Qualitative inquiry growth

‘Sacred’ pattern of life stories

Sea turtles lay eggs, about nine meters from the water, in the sand. When the eggs hatch, days later, numerous little turtles set off for the sea, without waiver. Seagulls prey on them like dive bombers, but they keep going. When they make it into the water, the fish start going at them.—life is tough, but the timeless pattern ensures existence despite difficulty—is common practice where vulnerable baby turtles were found making their way to the open sea to 'rescue' them from their fatal journey and to nurse them till they grow up a little bit. However, baby turtles in captivity loose important skills such as hunting, which they could only master in their natural habitat. Furthermore turtles brought up in artificial environment find it harder to identify friends from foe. [Better ways to help the turtles, is to discourage poaching of turtle eggs or hunting adult turtles.]

 

Human life stories, similar to the journey of sea turtles, generally have a pattern—but with many variations, as illustrated in exhibit 3.1 (Atkinson, 1995: 31).

Life stories generally have a mirror-story, as illustrated in exhibit 3.2 (Atkinson, 1995: 37).

Mindfulness, or really being/living in the moment can, according to Atkinson (1995: 39), be transformative—when consciously aware when something eternal breaks through into mundane existence can transport temporal life into mythic realm, where archetypal experiences can be found. Such moments can have an everlasting and profound impact.

Atkinson, R. 1995. The gift of stories — practical and spiritual applications of autobiography, life stories and personal mythmaking. Westport, Conn.: Bergin & Garvey.

Sacred stories enduring elements

"Memory is the mother of culture" (Atkinson, 1995: 21), each time a story is told from memory, culture is reborn. The American Indians told their children stories when they did wrong in order to show them the right way, instead of punishment. "A myth is a story that is make believe on the outside, but true on the inside" (Atkinson, 1995: 22).

The eduring elements of sacred stories include:

1. Metaphor & symbol: "A metaphor conveys an important message through the mask of comparrison" (Atkinson, 1995: 23) of two previously unconnected ideas and gives much greater meaning. A symbol binds two aspects together.
2. Archetype & Motif: "an archetype is the mold from which all other things of the same type are made" (Atkinson, 1995: 25); a pattern from which related ideas are derived; and a major element of common human experience. A motif, by contrast is a minor element of human experience. Both are recurring.
3. Pattern & repitition: A pattern is a predictable model repeatedly followed/used.Traditional rites of passage entail separation-initiation-return / birth-death-rebirth. "Repetiton is the midwife to culture" (Atkinson, 1995: 26), in that it serves as an aid to memory.

Atkinson, R. 1995. The gift of stories — practical and spiritual applications of autobiography, life stories and personal mythmaking. Westport, Conn.: Bergin & Garvey.

Psychological, Social, Spiritual-Mystical & Cosmological realms of stories

Atkinson (1995: 6) observes that although whole communities may no longer aford time for ritual or structure, "individual experiences of order, trauma, beauty, and exhilaration do occur". He proceed to sketch four functions/realms of stories:

1. Psychological: Stories centers and integrates. Stories enable reflection about experiences and help us understand who we are. The deeply human elements of story telling enables gaining clearer understanding of life experiences and the meaning thereof. The telling of our stories produce order and harmony of experiences and feelings.
2. Social: The sharing of stories enables understanding of commonalities and increase connectedness, a sense of community, as well as an understanding of rolls and standards that exist.
3. Spiritual-Mystical: Stories contribute to transcending the personal to enter the sacred.
4. Cosmological: Stories bring order and help us to see our role and place within the universe around us.

Atkinson (1995: 14-16) asserts the following reasons why we tell stories: Being more reflective enhances experiences. Self-reflecting and introspections contribute to order. Stories give meaning because we give words to thoughts that existed only vaguely in our minds. Often we do not realise we know, until we express in words. Telling our stories connect us to human community, because by sharing we discover we have a lot more in common than we realised. After sharing a life story a connection remains. Self-image and self-esteem are enhanced by the clarity derived from the focus of telling our experiences. The particular circumstances we experienced do not matter as much as how we perceive tham. Once we accepted that waht happened is okay, a change in perception is feasible. We can change our reflection of the past by altering our outlook. Telling stories therefore heal; but also give meaning; make peace; or release, recover and renew.

Atkinson, R. 1995. The gift of stories — practical and spiritual applications of autobiography, life stories and personal mythmaking. Westport, Conn.: Bergin & Garvey.

The transforming function of stories

Stories are powerful. It is a tool for making us whole in that stories gather up the parts of us, put the parts together in a way that gives greater meaning to our lives than before our story was told.

Our own stories illustrate our inherent connectedness to other, because "the life story of each person is a reflection of another's life story" (Atkinson, 1995: 4). The telling of a life story brings about insight into human dilemmas, of human struggles, and the triumphs. A greater appreciation is further gained for how values and beliefs are acquired, shaped and held onto.

Life story telling is therefore a tool for meaning-making, in that telling the story allows for organising and making clear what were previously loose thoughts in our minds.

When stories are told, new mental images of things are created — imago, is a copy or likeness of what is envisioned — images that did not exist before, but that help us become who we want to be by integrating previous experiences. This newly created combined form makes more sense to us than the individual elements.

Atkinson, R. 1995. The gift of stories — practical and spiritual applications of autobiography, life stories and personal mythmaking. Westport, Conn.: Bergin & Garvey.

Life story - Autobiography - Personal myth

Atkinson (1995) differentiates as follow:

• "A life story is the story a person chooses to tell about the life they have lived, what they remember of it, and what they want others to know of it" (p. xiv).
• "An autobiography is a more formal, written story of a person's life" (p. xv).
• "A personal myth is what is most deeply true about our own experience of our lives. It is our experience of our lives. It is our expression of those personally sacred and timeless elements of our lives. It focuses on the experiences, beliefs, motifs, and themes of a lifetime that have ordered, shaped, and directed our lives. Personal mythmaking is the process of recognizing, understanding, and embracing the ways archetypal; or universal, themes and motifs play themselves out in our life experiences. A personal myth is made up of the same three parts that form a traditional story or classic myth. It is our personal expression of how the pattern of separation — initiation — return has played itself out in our life." (p. xv)

Atkinson, R. 1995. The gift of stories — practical and spiritual applications of autobiography, life stories and personal myth making. Westport, Conn.: Bergin & Garvey.

Trustworthy rich and thick

Qualitative research is not concerned with generalising, validity or reliability. Instead, trustworthiness of the research is crucial. Qualitative researchers are after rich, thick account of the voices of participants—the data must be rich in description of the people and places involved (Schurink 1998: 253).

Sampling, therefore, is not about representativeness of the population but purposive, and data saturation—"there is no need to continue interviewing people once the researcher finds that further interviews are not adding to the findings or repeating what was already found in the previous interviews"—a qualitative notion. Guest, Bunce & Johnson (2006) remark that although the notion of saturation is conceptually helpful it does not indicate sample size. They found that data saturation occurred within the first twelve interviews, although basic elements for meta-themes were already present as early as six interviews.

Guest, G., Bunce, A. & Johnson, L. 2006. An Experiment with Data Saturation and Variability. Field Methods, 18( 1), 59-82.

Schurink, E.M. 1998. Designing qualitative research (pp 252-264). In De Vos, A.S. (Ed). Research at grass roots — a primer for the caring professions. Pretoria: van Schaik.

Reflection on practice

Promoting reflection and pushing reflective research requires more than encouragement. Donald Clark reports on several variables that impact on the lack of reflective behaviour. He further highlights four aspects that are central to critical reflection, namely:

• Analysis of assumptions—involves the challenging of way we see reality: our beliefs, values, cultural practices, and social structures impacting on practice
• Awareness of context—a realisation that our assumptions are socially and personally created in a specific historical and cultural context
• Imaginative speculation—allowing for alternative ways of thinking about phenomena in order to provide an opportunity to challenge our prevailing practices
• Reflective scepticism—the questioning (by means of the three aforesaid) of our universal truth claims or our unexamined patterns of interaction. It is the ability to temporarily suspend in order to establish the truth or viability.

Donald Clark endorses four types of diarising (writing):

• Descriptive writing, which is not reflective, but descriptive with the aim of providing a starting point for reflection—we should learn to frame and reframe.
• Descriptive reflection entails attempts to give reasons, based upon personal judgment, for occurrences/practices—we should systematically look back upon our actions some time after having taken the action.
• Dialogic reflection is a discourse with oneself and others involved, with the aim to explore possible reasons and work towards the solution of specific problems.
• Critical reflection is the ultimate aim and involves giving reasons for decisions or events, which takes into account the broader historical, social and/or political contexts—we should consciously account for the wider historic, cultural, and political values or beliefs in framing practical problem.

Clark, D. 2008. Critical reflection. Accessed electronically on 19 June 2010 from: http://www.nwlink.com/~donclark/hrd/development/reflection.html

Intellectualisation of anti-qualitative inquiry

The traditional positivistic view of research "as the creation of true, objective knowledge, following a scientific method" (Alvesson & Sköldberg, 2000:1) has been thoroughly criticised. However, many empirically orientated social scientists still conceive that "from what appears or is presented as data, facts, the unequivocal imprints of 'reality', it is possible to acquire a reasonably adequate basis for empirically grounded conclusions and, as a next step, for generalizations and theory-building". Alvesson and Sköldberg, in contrast, assert "the ambiguous, unstable and context-dependent character of language, the dependence of both observations and data on interpretation and theory (interpretation-free, theory-neutral facts do not, in principle exist), and the political-ideological character of the social sciences". They argue further that knowledge cannot be separated from the knower and that data and facts are the results of interpretation or constructions.

'Empiricists' advocate the capability of empirical research to reveal reality directly—regarding research as a matter of collecting data, processing and analysing it. Data and theory are seen as indisputably separate, with the value of theory established by testing against data or emerging from data. Such 'empiricists' objected the emergent methodological conceptions and methods of social sciences.

Alvesson, M. & Sköldberg, K. 2000. Reflexive Methodology—new vistas for qualitative research. London: Sage.

Reflexive interpretation

In order to grasp the meaning of reflexive, first consider the degrees of comparison of apparent or real modes of thought: pensive, meditative and reflective. The "weakest of the three, suggests dreaminess or wistfulness, and may involve little or no thought to any purpose: a pensive, faraway look. Meditative involves thinking of certain facts or phenomena, perhaps in the religious sense of 'contemplation', without necessarily having a goal of complete understanding or of action: meditative but unjudicial. Reflective has a strong implication of orderly, perhaps analytic, processes of thought, usually with a definite goal of understanding: a careful and reflective critic".

Reflexive originates from reflexīvus (middle Latin 1580-90), meaning 'turned back'. Reflexivity is about "ways of seeing which act back on" (Alvesson & Sköldberg, 2000:248)—it is about reflecting on existing theoretical assumptions of doing. The word has a double meaning, namely indicating multiple levels of reflecting about interaction of levels on each other.

Reflection is about afterthought and mirroring, or focussed reflection on method, whereas reflexive is about multidimensional and interactive breadth and variety. "Reflexivity arises when the different elements or levels are played off against each other" (p. 249).

Alvesson, M. & Sköldberg, K. 2000. Reflexive Methodology—new vistas for qualitative research. London: Sage.

What does reflective research entail?

Reflection is about interpreting own suppositions (and practices), by looking at own perspectives from those of others, and by subjecting own assumptions to critical review (Alvesson & Sköldberg, 2000, paraphrased). It should be evident that reflective research involves at least two levels, namely researching and paying much attention to own theoretical suppositions about practices—"careful interpretation and reflection" (p. 5)—often interpretation is scant and occurs after data collection and categorisation in the research process; whereas reflection is seldom mentioned and usually limited to conclusions, limitations of the study and technical matters.

Reflection is firstly aimed at a heightened awareness of theoretical suppositions, of language and of pre-understanding; but secondly aimed at the innermost of practitioners, of narrative and of the context. Reflective research is about systematic reflection on numerous levels—an "interpretation of interpretation" (p. 6). The process of reflective research comprises the (re)construction of reality in which practitioners perform, critically interpreting and reflecting.

Reflection involves thinking about the prevailing conditions and the way in which underlying theory, cultural values and political perspectives impacts on interaction. "Reflection is difficult" (p. 245), because it requires pondering about premises of thoughts.

Alvesson, M. & Sköldberg, K. 2000. Reflexive Methodology—new vistas for qualitative research. London: Sage.

Situated intuitive enquiry

Accepted research methods might be fit for purpose, but do not lend them to the study of the short-lived, transitory, fleeting, evanescent, transient, momentary, brief, indefinite and irregular. The methodological rule-following is counter-intuitive. The world we live in is vague, diffuse, unspecific, slippery, emotional, ephemeral, elusive and indistinct—it changes like a kaleidoscope or does not have much of a pattern at all. Occasionally and in specific locations/situations it is feasible to map or make a chart of what is occurring—and occasionally the charting contributes to momentary stability. However, we need to "find ways of knowing the indistinct and the slippery without trying to grasp and hold them tight" (p. 3).

Law, John. 2004. After method—mess in social science research. London: Routledge.