Kip wrote:
> Debra brings up some points for further thought.
>
> I went back to Denzin in the past few days to get his
> take on some of this.
>
> He believes that performance ethnography falls outside
> of a 'one model of research fits all forms of inquiry'
> model.
However, Kip then suggests what might be take as a new "oe model of research
fits all", namely an anti-binary one:
> '...A collaborative, public, pedagogical
> relationship betwen subject and researcher is
> developed. ...Confidentiality disappears, for there
> is nothing to hide, or protect. Participation is
> entirely voluntary, hence there is no need for a
> consent form. ...participants are not asked to submit
> to specific procedures or treatment conditions.
> Instead, acting together, researchers and subjects
> work to produce change in the world' (Denzin
> 2003:7-8).
>
He concludes
> I now see that I need to abandon completely the
> researcher/researched binary and aim my data
> collection more clearly at participatory
> collaborations that engage with people who have
> stories to tell that they want others to hear and are
> willing to 'let go' of those stories.."
I think that for many research purposes I would go along with this, and
would be very glad whenever I could.
However, along with Debra, there are many research contexts and many
research purposes when "another size" is required to fit. One set of these
is covered by a generalised assumption, and the other by the implications of
that assumption for a particular research focus.
1) The generalised assumption is that of the 'defended subject' (or at least
the semi-defended one) wherebye (in this model) we all defend ourselves
against anxiety by not-knowing certain things about our inner and our
external worlds. [A corresponding assumption is that of a 'repressive
external world' -- or at least a semi-repressive one -- in which real
cultural and material sanctions occur in the society to those who don't
accept the collective 'not-knowing' on which a particular societal regime is
grounded].
The implications of the model of the 'semi-defended subjectivity' for the
occasional specific research purpose of understanding the subjectivity of
the narrator is that, when pursuing this particular research purpose, the
researcher/researched binary [or the me as one defended self and you as
another one] is implacably in place and should not be sentimentally
'imagined away' in what might be seen as 'identity thinking'. Such a
sentimental 'denial of difference' will result in a failure to care
sufficiently for the 'different other'. I would go along with Debra on this.
If the research purpose is that of 'relaying' and focusing on the "told
stories of the people who have stories to tell that they wish others to
hear" -- and very often the researcher may be happy to be the re-teller and
disseminator of such stories in the ways that Kip describes and helps us to
find innovatory forms and means for, then the problem described in the
previous paragraph is less likely to arise. For a lot of research and
dissemination purposes, this may well be the case.
However, if our research question is less on the story told but more on the
teller of the told story then the problem of how to handle one's own and
other people's similar or different 'defensiveness' should not be avoided,
and other models (including different binaries) may be the 'right size'.
[The most recent version of my
--
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Tom Wengraf
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'Short Guide to BNIM' (version 5 October 2005) deals more with this
eventuality]. As Kip quite rightly says "No size fits all".
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