‘Making friends with the neighbours’: Blogging as a research method

Abstract

During my research about women and surfing, I have found writing a blog useful as a tool for doing research in the cultural context of surfing. More than a simply a space to increase transparency in my ethnographic research process, blogging became a method of its own. Linking Elizabeth St Pierre’s discussion of research ‘folds’ with Elspeth Probyn’s encouragement to ‘think the social through myself’, blogging helped to address feminist concerns that research remains relevant to lived cultural understandings and experiences of the women participating. Blogging also helped in developing a language and a style of writing that reflects the experiences of surfing in a culturally meaningful way, and to provide a way of locating my own subjectivity within the research space. Through blogging I have been able to keep fieldnotes and ideas alive, engaged and in exchange throughout the project, moving and shifting through both theory and culture.

Going surfing/doing research: learning how to negotiate cultural politics from women who surf

“…Collectively, they were slim, heterosexual, able-bodied, and largely white, but were otherwise diverse in terms of age, surfing ability, type of employment, relationship and motherhood status, and other factors. Finally, I published a blog, which had a cultural rather than academic focus in that it was written in a style that encouraged engagement and feedback from surfers (Olive, 2013b;2015). The analysis took a feminist cultural studies approach to explore power relations, subjectivities, individual ethics and embodied pedagogies.…”

“…Writing into surfing culture has been productive in contributing female perspectives, understandings and experiences back to a culture dominated by men, as well as providing opportunities for other women to join in the conversation. This is really important -to remember that the research I do and write is not about me (Couldry, 1996;Olive, 2013b). In developing my contributions, I kept in mind the surfing ethics of the women I interviewed helped me find ways to get my stories across without making things harder for other women.…”

A Companion to Sport

“…In our efforts to "strategically disseminate" potentially empowering forms of knowledge to wider audiences ( Andrews, 2008 ), we might draw some salient lessons from action sports participants themselves in terms of their creative and savvy use of new social media (e.g., niche magazines, websites, and blogs) for sharing information, engaging in local, national and transnational conversations, and inspiring individual and collective political action. Some action sports scholars are using or creating niche and/or micro-media to share their work and raise critical issues among their peers and participants (e.g., blogs, see Olive, 2013 ). A particularly good example is Kurangabaa , a highly creative and thought-provoking not-for-profi t "journal of literature, history and ideas from the sea" co-produced by an international board of critical scholars and educated surfers.…”

Blogging as a Viable Research Methodology for Young People With Arthritis: A Qualitative Study

“…The Internet has been used for a diverse range of studies using traditional qualitative data-gathering techniques such as interviews [ 8 , 9 ] and focus group research [ 10 ]. Experience is considerably more limited regarding the potential use of blogs [ 11 , 12 ]. A blog (short for weblog) has been described as a Web-based diary in which the blogger can freely record opinions and recount experiences.…”