “joint interviews”) are those in which the dyad is interviewed simultaneously in the same interview situation. the conjoint interview is also what was used in the study at hand. reviews of the literature show that individual perspectives still tend to be the norm, but that there is nevertheless a growing interest in exploring dyadic perspectives (braun et al., 2009; walker & luszcz, 2009). it is also possible that other studies employ dyadic interview methods but do not use the terms “dyadic interview”, “joint interview” or “couple interview” to describe their methods. couplehood in disability and illness the usefulness of dyadic interviewing seems to be reflected in the growing number of studies using dyadic designs in the substantive field of health research, specifically on partners’ or spouses’ experiences of illness in the family. different kinds and combinations of dyadic interviewing have been used to 102 understand the impact of living and coping with illness when a partner or spouse acquires physical or cognitive impairments (e.g. clipp & george, 1992; schumacher, 1996; jo et al., 2007; morris, 2001). within the fields of aging, disability and care, there is much recent literature whose results build on dyadic interviews. examples of such studies are those conducted by yorgason et al. (2007, 2010) on older couples living with various impairments; by van nes, runge and jonsson (2009) on an older couple’s intertwined occupational patterns after stroke; by soodeen, gregory and bond (2007) on older spouses where one qualifies for home care; and by cahill et al. (2009) on care burden using interviews with older people together with their spouse or adult child carers. dyadic interviews with older couples could also be about access to health-related services when aging in place (racher, 2003) or their patterns of mutual caring as they acquire disabilities and live without children (ahn & kim, 2007). literature on older spouses and spousal care are also gaining ground in the context of couplehood in dementia, where the views of both the spouse and person with dementia can be explored (e.g. mcgovern, 2011; molyneaux et al., 2011; hellström, nolan & lundh, 2005a, 2005b). the starting point of these studies is that the experience of disability or illness does not only affect the individuals in question, but also affect their intimate partners in terms of relationship and communication issues, help-seeking behavior, practical consequences in everyday life and planning for the future. some of these studies note how literature on disability, spousal care and aging – like much of qualitative interview research in general – often are constructed from the perspective of one partner alone, leading to health services directed at individual caregivers or their care recipients, instead of looking at the couple’s common need for support (racher, 2003; braun et al., 2009; ahn & kim, 2007). the perspective of the family unit, the complexity of family caregiving and how families produce joint accounts of illness, they argue, are obscured in studies based on individual interviews – something that might be counterbalanced through using specifically dyadic approaches to research. description of the study and participants this article takes its starting point from a study with nine older couples, 60 years or older at the time of the interview, where both partners had lived with disability and/or chronic illness for a long period of time. the aim of the study was to find out how couples that had both been living with disabilities describe and exchange spousal help and support. as the participants were ageing together with disabilities, another ambition of the study was also to find out – retrospectively from the couples’ perspectives – how changes in help-giving looked like when both partners’ needs and capacities change with disability trajectory and time. the participating couples, married or co-habiting, were mostly recruited through an information letter that was distributed to various disability organizations in southeastern sweden, as well as through snowball sampling. an information letter described the purpose of the study and informed that the interviews were to be made conjointly. one couple with visual impairments had to be informed about the research through telephone. the couples interested in participating then had the choice to contact the researcher themselves or express a wish to be contacted. the study fulfills thereby the research ethics criteria of informed consent. the initial choice of conjoint interviewing was also made from an ethical consideration that it would be difficult to make partners anonymous for each other in the written study, especially if a small group of people were interviewed. a third ethical consideration was only couples with physical (and not cognitive) disabilities were asked to participate. names of persons have been changed in the writing of the study. 103 previous research on spousal care have often been based on identifications of being either a “carer” or “spouse with disability”, even though it might be possible that both partners have impairments or illnesses (see e.g. parker, 1993; ahn & kim, 2007). in the study in question, the individual roles as caregiver and care receiver were not pre-determined or self-evident, as both had long-term disabilities. the participants varied with regard to types of disabilities or illnesses and when these were acquired. examples are cerebral palsy (cp), blindness, hearing impairments, multiple sclerosis (ms) and polio. others had genetic or neurological conditions, and some suffered illnesses in youth or middle-age that had led to disablement. the participants also received or were entitled to different kinds of formal support such as home help, help with cleaning, transport services, assistance for the blind, loan of technical aids or personal assistance. the accessibility of formal help in the welfare system is an important socio-historical context, as this shaped these individuals’ possibilities of building families, not least with partners that also have disabilities and/or illnesses. the existing disability policies in the swedish welfare system also serve as a frame through which we can appreciate the voluntary help-giving within families and informal circles that continue to take place and make up indispensable support for people with disabilities (see jeppsson grassman, whitaker & taghizadeh larsson, 2009). in interviews, the couples were asked about the effects of disability on their everyday lives, their help needs and sources of help, mutual caring, and their views about the practical implications of ageing together with sometimes severe or worsening physical disabilities. an interview guide was used as a tool to cover themes of interest. however, the couples could also talk freely about related themes. the interviews were transcribed and then coded and compared. in this current article only a few codes, which seemed to have resulted from the interview method, are discussed. empirical results on how to understand help-giving between the couples is discussed elsewhere (torgé, 2013). the focus of the following discussion is how the conjoint interviews influenced the kind of data produced, and the possibilities and limitations of the dyadic data in understanding spousal care with disabilities. “we-ness” as an interview effect and result what kind of data is generated in the conjoint interviews? it is obvious from first glance that the conjoint interviews produced another kind of conversation than if individual interviews were used. in terms of language, the most obvious indication of this interaction is the use of “us”, “we” and “you” (referring to me as the interviewer). most couples were also interviewed in their own homes, adding to their sense of being a unit consisting of two individual members – a sense “of being two” (in the words of a participant), or what seems to be a sense of we-ness. in reflecting on this “we-ness” or presentation of themselves as a unit, it soon became clear that their narratives of being a unit were as much shaped by the interview situation and the research focus on mutuality, as they were shaped by the couples themselves and how they voiced their story. what was created was not only a conversation about a topic (caring and ageing as a couple with disabilities); the interview setting also encouraged a certain form of interaction to take place, which reinforced the sense of couplehood as a “we”. when couples talked about themselves, “we-talk” not only underlined the pre-existing relationship as a fact but also produced stories about “our experiences” (see seale et al., 2008). included in the verbal presentation of “we-ness” are common experiences and endeavors – including practical considerations of both of them living with disabilities or chronic illnesses – that have created them as a unit over time. when the couples talked about mutual help, they not only retold concrete examples in their everyday lives but also used phrases such as “fighting our unique – but similar – illnesses together” or “the right 104 hand helping the left”. sometimes, this presentation of “we-ness” had the effect that personal qualities became projected as an attribute of the relationship itself: ellen: you know, it’s like this – we have always tried to fight [illness], together. folke: we aren’t the types that give up. ellen: even if i might say that ‘i give up now,’ i never do it. instead, we try to battle these things that we have. it just works that way, though it doesn’t work well sometimes. “we-talk” also meant tracing their history together, which in this case was often framed by the sociohistorical context of the disability rights movement in sweden. these and other events in their lives have historically formed the “we” from whose perspective they now speak. disability organizations – but also self-help groups, summer camps for the disabled and special schools that have closed down long ago – not only represented the physical setting of their stories, but were also used to show a common “disability identity” that stretches back for a certain time, as well as another aspect of their common endeavor. conjoint interviewing seems appropriate in capturing these shared experiences of events lived through together, or in eisikovitz and koren’s words (2010, p. 1643), the “dyadic being-in-the-world, in addition to the relationship component”. this common history is apparent, for example, in this interview with gert and harriet: interviewer: how did you meet? was it through the [disability organization]? gert: yes, you could say that. from the beginning, since [we] were at the sanatorium. we played board games together. ah! interviewer: and then you met again? gert: yes, around 1951. she and i joined the [disability organization]. /…/ harriet: but now, if you look at the local organization, it’s almost just me and you that have had polio. there aren’t so many left. as mentioned above, this historical context is significant in understanding how the couples seemed to value informal help and care. it is notable, for instance, that the couples simultaneously talked about the importance of fighting for their rights to welfare services, and informal help from friends, children and each other as a regular, welcome and indispensable feature of their lives. to live “with” – and being “right in it” as resources when they talked about help they gave and received from each other as partners, the couples brought up concrete examples. much of the help they gave each other was in terms of emotional support, but this too could include hands-on help such as support in making formal care arrangements, communicating with professionals on behalf of the partner, or “looking after” and protecting the partner’s privacy, best interests and integrity when formal help services were involved. notably, although many of the couples also received different kinds of formal and informal help, they also brought up many examples of helping each other with physical and instrumental tasks on a regular basis, such as helping to eat, dress, go to the toilet, and move around outside the residence. the sense of “we-ness” also took another dimension in the interviews as it was often expressed as a resource in understanding and helping each other. setbacks (for example, worsening health conditions), as well as triumphs (such as having been entitled to assistance) were expressed as something they experienced together and not only at an individual level. further, the shared experience of disability was described as a resource because they saw themselves as being “right in it”, thus being able to understand their partner in ways they thought others without such experiences could not. for example, the 105 participants described recognizing in each other the feeling of uncertainty in the face of diagnosis (“i have been there myself”) or how symptoms felt in one’s body (“we know how it feels to have a fierce diabetic attack”). the participants also seemed well-read about their partners’ symptoms, medications and functional limitations and saw themselves as better able to anticipate and respond to their needs. an expression of this mutual understanding as a care resource comes from cecilia and danne, who had both been in previous relationships with non-disabled people. although their past partners also used to provide help, cecilia and danne insisted that their shared experience of disability added another dimension for being able to anticipate and understand each other. in the interview fragment below where they compared the help they got from previous relationships, they seemed to refer to two kinds of commonalities: their commonality as both identifying as disabled people, and the sense of “we-ness” as an attribute of being a “close couple”. that they also finished each other’s sentences and confirmed what each other was saying also contributed to the common construction of this “we-ness” that cannot otherwise be captured if they were interviewed individually: cecilia: yes, of course, but it can be difficult for a man – danne: – or a woman! cecilia: – or a woman – to live with a severely disabled partner. it’s hard. interviewer: why should it be easier for disabled people to do that? why should it be easier? cecilia: because we – danne: it’s this: we are right in it. we are right in it! cecilia: we help each other. danne: we help each other, or – cecilia: we understand each other. danne: we understand, we understand. i myself know how it is. i know my own body and all that. and i know how… i mean, a healthy person can’t always take himself down to that level. cecilia: no. danne: it depends. if they grew together to become… cecilia: a close couple. danne: … a close couple. to talk about “we-ness” as a resource then, is also to have a feeling that others outside the relationship – though they may be indispensable sources of help as well – are not able to tap into that resource of a common background and common situation. this appeared in other interviews as well, for example when participants described how friends had a hard time understanding why they continued to give help despite one’s own pain and tiredness. “we-ness” and “we-talk”, aside from being an interview effect, was thus also a result. the couples expressed and confirmed themselves as a unit in the different ways in the interviews – through a shared history, shared experiences, shared values and shared endeavours. further, the sense of “we-ness” became important in trying to understand why instrumental care and help are given. interactive and performative data another characteristic of conjoint interview data is that they are interactive data. as allan (1980) writes about joint interviews, the interaction between the participants constitutes data not easily obtainable through other methods. interaction is obvious at the textual level, but there is also an interpersonal level of interaction (see reissman, 1993). this was apparent in the interviews in at least two ways. first, couplehood and helping also became performative as the couples, through their interaction, gave insight on 106 how it is to live together and give help when both have disabilities. second, interaction between the partners meant that they not only could affirm each other’s answers and continue each other’s line of thought, but also contest, question and disagree. these interactions helped give insight to some problems that the couples faced in living and ageing together with disabilities. as mentioned earlier, the couples talked about what they helped each other with in their everyday lives. these included activities that may traditionally be seen as informal caring tasks. but in many of the interviews, the couples not only talked about – but also performed – help-giving through interaction, through small gestures of everyday help and support. this performative aspect was no doubt facilitated by the fact that the couples were interviewed in their homes. help-giving was thus made, even if they occurred in an interview situation, in an authentic environment where they would anyway be performed. in the course of the interview sessions, a spouse helped his partner drink from a glass and another helped his wife in blowing her nose. if a partner had a hearing or speech difficulty, the other partner helped convey the question or the answer. one couple showed me, because of their different dexterity difficulties, how only one of them could open a window but it takes the other one to close it. another couple was keen to show me homemade household tools that that the husband produced for his wife. another man in a wheelchair demonstrated how he fixed his wife’s wheelchair after a puncture. a different, but very striking example of this performativity was in the interview with lucia and krister, who had congenital disabilities. both had mobility problems and krister had difficulties with communication. in the interview, lucia reminded me that krister should have a chance to answer first because it was easy for her to take over. soon, however, lucia also acted as an “interpreter” to our conversation. in the interview, they not only talked about mutuality and helping in everyday life, but this was also enacted: lucia: start with [krister]. i babble all the time as it is. [interviewer laughs]. that’s what women do. but sure, if the other person has a speech difficulty… i’ve got to hold myself. so i don’t babble through, i mean [she laughs]. interviewer: yes, [krister]? krister: … i was … [slurred: disabled from birth]. lucia: [clarifying] disabled from birth. krister: … and i learned to [slurred: speak] … when i was eight years old. interviewer: you learned to…? lucia: [clarifying] to speak. krister: yes, when i was eight years old. i … had a speech therapist for five years and as [slurred: a baby] i had … a woman coming one hour a day … [slurred: teaching]… interviewer: what did you say last? lucia: [clarifying] teaching. krister: … me. in terms of content, what was told in this interview fragment is the story of krister’s congenital disability and his early communication difficulties. textually, this story was expressed despite krister’s articulation difficulties and with lucia as an interpreter. however, it is the interactive element of the data that was most striking because it gave concrete insight into an instance of help-giving that occurred in the couple’s everyday life. lucia’s comment on how easy it was for us to take over the conversation was revealing of her desire to give krister a voice (literally and figuratively) and was an act of concern. in this way, the interview fragment could also be interpreted as a kind of balancing act between allowing independence and giving help, when a partner has more severe disabilities than oneself. in another part of the interview 107 for instance, lucia related how she wanted to protect krister’s best interests by sometimes being a mediator between him and his assistants. although she did not want to interfere with krister’s and the assistants’ professional relationship, she felt that it was in krister’s interests that she stepped up for him. disagreements are also data so far, it may seem that conjoint interviews with couples only result in positive examples of “we-ness”. but it is also possible that partners question each other or express different points of views. the ability to shift between the couples’ jointly constructed view and individual understandings of the same events is one advantage of dyadic interviewing according to taylor and de vocht (2011), as this can give insight on how individual views overlap to varying degrees. the spousal relationship involves normative and role dimensions that participants can bring into the interview situation as a couple “on stage”. intimate relations are also laden with social expectations about caring for and caring about each other as “natural” parts of the relationship, that may cast a shadow on aspects of care related to hard work, negotiation, or lack of choice. it could be argued that the interviewed couples were keen on presenting themselves in a positive light in the interviews, and may not have wanted to reveal personal opinions that might cause conflict. if this is so, this would explain the mostly concurrent and “we”-centered narratives. but although dyadic interviews could be less candid than individual ones, other researchers observe that couples in conjoint interviews do not necessarily spare each other from negative remarks and that it is uncertain if themes of disagreement would have emerged if participants had been interviewed individually (molyneaux et al., 2011; bjørnholt & farstad, 2012). questioning each other and other expressions that things do not always go so smoothly also appeared in the study in question. these are nevertheless fertile points of analysis and can be rich sources of data on how partners give meaning to the same event in different ways (schumacher, 1996; beitin & allen, 2005). one example of this kind spontaneous questioning in the interviews was between ellen and folke, as they discussed whose disability required more understanding and who understood the other best. previous to this interview fragment, we were talking about their different disabilities and how these affected their everyday lives in a practical way. they then talked about the difficulties in understanding each other’s symptoms: folke: [to his wife] i … i wonder why you always say that your illness is so much worse than mine… interviewer: oh. ellen: [giggles] folke: it’s quite interesting. i mean, if you understand… but still experience that yours is worse than mine… ellen: … yeah. i do that. folke: or is it because i spoil you? i’m nice and i get … i get your medicine for you and never say, “oh, go get it yourself”. ellen: no. it’s because you don’t see these tremors that i have inside, inside my body. folke: no, i understand that it’s not easy. but i can just observe that, um, a little bit like a car mechanic observes that, “okay, the motor makes a strange noise, but it’s not serious. it’s going to last a few more years”. end of story. but the woman who owns the car, she says, “but it’s irritating, it makes such a sound!” and, in the same way, you have your tremors. okay. fact noted! interviewer: but, does it have to do with, that some aspects of the illness are invisible? that you still need to express it for it to be obvious to others? 108 ellen: [sighs]. and [folke] has a hard time understanding these signals… folke: i could be so tired and wiped out that i could drop. but even if i tell ellen, “just five minutes. i need to lie down for a while. i can’t take it anymore”, i say it in such a dry way so she doesn’t even understand it. and instead you say, “can you go fetch this and that? and can you go wash the dishes?” like, you don’t seem to understand that i feel like a catastrophe when i say “i think i’m going to pass out soon”. both ellen and folke seemed to want to present themselves to me as the more understanding party by demonstrating the others’ non-understanding. but as they talked, they simultaneously also had to explain to each other the difficulty of communicating their symptoms and needs. the shifting nature of disabilities could mean that help needs – but also one’s capacities to help – changes over time. when symptoms, such as tiredness and fatigue, cannot be communicated, this may lead to problems when one partner’s expectations do not meet the other’s capacities. help-giving requires that the other party has the ability to provide help, and this might not always be the case if one’s partner also struggles with his / her disabled body. there is therefore an aspect of “timing”, which is a practical consideration when two people live together with disabilities. what ellen and folke’s interaction also suggests is that some aspects of disability are invisible, although they are concrete bodily experiences. although disability is a shared concern within the family and a shared practical issue in everyday life, one’s experience of disability thus cannot be fully shared – even with a person that one has lived with for many years. in this way, “we-ness” does not represent a complete creation of a unit. rather, an insight from this dialogue is that the “we” is nevertheless made up of two individuals that may have, in this case, different needs and experiences of disability that they need to communicate in order to support each other. because the subjective experience of disability and illness must first be put into words for others to understand and act on (see kleinman, 1988), this might also pose challenges, for instance if one partner has communication difficulties. discussion the aim of this article was to discuss the characteristics of data produced in conjoint interviews and to explore how dyadic data can give insights into spousal care and support in the context of disability. as the examples from the interview showed, the conjoint interviews produced a certain kind of data – one that produced stories of “we-ness” and was also interactive. but because conjoint interviewing creates data that are characteristically relational, it in turn also forces the researcher to analyze in terms of mutuality. what this article has shown is that conjoint interview data produce accounts of the couple seeing themselves as a unit, where the sense of “we-ness” plays an important role as a ground and resource of practical and emotional help-giving, even despite other help sources. in this way, the interviews captured, in a distinct way, the relational aspects of spousal caregiving. these relational aspects of care could only be understood to the full in light of the couple’s shared history and experiences. even interaction and performativity, which permeated the interviews, contributed with unique aspects that could not have appeared if individual interviews had been chosen. the interactive elements showed how spousal help-giving could occur naturally, but also that it was not unproblematic. even if spousal caring was actualized in many ways despite both partners’ disabilities, the conjoint interviews also revealed limitations and practical issues for this help-giving, for example the aspect of “timing” and communication. implications of conjoint interviewing it is of course possible, as criticized about focus group data, to analyze interactive material through showing what has been said by individuals alone (kitzinger, 1994). however, that would not do the interactive elements justice, especially if interviewing as dyads was chosen precisely because of its 109 interactive possibilities. in choosing dyadic design, “pair relatedness – variously called interdependence, reciprocity, and mutuality by researchers” (thompson & walker, 1982, p. 890) also becomes an obvious focus for analysis. but besides the focus on mutuality, can data from conjoint interviews give new perspectives and knowledge? some examples from previous studies demonstrate how employing conjoint interviews not only produced results that centered on relationality, but also generated new perspectives. one example is a series of studies on couplehood in dementia. when they conducted separate interviews with persons with dementia and their spouses (dyadic interviews but not conjoint), hellström, nolan and lundh (2005a) and keady and nolan (2003) already developed relational notions such as “nurturative relational context” and “working alone / together / apart”. nevertheless, in one case study where hellström, nolan and lundh (2005b) interviewed a couple conjointly, “doing things together” emerged as the strongest category, leading the researchers to conclude that the notion of autonomy may sometimes be subordinate to the notion of couplehood. a second example comes from occupational therapy. using a mix of separate and conjoint interviews, van nes, runge and jonsson (2009) discussed how a couple’s activities intertwined after one partner’s stroke. the conjoint interviews resulted in codes such as “three hands” and “one body”, where doing activities with the spouse became an extension of one’s own activities in an experiential and personal way. according to the authors, this contrasted with the predominantly individual-based perspective of occupation that gave little knowledge about activities people did together, and they hoped to contribute to the theoretical development of the concept of co-occupation. these examples show how conjoint interviewing can give other perspectives than what is already known from other types of interviews, through the dyadic perspectives offered by conjoint data. in my own study, the choice to interview the couples conjointly may also have implications for the continued discussion of spousal care in disability contexts. the importance of informal help-giving is sometimes obscured in disability research, possibly because it is thought to undermine the focus on disability rights and welfare services (jeppsson grassman, whitaker & taghizadeh larsson, 2009). these conjoint interviews however, showed that according to these spouses’ experiences, engagement in disability rights issues and emphasizing the importance of informal help need not be contradictory. the experience of “we-ness” that emerged in the interviews were the ground for the exchange of instrumental and emotional care tasks, because of the feeling that one understood the partner best due to personal events they have been through, and through the common experience of disability or illness. understanding the value of relationships is thus very relevant in appreciating why informal help is given and received, despite other sources of help that are aimed at increasing personal autonomy and freedom. in a way, mutual help-giving also became a way for the participants to be autonomous and free as a couple, from a life already marked with formal help. further, what these interviews did was show how people with disabilities could be active and voluntary givers of informal care. though the study was on spousal help and care, one of the most significant strengths of using conjoint interviewing for this particular study was that it allowed me to make mutuality the premise of the interview, rather than pre-supposing individual roles as carers or care receivers. if individual interviews or focus groups had been used, this might have required me to frame the participants in one role or the other, consequently excluding the other partner as a possible provider of spousal help. through conjoint interviewing, the partners could instead cast themselves in either role or both roles simultaneously. the method also allowed the participants to be described as concurrent actors in the relationship and as providers of help and care for one’s partner, even if they may not be carers in the traditional sense. even the performative aspect of the conjoint interviews showed how care could have different dimensions, which might not have appeared in individual or focus group interviews. 110 the many examples of everyday helping begged the question of what actions one should call “caring” and what “naturally” occurs in a spousal relationship, since these different examples of help and support were nevertheless important in the couple’s everyday lives. in this way, one could clearly see how the use of conjoint interviews not only produced unique material but also produced an analysis that can problematize traditional care discourses, include a discussion of disabled people as carers, and emphasize the relational dimensions of caring with a disability. some considerations about the method because conjoint interviews produce a certain kind of data that urges a researcher to look at it in specific ways, it is important to note not only the possibilities but the limitations of this interview method. with regards to the study, it should be remembered that the nine couples were informed about being interviewed conjointly before they agreed to participate. as in other studies where the informants themselves choose to be included, there might be a participant bias, with couples that see themselves in smooth-going relationships being more likely to participate in a conjoint interview study. if this is so, it explains the positive tone in many of the interviews. rather than drawing too general conclusions from this study then, it is more fruitful to consider it as a contribution to an alternative discussion of spousal care – one that includes disabled people as mutual givers and receivers of informal care. the method also has other general limitations. criticisms of dyadic interviewing raise the issues of lack of spontaneity, disclosure of information and keeping secrets between participants. there is also reason to believe that couples are not too keen to talk about problematic or stressful issues with their partner present (see morris, 2001; forbat & henderson, 2003; ben-ari & lavee, 2007; taylor & de vocht, 2011). consequently, when studying spousal caregiving through conjoint interviews, one should be aware that aspects of spousal burden and conflicts could be underplayed. also, despite the focus on mutuality, the researcher cannot take for granted that the partners are equal in the interview situation. one must therefore try to be sensitive to and acknowledge possible imbalances of power. this is an important point since the presence of the significant other in the interview situation need not be neutral. this is also true in the study, despite the interaction facilitating “natural” examples of help-giving in everyday life. for instance, it would not have been appropriate for krister (who had communication problems) to take up any problems about lucia when she had to, on many occasions, repeat verbatim what he was saying. it would also have been inappropriate for lucia to criticize krister, given his subordinate position in the conversation. on the other hand, echoing heaphy and einarsdottir (2012), the imbalance of power in their conversation could also be seen in terms of collaboration and can be explored within the context of the narrative to generate insights, rather than seeing the interaction as a problem to be solved. another important point to consider with this method is what may be thought of as a circular logic between data generation and interpretation. that is, when one explicitly asks a couple about mutual care and support, stories of “we-ness” tend to emerge which in turn encourages interpretations about mutuality. the relationship between data and interpretation is explicit with this method, but actually defines all qualitative research. as reissman (1993) maintains, interview methods shape the narrative form and, in turn, the researcher’s story about what the narratives might signify. nevertheless, though the data and its possible interpretations are of a certain nature, this need not be a disadvantage for the emerging results. dyadic data, through its unique characteristics, also generates other insights as a consequence, as was pointed out in previous examples. one could also look at the data produced as specific narratives about mutual care that emerge from a different starting point or premise than individual interviews. this means, consequently, that conjoint interviewing may be less suitable for studying other dimensions of caregiving. individual interviews or focus groups with carers or spouses may for instance be more appropriate if one wishes to explore individual dimensions of caregiving such as spousal burden 111 or the subjective experience of the care received. however, if the relationship and relational dimensions are of interest to the study, conjoint interviews may be all the more fruitful. acknowledgements the study on which this article is based is part of the research program forms of care in later life: agency, place, time and life course, at the national institute for the study of ageing and later life (nisal), linköping university, sweden. the program was financed by fas (now forte, swedish research council for health, working life and welfare, dnr 2006-1621). the author would like to thank 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(2010). older couples’ management of multiple-chronic illnesses: individual and shared perceptions and coping in type 2 diabetes and osteoarthritis. families, systems and health, 28 (1): 30-47 author cristina joy torgé is a phd candidate at the national institute for the study of ageing and later life (nisal), in linköping university, sweden. email: cristina.joy.torge@liu.se article 7 stine (trykkeklar) 181 the disavowal of difference: accessing class and symbolic boundary-drawing in interviews stine thidemann faber abstract: in this article i recount and reflect on methodological issues raised in my research about class representations and symbolic boundary drawing. the article discusses different aspects of accessing class by way of interviews (thereby privileging ‘talk’ as a source of data), the dilemmas involved in conducting the interviews (including the need for paying attention to classed power inherent in the research setting), and the challenges and associated problems of representing the experience of others, especially when researching across difference. keywords: class distinctions, positioning, moral judgement, interview encounters. please cite this article as: faber, s. t. (2012). the disavowal of difference: accessing class and symbolic boundary drawing in interviews. qualitative studies, 3(2): 181-197. introduction often the emphasis in research is on the finished product (bourdieu & wacquant, 1992). however, the purpose of this article1 is to open the black box of the research process to present a reflexive account of methodological lessons learned from a study on social class in denmark, highlighting the drawing of symbolic boundaries and examining the ‘commonsense’ categories used to describe and explain class-based differences. the kind of empirical research that i have done is full of dilemmas and challenges that are rarely confronted, and it raises questions of how to deal with difference and power in social research. in the article i thus discuss different aspects of accessing class by way of interviews and i deal with several strands of dilemmas: about the practicalities of accomplishing the interviews, about being aware of class in analysing the interview data, about being sensitive to issues of power and about the challenges of representing the experience of others when writing up the research. i agree with richardson when she states that as researchers “we have an opportunity – perhaps even an ethical duty – to extend our reflexivity to the study of our writing practices” (richardson, 1995: 191). rather than hiding the dynamic, and at times ‘messy’, processes related to doing research, thereby concealing the hard effort that goes into creating the texts, we should, argues richardson, reflect on and share with other researchers how we struggled, the effect that we had on the outcome and which factors influenced our interpretation of the data and the writing of the research – that is “how we came to construct the particular texts we did” (richardson, 1995: 191). studying class and class representations in denmark the article draws on qualitative data that originates from a research project based on twenty faceto-face in-depth interviews with women living in aalborg [a city in denmark], selected on account 1 the article is based on my phd research. i am grateful for the valuable comments made by the anonymous reviewers and the editorial team on an earlier version of this article. 182 of their responses to a telephone survey conducted by the author of this article together with three colleagues (for elaboration see faber, 2008, 2009, 2010; also see faber, rosenlund, prieur & skjøttlarsen, forthcoming).2 the women in the study were all strategically selected on the basis of different background information (including age, marital position and residence), and according to their answers to a number of questions about political stance and cultural preferences, inter alia, and they were roughly split in groups primarily on the basis of their level of education, work situation and overall household income. the group of women selected to represent the working class all had little or no formal education and worked in jobs with low status and low income; all had husbands with similar or less privileged working situations and all were living in deprived areas of the city. the group of women selected to represent the middle class all had high levels of formal education and worked in jobs with high status and high income; all had husbands with similar privileged working situations and all were living in privileged areas of the city. the women selected were between 29 and 52 years old, all were mothers, all were ethnically danes, and with a single exception, all were working at the time of the interview. within my study bourdieu’s work provides a context of examining the impact of social class position combined with a feminist influenced perspective. my ambition was to look at what reay (2005) calls ‘the psychic landscape of class’ that is, to understand issues of social belonging, identities and subjectivities in their lived complexity, and the ways in which the women understand, negotiate and transform class-based meanings in their everyday lives. the study is closely connected to the growing stream of research rethinking class through a concern with other intersecting identity issues (including skeggs, 1997; reay, 1998; bettie 2003). it is also connected to the growing stream of research focusing on lay normativity, especially morality, and ‘symbolic boundary-drawing’; a notion derived from lamont (1992) to capture the idea that distinction is a process central to the formation of class differences, and one which relies on people drawing boundaries between themselves and other social groups whose interest are supposedly different from (and usually opposed to) their own. following bourdieu (1984), class is understood as being about people trying to show distinction. class is viewed as a cultural space; “a space of ideas, values, goods, practices and embodied behaviors” (liecthy, 2002: 16) that encompasses processes of inclusion and exclusion, and that is constantly tested, affirmed and renegotiated. underlining that it is the process, not the product that constitutes class, bourdieu’s work is said to account for the ways in which class is lived and accomplished. this point of view underlines that class is not only understood as ‘a structure’ or as ‘a category’ but as something that is constructed in human relationships (thomson, 1963) a view which of course also has implications when conducting research about class. some of the challenges inherent in such research are to do with the difference between the researcher and the researched, and with dimensions that may reflect differential positions of power in the wider society or that may represent an ideological divide of some significance. 2 the interviews that form the core of this article were only one aspect of a multidimensional study that also included a large survey, interviews in addition to the ones i discuss in this article and register data. for more, see the compas project (studying social differentiation in contemporary societies: the case of aalborg) (www.socsci.aau.dk/compas). 183 approaching the field when preparing to do the interviews for the research project, i started thinking further about the power-dynamics in the research process. although having conducted several interviews throughout my professional life, it was the first time i found myself wondering about my own physical appearance to this extent. i began to think of myself as classed in ways that i had not previously done, and it felt interesting and awkward. suddenly, i felt acutely aware of how i looked, what i was wearing, how i styled my hair, which signals about my social belonging i gave through my appearance, inter alia. to mention just one example, i began to reflect on whether it was expedient to wear my dior glasses during the interviews or to display the fact that i drove a volvo. subconsciously, at least, it seemed that i aspired to appear classless to my interviewees, as i was concerned about putting on display possessions that could signal wealth or status. in the end, i settled with what i felt was a class-neutral look (as if that even exists): wearing contact lenses, discreet make up, minimum jewelry, subdued clothes, and i abstained from parking my car right outside the house of the interviewees. yet, i imagine that, just as i ‘checked them out’, my interviewees also ‘checked me out’ in terms of sameness as well as difference, and i did experience that the interviewees sometimes pointed out differences between us by referring to: my age, my level of education (discussed below) and to my car! in the interview where i had chosen to park right outside the house due to being late for the appointment, the working class woman i interviewed that day said: i can’t help looking at my fellow human beings. people are just different. it is not insignificant if you are… i don’t know why, but when i see you arriving in a huge volvo i immediately think: ”oh, it pays well to be a sociologist”. that is my first thought. we are all loaded with prejudices in some way or the other, right? (…) it is almost the only thing i know about you, and yet i reduce this to something that might be totally crazy. you see? [laila, social and health care assistant, early forties] despite my acute self-awareness and concerns about my ‘presentation of self’ (goffman, 1959) i was left with the impression that i established good relationships with all interviewees, and in most interviews the atmosphere was open, comfortable and non-threatening, although for some interviews it took a while to achieve this (discussed below). when asking for interviews, i announced the research topic as being about the women’s own life histories, their views and their choice of lifestyle. class was not explicitly mentioned, neither when recruiting participants nor when conducting the interviews, as i was aware that “class is not an innocent descriptive term but a loaded moral signifier” (savage, bagnall & longhurst, 2001: 889). instead, i asked the women questions about their social background, upbringing, schooling, family, kinship and friendship, parenting and mothering practices, working life, leisure activities and opinions. all of the interviewees were given the same themes during the interviews, but at the same time, like rittenhofer (2010), i left it “almost entirely to the interviewees how they narrated these themes, and the way these themes and related situations were signified” (rittenhofer, 2010: 4). while the repertoire of topics relating to class still seems broad, the interviewees have evidently put more emphasis on certain topics and less on others. for instance, the fact that all of the women were mothers proved to be important, as much of the work involved in being mothers and bringing up 184 children involves negotiating, repeating and reciting not only gendered and heterosexual, but also classed norms (lareau,2003; skilbrei, 2003; gillies 2007). studying class by way of interviews studying class by way of interviews and thereby privileging ‘talk’ as a source of data, actualizes the need for paying attention to the classed power inherent in both language and in the “telling of the self” (skeggs, 2004). addressing these issues remains an ongoing challenge, which is also why sociologists, and especially feminists, continually invite researchers to explore the interactions between the researcher and the researched. yet, as taylor (2005) notes, social class dynamics are not prominent in these debates, and more work is needed to address the ways in which class may be working to silence and/or to promote particular discourses and accounts (some researchers have interrogated this: see for instance taylor, 2004 and mcdermott, 2010). according to krumer-nevo: ...the power relations that determine every research are intensified in research settings where gaps in the social ladder between researcher and researched are evident. this is especially so when the researcher belongs to the middle-class while the researched belongs to the lower class or to a very low class (krumer-nevo, 2002: 305). when composing the research design i had thought about the point raised by krumer-nevo above, and initially i was concerned that the interview setting might limit the working class women in the telling of their stories as they can be said to lack “linguistic capital” (bourdieu 1984). to some extent my concerns were well founded. from the very beginning i was confronted with classed differences in the behavior of the interviewees, ranging from astonishment, mixed with a little skepticism, that i would want to know details of their life biographies and everyday lives (mostly among the working class women), to not questioning that i would be interested in their personal histories and almost taking it for granted that they were worth consulting and listening to (mostly among the middle class women) (see also taylor, 2005 and mcdermott, 2010). i did also find that the working class women often answered my questions with very short sentences (some to an extent that made me wonder why they even consented to doing the interview in the first place), and often they did not follow up with ideas or elaborate on my questions in the same way as the middle class women did. some of the working class women even appeared vigilant, almost on guard, and i remember that one woman especially sought to explain and justify herself to me continuously. after she had just told me about her brother, she said: “well, none of us have an academic education like you, but i really do not think we would feel comfortable with it either. we feel good about the lives we have chosen” [margit, kitchen assistant, late thirties]. however, it was rare and only sporadically that differences in terms of socio-economic and cultural status constituted this kind of context-setting, explicit positioning. although class seemed to be present in the interviews, for the most part, it remained unspoken or perhaps even unspeakable. and yet, just as in ‘real’ life, class was being challenged, confirmed and enacted as the conversations between me and the interviewees, of course, did not occur “in a vacuum” (archer, 2002), but were contextually produced, and classed positions and identification were discursively negotiated and struggled over throughout the interviews (fine & weis, 1996). in the end, i cannot say with any certainty in what way my class background and/or my (classed) appearance affected the interviews, just like i cannot say in what way my greeting, manner of speaking and body language were perceived. though i am convinced that differences between the researcher and the 185 researched, such as class, gender, age, ‘race’ and sexuality enter the interview, it happens in ways that are not necessarily transparent or predictable, making it difficult, even impossible, to unscramble (see kennedy-acfoy and pristed nielsen, this issue, for a discussion of the unpredictability in researcher-researched interactions). although more reluctant than the middle class women, the women from the working class were not passive or silent during the interviews; several spoke persuasively of their lives and their experiences of growing up, schooling, job opportunities, family and community. some also became very emotional during the interview, underlining that seen from below, class appears “not just visible but almost tangible” (ortner, 2003: 41) bringing into focus my responsibility, not only as listener, but also as conveyor of these powerful accounts. one woman, working as a kitchen assistant, said during the interview:”if i am in a company where i do not feel at home, i get a stomach ache because i feel inadequate. i just feel wrong. i don’t even reach their ankles”, she said, illustrating how objective social structures are inscribed in body and mind as subjective mental experiences (bourdieu, 1984). dealing with people placed higher than themselves in the social hierarchy can prompt defensiveness and shame, and make people feel inferior. it is, therefore, no wonder that some of the women from the working class seemed to be on guard, and were reluctant to speak during the interviews. entering into a conversation with an academic surely risks activating (classed) discomfort, especially when it takes place in the private space of the home, which could potentially be viewed (by both interviewer and interviewee) as “another devalued signifier of class position” (taylor, 2005: 496). anyone who has tried it, knows that it is demanding to enter into a conversation with someone who does not really want to talk, and as a researcher it is not unusual to experience that some interviews ‘feel better’ than others (skilbrei, 2003). however, form, not only content, is important. as byrne argues “producing a ‘storried narrative” in the context of an interview is an uncertain process and there may be as much to be learned from those instances where a storied narrative is not produced as where the story of the self is easily told” (byrne, 2003: 30). or as letherby phrases it: “silences are as important as noise in research and the interpretation of silence is as important as the interpretation of what is being said” (letherby, 2003: 109). statements that might seem empty of content can represent important evasions or silences. looking back on the transcripts of the interviews, i can see that i was, to some extent, too cautious about not pressing the interviewees to expand on answers when they reacted defensively, adopted short answers or where there were inconsistencies. this was so with both the interviews with women from the middle class and women from the working class. i found, to my cost, that talking about class was difficult for me too, and i remember feeling inhibited to ask what i perceived might be more difficult questions, and to prompt for clarity over inconsistencies or illogical statements. during the interviews i worried at times that there would be nothing to report but evasions and silences. however, close attention in the process of analysis revealed the degree to which the accounts were in fact explicitly classed (see also byrne, 2006). class ambivalence and the silencing of class while interviewing the women, i found that they were reluctant to talk about class and their own position in the social structure, yet, at the same time, they seemed to have a quite an infallible sense of class. in other recent works on class cultures and self-identities the same tendency has also been observed. thus savage, bagnall and longhurst (2001) also find that their british informants were 186 reluctant to use class in personal terms even while using it to explain wider social conditions. they conceptualized this behavior as “class ambivalence” or “defensiveness”. as described, i also found that speaking about class differences (although mostly framed as social inequalities) tended to lead to, if not evasions or silences, then at least complex answers. doing this kind of research raises questions about how to deal with topics like class, which “seems to exist and not exist, to be everywhere and nowhere, to have a kind of now-you-see-it, now-you-don't existence” (ortner, 2003: 10). however, you could also argue, as do payne and crew, that the reason why the interviewees in my study as well as in other similar studies expressed their views about social class in a somewhat confused way, is simply because “they are being asked to handle a genuinely multifaceted concept at short notice” (payne & crew, 2005: 903). maybe the women simply had as much difficulty dealing with the concept of class as researchers do within sociology where class, on one hand, is seen as “a thing of the past” (reay, 2005), and on the other hand is considered to be increasingly relevant, although class consciousness may not be in evidence in contemporary societies.3 according to payne and crew, inarticulateness about complex concepts like class does not necessarily mean lack of salience. within interviews, class, they argue, is often used extensively albeit not in a precise way and this does not reflect ambivalence, rather it reflects the fact that the interviewees have a different frame of reference than sociologists, and in fact they are often using “what they mean by class, in a consistent rather than ambivalent way” (payne & crew, 2005: 893, emphasis in original). or maybe seeming ambivalent, defensive or reluctant is not as much about genuine confusion as it is about protection and resistance, as class and class identification are emotive issues that may make people feel uncomfortable (taylor, 2005). sayer writes: “insofar as actors recognize the arbitrariness and injustice of natal class, and the ways in which it influences individuals’ lives – and it is hard for them not to – it can prompt guilt, shame, resentment and defensiveness” (sayer, 2005: 201-202). sayers’ description of the affect and emotions attached to class is not new. in earlier works, senneth and cobb (1972) pointed to the personal “injuries of class”, willis (1977) to “class refusal’” and bourdieu et al. (1999) to “positional suffering”. euphemizing class indeed, talking about class differences can be awkward. often the women, both from the middle class and from the working class, resorted to euphemisms: “it’s like they are on another frequency than we are” (about rich people), or “it’s a completely different world they live in” (about socially marginalized relatives). bourdieu says about euphemisms, that they make it possible to say something all while one does not say it, and they “permit the naming of the unnameable” (bourdieu, 1998: 98). 3 within sociology the theoretical debates, whose chief proponents are beck (1992) and giddens (1991), the emphasis has increasingly been on individualization, reflexivity, detraditionalisation, plasticity and self-fashioning. in line with this, class has been marginalized as a mode of analysis, as class is seen as a matter of old, ascriptive ties and in the postindustrial societies classed identities are correspondingly held to have disappeared. however, others argue that class relations still have a causal effect on people’s lives, even when they are not articulating this in class terms (see for instance skeggs, 1997, 2004; savage, 2000; sayer, 2005). 187 as described earlier, i selected the informants in my study on the basis of a larger survey, which was helpful, as i knew quite a lot about the interviewees in advance (such as family income, residence, and political stance.), and it gave me the possibility to ask about the answers previously given in the survey. when i asked one of the interviewees, a wealthy woman living in an expensive neighbourhood, why she declared that she belonged to the upper-class in the survey, i was taken by surprise by her answer, as with a few sentences, she completely withdrew from her original answer: of course we have more money than ‘jones, the painter’, or his like, right? but many people have a lot of money in their pockets nowadays, don’t they? yes, they do. they just use a lot of money these days. in the past, this neighbourhood used to be upper class (...) but i don’t feel it is like that nowadays. there are people … quite ordinary people who buy houses here now…. i don’t think one can generalise about it. of course there are still people who earn more than others, but i wouldn’t walk around telling people that my husband is a lawyer, and that he earns well and such things. i wouldn’t dream of doing that. it doesn’t concern anybody. we have what we need, and then it doesn’t concern anybody how i spend my money, does it? they don’t pay for me. no, i don’t think … i don’t think there’s anything upper-class about us. (…) i really don’t. our home it quite ordinary [solveig, stay-at-home mother, early fifties] when talking about this during the interview i clearly felt her unease. this was a topic she considered to be private, which according to ortner (2003) is not out of the ordinary. not wanting to talk about class is often caused by a personal embarrassment about talking about money, about personal income, family resources or both. yet, of course one also has to consider the fact that when filling out a survey you “talk to” a generalized other as opposed to the face-to-face interaction during an interview, in which we continuously adjust our answers to the person we are talking to. this might explain why the woman adjusted herself presentation; it could simply be the case that she chose to withdraw her previous answer so as to not alienate me, the interviewer. yet, it also exposes an important methodological lesson: had i not known from the survey the magnitude of the family’s resources (besides their house, the woman and her husband also owned two cars, a summer residence, and several investment and tenanted properties), data from the interview would not have revealed it. however, what i find most interesting is the way in which the woman tries to dissociate herself from the elite and the way she treats my questions as normative; that is, as if she was asked whether she considered herself superior or inferior to others (see also sayer, 2005). my question about why she categorized herself as upper class seemed to be interpreted as an accusation of being conceited and it was obvious that she feels obliged to convey that she is not pretentious: she does not think she is better than most other people. this message is probably of particular importance in a society like the danish one, where many are influenced by a particular nordic ideology of equality, which tends to cause differences of class and other differences to be toned down as much as possible (lien et al, 2001). the working class women also portrayed themselves as ordinary in the interviews, although for different reasons. most of these women seemed to use the word ordinary to mean that, like everybody else, they worked for a living. at the same time, both implicitly and explicitly, they made accusations about middle class pretentiousness. explicitly separating money and societal 188 status from personal values and integrity (see also lamont, 1992, 2000), they accentuated the importance of being decent, wholesome and hardworking people who chose family over career. this was illustrated in moral statements such as: “i would also like a new bath room with a spa, but i believe that the money for such things is hard-earned money”, as one working class woman said at one point in the interview; at another point, she made a similar statement while talking about her children and the social intercourse within her family: “we don’t need to travel to mallorca to be able to have a good time and relax together” [heidi, gardener, mid-thirties]. for both the middle and the working class women, the presentation of oneself as ordinary seemed to indicate an aversion to be judged and identified through the markers of class (see reay, 1996; skeggs, 1997), but as savage writes, the idea of ordinariness betrays class: “it is, after all, members of ‘other’ classes who might not be ordinary” (savage, 2000: 117). boundary-drawing and affiliation with moral communities in the interviews, explicit class identities were almost never voiced, and similarities with most other people were highlighted more often than differences. still, more or less subtle dis/identifications were indeed voiced, often materialized in the ways in which the women talked about their families, friends, colleagues, neighbours, and other groups in society, and particularly through the lines of demarcation that the women used to present themselves in opposition to people they wished to be dissociated from (also see jensen, this issue, for a discussion about the concept of dis-identification). above all, you could say that in the interviews, class was revealed through boundaries being drawn between ‘them’ and ‘us’, and through a declared affiliation to moral communities. little by little, stories about experiences and visions of differences surfaced. these stories sometimes dealt with gender, in particular with motherhood and the upbringing of children, sometimes they dealt with territoriality and perceptions of different kinds of neighbourhoods, and sometimes they dealt with ideas about consumption and everyday life. however, talking about social differences and diverse life conditions were often phrased as questions of personalities or presented as expressions of individualistic preferences, lifestyles or choices marking a shift in how class operates now-a-days; rather than being eradicated class identities are re-made, argues savage (2000), through individualized emotional frames. during the interviews, the women from the middle class often presented stereotypical ideas related to the morality of the working class, whom they perceived as immobile, uncultivated, having a low work ethic, lacking energy and not raising their children in the right way. likewise, the women from the working class presented stereotypical ideas about the middle class, who were perceived as selfish, focused on their careers, and lacking the ability to cultivate intimate personal relationships. in both cases, neither the working class nor the middle class was defined purely in terms of economic and cultural criteria, but as much on the basis of perceptions of disapproved behaviours and negative characteristics. such feelings are probably only rarely experienced as having to do with class, but instead about some people being perceived as strange, snobbish, rude, narrowminded or unsympathetic. however, class identity not only concerns who one is, but also who one is not: it encompasses practices, experiences and feelings, as well as distinctions and the drawing of boundaries. this understanding of class is important, as it implies that class is experienced as a lot of other things than what, in a strict sense, can be seen as class. 189 as noted earlier, looking up from below, class appears to be very visible indeed. for example, one of the women from the working class talked about money and income, although in direct terms, in contrast to the wealthy woman described earlier. she was unemployed at the time of the interview, and she says: “it’s hard to make ends meet. it doesn’t look good. things are too expensive in general”. yet, despite economic difficulties, being on welfare, she appears to translate her frustrations into satisfactions outside the work market: because i’m unemployed, i have twice the energy to give to my son. that is fantastic. being able to spend time with my child means a lot. i value that higher than going to work and earning money.” (...) i do a lot of stuff with my son compared to other parents. i wish all parents bothered to go to the playground and spend just one hour with the rest of us. [joan, unemployed desk clerk, on social security, late twenties] throughout the interview, this woman positions herself as a respectable, caring, attentive mother, at the same time distancing herself from middle class mothers, whom she thinks hand over their children to day care too early and pick them up too late, lacking time and energy. views on work, children and family entail moral and emotional commitments, defined not only through gendered but also classed schemas. for this woman, motherhood is a loaded moral signifier, which plays a key role in shaping her worldviews and evaluations of self-worth. it is through motherhood and domestic responsibility that she establishes herself as worthy and distances herself from members of the middle class, who, she assumes, do not share her values (also see skilbrei, 2003). hidden in the detail of the dialogue more than anything else, the main differences between the women i interviewed were about moral matters, although the moral matters were often seen as related to economic or educational differences. although the norms and values of the middle class women were almost always phrased in a hidden contra-distinction from working class women, and vice versa, the women i interviewed did not name it as being about class, nor did they see it as class dominance or class repression. they also refused to critique social inequalities and the social hierarchy within society, although they did seem to agree that it existed ‘out there’. retrospectively, this has led me to ask myself one puzzling question: if they would not name the issues i have discussed in this article so far as being about class, should i? immersed in a similar discussion, fine and weis ask if researchers risk neglecting the voices of the research participants that we wish to speak for: “is this just a theoretical exercise in which we report narrations of denial? or do we theorize over their voices, giving us little reason for collecting their stories?” (fine & weis, 1996: 263). my answer would be no. though only very few articulated it as class, it was evident that all the women i interviewed, acknowledged, thought in terms of, or at least were familiar with, the existence of a social hierarchy. hence, they talked about a ‘social ladder’ or about ‘the top’ (for instance, well-to-do people and the upper crust) and ‘the bottom’ of society (for instance, unemployed people or outcasts of society), and the women dissociated themselves from both groups – both the economically and culturally privileged, and the less so. the fact that all of the interviewees made statements about ‘others’, expressing that they were better or more valuable persons or vice versa, underlines distinctions that are about class. this corresponds to skeggs’ claim that moral understandings of what matters to people includes different mechanisms for exchange that 190 generate “different forms of value that are both attached to people, and that people attach to themselves” (skeggs, 2010: 31). skeggs’ immense contribution to thinking about gendered class illuminates the cultural exchanges and practices of class identity and formation, and their moral dimensions. accordingly, skeggs argues: “discerning how positioning, movement and exclusion are generated through these systems of inscription, exchange and value is central to understanding how differences (and inequalities) are produced, lived and read” (skeggs, 2004: 4). in spite of defensiveness or reluctance, i do believe that i have accumulated substantial data to suggest that the women i interviewed did in fact talk a lot about class, although without directly mentioning class. time and again, they expressed different distinctions, which can be related to class: they drew on categories that are ultimately categories of class, and they used expressions that implicitly connoted class. although their understanding of class lay hidden in the detail of the interview dialogue, the issues they talked about were clearly about class. the writing of the research when moving from talking to the interviewees to analyzing the data, as a researcher you open another kind of dialogue, a dialogue which in some senses more resembles a monologue. at this point, the interviewee and the context that surrounded the interview are only in the picture as recollected memories, and strictly speaking, it is only the researcher’s loyalty that can prevent him/her in expounding the data freely. the audio file of the interview or the written text (if the interviews are transcribed – mine were) can be listened to/read over and over again and in the process of writing, the data can be cut up, interpreted and understood in different ways; the fact that the researcher now has a monopoly (the final say) over the interpretation of interview data gives her power. as reed writes: “no matter how much shared experience there has been [within the interview], the sharing stops when the writing begins” (reed, 2000: 68, referring to parker, 1995). in order to capture what is at stake in the research process, i find the orchestra metaphor, presented by nielsen and rudberg (2006), very illuminating: the sample of research participants constitutes a symphony of many voices and they are allowed to be heard in different ways and with varying strength within the writing of the research. the researcher is not just sitting in the audience listening to the symphony. rather, it is the researcher who first develops and then writes, produces and orchestrates the symphony. in other words, doing research means recognizing that the research does not necessarily reflect reality but is constitutive of it. when we ask question, listen to answers and interpret what we are being told, we are inevitably marked by our own subjective and material reality, and it will affect what we assume as possible answers, and what kind of knowledge we hear answers to be. as patai describes it, the interview is a product of interaction and negotiation between the researcher and the researched; it reflects “a point of intersection between two subjectivities – theirs and mine, their cultural assumptions and mine, their memories and my questions, their sense of self and my own, their hesitations and my encouraging words or gestures (or sometimes vice versa) and much, much more” (patai, 1988:146, cited in bettie, 2003:22). consequently, we need to reflect carefully on how we organize our questions and on how we listen, so as to create the best conditions for the co-construction of knowledge. i agree with presser (2005) that data are not to be viewed as ‘objective truths’, but as mirroring the result of a specific set of social contexts, research processes and interpersonal dynamics (see jensen, this volume). accordingly, “the researcher’s goal is not to emancipate the authentic story of the narrator – none 191 exists – but rather to expose as much as she can of the relations that influence the construction of the story that is told” (presser, 2005:2087). as researchers, we mediate and control the representation of our respondents’ voices. however, recognising the hierarchy within the process of conducting and writing the research does not mean that we cannot work on giving voice to the research participants rather that speaking for them. as a way of addressing this issue, i have tried in particular to reflect on the role of my own social belonging in the production of accounts and in my writings (see faber, 2008). i have also attempted to use many quotes from the interviews in my writings, thereby displaying the complex ways through which the interviewees produced various discourses about class in relation to me as interviewer. the idea is, thus, that the quotes functions as an empirical test of the credibility of my analysis, so to speak. like bech-jørgensen (1994) i believe that inserting quotes from interviews in the written texts is not only a question of illustrating the theoretical findings that we as researchers attain. it is also a question of letting the research participants ‘have a saying’ within the text. at the same time, the quotes makes it possible for the readers themselves to reflect on what is said, to elaborate on the research conclusions or even to reach different conclusions. both the conversations that i initiated within the interviews and the social reality in which they were created are open for several interpretations from different perspectives. this is also why, as gullestad (1996) argues, the interpretation is a process that actually neither can nor should take its ending. the problem of representing the voices of others when doing research we must continually work towards uncovering “the difference your difference make”, as reay (1996: 443) phrases it. our attention should not only be directed towards heightening transparency about positionality (of researcher and researched) and not secreting away the analytical choices, the representational practices and the personal investments, we make as researchers. in order to avoid the risk of reproducing specific discourses of class, thereby covering up or perpetuating structural inequalities, we must also continue to recognize the pitfalls surrounding issues of categorizations, conceptualisations and questioning (also see jørgensen, this issue). as explained in this article the categories used by the interviewees when positioning themselves were not given, but “invented for the occasion” (what strauss and corbin [1998] call in vivo concepts) and handled in ways that gave the most positive presentations of themselves possible during the interview: they were ordinary and middle class, or whatever their social position actually was, had a better work ethic and better mothering practices, inter alia, than other social groups. within sociological research you can find the same tendency among researchers potentially distorting the analyses with images, or at least euphemistic portrayals, of their own social group (also see faber & prieur, 2012). this behavior and the application of hidden class categories within research risk contributing to the veiling of class. like when researchers write about the educational system and the labour market, where already the use of ‘high’ vs. ‘low’ convey an evaluation, as vogt (2007) has also pointed out in a critique of a research tradition where scholars may, unreflexively, distinguish between ‘interesting’ and ‘not interesting’ jobs. likewise, skeggs (2004) has offered a useful illustration of a similar pitfall with examples from the current sociology of mobility, which tends to disguise who can and who cannot move, and also in giddens’ sociology of the self with its silence on matters of class, gender and race. 192 the problem of implicit class biasing within sociology merits more thorough investigations. it also raises questions about the need to address the contours of the researcher’s social identity and his/her social belonging or positionality (in terms of gender, race, class, sexuality and other axes of social difference), and it raises questions such as: how can we use research “to produce knowledge across multiple divides (of power, geopolitical and institutional locations, axes of difference, etc.) in ways that do not reinscribe interests of the privileged?” (nagar & geiger, 2007). and, indeed, ruptures are possible. reading the work of lareau (2003) one cannot help but notice her conceptualisation of the parenting practices of the middle class, which lareau labels “concerted cultivation”, capturing the way in which middle class parents are providing a structured life for their children constantly trying to guide them, while the working class parents attribute much of their child raising tactics to “the accomplishment of natural growth”. lareau’s vocabulary is a rare example of a sociological taxonomy that does not give the most positive characteristics to the privileged group. there are no simple answers to the questions regarding representation. these issues are crucially important because our academic work can have ‘real effects’ in different ways and on different levels. on the one hand research can impact upon policy discourses, like archer, hutchings and leathwood emphasize, thereby “effecting what/who are recognised (or not) as important, who are named as ‘problems’, who are constructed as deserving of resources, and so on” (archer, hutchings & leathwood, 2001: 42). on the other hand, research can disrupt the research participants if they feel misunderstood, misrepresented or even subjected to symbolic violence. whether majority group researchers should seek to represent the ‘others’ (those in the margins of society) has often been discussed within sociology. however, as griffin argues: “researchers are always ‘speaking’ for others. this is not something to be denied or avoided: it is a (potential) power and responsibility” (griffin, 1996:189, cited in archer, 2002). back (2007) similarly writes that opening spaces for voices and stories that are otherwise silenced is a sociological responsibility, which is why researchers need to concentrate on both careful listening and critical scrutiny. summing up in this article i have elaborated on some of the dilemmas and concerns which were raised in my research about class representations. the focus of the article has not been on the research project as a whole or its findings – at least not in a thorough way. instead, the focus has been on methodological issues when accessing class by way of interviews: the process of gathering the interviews, the complexities involved, the challenges related to analyzing and writing the results, and the challenges of representing the experience of others, especially when researching across difference. despite the fading of class consciousness and/or reluctance to speak about class, class still informed the experiences and understandings of my research participants 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(1977): learning to labor: how working-class kids get working-class jobs. columbia: columbia university press. author stine thidemann faber is associate professor in the dept. of culture and global studies, aalborg university, denmark. email: stf@cgs.aau.dk kristensen ready for publication 114 do teachers leave their ethics at the school gate? social practice research in a danish primary school karen-lis kristensen abstract. this study addresses teachers' ethical dilemmas in everyday participation in school structures in a danish primary school. it focuses in particular on their relations with 'disturbing children'. the author and four first grade teachers work in a research team, documenting and analysing the teachers’ interactions in the classroom. this paper focuses on the interactions between two of the teachers and one of the students. the research team focuses on the teachers’ struggles with stress and burnout symptoms that they impute to students’ misbehaviour. through their work together, documenting what happens in the classroom, and then working together in collective biography workshops, the research team reveals the contradictory conditions of teachers’ work. they find that following current guidelines for good classroom management, and accepting without question current discourses on adhd, places the teachers in a double-bind, with teachers and children in opposition to each other, and both teachers and children being judged and found wanting. the paper seeks new ways of thinking/doing classroom interaction that challenges some of the binds of current management practices. keywords: teacher burnout, adhd, self-understanding, structures of schooling, mo(ve)ment. please cite this article as: kristensen, k.l. (2013). do teachers leave their ethics at the school gate? social practice research in a danish primary school. qualitative studies, 4(2): 114-133. introduction1 this paper documents the work of two teachers in a 1st grade classroom in denmark, who worked together with the author of this paper to resolve the dilemmas that the teachers were facing when working with ‘disturbing children’. over the period of 10 months, they worked together as part of a research team, adopting a range of qualitative research methodologies that would enable them to develop skills of closely monitoring and documenting their own thoughts and practices and the relations between them. interviews, focus group discussions, photo-documentation, discussions with children and with parents and collective biography were used to enable the teachers to see moments in their classroom in minute detail, and to see the thought processes at work informing those moments. the focus of this paper in particular is to 1 the author wishes to thank bronwyn davies for comments on and discussions about drafts of this article and for improving the language. 115 show how that detailed focus on key moments of being, including both thought and practice, can contribute to significant movements in that thought and practice. we integrate ‘moments’ and ‘movements’ into one term here, mo(ve)ments, in order to emphasise the link we are seeking to document (davies and gannon, 2006). our methodology involves focussing on moments of being that are lived, remembered and accounted for in ways that are collectively recognizable and meaningful. through making those moments that are intensely lived by individuals visible and hearable, and by unearthing the collective meaning-making resources that are drawn on in those moments, each subject’s vulnerability to societal arrangements, structures and discursive powers can also be made evident. this combination of attention to the vivid detail of thought and of being has been shown to be associated with movement, or transformation, not just of individuals, but of the collective, as it opens up imaginative leaps toward new ways of thinking and being (davies and gannon, 2006, p. x; nissen, 2012; holzkamp, 1998). the paper focuses on two everyday incidents that highlight teachers' dilemmas in their everyday thought and practice. they involve mikkel, who was one of two boys in 1st grade whom the teachers suspected had adhd, and whom they blamed, in part, for their experiences of depression burn-out. at the teachers' request he was assessed by a psychologist from pedagogical psychological counselling during his first year in school. in danish public schools, several pedagogical and organizational initiatives are aimed at including all children. the danish school law (1975) requires that all school classes have to have a ‘classroom teacher’ who, besides teaching her/his subject, is also responsible for the children’s emotional and social wellbeing (herman, 2007, p. 80). further, pedagogues work in schools to support children with special needs, and school pedagogues work to facilitate the transition from kindergarten to school, especially from grades k to 2. schools can require assistance from psychologists, speech therapists, physiotherapists and dyslexia-specialists from an organisation called pedagogical psychological counselling. four teachers became members of the research team: dorte, the classroom teacher and danish teacher; malene, who taught music and religion; katja, who was the support pedagogue for 12 lessons a week; and pernille who was the school pedagogue for 10 lessons a week. the research leader and author of this paper, is a former teacher. eighteen months earlier i had engaged in participant observation as a school psychologist trainee with this same group of children now in 1st grade. the data i draw on in this paper involves dorte and malene. from the outset of this study, dorte talked about being overloaded with work and frustrated in her job. she managed to cope by, in her own words, "working hard and dealing with dilemmas as they occur". for quite some time, malene had been taking anti-depressants, prescribed by her doctor because of "depression caused by workrelated stress", and just before the data was collected, katja had been on sick leave for an extended period because of "stress and burnout". 116 at the time of the study the diagnosis of burn-out is common, and the categorization of children as disturbing children with a diagnosis of adhd is both common-place practice and a common-sense way of thinking about children who disturb usual practice (nielsen and jørgensen, 2010; hjörne and säljö, 2004). problems in the classroom are thus individualised and read as embedded in individual teachers and children, with guilt and blame shifting to and fro between them (højholt, 1993). this paper asks how else these dilemmas might be understood and resolved. the study works to develop new analytic tools and practices in this first grade classroom. problem displacement sociocultural background the vision of comprehensive public schools to educate all children in denmark, as in other western countries, dates back to late 18th century when an optimistic belief in enlightenment and education suggested that freedom and equality would transform human beings into good citizens (korsgaard, 1999). and, as a corollary, in 1798, the first written medical account was published, describing children characterized by a lack of attention (palmer and finger, 2001, p. 67). today all children are required to attend the same kind of school for 9 years, to learn all they need to learn to live good lives as citizens in democratic society. school knowledge is structured such that the meeting of learning targets is measurable at all times. in his foucauldian analysis of the danish public school from 1950 to 2000, herman (2007) relates how power and discipline have been a continuously growing challenge in this move to comprehensive schooling. in the usa, this same movement is linked to an increase in children categorised as hyperactive and unable to concentrate in the school context (korsgaard, 1999). in 1961, a medical company was allowed to administer methylphenidate2 to 81 so-called disturbing children3 4, and many indeed reacted with behaviour that was less hyperactive and more focussed (adalbéron, 2010). this provided new pathways for understanding and reacting to behavioural differences among children with new bio-medical and psychological treatments being developed (rose, 2007; nielsen and jørgensen, 2010). the diagnosis of adhd was 2 methylphenidate is an amphetamine derivate that was well known in the early 1960s from its effect on military personnel who had to cope with extreme situations (adalbéron, 2010). 3 these children were also afroamerican and socially deprived (adalbéron, 2010, p.10) 4 in 1937 methylphenidate had coincidentally proved to have a calming and concentration-enhancing effect on children who suffered from severe headaches following encephalography (smith, 2010). 117 developed between 1961 and 1987, and listed in the dsm-iii. the terms developed to diagnose adhd are still regarded as valid.5 during the same period of expansion in education, governments in most western countries have increasingly required schools to be 'inclusive', meaning that regardless of any differences, all children should attend the common public school (slee, 2010; herman, 2007). associated with this trend is an increasing tension between so-called ‘inefficient organizations’ and ‘defective students’, each held responsible for school failure and segregation (hjörne, 2004, p. 25). increasing demand for inclusion gained momentum with the salamanca statement of principles, policy and practice in special needs education (unesco, 1994). this involved a shift away from inclusion as merely moving already 'labelled' children into the classroom with the aim of normalising them (michailakis and reich, 2009; graham and jahnukainen, 2011). instead the focus was on abilities of schools and school-teachers to meet the needs of all children (michailakis and reich, 2009, p. 26). however, the occurrence of the adhd diagnosis has not stabilized with this understanding of inclusion. instead, there has been an explosive increase (graham 2006a; 2010). over the last ten years there has been an 83% increase in the number of adhd diagnoses in denmark. the use of medication has similarly risen dramatically (kristensen and mørck, in review). in this same period of school history – since the educational explosion in the 1950s and 1960s, since the demand for inclusion, and since the adhd diagnosis was introduced – teacher burnout as a category of illness has been increasingly present. burnout is not listed in the dsm-iv as a psychiatric diagnosis. however, it is accepted as a psychological phenomenon that doctors consider when medicating and granting sick leave, due to depression caused by stress. american psychiatrist h.j. freudenberger (1974) introduced burnout as a syndrome that teachers with ‘an overzealous desire to help others’ might develop (freudenberger in byrne, 1999, p.17). in 1976, maslach described what she called a ‘social cognitive multidimensional definition of burnout’, including the components of outer stress, evaluation of others and evaluation of self (maslach, 1999) resulting in emotional exhaustion, depersonalization and low selfesteem, including disbelief in one’s own competence (ibid.). maslach's definition has gained widespread legitimacy in teacher burnout research (vandenberghe and huberman, 1999). from a sociological research perspective, teacher burnout is regarded as caused by global trends in managerialism, where ‘human resources’ are increasingly regulated and workloads intensified. teachers are caught in a set of contradictory and 5 dsm is the american psychiatric association's diagnosis manual. in the 1994 edition the adhd diagnosis was revised to be more inclusive, but it lists the same behavioral characteristics as the 1987 edition (american psychiatric association, 1994). 118 unmanageable demands. they should cooperate with each other but they lack of time; children should reach required standards but also have their socioeconomic background and cognitive skills taken into account (graham, 1999; farber, 1999); the audit culture specifies outcomes that must be achieved and at the same time requires constant change (miller, 1999). these features of managerialism have been demonstrated to undermine teachers' self-perception as professionals, in particular, compromising their ethical values and the meaning and value of their work (smylie, 1999; miller, 1999). sleeger (1999) argues that the ‘psychological contract’, that used to give teachers authority to change elements of children’s behaviour over time and according to their relational experience, has not been replaced in an era in which teachers now lack authority. teacher burnout and student behaviour are connected. beszterczey, katzenstein, park and goring (2002) found a significant correlation, with aggressive and oppositional behaviour from students experienced by teachers as extremely stressful. hastings and bham (2003) found a connection between students' disrespectful behaviour and emotional exhaustion and depersonalization in teachers. students' lack of social competence is associated with teacher depersonalization and low expectations of selfaccomplishment. teacher burnout can, however, be reduced by increased self-efficacy through improved classroom management (ibid., p. 124). recent research has further demonstrated this association between student behaviour and teacher burnout (pang, 2012; chang and davis, 2009; pas, bradshaw, herschfeldt and leaf, 2010). in all these studies, teachers' psychological characteristics are mentioned as affecting the correlation. in a qualitative study of 68 finnish 'comprehensive school' teachers pyhälto, pietarinen and salmela aro (2011) identify narratives of burdensome situations in teachers' work that are considered to be stress factors. their analysis indicates that teachers consider prolonged unsolved problems in their social interactions with students as a cause of their feeling burned out. they reported problematic encounters with students as sources of perceiving themselves as more cynical and alienated in their work (ibid., p. 1107). in this study, teacher burnout subsequently seemed to have a negative impact on student behaviour and learning (ibid., p. 1102). in all western countries – including denmark – teacher burnout is reported as a serious and extensive problem that causes sickness and a desire to leave the teaching profession altogether (langager, 2008; pyhälto et al., 2011; pas et al., 2010; pang, 2012; chang and davis, 2009; martin et al., 2012). primary school teachers are often the ones who suggest an adhd diagnosis (nielsen and jørgensen, 2010; graham, 2006a; 2006b; mcmahon, 2010; prosser, 2010) and their own burnout is reported as one of the reasons (nielsen and jørgensen, 2010; pyhälto et al., 2011). hjörne and säljö (2004; 2004b) reveal how the category of adhd as a neuropsychiatric syndrome manifests itself at students’ welfare meetings in a swedish public school as a way of normalising school practices that marginalise students 119 (hjörne and säljö, 2004, p. 333). their analysis shows how, when a child has been referred for further scrutiny and testing with other professionals and experts, and once problems have been established by teachers as being too difficult to handle, the child already has a provisional identity or label, and diagnosis is likely to be negotiated in terms of the binary ability/disability (ibid.). tait (2003, p. 14) refers to this practice as teachers ‘leaving their ethics at the school gate’; once the categorisation is in place, they accept that normal school practice is to ‘force children to be drugged into normality and passivity’. this study seeks to move beyond placing children and teachers in oppositional positions where they inevitably reproduce the tensions in a pathologising cycle of guilt allocation. the research team worked on an analysis of burnout as loss of integrity when participating in the current arrangements of schooling (mørck, 2006). they used collective biography work to develop new understandings of their difficulties focussing in particular on two encounters with mikkel. methodology dorte, malene, katja, pernille and the students in grade 1 participated in this social practice research as co-researchers, engaging in the common goal of developing their practice and moving beyond feeling burned out and labelling children with adhd (mørck and nissen, 2005; khawaja and mørck, 2009, p. 30). the empirical study was the first of two similar studies conducted at two different schools (see kristensen and mørck, in review). to capture the rationalities that informed their interactions (holzkamp, 1995), i situated myself in the grade 1 classroom for 10 months and adopted wide ranging qualitative methods, including interviews, participant-observation, photo documentation and collective biography. during this time i participated as a pedagogical resource person in daily classroom activities. at team meetings, i participated as a critical friend and member, but with research as my own individual interest (khawaja and mørck, 2009, p. 30). the collective biography workshops, finally, opened up the possibility of developing new thought and practice in relation to ‘disturbing children’. the methodology of collective memory work was introduced by frigga haug (1987) as a way of collectively exploring the double processes of becoming persons among others, and at the same time constituting social phenomena. the collective biography work that we engaged in was inspired by davies and gannon (2006), who state that collective biography work is a research strategy particularly suited to illuminating complex questions about pedagogical encounters, since it works with narrative, and draws on bodily knowledge and affect (davies and gannon, 2009). 120 moments of being in the classroom in what follows i will tell two stories from my classroom observations and discussions with the teachers. the first story i have called dorte and ‘the four points of the compass’. it is the last lesson of the day. dorte, malene and katja are all present in the classroom, because they are celebrating the birthday of one of the children. some parents have arrived to pick up their children from school, and since the birthday is on the schedule, they have come into the classroom. the children are eating candy and singing a birthday song. dorte decides to start a 'game' that is familiar to the children, called 'the four points of the compass'. four children are picked by the teacher to 'be it'. they are placed in the corner to the left of the blackboard. mikkel is one of the four. the game starts. dorte asks questions and the four children in the corner quickly raise their hands to show they know the answer. the one who raises his hand first is allowed to answer, and if it is correct, he/she can move to the next corner clockwise. the aim of the game is to be the first to arrive back at the starting point. for the first questions, all four students put up their hand. mikkel doesn't get a chance to answer – even though it is impossible to see who raised his/her hand first. then dorte starts asking math questions. this clearly makes mikkel uncertain and hesitant to raise his hand, so he suddenly finds himself the last person at the first corner. mikkel looks stressed and for the next question, he raises his hand as quick as lightning! dorte notices this and (finally) chooses him to answer. but mikkel has not yet had the time to solve the math problem, so he cannot answer right away, and dorte announces that he is disqualified for raising his hand without having an answer. mikkel’s face distorts with tears, anger and helplessness. he grabs the nearest empty chair, made of heavy steel, throws it through the classroom and storms out. dorte runs after him. not until the other children and parents have left the school does dorte return together with mikkel. she is sweaty, upset and constantly trying to calm mikkel down, but eventually gives up. mikkel leaves the classroom in anger and goes to the after-school club. at the team meeting six days after the above episode dorte says she is convinced more than ever that mikkel has adhd. she argues that the situation in which mikkel ‘lost it’ and she ‘lost control’ in front of children, parents and colleagues proves it, and she says that it has been worrying her and wearing her out the whole week. she suggests that they urge mikkel’s parents to have him referred to the children’s psychiatric hospital to be assessed and “hopefully diagnosed with adhd so he can be assigned to a special school ... it won't work with mikkel in the normal school. if other students 'pop up' – and we know they will – then one just cannot manage ... one never knows how he reacts. it's just always there in your stomach as a worry ... he still has his 'small boy 121 charm', but i can easily imagine him in two or three years. by then he will be really rude, and probably violent as well and then we cannot defend having him among the other students in class”. dorte here draws on a widespread belief, that adhd, if not (medically) treated, will develop into violence and juvenile delinquency (barkley et al., 2002). katja disagrees: “well, his anger when he threw the chair was levelled at himself. i myself would probably lose trust in school if i never had any success ... i don't think that mikkel has adhd, it is just taking time for him to mature ... he is extremely impulsive, but he is smart as well and when he reacts so strongly, he is like a wounded deer that just needs to hide. he just cannot take any more defeat”. dorte and katja’s conflicting understandings of mikkel, and of the moment when he threw the chair, gives rise to a discussion in the research team concerning the appropriate disciplinary rules in class. dorte, in order to legitimise her demand for more rule-bound structures and to defend her feelings of 'inadequacy' in response to mikkel’s reaction, says: “i’m a control freak. i know. i just cannot cope with not having total control. it's my personality. it’s something from my childhood that i have been working on a lot. and that's why it hits me so badly when mikkel is so disrespectful, and when i lose control in front of the class and the parents.” katja, in contrast, introduces a developmental discourse of maturing out of impulsive behaviour, a discourse of (high) intelligence and of the child's need for basic trust (hjörne and säljö, 2004, p. 332-333). however, this line of argument is not accepted by the team as a whole. dorte’s medical discourse on adhd clearly dominates the group sentiments (rose, 2007; hjörne and säljö, 2004b), and seems to offer a solution for the potential school crisis revealed by the incident. it is relevant to note that dorte uses the individualistic psychological category of 'control freak' for herself. with respect to mikkel’s behaviour, she uses the neuro-behavioural category of adhd. when explaining how to improve pedagogy in class to avoid mikkel repeating such behaviour, she suggests more and stricter rules. by putting herself in the same boat as mikkel, as one who is faulty, she both blames herself and indirectly legitimates her categorisation of mikkel as adhd. as the classroom teacher in grade 1, dorte’s contract, written by the teaching team and sanctioned by the school management – makes her responsible for contact and cooperation with parents, for communication with external experts and for students’ academic and social development plans. she is also responsible for calling in substitute teachers to the class when someone in the team is sick, she is responsible for activity plans being worked out and approved by the school management each semester, and she is responsible for implementing structures from 'cooperative learning principles' 122 in her class6. she meets with her team of teachers for one hour each week to plan and evaluate activities, to discuss students, and to develop learning structures. this organizational form – called 'self-managed teams' – is widespread in denmark, as it is in educational organizations in the western world (bovbjerg, 2006, p. 244). within the team, dorte allocates tasks and responsibilities following the classic leadership model (handy, 1999). dorte’s reasons for action when mikkel throws the chair in class in front of pupils and parents are stated as: “it's all about objectives and goals for your team”. she regards herself as responsible for what takes place – including how the other team members feel and what they do – not taking into account that team members participate with different levels of academic professionalism, different interests and rights, different positions in school, varying life interests. in calling herself a control freak she pathologises herself for taking on the management role that the team contract creates (anderson and born, 2001). from dorte’s perspective the situation in class is thus full of ambivalences: is she an equal colleague with the other team members? are they ’we’? is she recognized as the leader or as ‘one of us’? is it her responsibility that mikkel ‘freaks out’? are the structures of the team her responsibility? and who is she responsible to? she engages in negative self-judgement and is highly conflicted and ambivalent as she reflects on what happened: “i often find myself incredibly dominant. and even though i am always the one who takes responsibility for planning activities in class, i hate to govern ... i am the one with most supplementary training in special education, and i know much more than the others about children's development and also about adhd, and so maybe i should just push through my views, but i don't want to disrespect them”. dorte struggles in the contradictory roles of both leading and being a teacher among peers. she “sits at the computer for days to plan activities and schedules for the team to make sure the students will develop optimally” and she feels that – even when mikkel is obviously in trouble – she cannot deviate from the plans that she has made and about which she has informed malene and katja, “because then they would not know what to do. i have to stick to the classroom management structures ... i have gone through a lot of work to learn ‘cooperative learning’ structures and to make sure that 6 cooperative learning principles is a teaching strategy in which small student groups, each having students with varying levels of ability, through a variety of learning activities, improve their understanding of a subject. each member of a group is responsible not only for what is taught, but also for helping group mates learn, thus creating an atmosphere of achievement. implementing cooperative learning principles in 1a has also implied 'trust training exercises’ (kagan, 2008). 123 everyone in the team knows how to use them. we have to make sure that all the children – mikkel for one – gets a chance to read with a grown-up every day.” as the responsible team leader dorte, at a parents’ meeting, has informed the parents about such cooperative learning principles as ensuring differentiation, and she has asked the parents to re-read every day with their child what (s)he has already read in class, and to do so in the form that dorte has used.” but then when i have to substitute for another teacher, all my plans fall to pieces, and i can feel the parents disrespecting me as a professional.” bovbjerg (2006) regards such team collaboration as an instrument of new public management and human resource management that “installs a performance orientation into the worker's soul” (ibid., p. 245). to show how team collaboration generates conflicting identities, bovbjerg contrasts the concept of collegiality with that of team collaboration. collegiality, she states, develops from staff members’ daily social interaction in which different kinds of norms and traditions evolve over time, whereas team structure is initiated by policy-makers and school management, as a management tool (ibid. p. 250). dorte’s longing to become a recognisable and appropriate person in her team leads her to carrying out and sticking to these pre-planned structures of teaching. neither her own individual needs nor mikkel’s should be allowed to de-rail this commitment. she implements these plans that promise to ensure the students’ social and academic development, and to prevent mikkel (and others) from ’popping up’. her general strategy for fulfilling these ambitions is 'knowing more' about adhd and about teaching structures and by taking on responsibility for the team. my second story i have called malene and mikkel on the staircase landing. as part of the endeavour to integrate education, grades k to 2 have common activities every monday morning. students are divided into groups across classes and all the teachers and pedagogues who work in the early-schooling department have to cooperate and participate in groups according to one of their primary subject areas. activity planning and student group formation takes place at meetings held six times a year, attendance being mandatory for teachers and support pedagogues. student groups are established according to the cooperative learning principle of homogeneity. this monday morning, however, some teachers have called in sick, and others are asked by the principal to substitute for them. therefore, the student groups and activities have to be changed at the last minute. malene ends up being the only grown up together with about sixty 6-8 year-old children in the (now too small) classroom of grade 1 and – while trying to get an overview of who is present, what activities will be possible with whom and where – she tries to communicate to the students the changed group structure for today, where the groups go, what to do and with whom. malene sweats and her face is flushed. she hastily looks through the pile of papers that she holds in her hand, 124 running her other hand over her forehead. she has to shout as loud as she can to get the children’s attention. when she gets to mikkel, she tells him that today he cannot, as usual, participate in the music activity with her. instead, he has to join the outdoor activity group. but mikkel loves music! and he is not allowed to participate in ordinary music lessons with his own class, because he disturbs the others. therefore, when mikkel learns that he will not be allowed to play music, he gets very disappointed and runs out of the classroom. knowing that mikkel sometimes leaves the school area – and being very afraid of the consequences and dangers – malene follows him out of the classroom and finds him on the staircase landing with about 4 meters left to the linoleum-covered concrete stairs. children swarm out from the classroom and an atmosphere of uproar spreads. malene – alternating between threatening and begging – tries to get mikkel to come down. but mikkel doesn't come down until the principal arrives, climbs up and carries him down. at the team meeting i bring up the staircase incident. i acknowledge malene’s way of handling the difficult situation. however, malene explains that despite this acknowledgement, and despite her exhaustion and the distress, the entire incident caused her – the worst thing was ‘losing face’ in front of the principal, when she could not get mikkel to come down: ”it's scary. he's just a little boy, but he can make you feel totally assaulted”. malene reflects that maybe mikkel’s behaviour is problematic to an extent that they should attempt to have him diagnosed with adhd after all. yet, she feels bad about this and continuously blames herself for not being able to connect with mikkel and avoid him getting onto the staircase landing. malene does not feel sufficiently recognized in and respected by the team and wishes the incident would just pass unnoticed at the meeting. not coming to understanding with herself and with dorte, katja and pernille about ‘each of their standpoints’ in the incident, leaves her with feelings of shame, and – desiring to be a good team member – she reluctantly accepts the adhd discourse. at the team meeting, malene does not take into account the fact, that she was put in an impossible position by structures colliding with staff sickness. malene participates in a dilemma with no action possibilities being developed in the team other than the diagnostic discourse. she feels depressed. reaching consensus has made her feel marginalised. having been a teacher for 35 years, malene walks on the margin of the social community of practice in which structures and teamwork and the medical discourse of adhd constitute the ideology. the contact with students as an act of verifying that pupils can speak for themselves was malene’s reason for action, when she pleads with mikkel to come down from the staircase landing (säfström, 2012). 125 from moment to mo(ve)ment through collective biography as we have seen, dorte is caught in double-binds caused by management structures, and malene suffers in schooling structures that do not recognise or value her contact with children or engagement as a professional. they both explain their difficulties in individual psychological terms that internalize the processes and make them feel insufficient and ashamed to share their reasons for action. they therefore take on the need for control of mikkel and of themselves (rose, 2007). through the collective biography work, the two moments involving mikkel are opened up. i started the workshops by reading aloud an account of a situation in which i was negatively affected in my capacity to be a ‘good teacher’, and where i was unable to act to counter the negative impact on my practice. the account was written, in the mode of collective biography memory writing, to avoid explanations and clichés, but with detailed descriptions of my bodily remembering of the moment including a detailed description of the place and time of the incident. listening to the story and talking about it in the group made it vivid in everyone’s minds and bodies, prompting new stories about similar remembered moments. in this way i removed myself from a position of one who judges at a distance. we then started a process of each of us telling our stories with the others listening carefully (davies and gannon, 2006), and then writing down our stories in as much detail as possible. we read them to each other and worked on them to eradicate clichés and to make visible the discourses that we had applied in order to collectively explain or analyse what took place in the remembered moments. it became evident to us, through this memory work and analysis, how vulnerable we had been to discourses of schooling that were dominant at the time of the remembered moment, and it became possible to – collectively – unfold new understandings and possibilities for action (davies, 2000). to assist the process of tracing and identifying those dominant discourses and structures of schooling, i had collected pedagogical literature from the complete period of our teaching careers (1974-2009). dorte's remembered moments in the collective biography were all about what she had accounted for as 'her problem with control': “i was totally overcome when mikkel laughed right in my face and i yelled at him – i totally lost control” and ”when he turned around and gave me the finger, i felt completely out of control and hit him in the face”. she talked about a situation in which the principal, instead of recognizing all the work she had put into complying with all team members in her planning "hinted that i was just looking after number one. so i just sat there with the tears burning in my eyes feeling attacked and helpless. i can't even remember what i actually did". in analysing these moments of hurt and pain, we were able to see several binaries at work on dorte’s thoughts and practices: expert/ordinary teacher; pupil/teacher; authority and control/disrespect and chaos. the binary of serious/fun also played a significant role when, for example, she yelled at mikkel for laughing at her, and when 126 she participated in the 'four points of the compass' game. she acts as a teacher in the sense that 'play should be learning, since learning is the goal of school', 'play should not just be fun, since fun is waste of time'. in the collective biography workshop we began to see how 'play', over the course of our teaching careers (1974-2009), has been co-opted into pedagogical discourses, and how this has meant that the voluntary and spontaneous nature of playing has been jeopardized. we saw this as an example of “governmentality” at work on us and through us (foucault, 2000). and we could see how the 'smooth space of play' that is characterized by an absence of binaries and categorisations, had developed into rules stating dogmatically what is right and what is wrong in the context of schooling (davies, 2009). inspired by philosophical play theory (tuft, 2002) discriminating 'self-made rules' and 'actual rules of play', from a social practice theoretical standpoint, dorte's selfunderstanding in the four-point game when mikkel throws the chair can be analysed as a double-bind between play as a pedagogical tool for establishing and maintaining structures, and play as a voluntary activity. how should one recognize oneself and be recognized by others when acting as teacher in a game – that in fact is constructed as a set of conditioning rules – initiated as a birthday celebration, in the last five minutes of the lesson, with parents present, and with fun and serious binarized and thus excluding the other. in discussing and retelling her stories, at one point dorte said: ”look at what i am expected to be! a nice girl and also a person with authority, and i always have to know the most recent theories, i have to be an exciting teacher who develops new methods all the time and is never boring”. however, during the workshops, she comes to new practice understandings when she says: ”i am beginning to see what governmentality means. it makes me stressed out ... and we have all these goals that we use to hit ourselves on the head with, not even knowing if we accomplish them. i often find myself more concerned about if it's my fault than about the fact that what i really want to do is to take care of the children”. through the collective of the team, dorte reconceptualises 'her control deficit' in terms of participation in a school context where the need for control and discipline is urgent and self-governmentalised, and where binaries are strong. she sees that understanding mikkel's behaviour as communicative in the specific moment would provide whole new opportunities for action. she might not have started the game within the short time frame; she might not have chosen a game that had to have her as the 'boss', suggesting a game that the students could play (and be played with 7) by themselves; 7 philosophical play theory argues that an activity can be called play insofar as the persons playing are played by the play (tuft, 2002). 127 she could have bent the rules to make sure that mikkel was not the last one at the first corner. with different choices she might not have felt the need to keep an adhd ‘expert eye’ on mikkel. what is of interest here, though, is not which choices she made, but that the collaborative telling and listening in the space of trust and openness created within the collective biography work, and the careful reading and thinking and analytic questioning that go with it, unlock the frame in which all that happened was inevitable, and in which someone, some individual, either her or mikkel (or both), must be judged and found wanting and so carry the burden of blame. malene’s recalled memories were about situations in which she had felt ‘messy’, ‘unstructured’ and ‘lacking authority’. one story was of her teaching in grade 1 and the children ”talking and being noisy and i was all engaged in helping some of them and didn't notice the noise. but when dorte entered the classroom, the pupils immediately became quiet and i felt so ashamed”. and another time when the principal entered the classroom and said: "i wonder if teaching is possible in this noise." like dorte in the earlier story, malene interprets the incidents through an individualistic framing and moves instantly to self-judgement, finding herself wanting. such a strategy deleuze (1980) associates with morality, which he strongly contrasts with ethics. morality measures each subject against an imagined ideal and as such is very similar in structure to managerialism, which states what each teacher and each student should be and then engages in extensive surveillance to catch anyone who falls short of that ideal. ethics in contrast does not measure each individual against an imagined ideal, but asks in each moment, in each encounter with the other, “what is it to be this?” ethics is not about following rules, but about an openness in each moment to the possibility of seeing and being in new and unexpected ways (davies 2012, davies and wyatt, 2011). the collective biography workshops opened up such a space of open listening to self and other. malene began to remember more and more moments when she had ‘good contact with mikkel’ and ‘talked with him’ and he let her help him to not give up on school assignments. there were times when she had “managed to include mikkel in classroom activities” and these were listened to by the rest of us, opening up mo(ve)ments beyond the binaries. this in turn opened up discussions about what should be considered as 'authority' in the team, about the application of cooperative learning structures and about malene's position in the team. she stated: “it is difficult to feel that you really do have a choice in a situation where you are being hurt. but you do. i am tired of us teaching the children meta-cognition. they have to know something about their own behaviour, but in that way, they are never allowed to stay in the flow. i think that we demand something from them that we ourselves find hard ... i become passive when you talk about meta-cognition and agendas, dorte. i wish that we could sometimes just let things float”. 128 at this point, malene moved beyond team cooperation as a new public management tool and reached a form of colleagueship (bovbjerg, 2006) and cooperation where “contradictions are continuously dealt with, regulated and often imply conflicts” (mørck, 2008, p. 51, my transl.). within the team, through these workshops, a process of coming to understand each other’s standpoints in practice was initiated. during this process, malene started arguing for "evaluating the use of 'structures' at team meetings, so that persons become aware of when they are stressed by the structures, and she argued that they ”together – instead of it being only dorte’s responsibility – make plans for the activities”. the staircase landing became a mo(ve)ment away from being stuck in schooling structures. it led to malene saying that another time, in a similar situation, she would demand assistance. another time, she says, she would “have a dialogue with mikkel about his strong desire to be in the music group” and ask for and listen to mikkel's reasons for action. conclusion this paper offers a research practice that enables teachers to analyse the ways they are caught up in current management practices that cause them to think and act in ways that can be understood as 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(1999). teacher stress in a time of reform. in a.m. huberman and r. vandenberghe (eds.). understanding and preventing teacher burnout. a sourcebook of international research and practice. new york: cambridge university press. tait, g. (2003). free will, moral responsibility and adhd. international journal of inclusive education. 7(4): 429449 tuft, k. (2002) det fascinerende ved børns musik. in k.a. rasmussen and s.b. nielsen (eds.) musik til tiden. aarhus: det jyske musikkonservatorium unesco (1994). the salamanca statement and framework for action for special needs education. vandenberghe, r. and huberman, a.m. (1999). understanding and preventing teacher burnout. new york: cambridge university press. x school intranet (2008). name and homepage of the school anonymous. author karen-lis kristensen is a phd candidate. email: karenliskristensen@gmail.com agnes ringer (trykkeklar) 1 researcher-participant positioning and the discursive work of categories: experiences from fieldwork in the mental health services agnes ringer abstract. this paper reports on methodological experiences from an ethnographic study in psychiatric institutions in denmark. drawing on a poststructural framework and newer discussions within qualitative research that view methodological problems as sources of data, the paper analyzes how the challenges encountered in the fieldwork were indicative of discursive norms within the mental health services. it is argued that the multiple ways the researcher was positioned by participants revealed that the categories “patient” and “staff” were produced as polarized binaries with little leverage for negotiating positions in between. at the same time, it is shown that the patients find ways to resist the objectifying practices of the researcher as well as of the mental health services. the conclusions are discussed against recent attempts within the mental health services to promote a more patient-centered approach and involve patients in the treatment. keywords: qualitative methods, researcher positioning, field relations, ethnography, mental health please cite this article as: ringer, a. (2013). researcher-participant positioning and the discursive work of categories: experiences from fieldwork in the mental health services. qualitative studies, 4(1): 1-20 introduction in this paper i analyze methodological experiences from an ethnographic study on mental health institutions. the study focused on language within the mental health services – on how patients are talked to, with and about in psychiatric treatment. the mental health services of the danish region zealand had initiated the study, based on a wish to promote a patient-centered approach and service user involvement. they were interested in the ability of the language used in communication with patients to either restrict or promote involving patients in the treatment. i was thus present at two psychiatric institutions with the purpose of producing data on language and service user involvement within mental health care. the first institution in which the fieldwork took place was an outpatient clinic where patients lived at home and had regular or sporadic contact to the professionals. the second was a secured inpatient ward, where patients stayed for shorter or longer periods of time behind locked doors – but, by proving that they were well enough, could leave the grounds of the ward unsupervised. these two sites were chosen as they represent very different modes of organization within psychiatry. the first is for patients who are considered well enough to live at home, typically with voluntary contact to the mental health services. the other is for patients who are often considered too ill to even go for a walk alone and are frequently sectioned or admitted on an involuntary basis. three months were spent on participant observations of the everyday practices within the institutions such as patient-professional meetings, therapeutic sessions, staff meetings, and treatment conferences. i also interviewed 13 patients and 11 members of staff. 2 as the study progressed, it increasingly came to focus on language, not just as immediate communication between patients and professionals, but as naturalized forms of wider discourses that restrict and open up possibilities for how it was possible to define and think about patients in the mental health services (foucault, 2005; 1991a; holen, 2011; speed, 2011). thus, a poststructural framework became the framework for analysis. such a framework attempts to look beyond the participants’ immediate understandings of themselves and the world to analyze the discursive norms and repertoires that participants draw on when they talk. what is said in a meeting between a nurse and a patient, for instance, is regarded as a system of representations that reflects wider systems of meaning within the institution of psychiatry and within society (speed, 2011). the language used may thus be said to draw on and construct discursive norms that create and restrict possibilities of defining who patients and professionals are. from this perspective, the discourses and norms available also set conditions that define who the researcher can be, since the researcher temporarily inhabits a part of the social worlds of the participants. the paper focuses on the methodological challenges that i encountered during the fieldwork, particularly related to how the research participants reacted to and positioned the researcher. drawing on newer debates that view methodological problems as sources of data, (e.g. angrosino & mays de pérez, 2000; hastrup, 2010; jensen, 2009; järvinen & mik-meyer, 2005; savvakis & tzanakis, 2004), the paper proposes that by analyzing the positions that become available for the researcher in interactions with participants, it is possible to gain important insights on the features of the field under study. this type of understanding transcends the traditional division between methods and research outcomes in that it does not regard interactions with participants and methodological dilemmas solely as issues of method, but sees them as a point of departure for analysis. the paper specifically analyzes what the mutual processes of researcher positioning indicated in terms of the discursive norms of the institution of psychiatry. the cases used in the paper have all been selected as they are indicative of many dilemmatic situations in which the researcher’s position became entangled in the web of the discourses of the institution. researcher positioning as a starting point for analysis it is often stated as a goal that the ethnographic researcher finds a credible place for herself within the structures of the field she is entering; a position that provides opportunities for building trust and rapport so that she may be invited into different activities. traditional discussions have been concerned with how the researcher may establish the best “role” in the field (e.g. snow et al., 1986; see also harrington, 2003 for an overview). the researcher is often thought to be able to take on roles initially when engaging with participants and stick to them throughout the research process. problems with establishing a role, or with confusing roles, may be construed as problems of the individual researcher’s method. however, newer debates within qualitative research argue that ethnographic researchers cannot unilaterally choose or control roles and options during fieldwork, no matter how carefully they have planned their studies (harrington, 2003; preissle & grant, 2004). research participants are active in accepting, refusing or renegotiating a researcher’s identity claims. furthermore, participants rarely perceive the researcher as a unique and decontextualized individual, but define the researcher in terms of categories and norms that preexist in the field (angrosino & mays de pérez, 2000; harrington, 2003). this is why the ways the researcher is understood by participants and the negotiations of access that the researcher encounters in the course of fieldwork may constitute an index to qualities, norms and structures in the social world of participants (savvakis & tzanakis, 2004). 3 the question of the position of the researcher seems to pose a particular problem in qualitative research within health institutions. van der geest & sarkodie (1998, p. 1375) note: ”[qualitative researchers] in a hospital or clinic find themselves out of place. not being a doctor, nurse or other type of health worker and not being a patient either makes their position somewhat awkward”. perhaps due to this reason, ethnographic research in mental health institutions in the past has sometimes been conducted covertly, with the researcher masquerading as a patient (e.g. caudill, 1958; rosenhan, 1973). nowadays it is more common for researchers in health institutions to engage in overt research, dressing like, and following professionals (e.g. barrett, 1996; buus, 2005; grigg et al, 2004; holen, 2011; johansen, 2006; lester, 2009; søndergaard, 2009; warren, 1983; weiss, 1993) and thereby not infrequently be positioned as a member of staff by both professionals and patients. many qualitative researchers in health institutions report on dilemmas associated with researcher positioning; however, the analytical implications of either being positioned as a patient or as a professional by the participants in the field are rarely discussed (van der geest & finkler, 2004; wind, 2009). at the same time, when different researchers in diverse times and settings have encountered similar challenges, it is unlikely that the dilemmas can solely be attributed to questions of methods or individual characteristics among the researchers (jensen, 2009). rather, they may be considered a starting point for understanding some structural qualities of the research field. taking these debates as points of departure, the paper applies the concept “positioning”, derived from bronwyn davies and rom harré (1990) and harré & van langenhove (1999), to analyze the researcher-participant relationship as a meeting between positions. positioning may be understood as mutual negotiations of social positions that occur when people engage in conversation. when people position each other, they are assigning rights and duties of speaking and acting, based on pre-existing categories, metaphors and discourses (harré & van langenhove, 1999). positioning, therefore, always draws on wider discourses and norms, which are inseparable from the context of the interaction. at the same time, people can exercise notional choice; they can draw on a repertoire of multiple and even contradictory discourses in their self-and-other positioning. people are therefore active when they position themselves and others, but at the same time the amount of available discourses set the parameters of possible positions. analyzing the processes of positioning that take place between researcher and participants may thus open up an understanding of the categories and discursive norms that are prevalent in the field and how they operate. in this way, a poststructural approach to the field relationship can be helpful in unpacking aspects of the field. i will now turn to look at the positioning processes i became a part of during the fieldwork in the psychiatric institutions and how these can be understood as indicative of the discursive norms that operate in the mental health services. i begin by looking at the outpatient clinic. because i was introduced to the clinic by the professionals and followed them to meetings with patients, i firstly discuss the positioning process i entered into with the professionals. i then move on to discuss how the frequent interaction with the professionals contributed to positioning me as a member of staff in the eyes of some patients. i look closely at an interview with a patient at the clinic and analyze how the ways i was positioned in the interview provided clues on the discursive norms that operate for patients. subsequently i turn to look at the positioning processes i became a part of in the other setting of the fieldwork, the inpatient ward. i discuss how i strived to distance myself from a position as part of staff and i analyze the positioning processes i entered with the patients at the ward. finally, i look at how the professionals at the ward reacted to me and the position of “least staff” that i strived to reach. in 4 the conclusion i relate the discursive norms that emerged in the researcher positioning processes to the question of involving patients and their perspective in mental health care. first field: researcher positioning at an outpatient psychiatric clinic in preparation for the entry to the fieldwork in the first institution, the outpatient clinic, i emphasized my clinical background as a psychologist and the study’s affiliation with the mental health services in meetings with the professionals. the intention was that this might facilitate access (grigg et al., 2004) and minimize the potential threat that being a complete stranger to psychiatric work may pose (savvakis & tzanakis, 2004). ethnographic literature in general encourages researchers to make themselves seem familiar and to find common grounds with the participants in order to “fit in” (borbasi, jackson & wilkes, 2005; glesne & peshkin, 1999; hammersley & atkinson, 2007; harrington, 2003; jorgenson, 1989). i wore a name tag with the logo of the mental health service, like the professionals, but one stating that i was a phd student. i also tried to resemble the staff in clothing. i usually wore a clean, simple blouse, dark jeans and a suit-jacket. i was presented to the clinic by the professionals and i was introduced to patients by them. following the professionals and getting access to patients with their help was practical and what seemed feasible. in any fieldwork, material and physical features of the world, as well as social and cultural aspects allow, encourage or block specific possibilities (hastrup, 2010; preissle & grant, 2004). because the institution was a clinic, the professionals were there constantly during working hours; however the patients came and went. if i were to follow someone then, it was necessarily the professionals. i will now look at how some of the professionals at the ward positioned me as a critical evaluator in a position of power above them. i suggest that this is indicative of a discursive norm among the professionals to be wary of criticism in the face of recent standardization processes. standardization and the researcher as a representative of the system one of the professionals says “i have something for our group therapy, but i almost don’t dare to ask with agnes here. i have a test in english, the newest test that is not translated to danish yet. isn’t it okay if i use the english one? is that okay?” everyone says that it is all right. she looks at me with an inquiring look and asks if i have any objections. i answer “no, not at all”. fieldnotes, outpatient clinic the fragment above is derived from the staff morning meeting during the first day of fieldwork at the clinic. the team member’s statement positions the researcher as someone who has the right to veto a decision approved by the team and therefore in a superior position to them. although i had tried to position myself as a naïve student among the professionals and said that i was there to learn from them, there were numerous examples from my fieldnotes of the professionals reacting to my presence with self-consciousness and something akin to submissiveness. during the fieldwork i interpreted these reactions as methodological problems. perhaps i had not explained the aim of the study well enough or i had chosen the wrong approach. however, as the number of similar instances grew, i began to understand the professionals’ positioning of me as more than problems of access. the reactions of these team members seemed to extend the relationship to me as a person and indicated that many of the professionals generally expected to be surveyed and criticized by outsiders. the health services in denmark have been subject to an increased level of standardization and neo-liberal governing reforms (holen, 2011; magnussen, vrangbæk & saltman, 2009) and the team was 5 working hard on implementing these. their progress was regularly surveyed, and praise or reprimands were given based on the team’s efforts. although some level of suspicion and wariness towards the ethnographic researcher is not uncommon in fieldwork in general (dewalt & dewalt, 2003; harrington, 2003), it appeared that the specific positioning of the researcher as powerful and critical was connected to a discursive climate induced by the neoliberal reforms. in the other setting of the fieldwork, the inpatient ward, a nurse even told me directly that some of her colleagues regarded me as a spy, and that in these times of standardization and quality development one can never be too sure. this indicates that the researcher positioning processes could be read as indicative of the discursive norms that operated in the context. the prevalence of neoliberal discourses in mental health care thus seemed to have affected how the professionals could position themselves towards me. it was important for them not to be perceived as unprofessional, incompetent or to “lose face”. in such a context, following the correct standard procedure became an important frame of reference for professionalism. the guidelines and benchmarking, intended to provide a higher standard of care, in practice therefore seemed to undermine the autonomy of professionals and made them cautious of making independent decisions (holen, 2011; speed, 2011). following staff, my contact to the patients was mediated by the professionals and they influenced who, among the patients, i could interview and join in meetings. this provided few opportunities to negotiate or destabilize the position (spanger, 2010). although i emphasized confidentiality and my independence as a researcher, for some of the patients my position as researcher became blurred with the professionals. in the next section i look closely at the processes of researcher positioning during an interview with a patient, frederik. the case is chosen as it is illustrative of the way many patients were inclined to position me as one of the professionals at the clinic. furthermore, the case illustrates that a researcher position as “part of staff” sometimes had consequences for the way patients found it possible to interact with me. i argue that the seemingly methodological problems that arose during the interview were indicative of a norm of the primacy of biomedical discourses within psychiatric care, excluding and rendering problematic alternative understandings of distress. however, i also argue the norm of bio-medicine does not become entirely encompassing for how patients may define themselves in other contexts. biomedical discourses and the researcher as a member of staff frederik was a man in his twenties who had been sentenced to treatment and medication following a minor felony. his main psychiatric contact, the nurse magda, told me that frederik was a co-operative and low-maintenance patient with whom she had a good workingrelationship. he had agreed to have me observe his meeting with magda, and later interview him. as many professionals, magda introduced me as a psychologist working on a research project. during the meeting magda and frederik mainly talked about medication. frederik had stopped taking his medication for a few days and said that not taking it had made him feel better. magda said that it was dangerous for him to experiment with it and it would be better to make an appointment with the doctor to make adjustments. she also said that she was obliged to mention that due to his sentence, it was compulsory for frederik to take medication, and not doing so could lead to involuntary hospitalization. although this element of coercion was present, the meeting was kept in a friendly, understanding and familiar tone. during the meeting magda made some further references to me and my status as a psychologist. later the same day i interviewed frederik. trying to avoid a position as part of staff from the beginning, i had brought fruit and chocolate with me to the interview. as with all interviews i 6 conducted, i started by asking about his life before entering psychiatry. this choice was motivated by a wish to not focus immediately on mental health issues (deroche & lahman, 2008) and to diverge as much as possible from a patient-professional meeting. however, frederik answered that there was nothing “noteworthy” [bemærkelsesværdigt] about his life prior to hospitalization. thereby he applied a criterion of topic-relevance from a biomedical discourse, which prioritizes issues directly related to illness and distress, while topics concerning other parts of life often are deemed less relevant (boyle, 2011; holen & ahrenkiel, 2011). despite my attempts, this situated the interview within the discursive genre (wetherell, 2010, p. 18) of a patient-professional meeting, with me positioned as the professional. agnes: so what happened? frederik: mm, but it was, that is (.) if you call it a psychosis or whatever you might call it, er, what happened anyway was, er, that my brain anyway played (.) a thought trick and my life, and made all sorts of things (.) yeah, it is also written in my file, er, what happened back then (.) er, i almost can’t even explain it but, but i’m almost tired of talking about it. interview with frederik within a bio-medical discourse mental distress and diagnoses are understood as underlying biological forces that act upon a person’s personality and identity (parker et al., 1995; rapley, moncrieff & dillon, 2011). by talking about the brain playing a trick, frederik positions himself as a repository for cerebral forces and uses the psychiatric term “psychosis” to make sense of his experiences. he implies that his patient file may provide me with information, perhaps more factual and objective information than he could provide. i did look at medical records as part of the study and i had asked for his consent for getting access to the file. as i had explained, my interest in the file was to see how professionals wrote about patients, not to get information on medical conditions. however, frederik positions me as a person interested in expert statements on his psychiatric history and himself as someone not well suited to provide these, or less suited than a patient record written by professionals. the statement that he is tired of talking about it further indicates that he does not wish to elaborate. however, the fragment also seems to indicate the existence of other possible discourses, specifically in the statement “psychosis or whatever you call it”, even though these do not become immediately available. later in the interview he described his first hospitalization: a: what did you think about it at the time [during the first hospitalization]? f: at the time i thought it was a terrible thing [noget herrens noget], it was phew! you shouldn’t be here, like, i don’t think it’s good [rise in tempo of speech] because i am not sick or i am not, there is nothing wrong with me or what can you say (a: mm) so, so i fought like, a little against, like, that, the idea about it (a: mm) erm (5 s.) erm, and i don’t know if i still do, like a little (a: mm) but erm, i don’t really know what i think about it (a: mm) with regards to just that. i haven’t thought that much about it, heh [laughs], it’s just something that has helped me, just through a period of time. a: what has helped you? f: psychiatry a: mm (11 s.) interview with frederik 7 here, frederik first talks about himself as someone who once did not think he belonged in a psychiatric ward as someone who did not consider himself ill and was oppositional to the mental health services. thereby he invokes potentially anti-psychiatric discourses (speed, 2011). he also implies that this is a position he currently may identify with. then he seems to wish to shake the position off by saying that he has not thought it well through. this may serve to make his previous account seem more throwaway (wetherell, 2010), as if it was something he just thought of now. jonathan potter (1997) has coined the term stake inoculation for discursive strategies that people may use when they wish to say something potentially bold, but then do not wish to be perceived as having a stake or interest in a certain position. this may have the function of preventing the interlocutor from undermining their accounts. for frederik, the “i don’t know if i still do”, “i really don’t know what to think about it”, “i haven’t thought that much about it” and the subsequent laugh, may function as just that; as a shield against a possible criticism or judgment of him, thereby positioning me as a person who could potentially undermine him. in response to many other questions, frederik answered in a similar evasive or truncated manner and i grew increasingly frustrated that the interview was not proceeding well. alternative discourses and reworking the position of staff halfway into the interview, frederik and i took a coffee-break and i turned off the recorder. i felt it necessary to explicitly readdress the question of my position. i told frederik that it was true that i had studied psychology, but i was not a mental health professional. i did not have specific preconceptions about who and what may be considered ill. i was a researcher interested in his experiences. when we resumed the interview, this seemed to have caused a shift in frederik’s way of addressing me and the stories he told. he asked if i was interested in hearing more about the voices he heard, despite previously stating that he was “almost tired of talking about it”. he explained in details how he perceived the voices to be external to him, that they were of an abstract spiritual and sometimes positive nature, and not pathological. at the same time, he said he believed he could not share these thoughts with the mental health staff: f: i just think that feeling comfortable and feeling, feeling comfortable with saying what you, kind of what your inner torments are and because erm, i feel like they [mental health professionals] understand it one way, or the way that is u-, the prevailing understanding (a: mm) and i understand it in a totally different way and i don’t think i can explain myself out of it like that: ”i see it this way instead”. so, so i keep it to myself instead and i try to avoid talking to them about it (a: mm) yes, i have always seen it as something that just needs to be gotten over with. interview with frederik in this fragment towards the end of the interview, frederik positions himself as someone who has learned to manage the contact with mental health professionals, specifically by avoiding disclosures of too much personal information. a similar dynamic appeared to have taken place between interviewer and interviewee throughout the first part of the interview, when he had positioned me as a mental health professional. researchers have noted the resemblance between the qualitative research interview and clinical or psychotherapeutic encounters (fog, 2004; kvale & brinkmann, 2009). they note that there is a risk that the intimacy of an interview situation may cause participants to reveal personal information they will later regret. this is an important point that should always be taken into consideration when doing interview research, 8 perhaps especially within clinical settings. for frederik, however, the proximity of the research interview to a clinical session and the positioning of me as a mental health professional seemed to have had the opposite effect. instead of excessively revealing personal information, he wished to reveal as little personal information as possible, when that information potentially diverged from a mainstream psychiatric discourse. it was only when the interviewer could be positioned outside of the category “mental health professional” that he could draw on alternative discourses than a dominant psychiatric one. at first glance, frederik’s uneasiness and evasive answers in the first part of the interview might have been thought of as mere technical problems between the interviewer and the informant. however, a closer look suggests that the methodical problems become meaningful in the light of discursive norms and subject positions within the institution. barrett (1996) and parker et al. (1995) have noted that through repeated interactions with professionals, psychiatric patients learn to define their experiences in relation to professional categories and norms and thus learn to become competent patients. on the other hand, patients risk rejection or being discredited if they position themselves within less established forms of knowledge (parker et al., 1995). throughout the fieldwork, i learned that there was a potential risk involved for patients who admitted to unconventional understandings of their distress. patients who said they were not ill or whose explanations for their distress diverged a lot from psychiatric discourses were frequently labeled as “lacking in insight” into their illnesses (dillon, 2011). within the mental health services, patients who were thought of as “lacking in insight” were often considered uncooperative and very ill. consequently, it was not an attractive position to be placed in. seen in this light, frederik’s strategies for mitigating potentially problematic utterances in the interview can be seen as a way of shielding against being positioned as “lacking in insight” by the interviewer whom he perceived to be part of the professional group. what i experienced during the interview as technical problems thus rather seemed to be an indication of norms and expectations regarding how patients could talk and position themselves within the mental health services in order to be perceived as easy to deal with and co-operative. what the case of frederik further illustrates is not that alternative discourses of distress become absent in a person’s self-constructions when becoming a psychiatric patient, but rather that there can be difficulties and risks involved in expressing these in interactions with professionals. at the same time, the interview illustrates that there is a potential for resisting psychiatric discourses in accordance with the demands of the discursive context (parker et al., 1995). as much as reductionist discourses of illness and disease may become the main frame of reference in meetings with professionals, they do not necessarily become generalized to how patients define and position themselves in other contexts. this showed me the importance of studying not only how patients are talked to and about in the mental health services, but also how they themselves talk about the mental health services and the self-constructions that become available to them when doing so. i thus became aware of the importance of conducting interviews as part of the fieldwork. by basing most of the material on observations and by following professionals, i risked ignoring discourses that could sometimes not be expressed in patient-professional interactions. second field: negotiating “least staff” researcher positions at a secured psychiatric ward the interview with frederik had made it clear that if i wished to gain access to discourses that were sometimes silenced in interactions with professionals, it was important that the patients did not position me as part of the professional group. in the second field, the secured inpatient 9 ward, i therefore sought to negotiate an approach that would make it possible for me to be positioned as “least staff”1: to diverge from the staff category as much as possible and not be seen as affiliated with them. on the entrance meetings with the professionals of the ward during which i told them about the study, i therefore explained that i wished to get to know the patients first and spend time with them, as my research design made it important that the patients did not think of me as part of staff. as i also wished to produce data on how the professionals talked about the patients in their absence, i added that towards the end of the fieldwork i would like to deviate from this rule – and join the professionals on staff meetings and interview them. in order to avoid being positioned as staff, when entering the ward i had to create a visible connection with the patients. having made up my mind to position myself as recognizable to patients, i was aware to signal with my body signs (søndergaard, 2006), clothes and body language, a stronger belonging to them than to the professionals (estroff, 1982). i learned to wear worn jeans and loose t-shirts, no jewelry, and sport shoes, thereby resembling how some of the patients dressed. i refrained from wearing an identity tag or a security alarm like the staff. i avoided going near the staff room in the beginning of the field work. only professionals were allowed into the staff room, and patients would knock on the door and stand outside while talking to a professional. i also joined the patients’ activities rather than the professionals: used the patient lavatory, rather than the one reserved for staff, drank coffee when it was served to patients, and, lastly, went to the smoking room with the patients who smoked. smoking turned out to be an important activity for many patients and some spent a great proportion of their time in the smoking room. the strategy opened a forum for just sitting with the smoking patients on the pretense that i “just needed a smoke”. at other times i attempted to “just hang around”, sitting relaxed and silent, folded up on the couch (estroff, 1982) in the common room. however, for my identity claims as “least staff” to work, they had to be accepted by the research participants (harrington, 2003). the next section looks at how the patients at the ward reacted to and positioned the researcher in light of my attempts to position myself as “least staff”. i discuss that my attempted positioning as “least staff” triggered more implicit or explicit resistance from the patients than what i had experiences at the clinic. the resistance to me, i suggest, was associated with a resistance to objectification; a resistance that at the same time could be difficult for patients to express when interacting with professionals. decoding the researcher’s interests and resistance to objectification unlike the patients at the clinic, with whom i mostly talked during formal interviews or observed during meetings with professionals; with my “least staff” identity-claim i was able to develop more informal and long-lasting relationships with many patients at the ward. however, just as with the interview with frederik at the clinic, there was a tendency that some patients at the ward initially positioned me as interested in their ”illness”. i am sitting with some of the female patients in the activity room. one of them has brought a kit for painting and decorating finger nails. they have asked if i want to join them and also have my nails painted and i have happily agreed. i bring some sweets that 1 the term ”least staff” is inspired by nancy mandell (1988), who, while doing research on children’s social worlds in nurseries, developed an approach she calls the “least adult” role. mandell’s “least adult” role is practiced by her participating as one of the children and subordinating to the authority of the teachers, although with a constant awareness that she cannot actually become one of the children. more recently in a danish context, hanne warming (2005) has redeveloped the concept within a poststructural framework. 10 i have kept in my backpack and we share them while we are getting our nails painted by julia, who has been a patient at the ward for some time. julia says: ”ha, you’re giving us sweets so that we will tell you about our mental problems”. i answer that i’m actually more interested in how they experience the mental health services than in their problems, ”but”, i jokingly add, “it is correct that i am bribing you”. we laugh. fieldnotes, inpatient ward julia’s attempt to decode the researcher’s aims and interests reveals something about what patients at a psychiatric ward might expect others to find interesting about them (jensen, 2009). she is used to talking about her personal difficulties with professionals and knows that being a psychiatric patient, having ”mental problems” and a psychiatric diagnosis, positions her as different from the norm; a norm of which the researcher in this case is a representative. at the same time she makes fun of the researcher’s intentions and practices. the researcher is positioned as someone who wishes to objecitfy the patients by studying their ”mental problems” but at the same time doesn’t have the authority of the professionals to do so and thus is forced to bribe her way to gaining access. julia’s reaction and articulation of what she perecives to be the researcher’s aims may be seen as a type of resistance against being objectified by the researcher’s gaze (foucault, 2003; jensen, 2009). she practices resistance by the use of irony and throughout the fieldwork there were numerous examples of her reacting to my presence this way. in the former setting, the outpatient clinic, i wrote fieldnotes during almost all my observations. the professionals had sometimes commented on this, but the patients never mentioned my writing practices. at the ward, however, the informality of my interactions with the patients often prevented me from taking notes (emerson, fretz & shaw, 1995). in the few situations in which i tried jotting some words down in the presence of julia, she commented on it and mocked me: ”oh there the journalist appeared in her!” or ”are you getting anything to write about? you love this, don’t you?”. her reactions may be read as confronting the researcher with the fact that the researcher, because of her academic position, has the possibility of producing authoritative accounts on the patients (jensen, 2009). thus, they are an ironic comment on the power that lies in the objectifying practices of the researcher and at the same time an indication that she opposes to the objectification. other patients sometimes showed resistance to the researcher’s objectifying practices by avoiding talking about the things the researcher was interested in, or what they thought the researcher was interested in. in my fieldnotes i have written about another patient, mark: mark walked by my side all day today and followed me around, but he did not want to talk about the mental health services when i asked about his experiences of them. whenever i tried asking him he changed the subject and talked about different songs he had listened to, films he had seen and books that interested him. he asked me many questions about these and whether i had heard of them. i finally asked him directly if he would like to participate in an interview, but he said no. i asked him why and he said he doesn’t like to blabber and go on and on. i asked what he meant and he said ”well, about things like my illness and stuff”. i said that i actually rather wanted to ask him about how he experiences the mental health services. he answered ”it’s personal”. fieldnotes, inpatient ward my questions about mark’s experiences of psychiatric care places him in the position of ”psychiatric patient”. thereby i implicitly point out the differences between us, positioning 11 myself as the norm and him as deviant from it. mark’s avoidance of my questions and resistance to participating in an interview can be read as him resisting precisely the categorization as ”psychiatric patient”. like julia he positions the researcher as primarily interested in a biomedical condition – “my illness” – and distances himself from that position. experiencing or thinking that others may find you interesting only because of an illness that makes you deviant and perhaps inferior to the norm, calls for a rejection of that position. mark’s response is to disidentify (jensen, 2009; skeggs, 1997) from the position of “mentally ill” by rejecting any topics introduced by the researcher that hint at his status as psychiatric patient. thereby he markedly distances himself from the position he perceives the researcher to place him in and normalizes the situation by drawing on a repertoire of topics from everyday conversations: books, films and music. mark and julia’s mockery and resistance to me can be read as subtle antagonisms within the institution and in society moving into the researcher’s relations with the participants. they both expected me to be interested primarily in their illness, but seemed to resist this classification of them. it is interesting that the patients in the former field, the outpatient clinic, had not in the same way reacted with irony or resistance when i was introduced to them by professionals. one interpretation of this could be that when the patients had me positioned as part of the professional group they expected me to objectify them and, as in the case of frederik, objectified themselves to me by constructing themselves as passive repositories of pathology (speed, 2011). this can be tied to foucauldian notions of how psychiatric patients learn to make themselves objects for biomedical interventions and in the light of these learn to reflect on themselves as objects (foucault, 2003; 2005). such a process of objectification may become invisible for patients, as it just becomes a naturalized form of interaction within the mental health services (barrett, 1996). however, engaging with the researcher, who shifted positions between regular talk and objectifying note-taking, might have made the objectifying practices more visible. the patients’ reactions to me can thus be read as an index to the varying and complex forms of resistance that become available to patients in different discursive contexts. in the next section, i will look closely at one specific context of my interactions with the patients, the smoking room. i argue that the patients’ reactions to my presence there and the positioning of me as a “fellow smoker” point to the importance of physical space in creating pockets of resistance for the patients. the symbolic meaning of the smoking room and the researcher as a fellow smoker the patients dina, julia and laura go out to smoke in the smoking room. i take out my own pack of cigarettes and go out with them. dina makes a surprised, slightly disapproving face and asks: ”what are you doing?!”. laura answers: ”she wants to smoke”. i ask if that is alright. julia says ”of course it is”. ”oh”, dina says, “i thought you were from the staff, they’re not allowed to smoke with us”. i say no i’m not and i introduce myself. she answers: ”oh, so you’re the one doing that study”. i say yes. they keep talking. dina turns to the group and says that she tried to burn her jeans yesterday. then she describes a suicide attempt involving 300 painkillers. she explains that after she had swallowed them she called her boyfriend who had gotten her an ambulance. she says that she has done the same thing four times before. fieldnotes, inpatient ward 12 joining the patients in the designated smoking area – the smoking room – turned out to be the most important way for me to attempt being positioned as least staff. as i learned from dina’s reaction to my presence, smoking in the smoking room was an activity reserved for the patients alone; the professionals were not allowed to smoke with them. when the specific event above took place i had already joined laura and julia in the smoking room on numerous occasions. dina had largely stayed in her own room and hence i had not had the chance to speak to her before. dina’s negative reactions to my presence when she thought i was part of staff, and her subsequent willingness to speak openly about her suicide attempt, when the others assured it was legitimate for me to be there, can be read as indicative of some of the norms and practices guarding the patients’ everyday interactions at the ward. as the professionals were afraid that some patients would disclose personal information they may later regret, the ward had a rule that patients were not allowed to talk to each other about emotional distress. i observed a few times how the rule was implemented: if a patient attempted to share experiences of distress with other patients in front of professionals, that person was escorted away from the other patients and invited instead to have a talk with one of the professionals. most patients thus learned to balance what they could say to each other in the ordinary spaces of the ward and the topics discussed were typically on mundane, everyday themes. however, dina’s openness about her suicide attempt and positioning of me as a fellow smoker in the context of the smoking room indicates the “otherness” of this particular space. in it, as opposed to other contexts of the ward, the patients could talk freely about their distress and negotiate the topics of discussion among themselves. perhaps because of its status as a special or “other” place, the smoking room was subject to discussions and conflicts between professionals and patients. explaining to me that they wished to reduce the time spent in the smoking room and prevent the formation of cliques, the professionals introduced a rule that smokers were not allowed to sit on the floor while smoking, but had to stand up. this rule was subject to discussions both within the patient group and during common meetings with professionals. not all patients showed interest in the rule, but most smokers disagreed with it. the conflict led to tensions regarding me and who i would side with. as i also wished to be positioned as trustworthy by the professionals, i adhered to the ban on sitting down, but kept going to the smoking room with the smoking patients. i go out to smoke with hanna, david and carl. the nurses niklas and ida are sitting in the common room just by the smoking room watching television. hanna sits down by the wall in the smoking room, so the nurses can’t see her. david, who is standing in front of the transparent glass door, visible to the professionals, starts to sit down too, but rises quickly again. we talk about hanna’s plans to move to a group home [..] then hanna turns to me and says jokingly: ”you know that you are violating the rules. you are talking out here”. i decide to go along, i cover my mouth and i say “sorry” with an ironic tone. fieldnotes, inpatient ward hanna introduces a discourse of resistance against the rules evoked by the professionals. she exaggerates the ban on sitting down and calls it a ban on talking, thereby positioning the professionals as unnecessarily authoritarian. at the same time, she positions me as someone who, like her, is violating the rules and is oppositional to them. thereby she constructs sameness and commonality (khawaja & mørck, 2008), implying that we have the same rules to adjust to as we are engaging in the same activity. although i had not earlier addressed the 13 conflict, in an effort to position myself as trustworthy, i accepted the position, implicitly marking my sympathy to her viewpoints and distancing myself from the rules in a slightly mocking fashion. this action was a way of “doing trust” (jefferson & huniche, 2009), creating a connection with hanna by positioning myself off the staff category. i thus co-constructed the discourse of resistance towards the professionals’ authority that hanna initiated. the positioning of me as a fellow smoker in the context of the smoking room, i suggest, points to the “otherness” of this specific place, in that it could provide a pocket of explicit resistance for the patients at the ward. at the ward, all other places were potentially places of “treatment” where the patients were “being treated” and the professionals were treating them (mcgrath, 2012). patients were openly subject to the psychiatric gaze – expressed in fine mechanism of surveillance and control (foucault, 1991b; 2003). the interactions in the smoking room, however, provided occasions for other types of positioning than “patient being treated” and in it, the patients could negotiate topics of conversation without the influence of professionals. the smoking room was thus produced as a “private space” (mcgrath, 2012) that could temporarily destabilize a patient position. had i not been invited into a position as a fellow smoker, this function of the smoking room would have escaped my attention. the positioning of the researcher as a fellow smoker thus made visible the norms and practices of patients in the particular context of the smoking room. the “otherness” of the smoking room in term indicated some aspect of the discursive norms shaping how to be a patient in the other spaces at the ward; often involving negotiating a patient position in an institutionally sanctioned manner. as much as some patients came to position me as a “fellow smoker” or outside of the staff category in many instances, the professionals of the ward appeared to position me as belonging to the category “most staff” or “least patient”. the next section analyzes how some professionals at the ward expected me to participate with the rights and duties inherent in a staff position. i suggest that this is indicative of a discursive norm within the mental health services that is based on a polarized dichotomy of “normality” and “pathology”. discourses of pathology and normality the researcher as “least patient” because i wished to establish a “least staff” position at the ward, in the early days of fieldwork i had rare contact with most professionals. however a few professionals did approach me, mostly two nurses and a nursing student. at one point during the first weeks of the fieldwork, the nurse andrea approached me when i was alone in the common room and addressed a problem they were experiencing. it was prohibited to have romantic relationships at the ward, but the patients clara and frank had formed a couple: andrea sighs and says that there is a bad atmosphere at the ward because they have a lot of personality disordered patients at the moment. she says that she has noticed that i walk around without a security alarm […] she goes to the staff room and brings an alarm that she gives me. she says: ”hey by the way, if you see clara and frank kissing, you can correct them” i answer ”ehhmmmm… i don’t think i can”. she says: “then go get stine [another nurse] to do it, she will be at work while i am away now, so she can correct them. they are not allowed to kiss; it creates an uneasy atmosphere among the other patients.” she shows me how the alarm works and that she wears hers under her shirt. i go to the toilet and i try out different solutions to hide the alarm. i think about how wearing it really associates me with the staff. fieldnotes, inpatient ward 14 here, despite the explicit efforts i had made to distance myself from the category “staff”, andrea expects me to participate with the same rights and duties as the professionals. she constructs the patients as easy to distress and positions me and herself outside the category patient. as i also wished to be positioned as trustworthy by her and the other professionals, i accepted the alarm and i did not openly oppose the idea of fetching a nurse if i saw the patients kiss, although i did not make use of it later on, as it would have compromised a position as trustworthy among patients. the position that i was invited into and my response to it were further made more complex by some incidents that had occurred recently: one patient had acted threateningly towards me, which had made me more willing to accept the alarm. this shows that andrea’s concern and wish to protect me, although she probably was unaware of the incidents, was not meaningless or uncalled for. in the light of this, i also began to experience some patients as unpredictable an easy to distress, which at times complicated my position and relationship to them. this indicates how the positions of researcher, professional, and patient intersected and produced relationships that could not be controlled or predicted prior to the fieldwork. the researcher-participant positioning had to be constantly negotiated and renegotiated, if i wished to be positioned as trustworthy by all participants. the position that the professionals invited me into was a dilemmatic one. while an increasing amount of patients came to position me frequently as “least staff”, the professionals usually seemed to position me as “least patient” when i interacted with them. the issues of belonging to one group or the other became increasingly challenging when i started having more regular contact with the professionals. i felt as if i was being disloyal to one of the groups when i was with the other. the challenges were amplified when i was with both professionals and patients in the same room: i’m sitting in the common room with julia and with the nursing intern jasmin. the patient emma comes in and sits down next to me. frank comes in and sits down too. emma asks frank: “what actually happened between you and clara, are you a couple now, or what?” frank says that they are, that he only wants clara and that’s the way it is. emma asks if he is in love with her. frank says that he is very much in love, and then he leaves. the nursing intern jasmin looks at me and says “we really have to report this to the other staff”. i mumble indistinctly that i won’t. the others go out to smoke. i ask jasmin if she thinks it’s okay if i join them. she says she thinks it’s alright. according to house rules, she says, one is not allowed to join the patients, but maybe that has nothing to do with me. i go to the smoking room. the patients in there are talking about frank and clara. they say they think it’s disgusting. julia says that they’re not allowed to kiss according to house rules. she looks at me and says: “yeah, jasmin said that she would tell the staff”. i say “i won’t tell, it’s important that you know that i won’t tell the things you say to me”. fieldnotes, inpatient ward here, the nursing student jasmin, like andrea, assigns to me the same duties as the professionals: reporting a violation of house rules. and just as with andrea, i found it difficult to respond properly. not opposing jasmin’s suggestion that we should report the violation to the other members of staff would have positioned me as untrustworthy in the eyes of the witnessing patients. however opposing jasmin’s suggestion may have positioned me as 15 disloyal from her perspective. my response was to very hesitantly disagree with jasmin at first and later to attempt to disidentify from the staff category explicitly among the patients. again, here i suggest that the dilemmas encountered with jasmin and andrea can be read as indicative of norms in the mental health services. the often mutually exclusive expectations about who i was and what my duties were indicate that the staff and patient categories were produced as polarized binary pairs. the “we” that the members of staff constructed with the researcher was not based on a commonality of people participating in similar activities or presenting similar body signs, as i had strived to act like and to look different from the professionals. the common link between us seemed to be based on something else; a discourse of pathology and normality, offering the category ”mentally sane” as a decisive marker of commonality between the researcher and the nurses. according to the discourse, since the researcher is not a psychiatric patient, and therefore in the “normality” end of the dichotomy, she may take on the duties of the professionals and be in a position of authority above the patients. parker et al. (1995) note that pathology versus normality, reason versus unreason, professional views versus patient views are culturally produced as binary opposites. these make certain versions of reality thinkable and practicable, while excluding others. from this perspective, the categories “staff” and “patient” just as “pathology” and “normality” may be seen as regulating and dividing practices that differentiate between people. such dividing practices affect the categories of behavior that are considered pathological, removing them from the realm of normalcy, and thus from being understood within their social context. rosenhan (1973) has demonstrated that whatever psychiatric patients do at a ward, their behavior can be interpreted as pathological simply because they have been labeled psychiatric patients. similarly, whatever i seemed to do at the ward, because i was not a psychiatric patient, i was constructed by the professionals as non-patient and therefore closer to the members of staff. this is indicative of a discursive norm that produces the categories “patient” and “staff” as binary, with little leverage for negotiating spaces in between. thus, just as the binary pairs were active in positioning the researcher constantly during fieldwork, with few possibilities of negotiating positions “in between”, so might the binaries have been difficult to penetrate for both patients and professionals. concluding reflections across fields the paper illustrates the importance of reading the processes of researcher-participant positioning as sources of data. this perspective invites us to see methodological problems as based on discursive norms that operate within the field. in the study, the researcher positions that were made available became an important source of knowledge about the discursive norms and social categories that operated within the mental health services. firstly, throughout the fieldwork, the categories “patient” and “professional”, and the binary pairs “pathology” and “normality” worked as a structuring norm in all my interactions with participants. it seemed as if in order to get closer to the patients and understand how they made sense of their experiences within the mental health services, i often had to be positioned as “least staff”; while for the professionals to relate to me i had to be positioned as “least patient”. just as discourses of sanity and insanity provided categories that structured the researcherparticipant interactions, they appeared to provide boundaries that shaped how the patients and professionals could be defined. the problems associated with negotiating a position from which 16 i could reach both groups therefore seemed to be indicative of the norms and dividing practices that separate patients and professionals. secondly, the patients’ expectations that i wanted them to talk about “illness” indicate the power of biomedical discourses in structuring how the patients define themselves in relation to the mental health services. at the same time, the patients who participated in the study were far from passive in their interactions with me and in their self-positionings. they resisted the objectifying practices of the researcher as well as those of the mental health services in several ways. this capacity to resist psychiatric discourses is often downplayed in the literature on psychiatric institutions and patient identities. however, during the study it became evident that discourses of resistance became more available to the patients when they could position me as “non or least staff” or when i could join them in settings that were seen as “other” than psychiatric. this indicated that the patients modulated what could be said in accordance with the demands of the discursive context. thirdly, the reactions of the professionals to my presence were to position me as “least patient” and sometimes as a powerful evaluator who had the right to criticize them. these, i have argued, can be read as indicative of a discourse that polarizes pathology and normality and of a norm that sets adhering to standards as an ideal for professionalism. this indicates that, just like the patients, the professionals were not entirely free, but relied on discursive norms that formed what they could do and how they could understand themselves. the paper thus points to the importance of understanding researcher-participant relationships as processes of positioning among people who are already positioned in different ways. the centrality of a discourse of pathology in the researcher-participant relationships indicates the power of this discourse in shaping interactions in the institution. however it also indicates that the institution is embedded in a wider cultural reality that puts in place a firm distinction between normality and deviance (jensen, 2009). in conclusion, then, the paper shows that researcher-participant positioning is shaped by pre-existing discursive norms, but also that psychiatric patients, who are often thought of as marginalized and passive, are active and reflexive when they position themselves in relation to the mental health services. this raises some questions regarding service user involvement and patient-centered care. service user involvement is often defined as treatment: “taking as a starting point the patient’s experiences and wishes” (region sjælland psykiatri, 2010:3, my translation). such a statement assumes an uncomplicated and static relationship between patients, their wishes and the role of the mental health services. however, as we have seen, these are not free from issues of positioning, constraints of the discursive context and dominant discourses. if patients learn that they are valued and regarded as competent insofar as they demonstrate a willingness to accept and actively adapt the understandings of the mental health services, the question of how to involve their perspectives in the treatment is not a straightforward matter. furthermore, service-user involvement is often constructed as a concept that can be implemented smoothly if the individual professionals are more attentive to the wishes of patients. however, the analysis indicates that the actions of professionals are never entirely free, but rely on interplays of wider discourses that form what they can do. if professionals undermine their own reflexive choices in the face of standards and benchmarking and if patients learn not to ask questions or challenge prevailing discourses and norms the question of involving patients’ perspectives is a complex matter that does not only depend on the willingness or the personal characteristics of professionals and patients. 17 acknowledgements i thank the anonymous reviewer, whose comments improved the points advanced in the paper. i also thank annegrethe ahrenkiel, erik simonsen, anna llewellyn, daniel direktor and annekatrine wangel for reading and commenting on earlier drafts of the manuscript. references angrosino, m. v. and mays de pérez, k. a. 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(2008). negotiated interactive observation: doing fieldwork in hospital settings. anthropology & medicine, 15 (2): 79-89 author agnes ringer, msc. psy, is a phd candidate at the psychiatric research unit and district east psychiatry, region zealand, and at the department of psychology and educational studies, roskilde university, denmark. email: agmr@regionsjaelland.dk or agnesri@ruc.dk