04/07/2010 by lizit.

One of the things I have been puzzling over during the last month has been the apparent need for those involved in the use of biographical methods to defend their methodology in a way I have not observed with other authors. A couple of examples are pages 7-8 of Denzin and Lincoln’s “Handbook of Qualitative Research” with sections on Resistance to Qualitative Studies and Qualitative versus Quantitative Research and Chapter 10 in Merrill and West (2009) Is Biographical Research Valid and Ethical.

Both Merrill and West and Chamberlayne (2000) give a clear account of the historic development of the use of biography in sociological methodology over the past century or so. There is clear evidence of the use of narrative in the form of documents from the earliest days of sociological methods. Biographical methods first started to become significant during the inter-war period with the development of the Chicago School of Sociology and the publication of Thomas and Znaniecki’s “The Polish Peasant” and Shaw’s “The Jack the Roller”. People’s stories continue to be important in many texts published in the 1950s and early 1960’s, including Willmott and Young’s work on life in the East End of London and the subsequent move to suburbia, Townsend’s study of the family life of old people, Hoggart’s “The Uses of Literacy” and Jackson and Marsden’s semi- autobiographical account of education and the working classes. By the time I became an undergraduate in 1969, these texts tended to be considered light reading and the emphasis was on a more theoretical and scientific approach, perhaps in order to ensure the academic respectability of disciplines which were beginning to become popular with students, especially in the so-called ‘new universities’. The texts I was aware of as a student was work by Marx, Weber, Durkheim and Comte.

The late 70s and early 80s saw a new emergence of story telling with two distinct roots. One was the growth of the oral history movement. From my recollections, this had two elements. One seemed to relate to the growth in race awareness, especially following the racial disturbances in a number of major cities in the early 1980’s and the felt need to capture the stories of black people to provide younger black people with their own history distinct from that of the white population. The other, related element, was an attempt to develop connections between young and old with school students recording the stories of their elders. In time, the therapeutic benefits of story telling amongst older people were to become apparent. The other root was the burgeoning women’s movement and the development of a feminist sociology which aimed to give voice and substance to the women as well as men.

By the 1990’s, not only was story telling becoming a recognised and accepted part of the sociological cannon, but it was beginning to be challenged. Atkinson, writing in 1997, suggested that personal stories and narratives were being privileged inappropriately, and critiqued other writers, namely Arthur Frank, Elliot Mishler and Arthur Kleinman for their approaches to the use of personal narratives. These authors, together with Arthur Bochner, have challenged Atkinson’s views, leading to what Thomas, writing in 2010, refers to as an ongoing debate.

Thomas usefully summarises Atkinson’s argument and that of his critics, before expressing her own standpoint which recognises both the objective and subjective nature of sociological research, especially in a field such as her own which focuses on cancer patients. She usefully distinguishes the objective medical account from the patient experience and suggests that both have an authenticity and validity. As usefully, Thomas’s article is followed by responses by Atkinson, Bochner and Frank. Perhaps the most important message for me is the recognition that each of the authors is an acknowledged expert and each has a distinct position on the use of personal narrative in sociological research. It is not that one is right and the others wrong, but that all have a contribution to make in our better understanding of how people live in society. In this context, the advice of Merrill and West to experiment with different approaches and methodologies and to find one which fits makes perfectly good sense. It is not a case of trying to emulate a particular practitioner or adopt a specific methodology, but of identifying an approach which makes methodological and actual sense in a given context.

Atkinson, P. (1997). Narrative turn or blind alley? Qualitative Health Research, 7(3), 325-344.
Chamberlayne, P., Bornat, J., & Wengraf, T. (Eds.). (2000). The turn to biographical methods in social science. London: Routledge.
Denzin, N. K., & Lincoln, Y. S. (Eds.). (2000). Handbook of Qualitative Research (Second ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Hoggart, R. (1957). The Uses of Literacy. London: Chatto & Windus.
Jackson, B., & Marsden, D. (1986). Education and the working class: Taylor & Francis.
Merrill, B., & West, L. (2009). Using Biographical Methods in Social Research. London: Sage.
Thomas, C. (2010). Negotiating the contested terrain of narrative methods in illness contexts. Sociology of Health & Illness, 32(4), 647-660.
Townsend, P. (1957). The family life of old people: An inquiry in East London: Routledge.
Willmott, P., & Young, M. (1960). Family and Class in a London Suburb. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.
Young, M., & Willmott, P. (1986). Family and kinship in East London. London: Taylor and Francis.

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31/05/2010 by lizit.

I’ve managed to plough through Liz Stanley’s “The auto/biographical I” and to read far more quickly Goodson, et al’s “Narrative Learning”. I want to capture some of the main ideas for me from the two books.

First and foremost is Stanley’s argument that there is no real divide between autobiography and biography - they are both part of the same and are constructed accounts of a life or part of a life.

The idea of a constructed account is evident in both books. Stanley uses a number of biographical accounts to demonstrate how the author has present a construction which omits essential and important aspects of the life being presented. She also shows how different authors can and do present very different interpretations of the same life. Such constructions often say as much, or more, about the author and their presuppositions than they do about the person. Goodson, et al, also make it clear that personally narrated life stories should not be considered as objective accounts, but rather they are the interpretation of the past that makes sense in that time and place and are liable to change as a result of further life experiences; in essence a life story narrative is a construction of one’s life and how it is currently understood.

Another common thread in both books is that our stories are part of other’s stories. When I hear somebody else’s story, it becomes part of my story. Whether or not I reference my own story, in telling the story of another in some senses I am telling my own story. This relates to the construction of stories described in the last paragraph, but it also relates to the inter-relatedness of humanity.

Goodson, et al, focus on learning, and recognise that learning takes place in a wide range of different settings and that often learning experiences, that are recognised as such, are triggered by specific events or critical incidents. In considering stories, they looked for learning potential (evidence of learning from the story) and action potential (what the story teller does with the learning). Whereas learning is frequently defined as involving some kind of change in the learner, Goodson, et al, appear to recognise that much of the learning implicit in people’s life stories has much more a tacit dimension and is not recognised by the story teller.

What are the implications for me and my research? Firstly, there is a clear recognition that when I hear the stories of others learning in relation to the autistic spectrum domain, my own experiences and understanding of those experiences influence what I hear and how I hear it. My reactions and responses may well say more about me than the person I am talking to. How do I guard against denying the voice of others because I am listening too much to my own voice?

Secondly, and perhaps less importantly, I am predetermining to some extent the nature and structure of the story by the initial question I ask. Clearly I do not want a question as open as “Can you tell me about your life?”, but maybe I need a question which invites people to tell me about the autistic spectrum domain from their perspective without suggesting a starting point. On the other hand, maybe for my purposes the semi-structured account is more efficacious if I can ensure that I leave room for people to include the stuff I may not ask about and may not realise that I want to know about.

Goodson, I., Biesta, G., Tedder, M., & Adair, N. (2010). Narrative Learning. Abingdon: Routledge.
Stanley, L. (1992). The Auto/Biographical I. Manchester: Manchester University Press.

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