Eric,
I'm responding to your question via the list because I think this is an
important discussion for any research, maybe particularly with qualitative
research. In doing research on people who live with chronic pain I had to
ask (still ask) questions such as:
What was the effect of my being a woman? (was that one of the reasons it
was difficult to find male participants? I think there were other reasons
as well, including how I advertised, gendered norms about pain and the
expression of pain -- unfortunately there's no way to interview the people
who didn't want to be interviewed!). Thus a study that was originally about
women and men became a study of women who live with chronic pain.
What was the effect of my being a graduate student (assumptions re: social
class, prestige, etc.)?
And, to address your specific questions -- As a woman who lives with chronic
pain, I felt it would be hypocritical if I did not let respondents know that
was one of the reasons for my interest in the topic.
Revealing this:
a. in many cases made participants more interested, comfortable, and
willing to be interviewed.
b. Created an ethical dilemma, in some cases more obviously than
others. Some of the participants were also involved in a drug study, for
which I was the research assistant. I had to be very careful to remind
people that I was not a physician, not a counselor, couldn't tell them
anymore than they already knew about the study, didn't know whether they
were taking the drug or placebo, etc. Similarly, some participants (whether
or not they were part of the drug study) seemed to look to me for answers,
for hope.
c. related to the above comments, "coming out" to participants also
left me more open to their questions about how I did x, handled y,
interacted with z, and so on. It was like a balancing act, trying to decide
how to answer, whether to answer, how to return to our roles as
interviewer/interviewee.
d. My understanding of terms like "disability", "chronic",
"independence" were often quite different from interviewees' understandings.
It was very important for me to keep in mind that the was designed to
understand their experiences from their perspective, and not impose my own
point of view.
After doing several interviews I showed Irz Zola (my dissertation chair) a
transcript of an interview. After reading it Irv pointed out that if you
deleted the "names" in certain sections, you wouldn't know who was the
interviewer and who was the interviewee. Perhaps because I had already
"passed" Irv's test during the pilot interviews, he saw the transcript
examples as interesting methodologically, and something that I needed to be
aware of -- but not necessarily bad.
(During the pilot study I didn't know that Irv was "testing" me, but after
looking at the transcripts Irv let me know that he had wanted to be sure I
could get outside myself in doing the study -- and he then felt comfortable
with my ability to do so.)
For years I've wanted to come back to the topic of how I did the study (how
we -- participants and I -- did the study).
It would be interesting to think about what differences disability (and type
of disability) might make compared to other social characteristics such as
gender, race, sexual orientation, age etc. What assumptions do we make
about each others' experiences?
Also some characteristics are more easily hidden -- you can't see my pain
(back again to similarities/differences between visible/invisible....).
thanks for the opportunity to reflect! I hope you have generated some
discussion!
Lynn
Lynn Schlesinger, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
Department of Sociology & Criminal Justice
Plattsburgh State University of New York
101 Broad Street
Plattsburgh, NY 12901
518-564-3004 (work)
518-564-3333 (fax)
518-562-3431 (home)
email: [log in to unmask]
----- Original Message -----
From: "Erik Leipoldt" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Friday, November 15, 2002 10:58 PM
Subject: researcher/informant relationship
Hi,
Could anyone help me with references on material about the
researcher/informant relationship where both share (the same type of)
disability? I am particularly interested in this with reference to
qualitative research.
Many thanks
Erik Leipoldt
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