Abstract
Over the last few decades, qualitative research has been acknowledged as a peopled practice in which subjectivities come into play. The main argument presented in this article is that qualitative research involves “muddy,” troublesome, interactional passages, because of a complex interplay between subjectivities, situated identities, emotions, and conversational genres. Based on ethnographic fieldwork at a Danish Vocational Educational Training College, we introduce the concept of “leaning in” to provide an analytical grasp of the “muddy” interactional tension field in an interview situation, in which situated identities among the participants cross each other. We emphasize the value of daring to lean in to the muddiness of peopled research, use it as an analytical tool and present it in its imperfect form. This approach contributes to transparency in qualitative research, opens up the data in a new way and generates insights and results that would not otherwise emerge.
In striving to legitimize fieldwork as “real” research, which is difficult and personal but methodologically fruitful, we can lose sight of the fact that ethnographic research is peopled—by researcher and researched. Fieldwork is itself a “social setting” inhabited by embodied, emotional, physical selves. Fieldwork helps to shape, challenge, reproduce, maintain, reconstruct and represent our selves and the selves of others.
Introduction—Becoming a Researcher and Forming Identities
This article is about “muddy” interviews, those leaving you with feeling that the research interview slid into something else—for example, coaching, counseling, therapy, or just a really interesting professional conversation. The examples can be multiple, but they may involve the research participants beginning to ask questions, questioning the research agenda, or, more or less explicitly, asking the interviewer to take other positions than that as a researcher. This means that both professional discourses and identities begin to “cross swords” (Tanggaard, 2007) constituting a kind of a tension field. Some would argue that in such situations, the researcher needs to switch quickly back to a pure research conversation, while others would claim that these tense situations are exactly those in which we delve into new territories and gain new knowledge or insights (Brinkmann, 2007; Thuesen, 2011). In this article, examples of such situations are analyzed, after being extracted from the first author, Lena’s, research experience. Her story is the following:
During the process of gathering data for my dissertation on teachers’ and social support workers’ (SSWs’) participation and engagement in practices of retention within the Danish vocational educational training (VET) system, I 1 realized on several occasions that my background as a psychologist affected both the participants and me. For example, some participants told me about family problems or they joked about how I might be able to diagnose them. I myself attempted to reveal as little as possible about my professional background, knowing that the word “psychologist” is almost never responded upon neutrally but always implies reaction, for instance, intimacy or distance from the inter-actor. At the same time, during the process of conducting my fieldwork work, especially while interviewing, I became aware of struggling to manage my identity as a psychologist and align it with my present position as a qualitative researcher. This article shows how a pure image of a research conversation is impossible to find and to conduct. “Mud” is created in the data construction, as an inevitable aspect of the researcher’s identity negotiations and emotions in the research process. The “mud,” which the interviewee (a SSW) and I (as interviewer) created together, occurred as we crossed the boundaries into something that felt like forbidden territory allowing for a form of coaching 2 conversation to gain the upper hand in the research interview. I was embarrassed by not having been able to control the interview more effectively and keep it on the right track. The interview interactions seemed muddied and I felt uneasy and ashamed thinking about how my vanity, emotions, and concerns about identity management seemed to have been at stake. My desire was to be a “good” researcher and produce valuable research. However, at the same time, I wanted to help the interviewee feel better about her job situation. I had the feeling that she was somehow inviting me to respond to this situation in the interview, thus activating my desire to be a “good psychologist.” Accordingly, even though the interview was set up for research objectives alone, it did evolve into something else, and as it did so, I felt I learned much about her job situation and the implications of hiring a new group of employees asking them to engage in coaching trying to prevent dropout among students. What could be seen as noise and troublesome identity and role confusion in the interview did produce valuable data. But why?
“Muddy” Interviews as Knowledge Production
As mentioned by Coffey in the introductory quotation and by an increasing number of researchers, qualitative research in general and interviewing in particular, is not a straightforward research technique. Rather, it must be acknowledged as a peopled affair, situated in social practices in which discourses, emotions, subjectivities and identities come into play (Gemignani, 2011; Lave, 2011; Packer, 2011; Tanggaard, 2007). By introducing the concept of “muddy” interviews, we wish to draw attention not only to the socially constructed character of knowledge resulting from interviews, but more explicitly to situations in which interviewer and interviewee, intentionally or not, break with the norms of interviewing, “muddy” the conversation and change it into something apparently quite different. Our experience is that research participants do this relatively frequently. However, these “muddy” or seemingly troublesome parts of the research project may be hidden or rendered tacit, simply because the researcher considers them as mistakes and no more. However, the subjectivities of research participants can be seen as an epistemological force producing “[ . . . ] heartfelt interpretations, collections of complex data, and nuanced analyses” (Gemignani, 2011, p. 707). Inspired by Coffey (1999) and also by Pelias’ metaphor of “leaning in” (Pelias, 2011), we will outline, analyze, and discuss “muddy” aspects of identity, emotions, relationships, and knowledge building within qualitative research, posing questions such as, What can qualitative researchers do with “muddy,” troublesome, and apparently misconceived interviews? Can an interview still be called an interview and legitimately contribute to knowledge production, if it evolves into other conversational genres and discursive practices, which may more aptly be termed supervision or coaching? What are the ethical implications of being attuned to a person’s words, emotions, and body language—being deeply engaged with that person and at the same time, remaining a researcher producing scientific knowledge?
Doing Peopled Research—Relationship Building and Identity Work Within the Research Setting
During the last few decade(s), research interviewing within the qualitative paradigm has been recognized as an interactional process in which both researcher and participant actively construct and interpret the process and produce meaning (Denzin, 2001; Kvale & Brinkmann, 2009; Packer, 2011; Tanggaard, 2007, 2009). This article constitutes an example of how we can acknowledge the importance of the peopled character of qualitative research in general and qualitative interviews in particular. In conducting research with this approach, we are “[ . . . ] concerned with demystifying the researcher and researched as unattached and objective instruments, arguing that research is personal, emotional, sensitive, should be reflective and is situated in existing cultural and structural contexts” (Coffey, 1999, p. 12).
Instead of looking upon subjectivity as a bias which interferes with the production of knowledge, Coffey argues in favor of engaging with the personal and emotional aspects of doing research, so as to reflect on how the identities and histories of both researchers and participants influence the production of knowledge. Coffey writes that identities are constructed, reproduced, changed, or challenged over the course of the fieldwork process. The different dimensions of identity are activated through the ongoing, complex processes of the researcher exploring and negotiating with participants in the field. Coffey links identity work with the phenomenon of impression management in the context of identity management, but her advice is to work with these terms in a personalized manner. Reflecting on identity management and negotiations should not only be acknowledged with respect to achieving successful access to information and research results in an ethical manner. According to Coffey, the researcher must also reflect on her own situated position, her sense of self in relation to the field, and to participants in the field. Thus, researchers should present texts about handling the interactions, relations, and situatedness of the researcher and the researched, all constituting lived research. A part of this lived research also implies that the researcher might seek, be offered, invited or given several different positions, depending on what aspects of her identity and manner(s) are interpreted as resources in the field (Berg, 2010). As an aspect of fieldwork, conducting interviews inevitably means bringing into the interview setting interpretations of resources, positions and information from the field, and interactions within it (Lave, 2011). Interactions, motives, and emotions within the field tone the interview interaction as well as the positions and identities available in the interview, for both researcher and interviewee (Coffey, 1999; Garton & Copland, 2010; Thuesen, 2011).
Being in the Field Doing Interviews—Leaning In
The data presented in this article were collected for a dissertation on teachers working on retention of students thought to be at risk of dropping out of VET colleges in Denmark. More specifically, I was interested in the way teachers try to organize a learning environment by facilitating engagement among a group of students whose school-careers have often been characterized by failure, hopelessness, and disappointment (Jonker, 2006; Lippke, 2012; Tanggaard, 2011).
The design of the research project was based on fieldwork at a Danish VET college and included participant observation and interviews with teachers at four departments of the college. The ethnographic work was conducted from August 2010 to February 2011. Getting in to the field I noticed that SSWs, a relatively new group of employees, had entered the college within the last 4 years as part of a retention initiative. A SSW is supposed to offer coaching sessions to the students and help them with financial, social, and personal problems. Imprisonment, drug addiction, depression/anxiety, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), and learning disabilities are common problems. One SSW was employed in each department (in total, six SSWs) and some of the teachers I had observed engaged in a close cooperation with the SSW at their department. To find out more about the function of the SSW and his or her organizational position, I decided to interview these workers and to join their internal meetings as an observer. I was curious to learn about the issues they discussed with each other, and how they defined and handled the boundaries between their function and the teachers’ work.
My overall objective with the field study was to learn about the socially situated practices of retaining potential dropout students by observing and talking to those experiencing and participating in the practices themselves. Thus, I was grateful to the teachers and SSWs for their willingness to spend time participating in my study and letting me “hang around” with them in their everyday life practices. Spending time in the field, I could not help noticing that I began “[ . . . ] having the project’s interest at heart” (Cassell, 2005, p. 172). After a few weeks, I felt a great deal of sympathy for the teachers and SSWs. Their ways of working on student retention became for me a compelling story that I really wanted to tell. Furthermore, the issues and dilemmas to which I was exposed emotionally affected me. Several of the teachers and SSWs experienced some degree of sadness, guilt, and powerlessness for not being able to help all of their students “get on the right track” (Lippke, 2012), and I became concerned about the possible consequences (turn-over, absenteeism, stress, and burn-out) of their commitment to the problematic aspects of the students’ lives. Stake (2010) claims that having strong feelings about social matters and engaging in advocacy is a legitimate element of research. However, I was uneasy about my feelings of both admiration and concern toward the participants. I noticed an awakening sense of responsibility and a desire to create some kind of social change. As Gemignani (2011) writes, “When contexts, data, and experiences of a study become increasingly meaningful for the researcher, they influence the ways in which she situates, interprets, and experiences herself as subject of her own practice” (p. 703).
It became difficult for me to maintain my position as a researcher “solely” exploring the field without “polluting” it with my emotions, ideas and fantasies about giving my participants something in return, and “making a difference.” Apparently, I had jumped right in to the “muddy” waters of ethnographic dichotomies (Coffey, 1999), being in close contact with participants in the field, engaging with them, while at the same time trying to maintain a degree of scientific distance. How could I manage this tense position through being detached and engaged at the same time?
“Go and get the seat of your pants dirty in real research.” Such was the advice German sociologist Georg Simmel presumably gave to young researchers trying to learn the practice of research (Packer, 2011, p. 210). Only active and empathic participation would enable them to study human ecology. Likewise, Pelias’ (2011) metaphor of “leaning” offers us new perspectives as to what it means to embrace the subjectivity and engagement of the researcher and how subjectivities contain great productive forces for producing knowledge and understanding psychological phenomena. Pelias (2011) writes, When I lean in, I am attentive, listening presence, trying my best to become attuned with another person. [ . . . ] I want to be a good reader of others, sensitive to what they might need, alive to what they are trying to say, open to what they may share. (p. 9)
For Pelias, leaning in entails practicing humanness, forging common ground and mutual respect. The inter-actors navigate toward each other with both heart and head. Joy, love, hurt, aggressions, tensions, oppositions, and care may be created in the interaction. However, personal motives, values, cultural practices, and habits can limit “leaning in” or even make it impossible. Hence, Pelias emphasizes that it is not always possible to lean in. Leaning in requires wanting to do so, daring to do so and that one’s presence be welcomed. Even so, unspoken or invisible barriers may interfere (see also Mauthner, Birch, Jessop, & Miller, 2002). That is, the leaning in metaphor does not take into account that the research interview is not only created through the intentions of the researcher, but possibly even more so through the co-creation of situated identities in the discursive practice of the interview itself.
Positioning Oneself and the Other
I just wanted to thank you for a pleasant talk today. I almost feel as if I got some kind of supervision and a lot of new ideas and perspectives on possible improvements to my work-life.
The above sentence was a part of an email, which I received from Ellen, a SSW, a couple of hours after the interview. I had to read it several times. The reason was that during the interview I had been aware of asking questions that diverged from my original research questions, and I found myself slipping into a coach position. At the time of the interview, I did not inform Ellen about my reflections on the shifting form of the interview, but apparently, Ellen also had experienced the interview evolving into another form of conversational practice, which she termed supervision.
After the interview, I felt embarrassed, ashamed of having let the interview slip into a psychologized and psychologizing discourse in which I took the position of a professional trying to facilitate changes in Ellen’s work-life. I wanted to distance myself from the interview. I considered it useless because of the “muddy” positions I adopted and I really did not want to look in to it again. However, I also felt that the interview with Ellen had given me a more nuanced understanding of organizational negotiations and conflicts relating to different ways of handling dropout. Furthermore, Ellen’s mail made me curious as to how I could understand the (e)motions in the interview that had persuaded me to continuously cross professionals boundaries between the discourse of a qualitative research interview and some form of psychological discourse represented as coaching. I decided to lean in to the “mud” by exploring the passages in the interview in which I could identify the interactional play of Ellen and I, positioning each other within a psychologized discourse.
Prior to the interview with Ellen I had conducted several conversations with her and I knew that her career included a masters degree in educational psychology. She therefore had a different background than most of her colleagues in the department, who had not attended university, but worked as skilled handcrafts workers before entering the college as teachers. Several times during the interview, Ellen mentioned that the educational systems within VET and the actors within it are very different from what she was used to. Furthermore, during the interview, she repeated that she often feels the need to legitimize her function and way of working with the students at the college.
Early in the interview, I gained the impression of interviewing a woman who has often been confronted with doubts and questions about her function, leaving her with insecurity about the value of her work. I had an intuitive feeling that I should be careful not to become another critical voice asking questions, which might make Ellen feel that her professional competency was being questioned yet again. Instead, I adopted the position of a colleague within the field of psychology who knew what Ellen meant when she used psychological terminology such as “psycho-education” of students suffering from anxiety, without questioning the relevance or value of such treatment within an educational setting. Furthermore, I placed myself in an active interviewer position: I co-narrated Ellen by producing appreciative images that might help her identify how she had succeeded in establishing constructive relationships with some of the teachers:
How do you think you reached that point, I mean it seems that several of the teachers have become convinced that you can provide some kind of help to them or to the students? How do you think you managed to make them look upon you in a different light?
I responded to Ellen’s talk as a reflective active listener who presented her with a positive framework for interpreting her actions. In dialoguing with Ellen, I intended to underscore her ability to improve relationships and to work collaboratively to maximize retention. Possibly, the choice of an active and appreciative approach was associated with my feelings of sympathy toward Ellen, which had already emerged during my fieldwork in her department. I felt attuned to Ellen’s story and the way she described her everyday setting at the college. Nonetheless, in my interaction with Ellen, I felt that my mode of inquiry conflicted with the position of a more neutral and distanced researcher. I could not help being disconcerted by the thought that the active, appreciative tone and actions seemed to “muddy” the interview, and I became worried about the quality of the resulting data. Why could I not leave the “muddy” mode?
“Mud” in the Interview Setting—“Mud” in Everyday Work Life
Ellen’s reflections on what qualified her for the job as a SSW did not emphasize her background in educational psychology. Rather, she had the impression that her overall experiences and commitment to young people were of primarily significance. In transcribing the interview, I remembered becoming frustrated on Ellen’s behalf when I listened to her explanation and fairly confusing description of the kind of person/employee the college was looking for. I realized this might have been the starting point for my insights into the muddied characteristics of her function as a SSW. Furthermore, transcribing the interview, it stroke me that in Ellen’s descriptions of the everyday life of students and their life situations, she used several words and metaphors from cleaning and tidying.
Well, as I see it, they really need a lift in all aspects of their lives, and we can’t give them that kind of lift at the college . . . They have so many problems . . . everything has to be tidied up, all the way around. Their social network is weak, there might be abuse, violence, incest, mobbing, you name it . . . And then of course, their personal finance is a mess, and they have also probably been diagnosed with some kind of psychiatric disorder . . . They simply need a thorough cleaning up of their personal economic situation, housing, circle of friends, all through their life situation. Plus, they need to get some exercise. I mean this group of young people—they are always ill.
During the interview, Ellen gave several examples of different kinds of tasks that she has carried out, depending on the type of problem the students were describing: coaching, therapy, psycho-education, counseling, calling the student in the morning and waking him or her up, calling the young person’s bank, meeting with the person’s social worker from the local municipality, helping the student begin a new form of education if he or she wanted to drop out or was expelled from the college, and transporting a student’s removal boxes in her car. I remembered I almost lost my breath listening to those many examples of things that Ellen did. In the interview, Ellen also stopped and paused for a while. She then moved on to tell me that she has often been dealing with various dilemmas as to whether it would be “okay” to conduct therapy-like sessions. She explained that she has found the borderline between coaching and therapy quite vague and that she has mostly used her intuition as to what kind of strategy would be best and whether she would want to tackle the problem at all. The students have come to her to discuss such problems as conflicts with a teacher, feeling depressed or anxious, problems with the boy/girlfriend, having no friends, being kicked out of home, parents’ drug/alcohol abuse, or their own substance abuse.
Besides having had confidential talks with the students about these various problems, several of the students have showed up at her office before the classes just to chat and talk about the new shoes they have just bought, the wedding of a cousin, or their father coming home from hospital. She has had the feeling that many of the students have never really met an adult who cared for or about them or was interested in what was going on in their lives. Therefore, when a student has told her that some kind of an event is about to occur in their life, Ellen has made a note in her calendar to remind herself to send the student a text message and ask about it. Describing her relationship with the students, she explained,
I guess they have this feeling that suddenly they have met a grownup they can trust.
Yes.
One who shows an interest in them and doesn’t condemn them—that’s, by the way, one of the most important aspects for me—that I don’t condemn anything they do or have done.
As we interpret it, the above quotation from the interview not only contains information about Ellen’s interpretation of her relationship with the young people but might also symbolize the relationship that Ellen and I established in the interview situation. Looking at the interview material, it seems possible to identify parallels between, on one hand, Ellen’s everyday setting as a SSW and her need to be caring toward the young, challenged people and, on the other hand, the interview setting and my relationship with Ellen. In a sense, I felt like I needed to be caring toward her too. I wanted to avoid condemning her and instead I wanted to recognize her struggles in the context of being a SSW. In the interview, I felt I became an ally who listened actively to Ellen’s description of her function and the “mud” in her loosely defined position as a SSW. Furthermore, in a possible parallel with Ellen’s urge to help the students “clean up their mess,” I was disturbed listening to the dilemmas and muddied characteristics of being a SSW. Having done inquiries within the field of work psychology my experience was that vague and ambiguous expectations of work tasks, lack of social support, and feeling unappreciated are among psychosocial factors that might result in a stress reaction. However, I was not asked nor did I propose to formally intervene if I identified problematic issues. At the same time, it seemed that Ellen had the personal/reflective resources to identify job aspects and key persons in the organization that might help her clarify the position of a SSW. I therefore changed my approach and invited her to reflect on new ways of handling her everyday working life, hoping to help her “cleanse” her professional position. With this invitation, I began to frame a conversational discourse from the professional stance of a psychologist consulting a client through coaching.
“Coachification” of the Interview Setting
How could you—I mean what options do you have, to give them more information about your work?
In this part of the interview, Ellen was asked in what kind of situations cooperation with the teachers has become problematic, thus making it difficult to work toward preventing dropout. Ellen explained that the teachers have often been away from their classes for days, because they have had to attend pedagogical training courses. When they have not been present, she has communicated with the teachers via email, for instance, to inform them when a student has returned after a long period of absence trying to figure out how they might be able to cooperate helping the student back in to class. She has rarely received an answer, however, and this has made her feel as if she were in a vacuum, isolated and alone in trying to prevent dropout.
While Ellen described this situation, I had the feeling that the room in which we were seated almost began to ooze frustration and powerlessness. I got the idea that this might reflect the situation in which Ellen was “running around” looking for certain teachers, sending them emails without getting any answer back. I realized that I did not want to move on from this subject and I felt an overwhelming urge to propose solutions to improve the communication between Ellen and the teachers. I began asking questions that might help Ellen consider new perspectives on the communication issue, but nonetheless I continued to feel frustrated. In the end I heard myself presenting a possible course of action:
Can you imagine anything that might improve your communication on this email issue?
I only see some kind of policy, that you should always answer your emails, as a solution, but . . .
Do they, the teachers, know that the email is so important for you, in order to understand what has to be done for the individual student and . . .
No, I guess I haven’t really explained that to everyone, I don’t think so . . . that might be a possibility, I may be able to get some time at one of our department meetings and I could explain what I do and why it’s crucial that they write to me . . . And most of the teachers do answer their emails, but still some of them don’t really give any answer . . . I guess I could make it clear that it’s really important for me, because they might not all be aware of it and think about it.
No . . . but I’m also thinking about . . . whether some kind of matching of expectations might be—you know, I mean you have been at the department for three and a half years and I’m sure you have a lot of valuable experience. Have you considered anything like that?
Coffey (1999) refers to research as inhabited by embodied physical selves. As Ellen and I moved on in the interview, it seemed as if the room became the scene of a coaching session embodied by a coach and a coachee. Although this aspect can be regarded as a “muddy” or troublesome part of the interview session, in itself it represented a clear and clean choreography of a coaching session. The interview represented a parallel to Ellen’s everyday life; however, she was the one adopting the position as a coachee and I adopted the position as a coach.
Linking the coaching elements in the interview with Ellen’s everyday working life, my situated position might reflect the situated choices made by Ellen outside the interview situation. She is expected to coach, but the students need advice and a thorough “cleansing” of their lives. I was expected to collect data, but Ellen’s narrative seduced me into letting my identity as a psychologist enter the scene creating a tension field of differing professional positions and discourses. The expectation that positions and discourses have to be implemented in a certain way clashes with the “muddy” reality, both within the researcher’s research process and the interviewee’s everyday life. Hence, the interview situation constitutes an example of research as a peopled affair in which the situated relational identities matter.
Final Considerations
Leaning in as a Matter of Emotional Identity Work
Looking back on the interview scenario described in this article, as the first author of the present article, I became aware that a reproduction of my identity as a psychologist came into play. I remember how I bodily (e.g., my stomach muscles became tense) sensed the interviewee’s need for sameness and leaned in to her need for a professional ally. Having the desire to care for Ellen, I commented positively on the examples she raised, attempting to match her position and give her the feeling that she was talking to a professional colleague, thus acknowledging the psychological mind-set and dilemmas associated with her job. I even stepped in to the position of a coaching psychologist, helping her identify her options in creating a more effective cooperation with the teachers. The mutual acknowledgment of Ellen’s and my shared professional background created a sense of sameness and paved the way for a trusting atmosphere. Thuesen (2011) stresses that emotions are at stake during every interview process, so that an important aspect of conducting interviews is the interviewer’s ability to reflect and react in terms of the specific situation. Drawing upon the Aristotelian concept of phronesis, Thuesen argues that practical reasoning, ethical intuition, and sensitivity toward the emotional dynamics ought to intermingle with one another. In other words, the interviewer needs to be reflexive and flexible in her responses and activities, matching the context, the interviewee, and the emotional expressions in the specific practical situation (Kvale & Brinkmann, 2009). From a “leaning in” perspective, one might say that different conversational genres interact, because the participants experience emotions, thoughts and memories that produce a desire to lean in to each other in a different way.
Linked to my previous work as a psychologist, my professional leaning in and use of empathy, appreciation, and coaching created “mud” in the interview situation. Yet, at the same time, my psychological sensitivity moved the production of data in unexpected directions and opened up a nuanced understanding of the dilemmas and frustrations concerning retention and the SSW’s professional relationship with her students and colleagues. Hence, the “muddy” style became a productive force gaining new knowledge about the situation of a SSW. Despite these positive aspects of “muddiness,” should we be concerned about the manipulative potential that is embedded in an empathic and appreciative participation, which may invite and seduce the interviewee to lean in?
We recognize the need to be critically and ethically aware of the hidden manipulative and seductive aspects of interviewing that might resemble therapeutic practices. Using the metaphor of “the Trojan horse,” Fog (1994) reflects upon how, with care, empathy, and sympathy, the interviewer can seduce the interviewee into saying and revealing things they would not normally share. Based on the conversational habitus, the interviewer uses the opportunity to get close to the interviewee and her revelations, but without giving anything in return, because the interview is not a conversation between fellows or equals (Fog, 1994). The interviewer enters the role of a “confidant” providing the “interviewee with the opportunity to talk about topics they might not be able to discuss with people closer to them” (Hoffmann, 2007). Hoffmann argues that this role focuses primarily on the needs of the interviewee. At first glance, this role might indeed seem sympathetic and caring, but at the same time, it gives the interviewer the position of the one in power to appreciate or condemn the “confessant’s stories.” In my, Lena’s interaction with Ellen I might have told her to “Come on, just lean in to me, I’m a good psychologist (not one of the bad ones who control people), and if you trust me, everything will be okay.” Educated within the discourse of psychology, I might have seduced myself with the idea that if people speak freely and let it all out, they feel much better. This is an idea in which psychology might be trapped. It is a discourse that, in some ways, Ellen and I acted out and leaned into, thereby changing the conversational genre and creating the experience of entering “muddy” waters.
Lea(r)ning—How Can We Learn From a “Muddy” Interview? “Mud” as an Analytical Tool
I think the most general view is that the only instrument that is sufficiently complex to comprehend and learn about human existence is another human. And so what you use is your own life and your own experience in the world. (Lave & Kvale, 1995, p. 220)
Inspired by the above quotation, we wish to emphasize how the three concepts of “research,” “leaning in,” and “mud” are mutually productive forces, both during the data collection and afterwards in analyzing the data. The ongoing process of identifying and analyzing the “muddy” moments in which the researcher leans in toward the participants and experiences “slippages” within the research process might be an additional source of data. In the context of the research on student retention, analyzing the interaction between interviewer and interviewee and the ways in which the researcher brings coaching elements into the interview helps understand (and therefore produces knowledge about) the interviewee’s daily position as a SSW in an organization that places retention foremost on its agenda. We learn much about a SSW’s muddied work life and her feeling of professional loneliness in an organizational tension field. The need to feel that her status is equal to that of her colleagues emerges clearly, but we only discover this by evaluating the muddied interview interaction, the ways in which the subjectivities and identities of the researcher and the interviewee meet and lean in to each other.
“Leaning in” offers the researcher the opportunity to direct his or her gaze to the relational dimensions of the construction of data, embracing how he or she cannot be separated from what is researched (see also Gemignani, 2011, for the potentialities of using countertransference within qualitative inquiry). “Leaning in” is not an answer in itself, but entails reflections on behalf of the researcher, constant rereading and an open-minded curiosity about the empirical material, all of which are essential to allow the material to open up new horizons of meaning.
In the research described in this manuscript, the researcher struggled to find the right conversational genre, position, and attitude, as she was caught in the crossing of two professional identities: that of a new and relatively inexperienced researcher and having a professional background in educational and organizational psychology, entailing supervision, counseling, and coaching. Parallels between the tense “muddy” interactional positions in the interview and the everyday working life of the interviewee became visible and constituted a result in itself. Our claim is that the more we allow ourselves to lean in to the muddied waters of research and search for information of the kind presented above, the more clearly we understand research as the muddied affair it truly is, because the worlds we explore and live in are muddied.
Qualitative researchers may want to make their work transparent, making themselves visible, instead of invisible, so that interesting data emerges and its validation is possible because the “mud” is not concealed or perceived purely as bias or as problematic issues interfering with knowledge production. Instead of “getting stuck in the mud,” the “mud” can serve as an analytical tool generating knowledge and insights that would not otherwise emerge. Hence, we emphasize the value of daring to lean in to the muddiness of peopled research, using it as a tool of analysis and data construction and presenting it in its imperfect manner.
Footnotes
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Notes
Author Biographies
). She is regional editor of The International Journal of Qualitative Research in Education. Recent publications include: The Socio-materiality of Creativity (2013), as well as articles in the journals Culture and Psychology and Forum Qualitative Sozialforschung.