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.