Maybe it's a blessing I did not post to my blog last week, because it wasn't until Thursday night's discussion that I began to consolidate my thinking and make some connections across the last chapters of Wood & Kroger and ten Have. I recognize that "consolidating" and "connecting" is the intended purpose of the blog, but even then, I usually seek out someone to talk to as I am immersed in the readings, usually my classmate Renee.
But I didn't have time to chat with my colleague last week, due to a major transcription task in front of me. Once I removed the earbuds and got the voices of my field informants -- all 11 of them -- out of my head, I drove to class in a mental fog. I was in no state of mind to discuss, much less write about, the "detailed, painstaking, sometimes tedious work" of producing a warranted and trustworthy research analysis (Wood & Kroger, p. 181).
"I don't know"
Who would have thought that the innocuous and ubiquitous phrase "I don't know" would snap me out of my transcription-induced funk?
But I didn't have time to chat with my colleague last week, due to a major transcription task in front of me. Once I removed the earbuds and got the voices of my field informants -- all 11 of them -- out of my head, I drove to class in a mental fog. I was in no state of mind to discuss, much less write about, the "detailed, painstaking, sometimes tedious work" of producing a warranted and trustworthy research analysis (Wood & Kroger, p. 181).
"I don't know"
Who would have thought that the innocuous and ubiquitous phrase "I don't know" would snap me out of my transcription-induced funk?
Last Thursday night, some of my classmates expressed skepticism around claims made about the use of "I don't know" in academic discourse. At first, I was reminded of CA's less-than-endearing traits (to me) -- its "obsession" with details and unapologetic refusal to acknowledge the obvious (ten Have, Chapter 3). But the extract in question was from a DA study, not a CA study, and the reaction it stimulated brought our class discussion back full-circle to basic issues and challenges of producing "good" research. Although it was just a short segment of the full analysis, our diverse reactions to the study provided at least a partial indicator of its power to stimulate meaning-making.
Audience
One of the most profound lessons for me in year-long ethnography with Dr. Anders was the idea that we are not speaking for participants, but to an audience. The word used in class last week was "resonance," a criterion for good writing in general, I believe. With 12 hours of qualitative methodology courses under my belt, I can safely say no single scholar has stirred my thinking more on this topic than Laurel Richardson, whose essay "Writing: A Method of Inquiry," I'd already read twice, and now, a third time.
According to Richardson, our "meaning is in the reading." As a qualitative researcher, I must write in such a way as to ensure a connection with an audience, my intended readership, whoever that may be. "...[Q]ualitative work depends upon people's reading it," Richardson tells us (p. 346).
Applied CA
Without realizing it, I was primed for reading ten Have's conclusion. Finally! An acknowledgement (albeit a "cautious" and "agnostic" one) of those researcher-practioners who aim to take up CA to inform or contribute to a specific field or discipline. In fact, I learned from these last chapters that CA's warrant has much to do with the analyst's orientation to audience.
In a summary of ideas proposed by James Heap, ten Have writes, "Whether it is worthwhile to do ethnomethodology (or CA) depends on the value of the news it produces for an audience" (p. 195). Further, the goal of applied CA is to deliver "news" that may foment change within an organization or among a group of participants.
So, CA isn't just the linguistic equivalent of navel-gazing after all! :-)
This idea of "newsworthiness" as a measure of warrantability reminded me of Wood & Kroger's "powerful criterion" of fruitfulness. Fruitfulness has to do with "implications of the present work for other work" (p. 175). Like last Thursday's class discussion, I feel I have performed a 360-degree turn. I am back now to some of my earliest questions, reflections, and reservations. The idea of DA as a mechanism for shining light on "acknowledged social problems" is one I've wondered about off-and-on within this blog.
"Alternatives"
The price, of course, for openly assuming a stance is increased vigilance in the area of researcher reflexivity. The qualitative researcher is obligated to "bracket," to be openly reflexive about hunches and presuppositions.
Wood & Kroger describe this as taking account of "moral implications" (p. 175). I like how another author, Patti Lather in "Issues of Validity in Openly Ideological Research," calls it "a self-corrective element" (p. 188). Similar to Wood & Kroger's call for criteria that "transcend" traditional positivist standards (p. 167), Lather offers a "reconceptualization" of validity (p. 188). She writes, "Our best shot at present is to construct research designs that push us toward becoming vigorously self-aware" (p. 190).
I enjoyed how Wood & Kroger recast "reliability" as a matter of repetition, but not in outcomes, which are always subject to interpretation. Instead, repetition as a standard of quality works differently in DA. It's the aggregate of researcher actions, "part of the careful attention to detail and the concern for refinement that are major features of discourse-analytic work" (p. 166).
And validity is not based on black-and-white truths that are somehow captured. Validity is a matter of strength and trustworthiness that is "co-constructed" between informants, author, and audience. Quoting Potter, Wood & Kroger point to the "greater prominence" assigned to reader reaction, "an emphasis that both results from and is encouraged by the greater transparency of discourse-analytic work" (p. 168).
Crystals
Wood & Kroger describe this as taking account of "moral implications" (p. 175). I like how another author, Patti Lather in "Issues of Validity in Openly Ideological Research," calls it "a self-corrective element" (p. 188). Similar to Wood & Kroger's call for criteria that "transcend" traditional positivist standards (p. 167), Lather offers a "reconceptualization" of validity (p. 188). She writes, "Our best shot at present is to construct research designs that push us toward becoming vigorously self-aware" (p. 190).
I enjoyed how Wood & Kroger recast "reliability" as a matter of repetition, but not in outcomes, which are always subject to interpretation. Instead, repetition as a standard of quality works differently in DA. It's the aggregate of researcher actions, "part of the careful attention to detail and the concern for refinement that are major features of discourse-analytic work" (p. 166).
And validity is not based on black-and-white truths that are somehow captured. Validity is a matter of strength and trustworthiness that is "co-constructed" between informants, author, and audience. Quoting Potter, Wood & Kroger point to the "greater prominence" assigned to reader reaction, "an emphasis that both results from and is encouraged by the greater transparency of discourse-analytic work" (p. 168).
Crystals
Crystals are typically transparent, sometimes a little cloudy and not without a few imperfections. And that is why I love Richardson's crystal metaphor, recommended as an alternative to the traditional triangulation procedure for demonstrating quality of a study. I went back to "Writing: A Method of Inquiry" to make sure I understood the metaphor. Could I ferret out any implications for DA? What about those of us who are not writing "postmodernist mixed-genre texts"? Does that mean the process of "crystallization, " as Richardson describes it, isn't a viable alternative within the DA tradition?
I don't know.
Or, maybe crystallization is as much a researcher process as it is product? We refract and reflect at all stages of research so the final piece of writing, even a conventional research report, is clearer and more engaging. Richardson describes experimental processes, such as revisioning one's work as fiction so as to see it from different points of view. This doesn't mean we all hang it up and become fiction writers, she says, it means we take advantage of the "propitious" time we live in and give ourselves up to the "playful pull" (p. 362).
To me, that suggests experimentation in one's writing as a means to locate, condition, and fine-tune one's voice, even if that voice ultimately finds its audience via traditional academic formats. In that regard, then isn't that what this blog is for? A possible venue for "staging a text" and "writing in other ways"?
I don't know. And that's OK.
As Richardson says, "Paradoxically, we know more and doubt what we know."
I don't know.
Or, maybe crystallization is as much a researcher process as it is product? We refract and reflect at all stages of research so the final piece of writing, even a conventional research report, is clearer and more engaging. Richardson describes experimental processes, such as revisioning one's work as fiction so as to see it from different points of view. This doesn't mean we all hang it up and become fiction writers, she says, it means we take advantage of the "propitious" time we live in and give ourselves up to the "playful pull" (p. 362).
To me, that suggests experimentation in one's writing as a means to locate, condition, and fine-tune one's voice, even if that voice ultimately finds its audience via traditional academic formats. In that regard, then isn't that what this blog is for? A possible venue for "staging a text" and "writing in other ways"?
I don't know. And that's OK.
As Richardson says, "Paradoxically, we know more and doubt what we know."
Beautiful piece. Clearly I need to read Richardson - I think I may have at one point but am not sure. It's such a great way to put it - we write to an audience, not to give voice to the participants.
ReplyDeleteThe discussion about the claims in the "I don't know" paper was thought-provoking for me as well (in part b/c I think I've pushed the idea of "next turn proof" too much to the detriment of other criteria for good DA work that are equally if not more important).