Parting is Such Sweet Sorrow:  The Art and Science of Ethnography

Text:  Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design by John W. Creswell

     Must everything be done in reaction to something?  Can one not make a decision about life style based simply on one’s observations of right and wrong, ethical or unethical?  Is it necessary to cross an X on the hand to let someone know how you will behave?

     Ross Haenfler’s (2004) technique was lengthy and detailed. His data gathering technique shows beautifully the circle of interrelated activities that best represents the qualitative research process.  Ethnography in its best form engages in activities that go far beyond the gathering of data.  His study of the sXers was a longitudinal study.

1.      He used 60 sXers locally and another 30 sXe and non-sXe acquaintance associated with the hardcore scene (metropolitan). 

2.      Interaction occurred at hardcore shows and socializing. 

3.      For supplementary material, unstructured, in-depth interviews, 17 men and 11 women aged 17-30.

4.      For variety, he used old and new adherents, central or peripheral to life experience.

5.      Interviews were unstructured and free from disturbances, organized around themes, but flexible.

6.      He was able to cross-correlate in order to re-examine results because of large numbers of participants, and a wide variety of experience to view how participants’ actions differed from their stated objectives. 

7.      He consciously distanced himself from setting to maintain a critical outlook.

8.       He used a variety of sources including scenes from other cities.

     He obviously considered the multiple phases of gathering data that extend beyond a reference point considered typical of observation and interviews.  He committed himself to studying and being more than an observer of the movement, partly because he did not want to fall prey to the “cool” behavior of his relatives and friends.  During the years between 1989 and 2001, he was fascinated by the subculture.  He developed a description of and shared patterns of a culture-sharing group, a different method, of course, than developing a theory or understanding a lived experience or exploring a life experience. 

As in narrative, phenomenology, and grounded theory study, he created and organized files, created codes.  Differently, he described the case and contents, looked for themes and patterns, used direct interpretation, and presented an in-depth picture of the case.  As in phenomenology, he used tables and figures.  As is used in the narrative method, he presented a narrative, but used the figures to augment, whereas the narrative method focused on general and unique features of the life.  He states that he “reconceptualizes subcultural resistance” (p. 309), and that the individual studies held their own meanings attached to the movement as well as buying in to the collective experiences.  Their experiences were expressed both politically and personally.  Many sXers reported that joining the movement gave then a way to be accepted as members of a group without using.  Does one have “complete control” if one must be accepted as member of a group?  Just another “groupthink”.  One man’s opinion.  Were I to engage in ethnographic research, I would certainly have to distance myself from my personal views, as Mr. Haenfler required himself so to do.  I am a little proud of him, because all of this makes me think of just another cult with all its limitations.  But that is not the point, I am realizing.  It happened.  Let’s report it.  And report it well.  His conclusions are interesting, and give me a report card on the last 20 years of our society. 

     As the study progressed, I interpreted that a spiritual progression had taken place.  It began with human rights and ended with the rights of animals. It was not simply, as I thought initially, “a stylistic reaction to mainstream culture” (p. 329).  While having a complex amalgomy of reactions and philosophies promulgated by sXers, the author seems to feel that the whole was a reaction to the disenchantment, homelessness, and the overall contemporary zeitgeist of cultural disorientation. A subculture reacted to another subculture that was seen as damaging and antihuman.  Who can blame them? Perhaps the age-old process of renewal, regeneration, and evolution of the species is still alive and well.

Analysis of Grounded Theory Study as found in John Creswell's QUALITATIVE INQUIRY & RESEARCH DESIGN

     One of the fascinating results of the Grounded Theory Study about survival and coping with sexual abuse (Morrow, S. L., & Smith, M. L., 1995) was in the last paragraph of the study.  Their finding was that “dividing various aspects of the self…enabled victims to disperse trauma…”, and “multiplicity provided…a cognitive structure in which…functions…were preserved until they could be safely reintegrated "(p. 305).  I had not realized that the brain could use a strategy of walling itself off to beneficial effect.   The authors did state earlier that these kinds of denials always had a price.  But it seems that the net result was beneficial to these victims of sexual abuse. It makes sense to me that the brain has innate abilities to protect itself, much like the eye does by blinking, or the core of the body retains heat in freezing water.  I am so glad that the subjects of this research, victims of abuse, were able to function in this way, when the stark truth might have proven overwhelming.

     The Grounded Theory Study presented here has much in common with both the Narrative and Phenomenological qualitative research.  All three require permission from the subjects to be studied. So far, the three types of studies have used a relatively small number of participants. Grounded Theory Study typically has a larger number of subjects than either Narrative or Phenomenological.  Also related are the kinds of information a qualitative researchers develops.  Stories (narrative), experience and context (phenomenology), and action or interaction (grounded theory)  will be interpreted based on insight and related within a social construct.  Similarly to phenomenology research, grounded theory uses the phases of coding:  open, axial, and selective.  The coding methods explained by the grounded theory author helped to clarify coding methods.  I was better able to understand the term “saturate the categories” (p. 160) until they revealed no more new information.  The process apparently helps reduce these studies to more manageable “chunks”.  These categories are broken down during the axial phase to “explain the central phenomenon” (p. 160).  The next step is developing a paradigm called “selective coding,” with which the researcher can use a matrix to understand situations related to the central phenomenon of the piece. 

     As is the case in phenomenology, the grounded theory researcher began by “identifying an objective set of experiences in the subject’s life” to study (p. 158). The phenomenologist searches for a “criterion” sample, similar to the grounded theory’s “theoretical” sample and the “critical” sample of the narrative researcher.  Also related are the kinds of information that qualitative researchers develop.  Stories (narrative), experience and context (phenomenology), and action or interaction (grounded theory), all will be interpreted based on insight and related within a social construct.  Phenomenology and Grounded Theory require extensive interviewing, which entail bracketing and logistics. A data analysis spiral may be used in all three types of studies includes the collection of various types of data, including text, images, and writing.  It is analyzed, classified, and compared, until meaning is distilled into essential bits of information. Computer programs and files may be used in all three kinds of studies.   

           In all three cases, the research studies develop into their own realms of mind and humanity, with the hand and voice of the researcher carefully monitored.  A result is not decided on and searched for:  it is unearthed. 

Phenomenological

Narrative qualitative research is both simple and complex.  There is poetry that is perhaps absent in other qualitative research.  The “circle” (Creswell, 2007) of activities both relates to and goes beyond the process.  In the narrative, one needs only one, maybe more, individuals to study.  In this way the research reminds me of single subject research which follows the familiar rhythm of introduction, literature review, methodology, data analysis, results, and recommendations for further study. 

Narrative research might involve a chronological sequence; there might be a more holistic theme, with wandering back and forth in time.  Indeed, those versed in narrative rather encourage experimental structures, and monitor development.  You might want to take the narrative for a walk in the park and just groove, right?  Then the serious work of research begins, whatever the approach chosen.  There is the issue of reflexivity and representation.  The audience and voice of the author must be considered.  There are endless transpositions of test, complex encoding, quotations.  Lest the eager and excited young researcher thinks he still has it made, he must step back and examine the structure, the narrative techniques and devices that are used to bring the deserving person’s story to light.  The researcher might prefer as rhetorical structure a flexible process that changes with the story, while the phenomenologist plods along with the traditional modes of a research report.

Phenomenological research has its own built-in structure of flexibility and creativity.  There are important meanings to be discovered.  The study develops itself .  The researcher guides it through to discover meaning in text and structure to search for the essential quality to report.  The organization of the report, unlike narrative or single study, includes in the very beginning statements of introduction a personal statement by the author.  Why was he drawn to this realm (please do not make me say topic!).  How may he benefit society by his work?  One feels during the study of AIDS that there is a marvelously human statement being made, just as during the narrative of Vonnie Lee, the sensitivity and caring of the researcher is quite obvious.  The phenomenologist then proceeds to a traditional review of literature, methods, data analysis, summary, and recommendations for future studies, following along closely to the steps of data analysis.  The narrative researcher’s discussions and structures are applicable no matter the approach.  Is one more structured than the other?  It might appear to be so, but careful analyses are present in both.

My reaction to the study about AIDS patients was intense.  I lost one of my friends to AIDS before there was even a word for the disease.  He had just received his Ph. D. in psychology.  He wanted to help others.  On a long walk in the Hollywood Hills one hazy early evening, he confided that he probably had the immune deficiency disease that everyone was talking about.  He did.  They just kept dying:  it seemed the best, proudest, and most genius of the art and performance world, gone.  My final thought was:  I would so very dearly loved to have them a little while longer.  But we are all dying, after all.

Creswell, continued.....

     I like the idea of finding families of information, chunked together.  I am doing preliminary research, applying for grants.  No, you can’t just work on one all the time.  I previously learned to multi-think and have lots of folders.  When my mentor began telling her latest several thoughts, I thought, “I have to go and label all this in files with names on them, and look up more on the Web.” I noticed, however, in talking with her about the grant process that she rather would prefer that I bring them all to a point and allow themes and patterns to emerge.  At least I thought that was what she meant.  When I explained that I was studying qualitative inquiry, and correlated that with our own paradigm, I suspected that we came to be speaking the same language.  It didn’t really have words, and didn’t need to.  It was fun.  “Yes, Yes, Yes,” she said.

     When I got to the part of our reading that spoke of “dismantling a dichotomy” and “examining silences”, I actually felt that I wanted to devote my life to this author (Martin, 1990, p. 355).  It reminded me of the painterly practice of examining the negative spaces that are found between objects. He went on to explore “limits of what is conceivable or permissible.”  The whole thing made my day.  Creswell was right when he said we would have fun.  The data analysis spiral made the whole business come to life.  I could imagine myself in there, back and forth, around and around.  It is the opposite of linear, and it is a hard and fast process that can remain fluid and flexible. Talking about the architecture of a study.  And deconstructing the narrative.  My, oh, my.

     I thought the computer systems could all be extremely useful.  The data reminds me of an unopened Christmas present in its mystery.  I had a similar feeling when I high-fired porcelain ceramics and did hypotheses in quantitative statistics.  If one pot exploded, that was the lot.  Almost always, they were more surprising and beautiful than we could possibly take credit for.

     Since I am a writing teacher by trade, I was so pleased to see Creswell mention the themes that might arise from the story.  I developed a series of lesson plans for my sixth grade writing classes using autobiographical recall to bring to the fore vivid memories of childhood that I hypothesized would improve narrative writing in students.  Probably the least part of the research was improved writing techniques and (dreaded) No Child Left Behind test scores.  The techniques of writing were improved dramatically and the test scores soared anyway.  More importantly and unexpectedly, there arose a wellspring of exquisite emotional reveal, and, what was more surprising, improved psycho-emotional response to classwork and to each other. I would love to know more about his three-dimensional model.  But a theme that stood out for me was that here we were not looking for anything specific.  We allowed the natural flow of events to arise.  Of course we had ideas.  We had core elements.  But we refused to assign ANYONE a tedious topic, or subject, or format, or rubric, or had the slightest thought aside from bringing out the art, bringing out the human. 

     They will not feel marginalized.  We will see to it.

Steps in a Process, QUALITATIVE INQUIRY AND RESEARCH DESIGN, Creswell, chapters 4, 5, 6

     Finally, a glimmer of light has dawned at the end of a provocative and fascinating tunnel.  There will still be twists and turns aplenty, no doubt.  While reading chapters 4, 5, and 6, it was helpful to me to think of a qualitative research idea that interests me.  It may or not be the one I ultimately choose (or I may choose many), but, by superimposing my thoughts over the skein of pathways presented, I was better able to better comprehend the five approaches presented.

      I had been drawn to the narrative approach. The story of Vonnie Lee was liberating in a number of ways.  The answer to Vonnie Lee’s fascination with the symbol of the heart was hidden in the normal presuppositions that I would certainly have held along with the author.  However, the author was able to step outside of his training and prejudice to come to a delightful understanding:  the young man was just tickled to ride the badly scheduled bus.  My father once said “Don’t feel sorry for people because you would be devastated to find yourself in their circumstances.  They may be happier than any of us will ever be.”  Despite Vonnie Lee’s challenging circumstances, there were things that made him very happy.  The author was unknowingly able to facilitate and later understand the hidden meanings.  My idea of working with college students who have Attention Deficit Disorder and are trying to come to terms with life away from the schedule and aid of family members might not fit into the narrative schema, but I certainly gained a new kind of sensitivity and focus from reading Vonnie Lee's study.

     The phenomenological study about persons with Auto Immune Deficiency Disorder could probably jive with some of my thoughts about students with ADD.  There could be systematic data analysis and a central phenomenon.  I like that the authors set aside their own experiences to explore the lived experiences of their subjects.  So, yes, there is a possibility.  But a larger number of subjects was required for this study compared to the narrative study.   The grounded study of women who had suffered sexual abuse was systematic and scientific, but there was much care and sensitivity taken with the subjects.  Might I develop a theoretical model and relate it to the research I have done about secondary students trying to cope with post-secondary education settings?  Perhaps, but I needed to know more.  I have always enjoyed reading ethnographic studies, way before I had any idea what the term meant.  The research of Margaret Mead is fascinating.  Would I spend months or years immersed in a subculture?  Probably not right now.  What a thought for future studies!  The case study, with a system bounded by time and place to create a complex picture, might be tweaked to work with my idea.  I read on.  The idea that each type of study involved a special type of focus was causing me to become a bit more focused. 

     Chapter 6 brought it all home for me (inasmuch as it, indeed, at home).  There were steps, procedures that were becoming understandable.  Somewhat.  The research question is posed and tied to the issue.  It made sense to me that there would be a back and forth in order to integrate components, because it has seemed that preconceived notions are anathema to the qualitative researcher.  I like that so much!  I think I might have a population that has been most understudied.  The students with ADD, yes, but I have also been interested in those gifted students who seem to have an unwarranted difficulty creating writing, especially narrative writing.  Might that be an area of research for me? 

     The author continued to take each step of research through all five types of studies.  The steps leading to the development of a purpose statement were familiar from a study of single subject research design.  The ensuing  identification of an approach, encoding, foreshadowing, and developing a central question,  sub-questions and procedural questions, were, yes, somewhat understandable.  Even encoding seemed to be something that I might someday tackle. I have breathed a sigh of relief.  Thank you, Mr. Creswell.

Qualitative Research: A View from the Bridge

     What I am viewing from the bridge is a fuzzy picture of my mind attempting to comprehend and my mouth attempting to drink from a hose the extensive new material, including a vast and unfamiliar nomenclature, provided this week for our perusal and digestion (or lack of).  It has not been an unpleasant experience, since I am excited and challenged by the series of worldviews presented.  It has been an experience not unlike my high school reading of Encyclopedia Brittannica, when I sat with a newly purchased unabridged dictionary by my side at all times. Should I have done so more often during my academic career?  Probably.  But I relied on the tried and true technique of coming to grips with a word in context or online lookup.  That practice has remained unsuccessful from the beginning of this course.
     The whole thing rather reminds me of my own research into the nature of reality.  My opinion:  it really is not possible to understand anyway, so why trouble your mind with it?  I have a lingering hope that I can understand a bit of what it being said in our week's readings of Denzin, Lincoln, and Creswell. Surely they did not just make it up just for fun.  Then I came upon Critical Realism.  I thought, "This is for me!  I am all for a rejection of a particular definition of reality.  Obviously, there as many realities as there are peceivers of reality."  However, my own thought runs more like:  there is universal consciousness out there that includes all realities, rather than the author's statement that "there are worlds out there that are observable and independent of human consciousness (Denzen et al., 2004)."  I believe that consciousness is consciousness.  What the devil does it matter if one is independent of the other?  Just as  was reconciling myself to the annoyance of that statement, I come upon he author's demand that we have a social science that address all the social justice issues.  What about reporting what is there?  I became confused.
     Toward the end of our reading, it became apparent that the present state of qualitative research is really a combination of and always a nod to, even in passing, all that has gone before.  I was relieved to discover the author say as much.  Also a relief was that thought that the materials is as always, filtered through a lens that involves "language, gender, social class, race, and ethnicity" (Denzin et al., 2008).  During the reading about the early studies and the Lone Ethnographer, I recalled reading two particular studies years ago that I am no longer able to site.  The first involved an Englishman (eighteenth century, I believe) who chose to assume the disguise of a Moslem so as to infiltrate Mecca.  It was a dangerous thing to do, because death was the sentence for approaching the holy of holies as an infidel.  The brave fellow made it through, and delivered what I believed to be an unbiased and adventure-laden account of the whole affair.  The other study was by an early observer of the Natchez Indian tribe, a particularly dangerous group of indigenous folk.  He lived to tell the tale of what seemed to be a realistic, if somewhat gory, account of Natchez Indian life.  I remember thinking at the time that If this was field study,I wanted to do it.
    The researcher's viewpoint still seems valid, and indeed must be taken into account.  Since we are human, of course he speaks from his experiential point of reference, unavoidably.  The passage about interpretive paradigms rather brought the whole reading to a good conclusion for me.  I liked that he did not try to analyze each paradigm and perspective at the beginning, but gave enough history about the whole business to give me a fighting chance of understanding.  I will read page 30, part Theoretical paradigm and Perspectives, and the explanation on page 31 over and over.  Some of it all is beginning to soak in.  Relief came when I read that there were lots of methods to use in all the reading, analysis, interviewing, and observation that comes into play.  What I find so exciting is that, yes, the field involves a huge amount of creativity.  The research rather does remind me of a painting.  One has a viewpoint, one takes all the pieces of experience and winds them into a brilliant montage, as a skilled bricoleur should.

Qualitative Research and Interpretive Frameworks

Qualitative Research and Interpretive Frameworks

     I found the readings to be a fascinating blend of creativity and scholarship.  One certainly would not choose to do qualitative research because it is easy.  A friend of mine who did a qualitative paper spent more time coding than  researching.  The extensive coding methods were a surprise.  Also of great interest were some of the methods of presentation, including movies, videos, and plays.
     Because I am a painter, the quote from our text caught my eye.  What is "the way art should be?".  How often have my associates stood with me in front of an abstract painting and said, "What is it supposed to be?"
Since they did not have the benefit (and perhaps never desired to) of my training, I have so far managed not to say the words begging for release.  The best thing I could come up with is, "Let the painting talk to you and tell you what it means."  Indeed, that has to be one of the best approaches to many works created by humans.  I was particularly happy to see this approach in the world of research.  I am familiar with single subject and quantitative research methods. It was charming to hear of a method of research that began, not with a "topic" (I have always hated topics), but really with no clear idea of exactly where it should go. The author actually said that the hope was that we would have fun.  One can imagine a very well educated person, in the midst of a situation, in a state of perfect subjectivity/objectivity, waiting for the scene to unfold and reveal itself.  What a marvelous way to view and possibly affect the human condition!
     It was also satisfying to learn  that there is no one best way to conduct qualitative research.  Hooray for something in academia that is not nailed down. I realized some of the excitement that anthropological research and documentaries can  induce.  There are indeed so many ways to interpret reality, and the manner or organization of the data and the vehicle usedto  create the credibility of the research. Natural settings and observation can be conducted anywhere.
     There are still surprises, as I have observed in quantitative research, when all the data are correlated, both in qualitative and quantitative research.  Patterns emerge, with the difference that the humans being experimented upon emerge as numbers in quantitative research, while the humans involved in qualitative research become even more human as their voices are heard.
     The idea of mixed methods is very intriguing to me. When I did a meta-analysis on the subject of post-secondary students with Attention Deficit Disorder, I used a combination of  quantitative and qualitative research.  There was not a plethora of quantitative data available.  However, I was pleasantly surprised when the qualitative outcomes painted a much more complete picture, I felt, than statistics alone would have.  Immediately, the idea of mixed methods becomes appealing, especially, when someone else has done the research, data analysis, and coding!
     It was even intriguing that there are those outstanding questions in the minds of qualitative researchers about what is good, what analysis is, and what the role of theory is.  As we used to say in sensitivity training out in California,  "live in the question."  I think that is a good state of affairs for scholarship everywhere.  We should never become satisfied.  I'm sure qualitative researchers sit around in Starbuck's asking questions about constructivism, positivism, advocacy/participatory, and pragmatism. Pragmatism seems so logical and all-encompassing.  It suits many of my personal beliefs, and I was happy to see it all in print.  I thought that our text (Creswell, 2007) did a clear explanation of the various paradigms, or worldviews, as they were called.  But each one had its own contribution to make to the sum total of human knowledge. The section on interpretative communities had a touching and intriguing bent toward creating social justice and changing society for the better, in many unusual ways. I would like to study more about how the basic philosophical functions of qualitative research relate to ontology, epistemology, axiology, rhetoric, and methodology. I know a smattering about some of these, but wish to know more.  And I have a feeling that we will.