Introduction
1.1 In this article I explore issues and dynamics of ‘intellectual
craftswomanship’ and consider the tensions involved when aiming to produce
‘accountable knowledge’ (Stanley 1999). Following Stanley (1999) I believe that
attention to these concerns, alongside the analytical and political engagement with
substantive issues that affect the lives of women and men should be the project of
critical feminism. I am not suggesting that critical reflexive ‘craftspersonship’ is
only undertaken by feminists, indeed there is a long tradition in interpretive
sociologies of writers making transparent the working practices involved in
producing knowledge claims (e.g. from Gouldner 1970 onwards). But feminists’ work
combines particular analytical, ethical and political dimensions and I am concerned
with this interplay here.
1.2 As Harding (1987: 3) notes ‘it is not by looking at research methods
that one will be able to identify the distinctive features of the best feminist
research’: i.e. there is no such thing as a feminist method, rather as Millen notes
what is distinctive about feminist research is the incorporation of two main
aims:
… a sensitivity of the role of gender within society and the differential
experiences of males and females and a critical approach to the tools of
research … the structures of methodology and epistemology within which knowledge
is placed within the public domain … (Millen 1997: 6.3)
1.3 Yet, as others have noted, although there are points of commonality
between feminists there are ‘many varieties of feminism and many ways of being
feminist’ (Temple 1997: 1.6 and also see Stanley 1990, Fonow and Cook 1991, Reinharz
1992, Maynard and Purvis 1994, Ribbens and Edwards 1998 and so on). In this article
I consider some commonalities and varieties.
1.4 Using my own feminist sociological doctoral research as an example I
add to feminist debate on epistemological authority and consider in particular the
epistemological status of my work in relation to reflexivity and representation.
Within this I outline what I think are some of the contradictions involved in
‘theorising about feminist epistemology’ and ‘doing feminist research’. In my
research I was concerned to explore the social, emotional and medical experience
(predominantly women's) of ‘infertility’ and ‘involuntary childlessness’.
[1]
My original motive for
undertaking the research was a response to the fact that I felt that the experience
of ‘infertility’ and ‘involuntary childlessness’ was misunderstood and
misinterpreted by many people. My political interest was in part stimulated by my
own experiences in that I fit the medical definition of ‘infertile’ and at the time
of the fieldwork I was ‘involuntarily childlessness’
[2]
. This auto/biographical element is
obviously relevant to my discussion here and I consider throughout my positioning in
the research process and product.
1.5 The main part of this article is divided into four sections. I begin
by outlining my research both in relation to method and ‘findings’. I follow this by
reflecting on my study and make some initial claims and disclaimers outlining what I
think I did and did not do. Next I consider the relationship between my approach to
research and my presentation of respondents’ experiences and highlight what I think
are some of the contradictions and tensions in feminist theorising and feminist
research. I extend this discussion through a consideration of the significance of
the researcher's and the respondents’ place in the research . Finally, I conclude
the article by briefly re/locating my argument within wider debates concerned with
the value and status of epistemological debate.
Setting the Research Scene
2.1 My research was qualitative in its approach and in-depth
semi-structured interviews (combining a life-history approach with some standard
questions) and research by correspondence were the methods used to collect the data.
A processual approach (i.e. series of interviews or letters with each person) was
adopted to obtain access to different viewpoints on experience over time.
2.2 Like similar research in this area (e.g. Pfeffer and Woollett 1983,
Monach 1993, Franklin 1997) my work has highlighted the fact that the discussion of
the status and experience of ‘infertility’ and ‘involuntary childlessness’ is
affected by several dominant discourses including the discourse of medical and
scientific superiority (in relation to treatment); the discourse of the deserving
and the undeserving (in relation to who should and should not parent) and the
discourse of loss and damaged identity (in relation to non-parenthood). All of this
in turn further affects the experience of ‘infertility’ and ‘involuntary
childlessness’.
2.3 The data suggested that the ‘infertile’ and ‘involuntarily
childless’ are aware that these dominant discourses and the associated ‘ideal’
identities affect the ways in which their status and experience is described and
indeed often affects the way they describe it themselves. Thus, the ‘infertile’ and
the ‘involuntarily childless’ are affected by the stereotypes used to describe the
experience - stereotypes which often conflate the two statuses. Yet, as in other
areas of life individuals in this position resist the stereotypes if they feel that
they do not adequately describe their experience. This resistance sometimes includes
reference to feelings of ambivalence in relation to their experience. Recognition of
ambivalence leads to consideration of self-identity. Self-identity in this instance
is again affected by ‘ideals’ and respondents recognised the value of ‘ideal’
themselves. Thus, my research suggests that the ‘infertile’ and ‘involuntarily
childless’ often feel a sense of damaged identity as individuals, as a couple, as a
family. Some reported a sense of despair. Yet many resisted and rejected desperation
as the dominant expression of their feelings, whilst some try to make stereotypes of
desperateness work for them in negotiating the medical setting. Due to the
stereotypes surrounding the experience respondents spoke or wrote of ‘hiding’
aspects of their identity and experience in certain settings. Yet many also referred
to the political importance of publicising their experience in order to ‘tell it
like it is’, which in part explains the motivation to be involved with the research
(for further discussion see Letherby 1997, 1999).
2.4 My research provides further evidence that women (and men) without
children represent the ‘other’ in a society that values parenthood. This affects
relationships with family, friends and partners. Therefore the ‘infertile’ and
‘involuntarily childless’ often feel excluded. Yet this is complex. The ‘infertile’
and ‘involuntarily childless’ feel excluded in different places, in different ways.
Individuals who don't have children, and those who have achieved parenthood in
‘unusual’ circumstances, report feeling excluded in different situations. All of
this results in the experience involving individuals in large amounts of emotional
work and management. This suggests that contact with those who understand, i.e.
other members of the ‘in-group’, is desirable. But my research suggests that the
‘infertile'/'involuntarily childless’ have complex experiences of, and feelings
towards, this sort of support. Counseling is overwhelmingly supported, although
little is available, whereas the topic of self-help and support groups brings
differing responses. Some of my respondents had never heard of these, whilst others
had decided that such support was not for them. There are various reasons for this,
including the fact that respondents perceived these groups as focusing on a
particular aspect of experience that was not relevant to them. My research suggests
that the whole experience of ‘infertility’ and ‘involuntary childlessness’ needs to
be related to issues of time and control. Time is relevant with respect to the
‘right time’ to have children, to the fact that treatment takes time, and to changes
over time in terms of adaptation. Yet this adaptation is tentative: as the life
course continues, new adjustments are necessary. With respect to control,
respondents reported lack of control over their body and their life in general,
again this sometimes changes over time (Letherby 1997, 1999).
2.5 Overall, my work highlighted the necessity of placing any
consideration of the experience and status of ‘infertility’ and ‘involuntary
childlessness’ within wider political ideologies and structures.
Initial Claims and Disclaimers
3.1 Whilst much of this is not new in itself I would argue that with the
doctoral research ‘aim’ in mind my research does indeed make several ‘specific
contributions to knowledge’. Thus:
3.2 Firstly, by working with a diverse group of individuals who have
varying experiences in relation to ‘infertility’ and ‘involuntary childlessness’,
rather than focusing on a distinct group - undergoing a particular type of
treatment, planning adoption and so on - as others have done (Franklin 1997, Monach
1993, Meerabeau 1989), I have begun to develop a feminist sociological analysis of
‘infertility'/'involuntary childlessness’ that relates to the whole experience:
social, emotional and medical, and places this experience within the broader context
of individuals’ lives. This has never, to my knowledge, been done before.
3.3 Secondly and relatedly, I considered in detail the experience of
non-motherhood and the experience of women who have achieved motherhood in an
‘unusual’ way i.e.: non-biological mothers and mothers of so called ‘miracle babies’
(babies born as the result of medically assisted conception) (Letherby 1999). The
initial point of the research was to explore the experience of a group of
individuals at a particular moment in time. However, because of the fact that the
study group represented a wide/broad group in terms of age and experience (some who
have had treatment some who have not, some experiencing ‘infertility'/'involuntary
childlessness’ now, some in the past etc.), and because my research relationships
with respondents often extended over several months or even years (as some kept in
touch to, as they said, ‘keep me up to date’) my doctoral thesis (and subsequent
writings) in fact provides an analysis of experience over time and of different
types of experience in relation to ‘infertility’ and ‘involuntary
childlessness’.
3.4 Further, and thirdly, my study has implications for all women's
lives, not least, in that given expectations of appropriate ‘womanhood’ (e.g.
Connell, 1987, Hey, 1989, Letherby 1994, 1999, Gillespie 2000),
motherhood/non-motherhood is a significant difference in women's lives. Other
implications for the lives of all women (and men) are the issues raised by my
consideration of specific aspects of the experience in relation to, for example,
family and kinship identity, relationships with partners, family and friends, and
medical care and medicalisation.
3.5 As well as these substantive contributions I would argue that my
research makes a fourth contribution, in that my attempt at a grounded use of an
auto/biographical epistemology is distinctive, although not unique, in that my
presence was central in the research and in my writing. Relatedly, the recognition
of this relates strongly to my epistemological concerns, in that I was concerned
with issues of difference, power and representation. My work was grounded, as I
shall show later, in a developing feminist epistemology.
3.6 In terms of my grounds for these ‘claims to know’, as Morley (1997)
notes, feminist research often takes a grounded theory approach but can not be
grounded theory. She writes that at one time, ‘grounded theory was seen as highly
compatible with feminism, firstly, it was concerned to locate theory in
participants’ worlds and secondly, it aided the process of breaking out of the
confines of andocentric theory’ (p140). Morley adds that many feminists now reject
grounded theory on the grounds that ‘no feminist study can be politically neutral,
completely inductive or solely based on grounded theory, as all work is
theoretically grounded’ (ibid). With respect to my research, I did have prior ideas
about what I would discover which were influenced by my own experience, and from
reading previous research and comparing my respondents’ experience to the
respondents I read about in other similar research projects. My academic, political
and personal interest in issues of definition, identity, relationships and networks
in relation to the experience of ‘infertility’ and ‘involuntary childlessness’ and
how all these change over time had an influence on the issues I raised in interviews
and letters (though I did start by asking respondents to ‘tell me your story since
you first decided that you would like to have children’). For much of my research I
ordered data under these broad areas/themes. Within these parameters the data itself
led the discussion. Therefore, my research took a grounded theory approach even
though I agree with Morley's argument that feminist theory generated from feminist
research can not be grounded theory.
3.7 I am conscious that I ‘took away their words’ and then analysed the
data from my own political, personal and intellectual perspective. As Fine (1994)
argues, research involves ‘carving out pieces of narrative evidence that we select,
edit and deploy to border our arguments'(p22). Thus, I am aware that my voice is the
loudest. With this in mind I attempted to be sensitive to issues of power and
control throughout the whole research process. When writing up my data I highlighted
my role in the selection and interpretation of respondents’ narratives and in terms
of presentation of ‘findings’. In interviews and letters, I asked respondents to
reflect on issues that they had spoken or written of previously and incorporated
(some) individual changes into my analysis and writing. Yet, as Holland and
Ramazanoglu argue, there is ‘no technique of analysis or methodological logic that
can neutralise the social nature of interpretation’ (cited by Morley 1997 p142). As
Morley adds ‘The difference with feminist research is that it admits it!’ (ibid). My
work represents an attempt to work within an auto/biographical approach and, as I
will consider further, later, there are tensions between theory and practice.
3.8 Stanley (1991) argues that ‘people theorize their own experience …
and so researchers of the social are faced with an already “first order” theorized
material social reality'(p208). Thus, ‘people observe, categorize, analyse, reach
conclusions’ (ibid). I agree with this. We must respect what our respondents tell
us. Yet, few (if any) research reports, provide complete transcripts of all
respondents’ narratives, leaving any further analysis to the reader. The
presentation of our work involves further categorization and analysis and we reach
conclusions based on our interpretation of the data and the academic and political
theories and understandings that we have access to. I started from an
epistemological position that rejects a simplistic foundationalist/standpoint
position. I do believe that I am in a position to generate the ‘true story’ of the
experience of ‘infertility'/ ‘involuntary childlessness’. But I do believe that ‘my
story’ can stand in opposition to and as a criticism of ‘other stories’ (both
feminist and non-feminist, academic and lay) which I, and many of my respondents,
see as at worst inaccurate and at best partial. I do not claim to have the ‘answer’.
However, by starting to ask different questions of a different group I believe that
my research highlights complexities of differences of experience that have
previously not been considered. What is different is the focus on an under-
researched group. This highlights the need for different explanations of the
experience of ‘infertility’ and ‘involuntary childlessness’ than those which have
previously been thought sufficient. I agree with Millen who writing about her own
experience of research, writes:
Whilst I do not believe that there is some sort of final, complete reality, and I
am aware that my own subjectivity as a female feminist scientist has affected
the outcome of my research. I do believe in a compromise between a completely
subjective, unique and creative account of experience and a partly reproducible,
objective and contextualised understanding in which my subjectivity has been
critiqued. As Lorraine Gelsthorpe (1992:214) remarks, ‘a rejection of the notion
of “objectivity” and a focus on experience in method does not mean a rejection
of the need to be critical, rigorous and accurate. (original emphasis) (Millen
1997: 8.5).
3.9 I do not claim to have uncovered the ‘absolute truth’ or indeed that
an ‘absolute truth’ is possible but I do claim to have widened the debate
surrounding these issues, and, as a result, I am challenging aspects of previous
work in the area of ‘infertility’ and ‘involuntary childlessness’, motherhood and
non-motherhood.
3.10 Clearly, if my research had been undertaken by a different
researcher, or by me at a different point in time, the result would be a different.
Equally, if I had talked or corresponded with the same individuals at a different
time they would have talked about or focused on different aspects of their
experience. Thus, the research and the claims of my work are not representative of
all. It is not possible to ‘prove’ the accuracy of my claims in an absolute sense
but comparison of respondents’ experience, reference to other work in the area, and
indeed to some of my respondents’ continuing experience suggests that a repetition
of the research would uncover flavours of difference rather than result in
distinctively different claims. Having established what I believe my work has and
has not done I will now explore further some of the tensions raised by these claims
and disclaimers.
Epistemology and Representation: one
4.1 As noted above, my epistemological approach rejects the view that
there is one ‘reality’ out there that I as feminist sociological researcher can
discover. I agree with Di Stephano (1990) that gender is a ‘difference that makes a
difference’ (p78) but that differences between women (and between men) are
themselves theoretically and politically important as are commonalities between
women and men . I accept that knowledge is a material product: ‘something which is
specific to time and place and person, and so which is contextually, grounded and
material, as well as being rooted in the ‘point of view’ of particular knowledge
producers … ‘ (Stanley 1997 p204 drawing on Rich 1986 and Haraway 1988). I also
believe that respondents as well as researchers are reflexive, theorising
individuals. Yet, I do make strong knowledge claims and argue that my research is
‘broader’, ‘fuller’ than what has gone before. So, I am arguing that my research is
in some ways ‘superior’, and stands as a successor to what has gone before. Feminist
research has political aims: it aims to effect social change, and my respondents
wanted me to tell it ‘how it is’. My work represents my interpretation of ‘how it
is’ rather than a matter of simple reportage and I agree with Temple (1997) who
argues that:
… all research accounts are partial and constructed by the researcher. However,
this does not mean that I am a relativist and believer that all accounts are
purely constructions… . experiences cannot be free from the influences of
ideology but can be analysed as ‘a window onto the complicated workings of
ideology’ … If accounts are not free of the workings of ideology, neither are
they free of the influences of material and social factors … Part of the point
of discussion and debate is to establish the overlaps and contradictions between
accounts and to assess the influences of material and social location or
perspective (2.4).
4.2 Wilkinson and Kitzinger (1996), point out that ‘our work should not
be so much about the other as about the interplay between the researcher and the
other'(p18). But as they themselves add, ‘many feminists want both to enable the
voices of Others to be heard, and to create social and political change for or on
behalf of those Others’ (p20). This creates a dilemma and involves us in a struggle
between acknowledgement of the impossibility of full representation and the
assertion that our work makes a difference. This leaves me then supporting an
approach which may possibly involve a less than complete representation of the
other, but I suggest that this is better than no representation at all.
4.3 ‘Doing feminist research’ highlights for me the problems in taking
an epistemological position. I find myself arguing for an epistemological position
somewhere between ‘epistemic privilege’ and ‘post-modernism'/relativism. I do not
claim that my work is by definition superior to other knowledge claims and indeed it
should be subject to critical enquiry (Stanley 1996, Stanley and Wise 1993). Stanley
and Wise (1993) argue for a methodological and epistemological position which they
call Feminist Fractured Founationalist Epistemology: a position that does not
dispute the existence of truth and a material reality but acknowledges that
judgements about them are always relative to the context in which such knowledge is
produced. From this perspective researchers acknowledge that they are not
intellectually superior to their respondents and they have the responsibility to
providing accounts of their research process so that readers can have access to the
procedures which underlie the way that knowledge is presented and constructed by the
researcher. Yet, as Maynard (1994) and Abbott and Wallace (1997) suggest there is a
problem with this because of the difficulty of defining all accounts as equal with
no way of selecting between them. With this in mind, and from my own research
experiences, whilst I agree with Stanley and Wise that as researchers we are not
intellectually superior to our respondents I do think it is important that we
acknowledge our intellectual privileges.
4.4 My research can be compared to qualitative interpretations in
general, where the goal is to consider as many interpretations as possible and to
give respondents the authority to define themselves and their position. Even if this
happens within the fieldwork, the thesis or report represents the researchers’ and
not the respondents’ definitions. In epistemological terms, this is particularly
relevant to me, because, my respondents comprised a very knowledgeable group: many
of them knew a great deal about the medical research on ‘infertility’ and about
‘causes’ and ‘cures’. Yet, perhaps ‘knowledgeable’ here is sometimes better defined
as possessing information or ‘detail’ rather than ‘knowledge’. For example, an
individual experiencing unexplained ‘infertility’ is likely to have lots of
information but does not have knowledge (and neither does the clinician) regarding
their status. Similarly, a couple turned down for adoption may not be given the
reasons why, and thus have no knowledge as to why they were not considered to be
appropriate adoptive parents (see for example Franklin 1992, Letherby 1997). As a
researcher, I have access to many different professional, political and lay bodies
of information and knowledge. Clearly, I refer to these when I adjudicate between
respondents’ accounts and between respondents’ views and my own. I didn't always
agree with their views and/or felt I would have done things differently if I were
them. At many places in my writing I have presented several sides of an argument but
accept that I evaluated these in terms of MY feminist and sociological standpoints.
So I have the final say. I am not only claiming a privilege here but also a
‘superiority’: a right to be regarded as a knower in a way that respondents do not
have. This may involve some misrepresentation of their words but a final decision is
necessary if (feminist) research is to say anything at all, have any effect at all,
and not be concerned solely with issues of representation rather than ‘reality’
itself (Kelly et al 1994).
4.5 Furthermore, respondents are sometimes aware of and even supportive
of this ‘intellectual privilege’. As Wolf (1996) notes, participatory research ‘can
entail very disparate levels of input from research subjects’, and respondents may
not wish this type of involvement, and instead wish the researcher to ‘speak for
them’ (p26). Indeed, Annie (one of my respondents) described me as her ‘little
soapbox’ telling me that she could have her say through me without identifying
herself publicly (see Scott 1998 for a similar argument). Thus, there may be a
tension between the desire to give women a voice and the making of knowledge (e.g.
Millen 1997, Maynard and Purvis 1994) not least because individuals may not
necessarily possess the knowledge (or have the desire) to explain everything about
their lives. Furthermore, whilst we need to recognise and account for researchers’
power we should not characterise respondents as uniformly passive or powerless (see
e.g. McRobbie 1982, Skeggs 1994, Millen 1997, Ribbens and Edwards 1998).
Representation and Reflexivity
5.1 My aim then was to be reflexive in relation to representation.
Reflexivity was something that my respondents, as well as I, engaged in, and it is
useful to discuss here the differences between ‘descriptive reflexivity’ and
‘analytical reflexivity’. As reflexivity can be defined as reflecting back on
something, descriptive reflexivity is clearly a description of one's reflection.
Analysis means breaking something down into its constituent parts or elements and
examining the relationship between them so analytical reflexivity involves
comparison and evaluation. All individuals reflect on their lives and on the lives
of others. This can be demonstrated by consideration of respondents’ narratives and
accounts. All my respondents described aspects of their experience, their views on
motherhood and parenthood, their views of the opinions of others, their
relationships with others and so on. Many also were clearly being reflexive while
narrating events and feelings e.g.: in terms of their choices and their
understandings of things. This led some respondents to analytical reflexivity: i.e.
it led them to examine and evaluate their views and experience and the perceptions
of others. Thus, it is possible to argue that the research process led to increased
reflexivity in some respondents. Indeed, many spoke or wrote of how being involved
in the research had made them feel differently about aspects of their experience
and/or helped them to make decisions about future ‘choices. Whilst I am not
suggesting that ‘feminist research is feminist politics’ (which Gluksmann 1994 p150
warns us against claiming) some of my respondents said that involvement in the
research had made things better for them. The research process also led me to
increased analytical reflexivity in relation to my own experience of ‘infertility’
and ‘involuntary childlessness’. I began to consider in greater detail my own
experience, emotions and choices just as many of my respondents did and change and
adaptation were not only important themes in the research but in my own life at this
time (see Letherby 2000 for further discussion).
5.2 In my work I aimed to be ‘analytically reflexive’ in that I drew on
and aimed to represent and interpret the experience of my respondents and the
theorising that respondents engaged in. The analysis is mine, and it is an analysis
that is located in a body of feminist and sociological theorising. As a researcher I
had access to my own experience, that of my respondents, and access to theoretical
explanations that were not available to many of them. I was in a privileged position
as a researcher not only in terms of access to accounts and availability of time and
space, but also in terms of my discipline training. This was not least because of my
familiarity with the ‘sociological imagination’ as a theoretical research tool which
enable me to engage in ‘second order theorising’ or what Giddens (1984) calls the
‘double hermeneutic’. This clearly involves ‘interpretation’, not just
‘description’, of their, as well as my, analytical processes.
5.3 I would also argue that I have access to more narratives of
experience and more interpretative tools than my respondents and I have also been
‘given’ more time to think and particularly to theorise about these issues than many
of the people I spoke and wrote to. My presentation is filtered through my
understandings, but at the same time I have made a self conscious attempt to
understand my respondents’ understandings in their own terms. So, I accept that my
interpretation is grounded in time, place and person, and in accepting the ‘job’ of
researcher I believe I have a responsibility to acknowledge my privileged resources
and thus stand by the claims that I make. I have tried to adopt what Stanley and
Wise (1993) call ‘a morally responsible epistemology’ (p200) which recognises that
‘the ‘objects’ of research are also subjects in their own right’ (p200), and that
that ‘my work is not a ‘representation of ‘reality'’ but my own construction
(ibid).
5.4 With respect to making analytical procedures transparent (Stanley
1997) I appreciate now that I could have been clearer about which aspect of an
individual's narrative I was drawing on: which particular interview or letter I was
quoting from, what they spoke or wrote about just before and after. More explanation
could have been given about why I chose, for example, to include Gloria talking
about this experience rather than that one, and why I chose Gloria's narrative or
account over Ida's. I could have included details on my step-by-step decisions and
choices surrounding selection and interpretation. As it stands, the interpretation
is based on my ‘feel’ for respondents understandings and my familiarity with the
data which built up over time and is related to my developing relationship with
respondents over the fieldwork period and the visiting and re-visiting of tapes and
letters. My thought processes were affected by respondents’ voices as well as my
own. There is a tension when working within word limits and when trying to write a
piece that is both accountable and representative. To do both thoroughly requires a
lot of space and requires and attention to detail which may possibly submerge the
respondents’ voices and which may involved so much extraneous material that
essential analysis or argument becomes submerged in detail.
5.5 Descriptive and analytical reflexivity are both essential parts of
the research process. Researchers are themselves people, with their own ‘responses,
values, beliefs, and prejudices’ (Morley 1997 p139) and research involves selection,
explanation, interpretation and judgement. Thus, it is important that the ‘person’
is made explicit and the processes involved in research procedures are clearly
outlined in order to uncover the differences that we as researchers make (Jones
1997).
5.6 Conscious of this at the start of my research, I was concerned to
‘make myself vulnerable’ (Stanley and Wise 1993) within the research process, in
terms of situating myself personally, politically and intellectually both with
respondents and in my writing. I was aware of the danger of positioning my
experience as the norm, against which others would be judged, and agree with Temple
(1997) that ‘It is by listening and learning from other people's experiences that
the researcher can learn that ‘the truth’ is not the same for everyone'(5.2). Yet I
would argue that the inclusion of my autobiography is valuable as it enables
respondents and readers of my work to compare my motivations, experience and views
with those of respondents and other researchers. This enables them also to make
their own judgements about my approach and in some respects my findings as well:
… self conscious auto/biographical writing acknowledges the social location of
the writer thus making clear the author's role in constructing rather than
discovering the story/the knowledge (Mykhalovskiy 1996, Stanley 1993) (Letherby
2000a: 90)
5.7 Throughout my writing I have made it clear that what is presented is
affected by me as biologically childless, me as feminist, me as sociologist, me as
researcher, me as doctoral candidate, me as Gayle. My ‘self’ and my understandings
are explicit. Increasingly it is becoming usual for researchers to include aspects
of the self in their writing (Wilkinson and Kitzinger 1996, Wolf 1996, Stanley 1993,
Okely 1992, Sociology 1993), yet there still appears to be a tendency to keep this
outside of the main report of a study (McMahon 1998, Aldridge 1993).
5.8 Despite the increased support for auto/biography approaches, I think
that many people still feel uncomfortable with this way of writing. This is probably
both for personal reasons, in terms of issues of privacy, and for academic reasons,
in that they may be criticised for self-indulgence and sloppy intellectual work.
This fear has some basis in reality (see Mykhalovskiy 1996, Letherby 2000). Whilst I
appreciate that there is a fine line between situating the self and egotistic
self-absorption as I have argued with Pamela Cotterill elements of ourselves are
always present:
As feminist researchers studying women's lives, we take their autobiographies and
become their biographers, while recognizing that the autobiographies we are
given are influenced by the research relationship. In other words respondents
have their own view of what the researcher might like to hear. Moreover, we draw
on our own experiences to help us to understand those of our respondents. Thus,
their lives are filtered through us and the filtered stories of our lives are
present (whether we admit it or not) in our written accounts (Cotterill and
Letherby 1993 p74)
5.9 With this in mind I would argue that it is better to acknowledge our
involvement rather than pretend to objectivity when writing up whilst at the same
time being aware that within auto/biography some voices (not least by virtue of
power of editorial control) are more prominent. Furthermore, agreeing collectively
on the format and style of interviews and letters, inclusion of the researcher's
‘self’ and the joint exploration of issues are all ways to break down the
subject/object split during the fieldwork period of research. However, once the
fieldwork is over, involving respondents in writing and re-writing and presentation
is time consuming, may not be wanted by respondents and is impossible to fully
achieve when the researcher has the final editorial control. Further to this, my
analysis involved listening and reading, transcribing, highlighting and
interpreting, and at all times during this process I was aware of the different
voices of my respondents. One of the main problems in terms of representation was
that there were so many more experiences, emotions and evaluations than I had the
space to include. I carried out 99 interviews (lasting between one hour and three)
and received 100 plus letters, and as a result I had a great deal of data, and any
reader of my and similar work needs to be aware of the shadows and silences of the
resultant text. Although ‘quantity’ is not central to qualitative research and
analysis, having data which included such a broad range of experience was beneficial
to my research, both theoretically and politically. Yet it also resulted in less
available ‘space’ in which I could discuss any one individual's life and experience.
In my data analysis, I was concerned with themes and issues and in doing this I
selected extracts from narratives and accounts that for me exemplified groups of
respondents’ views on and about certain issues, the issues I considered most
salient. In carrying out this analysis I also emphasised commonality and difference
among my respondents. Whilst trying to present as many viewpoints as possible, it is
also fair to say that in my view some respondents had more to ‘say’ than others.
Some had a lot to say about certain issues and little about others. In interviews
and letters, some of them appeared more comfortable with the ‘life-history’
approach, whilst others preferred a question and answer approach. This resulted in
some respondents appearing more often than others, or in some Chapters of my thesis
and not in others. For some respondents it is easier to follow the life-history of
the experience of ‘infertility'/'involuntary childlessness’ and/or of non-motherhood
to motherhood for them than for others of my respondents. Thus, my approach resulted
in the fragmented representation of many of my respondents’ lives. This was
accentuated by the fact that I decided not to write the thesis following a
lifecourse format - for example from the decision to try to become pregnant -
through the discovery that this might be difficult - through investigation and
treatment - through to resignation to childlessness. My intention was to challenge
simplistic representations of resolution in relation to the issue of ‘infertility’
and ‘involuntary childlessness’ which was I think valuable substantively but I am
aware that this approach led to further fragmentation of individual stories.
Epistemology and Representation: two
6.1 At the beginning of the research I had hoped that I could ‘represent
us all’. However, not being a complete novice to research, I was aware that there
were likely to be changes to my approach to the subject. Of course there were. At
the end of the whole process, I felt that I was even more sensitive to issues of
power, sameness and difference, and I had a greater appreciation of just how hard it
is to reach a ‘definition’ of what experience really is. And yet, on some levels, I
would argue that my research does represent much of the experience of the
‘involuntary childless’ and the ‘infertile’ in ways others would find familiar and
inclusive of their own experiences. And whilst I am not suggesting that all research
should be auto/biographical many of us do draw on our own experiences when doing
research and like Ribbens (1993) I believe:
A critical and reflexive form of autobiography has the sociological potential for
considering the extent to which our subjectivity is not something that gets in
the way of our social analysis but is itself social … I would suggest that the
key point is that ‘society’ can be seen to be, not ‘out there’, but precisely
located ‘inside our heads’, that is, in our socially
located and structured understandings of ‘my-self’, ‘my-life’, ‘me-as-a-
person’, and so forth (original emphasis) (p88)
6.2 My work in the area of ‘infertility’ and ‘involuntary childlessness’
represents the experience of those involved at specific times in their lives and
their lives, like all lives, are subject to adaptation and change. This leads to a
consideration of the value of this type of research. As Attar (1987) notes,
experiential material is valuable:
Sometimes, the point we want to make may indeed be that our experiences differ,
and that no one woman can represent another. But this should not be taken to
mean that we have wholly different concerns - as if racism, violence, sexuality,
could be issues for some women but not others. When a woman writes about
experiences she has had which have not been shared by most of her readers -
describing specific religious upbringing, perhaps, or writing as an incest
survivor - there will still be connections.(p33)
6.3 Further to this, research of this type involves both first- and
second-order theorising of experience by respondents themselves as part of their own
self reflection, and by the researcher. Thus, it is possible to argue that this
research may have value in explanatory terms, if not for its typicality, and it
might therefore be relevant to others who find themselves in a similar situation
(Clyde Mitchell 1983). Just as data can be revisited in relation to the
consideration of different issues and themes, so too can specific
biographies/stories be reworked in relation to different types of analysis. Having
read transcriptions and letters, and indeed the doctoral thesis as a whole, many
times now, each time I do, I see new gaps and think of new considerations. In the
same way that as the lives of the individuals who I corresponded with and
interviewed are liable to shift and change, so, too, is any researchers’ analysis
and theoretical reflection. The project is never complete.
Concluding Points
7.1 Like many others I believe that by employing the sociological
concept of reflexivity to produce ‘first person’ accounts we not only challenge the
traditional objective/subject split within traditional research practices we also
produce ‘accountable knowledge’ in which the reader has access to details of the
contextually located reasoning process which gives rise to our ‘findings’ (Stanley
1991 p209). With this in mind I do not agree with Kelly et al (1994) that feminist
researchers have concentrated on issues of epistemology at the expense of the
intellectual and the political. They argue that feminist researchers seem:
more concerned with attempting to convince the predominantly male academy that a
privileged status should be accorded to ‘women's ways of knowing’ than with
enabling us to better discover and understand what is happening in women's
lives, and how we might change it. (p34)
7.2 With reference to my own work, and as I have suggested here, it was
my aim that my work would make a difference to understandings of the status and
experience of ‘infertility’ and ‘involuntary childlessness’. Therefore, like many
others my hope is that my work will have a political emancipatory element (e.g.
Acker, Barry and Esseverd 1991, Kelly et al 1994, Oakley 1998). However, I believe
that epistemological reflection is part of and not separate from this political aim
within feminism and this piece is part of a tradition that demonstrates the problem
and tensions in arguing for a ‘position’ (e.g. Harding 1993, Millen 1997, Stanley
1999).