I am working with a body of letters (personal and professional) written by a variety of corespondents (researchers and their informants) over a period of years (1930-1940, 1960s) entirely in connection with the management, organisation, analysis and publication of a country wide anthropological and archaeological study. Have you come across any similar approaches to such studies? I am particularly interested in a narrative approach to the analysis of research letters and would appreciate any references that the list may have.
Thank you.
Anne
Dr Anne Byrne, Senior Lecturer
Room 314, Arus Moyola
School of Political Science and Sociology
College of Arts, Social Sciences and Celtic Studies
National University of Ireland
Galway
IRELAND
http://www.nuigalway.ie/soc/
Phone: 0035391493035
Fax: 0035391494564
-----Original Message-----
From: Discussion list for those practising BNIM on behalf of tom wengraf
Sent: Mon 3/9/2009 4:36 PM
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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