Producing emotionally sensed knowledge? Reflexivity and emotions in researching responses to death

Evans, Ruth; McCarthy, Jane Ribbens; Bowlby, Sophie; Wouango, Joséphine; Kébé, Fatou

doi:10.1080/13645579.2016.1257679

Cited by 28 publications

(37 citation statements)

References 42 publications

(35 reference statements)

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“…We would expect that these emotions are very much entangled with experiences of participant reflexivity. Just as existing literature highlights how awareness of researchers' emotional experiences and reflexive practices is an important part of the analytic process (Whiteman et al, 2009;Evans et al, 2017), we would argue that the same is true for our awareness of the emotions and reflexive practices of our participants.…”

Section: Reflexivity and Emotionsmentioning

confidence: 89%

Participant Reflexivity in Organizational Research Design

Cassell

Radcliffe

Malik

2019

Organizational Research Methods

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Despite the considerable interest in researcher reflexivity within the organizational literature, little attention has been paid to participant reflexivity, here defined as the reflexive considerations of research participants that are stimulated by their involvement in research. Our argument is that engagement in the research process is a context where such reflexive thinking is likely to happen and that through certain methodological approaches, participants’ reflexive thinking becomes more conscious and therefore potentially accessible to the researcher. In identifying the participant reflexivity that emerged as part of a photo-elicitation study of work-life balance and conflict, we outline the kinds of reflexive dialogue that participants reported as being stimulated by involvement in the research and explore the link between emotion and reflexive practice. Hence our paper contributes to our understanding of qualitative research and reflexivity first by highlighting empirically the kinds of internal dialogue reported when participants engage in self-reflexivity as part of the research process; second, by outlining how we can access participant reflexivity methodologically, including through emotions; and third, by explicating the value for researchers in accessing participant reflexivity.

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Section: Reflexivity and Emotionsmentioning

confidence: 89%

Participant Reflexivity in Organizational Research Design

Cassell

Radcliffe

Malik

2019

Organizational Research Methods

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“…The team's valuing of these emotional responses and differing perspectives helped to throw light on the centrality of relational notions of personhood, solidarité and reciprocity to everyday family lives in Senegal (Evans et al, 2017b;Ribbens McCarthy et al, in press). Alongside such approaches, sustained collaboration with Southern academic partners offers the potential to produce knowledge about everyday family lives that is grounded in Majority world experiences.…”

Section: Boundary Crossings In Researching Death and Family Relationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Interpreting family struggles in West Africa across Majority-Minority world boundaries: tensions and possibilities

Evans

2019

Gender, Place & Culture

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The 'family' is associated with powerful, often emotive discourses in both the Majority and Minority worlds. However, family geographies to date have been largely focused on research with children and families in the Minority world, reflecting the wider dominance of geographical knowledge and social science theories developed in affluent, Anglophone contexts. In this intervention, I reflect on the tensions in attempting to theorise family meanings, practices and struggles in West Africa without imposing Minority world framings and perspectives. In my research in urban Senegal, the team's approach of 'uncomfortable reflexivity' enabled us to have frank conversations about our own experiences of 'family' and the death of a significant person, about our differing emotional responses to participants' experiences and about the nuances of the language used. My collaborative research with Ghanaian academics highlights the importance of time and space to develop shared qualitative understandings of everyday family struggles for publication in international journals. Given global inequalities in social science knowledge production, an ethic of care is needed that seeks to collaborate reflexively with others across disciplinary, linguistic and Majority-Minority world boundaries. This endeavour will hopefully generate more nuanced insights into the plurality and diversity of everyday family lives globally, while recognising the commonalities we share, situating knowledge in place and approaching the 'global' from the Majority world.

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“…By contrast, detailed accounts of the death of their family member often provided vivid narratives of events and experiences leading up to, and at the time of, the death, but with few accounts of what might be described by more psychologically-oriented theorists as an 'inner' psychological grief process over time after the death. Analysis therefore involved detailed processes of translation, interpretation, and pain-staking reflexive discussions within the team of five researchers, drawing on the voicecentred relational method (Mauthner & Doucet, 2008) and an ethic of care framework (Evans et al, 2017b), to develop some understanding of the experiences being conveyed xi . Our overall endeavour comes close to the vision of Kleinman & Kleinman (1991), in which we seek to understand 'local moral worlds … not as a representation of some other reality (one that we experts possess special power over) but rather as an evocation of close experience that stands for itself' (p. 293).…”

Section: Researching Experiences Of Family Deaths In Urban Senegalesementioning

confidence: 99%

Making Sense of Family Deaths in Urban Senegal: Diversities, Contexts, and Comparisons

et al. 2018

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Despite calls for cross-cultural research, Minority world perspectives still dominate death and bereavement studies, emphasizing individualized emotions and neglecting contextual diversities. In research concerned with contemporary African societies, on the other hand, death and loss are generally subsumed within concerns about AIDS or poverty, with little attention paid to the emotional and personal significance of a death. Here, we draw on interactionist sociology to present major themes from a qualitative study of family deaths in urban Senegal, theoretically framed through the duality of meanings-in-context. Such themes included family and community as support and motivation; religious beliefs and practices as frameworks for solace and (regulatory) meaning; and material circumstances as these are intrinsically bound up with emotions. Although we identify the experience of (embodied, emotional) pain as a common response across Minority and Majority worlds, we also explore significant divergencies, varying according to localized contexts and broader power dynamics.

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Producing emotionally sensed knowledge? Reflexivity and emotions in researching responses to death

Cited by 28 publications

References 42 publications

Participant Reflexivity in Organizational Research Design

Participant Reflexivity in Organizational Research Design

Interpreting family struggles in West Africa across Majority-Minority world boundaries: tensions and possibilities

Making Sense of Family Deaths in Urban Senegal: Diversities, Contexts, and Comparisons

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