The importance of contextualization. Anthropological reflections on descriptive analysis, its limitations and implications

Abstract

This paper regards a concern for the quality of analyses made on the basis of qualitative interviews in some parts of qualitative health research. Departing in discussions on studies exploring 'patient delay' in healthcare seeking, it is argued that an implicit and simplified notion of causality impedes reflexivity on social context, on the nature of verbal statements and on the situatedness of the interview encounter. Further, the authors suggest that in order to improve the quality of descriptive analyses, it is pertinent to discuss the relationship between notions of causality and the need for contextualization in particular. This argument targets several disciplines taking a qualitative approach, including medical anthropology. Especially researchers working in interdisciplinary fields face demands of producing knowledge ready to implement, and such demands challenge basic notions of causality and explanatory power. In order to meet these, the authors suggest an analytic focus on process causality linked to contextualization.The importance of contextualization

The role of social context in symptom appraisal and help-seeking among people with lung or colorectal symptoms: A qualitative interview study

“…The passage of this amount of time may have affected participant's ability to recall events. The fact that participants had undergone investigations and discussed diagnoses with healthcare practitioners will also have influenced how people conceived of, and reframed, both their experiences and the narratives that they presented (Andersen & Risør, 2014;Scott & Walter, 2010). Whilst this passage of time is important in our interpretation of these findings, we would argue that reframing of experiences will take place irrespective of the point at which someone is asked to discuss their symptomatic and help-seeking experiences.…”

“…The fact that participants had undergone investigations and discussed diagnoses with healthcare practitioners will also have influenced how people conceived of, and reframed, both their experiences and the narratives that they presented (Andersen & Risør, 2014;Scott & Walter, 2010). The passage of this amount of time may have affected participant's ability to recall events.…”

Resisting “Reason”: A Comparative Anthropological Study of Social Differences and Resistance toward Health Promotion and Illness Prevention in Denmark

“…If the ways in which the different contexts constraint or enable health and illness practices are not acknowledged as expressions of health subjectivities, the public health awareness and education campaigns may bear the risk of even perpetuating the very inequalities they try to diminish, as the wealth of meanings, experiences, and embedded nature of bodily practices are ignored (Andersen and Risør :348). As argued by Baum and Fisher, the institutionalization of individualism, biomedicine, and behavioral views of health and illness helps “to maintain a form of social silence around the alternative views of health that challenge the normality of everyday social, economic and cultural inequalities” (2014:218).…”

Psychosoma in crisis: an autoethnographic study of medically unexplained symptoms and their diverse contexts

“…Andersen and Risør (2014) observed that even where qualitative research is undertaken, for example in research into why a patient may delay seeking healthcare, the themes that are extracted are often 'one-way' and have the quality of 'thin description' (in contrast to 'thick description' in Geertz, 1973) that limit the capacity of the research to provide genuine and useful insight into the lived experience of the patient.…”