Me too, I have asked this before, your discussions are interesting but there are too many emails and I can't keep up.
Thanks
Suzanne Hyde
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From: Discussion list for those practising BNIM on behalf of Amanda Morris
Sent: Mon 09/03/2009 22:41
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: BNIM Schutze's process structures - what are they?
Tom,
Could you take me off your email list please.
Amanda Morris
-----Original Message-----
From: Discussion list for those practising BNIM [mailto:[log in to unmask]]On Behalf Of tom wengraf
Sent: Tuesday, 10 March 2009 3:36 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: BNIM Schutze's process structures - what are they?
Since not everybody may be clear about Adam's reference to process structures in his recent email, the following is my summary of them in the current BNIM Short Guide and Detailed Manual. References can be found in SG_DM bibliography. I hope this is useful....
Schütze's four process-structures
Schütze identified four important process-structures which he thought were 'components to be looked for' in any improvised or extempore narrative (Schütze 2005, Riemann and Schütze 2005, Apitzsch and Inowlocki 2000). Kazmierska (2004a) has recently summarised them as follows:
Biographical action schemes - "an individual has a biographical plan and planned identity work and tries to implement the project" . This may be precise, or it may be as vague as a desire to "experience something new".
Biographical trajectory - "an individual loses control of their life" as customary orientations and action plans fail. Terminal illnesses, man-made or natural catastrophes would be examples.
Institutionalised patterns of the life course - "when an individual's actions are governed by institutional patterns, an individual accepts expectations [and] tries to live up to these expectations faithfully". Examples would be norms governing the life-cycle ("children at the right time") or a scheduled career pattern.
Biographical [positive] metamorphoses - "an unexpected positive change in one's life which makes it possible to discover new possibilities and/or talents, and which leads to a radical change in one's life..[and often] identity (Kazmierska 2004a 160-1 slightly modified)".
These four 'process structures' might be put into a diagram along two axes.
Positive (upward) 'metamorphoses'
Institutionalised compliance patterns Personalised action plan
Negative (downward) 'trajectory'
Figure 9 Four process structures - after Schutze
To me these four 'process structures' seem vaguely reminiscent of the 'narrative universals' developed for example by Greimas on the basis of Propp's Morphology of the Folk Tale. I tried to indicate the productivity of such an analysis in my critical linguistics appendix to Qualitative research interviewing (2001: 368-77) and, in a rather different very implicit way, I think the Ruthrof table in that book (p. 366-7) also suggests the variety of such 'senses of the whole'.
In my opinion, Schütze's 'process structures' can be seen in a number of useful ways (i) as narrative devices of the narrator; (ii) and/or as real features of moments or aspects of the life; (iii) and/or as conceptual resources available to you as researcher for constructing your history of the 'evolution of the case', your "findings".
Best wishes
Tom
P.S. Click on <www.kiafrica.org>. for our 'voluntourism + study trip project' in rural Uganda. ... We've just revised the Kanaama Interactive web-site, the pictures, and the things you can choose to do..... Read the very positive reports from our first year of visitors!....Did you know that maths teaching in Ugandan schools is more advanced than in English ones? .....
P.P.S. For a free electronic copy of the most recent version of the BNIM (the biographic-narrative interpretive method of research interviewing for lived experience) Short Guide and Detailed Manual , just click on <[log in to unmask]> . Please indicate your institutional affiliation and the purpose for which you might envisage using BNIM's open-narrative interviews, and I'll send it straight away.
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