1. On the courageous/outrageous
boundary:
an approach to representing
qualitative data
ProfTansy Jessop
Southampton Solent University
Guest Lecture to Medical Educators, UoW
31 March 2017
3. Jottings
â˘Why did I choose this picture?
â˘How does this speak to me as a
medical professional?
â˘How does it speak to me as someone
embarking on a research project?
4. Is there a place in research for bringing
the creative and the critical together?
10. Post-apartheid KwaZulu-Natal
⢠Low-intensity civil war, 10,000 to 30,000 dead
⢠Rural primary teachers
⢠âInside outâ study
⢠Teacher development
⢠Interviews (68), ethnographic data,
documentary sources
11. 43:1 pupil teacher ratios?
42% schools
electrified
34% schools
have no water
12. Raw data
⢠Read Segment 1 and 2 of the raw data:
Jot down some thoughts:
What strikes you?
What might you do with interview data like this?
How could you represent it?
⢠Chat in pairs about it.
13.
14. Why poetry?
⢠Compelling stories of trauma, hope, broken
dreams
⢠Flesh-and-blood social realities
⢠Illuminating the critical rational analysis
⢠Voice, power, emotion
⢠Positioned â research from âsomewhereâ
⢠Research as writing
⢠Epistemological paradigm
15. âPoetry is the shortest emotional distance
between two pointsâ (Robert Frost).
16. Two interpretive communities
(Denzin, 1994)
Tender-minded
ďIntuitive
ďEmotional
ďOpen-ended texts
ďInterpretation as art
ďPersonal biases
ďExperimental texts
Tough-minded
ďHard nosed empiricists
ďRational analytical
ďClosed texts
ďInterpretation as method
ďNeutrality
ďTraditional texts
17. âEmotion has only
recently gotten a
foothold inside the
academy, and we still
donât know whether to
give it a seminar room, a
lecture hall, or just a
closet we can air out now
and thenâ
(Behar, 1996).
20. Dilemmas
⢠Authorial voice: who is speaking?
⢠Stark, emotional, evocative â no subtle grey
shades
⢠What about the academy?
⢠Critical detachment, abstraction, distance
⢠In-between space: âAt best only almost poetryâ
⢠Influence on policymakers
22. So why be outrageous/courageous?
⢠Thick description
⢠Interview speech closer to poetry than prose
⢠Animates and invigorates
⢠âA vital text is not boring â it grips the readerâ
(Richardson, 1994)
⢠Bridge between art and social science (Diversi,
1993)
⢠Useful in getting a different angle on data
⢠Develops empathy
23. References
Behar, R. (1996)TheVulnerable Observer: Anthropology that breaks
your heart. Boston. Beacon Press.
Denzin, N. (1994) âTheArt and Politics of Interpretationâ in Handbook
of Qual. Research. Calfornia. Sage. 500-515.
Diversi, M. (1998) Glimpses of Street Life: Represented Experience
through Short Stories. Qualitative Inquiry 4(2) 131-147
Jessop and Penny (1999)A story behind a story: developing
strategies for making sense of teacher narratives. Int.Journal of
Social Research Methodology. 2(3) 213-230.
Richardson, L. (1994) âWriting:A Method of Inquiryâ in Handbook of
Qual. Research. California. Sage. 516-529.
Editor's Notes
âAll texts are constructed â prose ones too; therefore poetry helps problematise reliability, validity and âtruthââ (Richardson, 1994).