A LANDSCAPE TO LIFE HISTORY RESEARCH
6. KEY METHODOLOGICAL ISSUES IN LIFE HISTORY RESEARCH There has been much written about the theoretical and methodological issues in
6.1. Memories leading to theories
In life history research, memories lead to theories (Portelli 1991). Thus there are questions about how well memory serves us: the reliability of memory, memory being distorted by other events or memory being mediated by subsequent events and learnings.
The process of recounting a life involves remembenng things that may have happened a long time ago. A life history interview attempts to get a person to recount the event and attribute meaning to that event. But is the recounting an 'exact replica" of the event and does that matter?
The use of memory as evidence has come under criticism from traditional (documentary) historians and many qualitative researchers. The main criticism in the 1970's, from the traditional historians, was that memory was unreliable as an historical source because it was distorted by physical deterioration and nostalgia in old age, by the personal bias of both interviewer and interviewee, and by the influence of collective and retrospective versions of the past (Thomson et al 1995:33). In addition, Thompson (1993) indicates that memory is always selective and its accuracy impaired by unconscious suppression, the confusion of one event with another (telescoping) and a slow but steady loss through the passage of time. Memory depends, not only upon individual comprehension, but also upon interest - one chooses to remember things that are of interest to you. When traumatic events are remembered from a long time ago and mediated by our present state there can be a tendency to glamorise these experiences.
While the early work in the narrative tradition sought to explain away the criticisms by looking at the process of remembering the work in the 1980's by various researchers (Popular Memory Group 1982; Thomson et al 1994; Passerini 1979; Portelli 1991; Thelen 1990) saw memory as a process of creative construction. Rather than seeing memory as being an inert repository tapped from time to time by recall, these researchers saw memory as an active process of revision and creation. These researchers saw memory as a resource and by examining the composure of memory and why individuals construct their memories in particular ways memory could be used to explore the subjective meanings of lived experience as well as individual and collective memory.
Concern about the use of memory as evidence, ought to lead the researcher to take greater care with evidence. All recollections are a mixture of facts and opinions. Any life story is, of its nature subjective: a version of the past from one individual
perspective, seeking to make sense of the past. The special strength of oral history evidence is that it provides crucial evidence of driving forces, influences, relationships and turning points; even of mistaken beliefs that shaped decisions. Oral memory conveys both empirical information and subjective interpretations from the past and researchers need to distinguish between these two. The researcher needs to evaluate the evidence by looking for internal consistency in a particular interview anci comparing it with other sources.
Portelli (1991) illustrates the historically conditioned nature of what people say by examining the types of folk songs that were recorded in different historical periods.
Portelli examined songs collected in 1970-1972 and 1958-1959 and noticed that the type of songs (love, religious, political, social) were different in the two periods and what people chose to sing was dependent on the historical conditions.
In this study I am aware that the memory of individuals was affected by various experiences. In the process of remembering, the participants in this study, were making new sense and connecting the past with the present. An issue that affected the telling process is the political history of the country. The interviews were collected in 1996 and 1997. This was just after the first democratic election and during the time of President Mandela's leadership where reconciliation among the race groups was a key issue in the country. In view of the mood of reconciliation it is probable that they would have been silent about the bitter memories. The stories have to be understood as historically conditioned by that mood.
The participants in this study are in high level, public positions and they knew that there would be no anonymity in the stories. This would have affected the telling process. In any conversation, people always make decisions about what they want to say and what they want to be silent about. In the case of these interviews participants would always be making decisions about aspects of their lives they wanted to keep private and aspects they wanted to place in the public domain. In the interviews I took the stance of an empathetic listener and did not cross question experiences. If there was an indication that the participant wanted to keep certain aspects private, I chose to respect the private domains and did not pry. I was led by the participants about what they wanted to say.
In this research I acknowledge that memory would be constructed. Because of the mood of reconciliation and the public positions of the participants there would be silences about issues that they perceive would affect their public lives. In the stories I acknowledged and respected silences. Itis not the purpose of this research to determine
the construction of the memory of the participants. I am looking at what was said and looked for internal consistency to provide an analysis from what was said. In addition, for the reader and researcher, to understand the point from which the story is told I interviewed the participants about their experiences after gaining the doctorate. The individual stories include a brief section about their careers after the doctorate.
6.2. Relationships in a life history research project
Life history research and the eliciting of experience and life accounts are shaped through the development of relationships. The nature of the relationship between the researcher and the participant affects the process of eliciting the experience and analysis of the data.
There is debate about the depth, quality and intensity of research relationships.
Lawrence-Lightfoot (1997: 137) outlines the characteristics of the relationship that would be located at the ends of this continuum which considers these dimensions. At one end researchers believe that "the relationship between the researcher and the subject should be clear, distant and formal ... to blur the boundaries would be to distort the researchers objectivity and threaten the rigor and validity of the research." At the other end of the continuum, researchers claim that "relationships are complex, fluid, symmetric and reciprocal. .. and are likely to yield deeper and better social science." In life history studies relationships would tend towards the side with a higher degree of symmetric and reciprocal relationship.
The life history interview is a social process and the result of a relationship between the researcher and participant. The researcher brings her own personality, understandings, experience and biography to the task of creating a life story. The participant brings certain expectations of what she thinks the interviewer wants and expects to hear and what will be not be 'acceptable' to the interviewer. In this research participants indicated that they were willing to participate in the project, "if it would contribute something to mathematics and science in the country, then I would gladly do it." Their motivation to be part of the research project included presenting a positive view of their academic pathways and this would shape how they responded to the interview.
The process of listening and the relationship is shaped by an empathetic stance.
Empathy denotes an intimacy, but an issue in this relationship is whether the researcher should offer her own experiences to develop rapport. Marshall and Rossman (quoted in
Lawrence-Lightfoot and Hoffman Davis, 1997: 148) feel that researchers should not offer their own experiences. They suggest a stance of receptivity and openness, welcoming the interviewee's perspective and conveying the idea that the interviewee's perspective is acceptable and valuable. Larson (1997) relates her experience of being interviewed and she makes a case of the interview process being a conversation where both the interviewer and the interviewee share their experiences.
In addition to empathy and understanding from the researcher, there should also be some degree of resonance between the life of the researcher and the participant (Lawrence-Lightfoot 1197: 148). The nature of the relationship is affected by issues of race, class, gender and whether one is an insider or outsider to the situation. Grele (1975: 135) comments that, "The recorded conversations of oral history are joint activities, organised and informed by the historical perspectives by both participants. No matter what the construction of the narrative, the product we create is a conversational narrative and can only be understood by understanding the various relationships contained within this structure." When the participant calls up deeply emotional experiences the researcher should be able to identify resonant experiences and feelings.
Although there is intimacy in the relationship there is also a need for boundaries between the researcher and the participant and a need to protect the vulnerability of the participant. Life history work can be deeply emotional, but it is not therapy. These are difficult lines to draw, but the researcher must keep in mind the question and guide the research. In the process of navigating intimacy the researcher must learn how to discern her own motivations and to see the difference between legitimate inquiry and voyeUrIsm.
In order to understand how the relationship between the researcher and participants affects the research process, Measor and Sikes (1992) suggest that the researcher's position in relation to the research ought to be acknowledged, examined and explicated. I am a black South African female, of Indian origin, in my early 40's studying for my doctorate. I am a science educator and have been a past chairperson of the Southern African Association for Research in Mathematics and Science Education (SAARMSE). During this period I was involved in issues of research capacity building (for black researchers) and the politics and ethics of research. By virtue of my involvement in science education and SAARMSE I have come to know and be known by the community of science educators. This status gave me easier access for interviews with a number of the participants.
How did I affect the research process? In the research on some attributes I was an 'insider' and with others an 'outsider.' I was an insider to some of the participants as a woman but an outsider to men. I was an insider to the Indian group but an outsider to the African group. I was an insider as a science educator but an outsider to the microbiologists. We possess multiple identities and there were some aspects with which I had resonance and to other aspects that I was distant. During the interview process there must have been aspects that I missed and aspects that I was more aware of. In the stories I do not claim to have captured the total reality of the life.
When I consider the research relationship, the attribute that was the greatest 'impediment' in the data collection process was my awe of the participants. They had completed their doctorates and I was in the early stages of my doctoral research programme. I wanted to make an impression that I was a smart researcher, was aware of their status within the intellectual community and had to overcome my awe. I had to constantly remind myself that I was in charge of the research relationship.
During the research process I adopted the role of an empathetic listener. The research relationship was professional with the participants clearly committed to answering the questions to the best of their abilities and me trying to steer the discussion in a way that will provide me with data to answer my research questions. In the earlier interviews, I wanted to share my experiences with the participant and respond to their comments with my experience. This 'conversation' confused both the participants and me. With great difficulty I had to resist wanting to engage in a conversation and shifted to an empathetic listener and let the participant dominate the conversation space.
The issues of relationship in the analytical process are dealt with further in chapter eleven.
6.3. Crises of representation: aliapost-structuralism and post-modernism
The post-modernists and post-structuralists view the use of experience to form theories about life as inappropriate (Hatch and Wisniewski 1995: 129). There is a distinction between lives-as-lived (reality), lives-as-experienced (experience) and tives- as-told (expression). A life lived is what actually happens. A life experienced consists of images, feelings, sentiments, thoughts, and meanings known to the person whose life it is. A life told, a life history, is a narrative influenced by cultural conventions of telling, by audience and by social context (E M Bruner as quoted in Miles and Huberman (1994), pp267). The researcher only has access to lives as told. In the life history
interview individuals give subjective meanings to their life experiences and researchers attempt to capture these meanings. In any research the issue is how we interpret the difference between a lived life and a told life.
Post-modernists and post-structuralists maintain that the act of telling one's story
IS an act of creating one's self. Michelle Foster (quoted in Hatch and Wisniewski 1995: 121) questions whether biographical research can accurately represent reality since "post-structuralism questions whether researchers can gain access to an independent reality."
In the telling of the story, the participants and researchers are bound by discourse structures to a limited range of expression and understanding. These discourse conventions shape and in many ways limit how we conduct our own versions of a life (life-as-experienced) and how we organise and express ourselves through story (life- as- told) and how such lives can be understood and represented in text. The challenge for researchers is to reconcile real lives with representation.
The life as told may be different at different times with different audiences, or when told with a different purpose. Narrative identities are dynamic, partial, fragmented and context dependent. Postmodernists raise questions about the role of researchers, but life history work explicitly acknowledges the existence of multiple and possibly conflicting, personal realities and perspectives. It acknowledges the part played by the researcher in selecting the field of study and interpreting the data.
There is the issue of the researcher's subjective involvement in the construction of the life story or narrative. Tellers have their own purpose in telling the story and receivers have their own agendas and priorities in leading them to unconsciously or consciously select events to observe, record and report. Researchers need to acknowledge and monitor participation in the construction of the storied lives of the infonnants.
The concerns of the post-structuralists and post-modernists could be seen as debilitating and leading to a paralysis or they could create an awareness of the different issues that have to be considered when theorising about lives. In my research, the purpose of constructing the stories is to illuminate how a life unfolded within a certain context. I have no intention of dissecting the subjective interpretations given by the participants or of analysing their identity. As I explain later (Chapter 11, Section 2) I have taken a realist position in this research. The interviews will be used to construct stories, and readers will be told how the various issues impacted on the construction of
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the story. In constructing the life histories of individuals, I have chosen not to represent the individual in isolation, but rather the individual is represented in relation to the
"cultural systems that surround us" (Sparkes quoted in Hatch and Wisniewski, 1995: 123).