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Dear All
Apologies that it has taken us a while to respond to Dorothy?s
invitation to engage with some of the criticisms made about our recent
article. We wanted to work out how we had managed to ?get up his nose?
as Bob so graphically puts it(!) and why he seemed to have interpreted
our article as ?veiled criticism?. To be honest, this took us a bit by
surprise as we are huge fans of the archive, and - as we stated very
clearly in our paper - firmly believe that the life-writings at the
M-OA are a fascinating and powerful source of data. If anything, we
wish more researchers would use it. However, as social researchers, we
are also well aware of the need to be careful about the claims we can
make about what people say (or write). That?s why, when we draw
attention to some of the limitations of material generated by the M-OA,
we always emphasise that these criticisms could be levelled at other
forms of data collection too (like interviews, for example).

That said though, we were not trying to highlight the methodological
flaws of the M-OA in the article. What we were emphasising was its
uniqueness. We think that the archive is indebted to the relationship
Dorothy actively fosters with the M-OA panel, and it appeared curious
to us - given Dorothy?s pivotal role in the success of the archive -
that a lot of M-O material is used as if she had nothing to do with the
generation of it. Bob (perhaps inadvertently) proves this point
beautifully, when he writes ?I can remember saying a long time ago that
I can?t write to an organisation or into a void. In the beginning, I
wrote to David. After the first Open Day, when Dorothy, Joy and Judy
became ?real? people, I tend to write to them as a group?. This is
precisely what we were tentatively suggesting in our paper. By using
Game and Metcalfe?s analogy (that writing for an imagined readership
that you trust and respect is ?not a statement from the dock but an
invitation to a dance?), we argue that the trusted reader many people
write to (or dance with) is Dorothy and/or the archive staff. As
researchers who have commissioned directives ourselves, we feel
privileged to have had the opportunity of tapping in to this ?special
relationship? that is unlike any other archive, panel or survey method
we know about.

Perhaps though, it was our exploration of this special relationship
that Bob found particularly challenging. We are in no doubt that the
kind of writing produced by the archive could not happen without
Dorothy?s personalisation and relationship forging. She works very hard
at encouraging people to be responsive, and tries to do this in a
careful, even-handed way. (And of course, she?s very good at it: read
her last e-mail on the MASSOBS discussion list where she writes ?I am
very fond of both Bob AND Kaeren). This is not meant to be a criticism,
but more of an observation. However, most people in relationships don?t
like them being held up to scrutiny, and Bob seems very defensive about
what we described as Dorothy?s cultivation of the panel. He writes ?I
never knew it was run by a manipulative schemer?, and later on,
expresses surprise to discover that the project has been ?orchestrated
and directed by an archivist that would be better employed by MI6?s
psychological warfare department?. These are harsh comments indeed, and
not at all what we were trying to say. However, what Bob does help
highlight is the fact that there are many different ways to read
meanings (and read meanings into) the M-OA material, and that how we
all interpret things is guided very much by our own subjective
viewpoint and our personal connections with the topic matter. This is
something we?re finding in our continuing research at the archive,
where we?re currently engaged in examining the twists and turns of
family patterns and practices. Accounts and reminiscences of family
holidays, family rituals and family battles invariably resonate and
chime with our own memories and feelings, and ?stir? us up in all sorts
of ways and on all sorts of levels. This, of course, is part of the
magic of the M-OA!

PS. Another word about intertextuality, as it seems particularly
pertinent given the process we?re involved in at the moment. Bob read
and interpreted our article, which prompted him to write a response,
which moved other people (ourselves included) to read and write again,
thus initiating yet more layers of intertextuality. If you yourself on
reading this feel inclined to write too, then you will be adding to
this complicated intertextual web...

Kind regards,
Kaeren

Dorothy Sheridan wrote:


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>
>Good point! I do try to make this clear to users of the material but
there
>is a very strong tendency to want to see the M-O group as a
representative
>sample of the population, perhaps because there are 100s of writers. If
>there were 20 (as in, say, an oral history project) would researchers
be so
>preoccupied? On the other hand, researchers probably DO need to know in
>what ways the M-O panel DIFFERS demographically from a representative
>sample and I suppose is something we at the Archive need to accept.
>Thanks Chris.
>Dorothy
>
>--On 21 July 2004 19:03 +0100 chris_gilbert <[log in to unmask]>
>wrote:
>
>> -----------------------------------------------------------------------
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>>
>> "Dorothy Sheridan" wrote
>>
>>> And now it's time to go to work so over to you all
>>
>> My comment would be that all data sets come with caveats.
>> They are only reliable as the sample set from which they are
>> taken. Suggesting that the data in MOA is somehow defficient
>> implies that the critic is looking for information within it that
>> the sample set cannot provide.
>>
>> Chris
>>
>>
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