Openness in research: the tension between self and other

Openness in research, particularly in qualitative research, is often taken for granted. After all, it goes without saying that researchers have to be open to the research situation, to the research and to themselves. At the same time, there is a realization that to a certain extent researchers cannot be open¬minded or open-hearted. They cannot be open-minded to the extent that they are a tabula rasa; in order to be able to understand, they have to use com¬mon sense and/or other theories to construct what is meaningful to them. They cannot be open-hearted to the extent that they endanger the research situation, the research or themselves; in order to prevent this, they have to display a strategie open-heartedness which implies ethical considerations. So the question is how open-minded and open-hearted one can be and how this openness can be obtained. This threefold question is addressed in the three successive parts of this volume. Part I. In the first part the more general statements about the possibility of openness are presented. Maso's paper, `Trifurcate openness', discusses the three kinds of open-ness already mentioned, i.e. openness of researchers to the research situation, to the research, and to themselves. His earlier ideas about these three kinds of openness, which together represent a research approach, are elaborated on the basis of insights about appearance and character and of Gadamer' s analysis of what represents a true question. The nature of the resulting reformulation of trifurcate openness, leads one inevitably to question the validity of its results. Maso argues that this approach is the best guarantee to present original, qualitatively excellent perspectives on human existence. Smaling' s paper, 'Open-mindedness, open-heartedness and dialogical openness: The dialectica of openings and closures', is a necessary complement to the `Trifurcate openness' paper, because it addresses two kinds of openness that to a large extent are absent in Maso's paper, viz. 'openheartedness' and `dialogical openness'. Smaling argues that methodologicalobjectivity requires researchers who are open-minded and, to a certain degree, open-hearted. The consequence of the last limitation is that, according to Smaling, a real dialogical openness between researcher and subject never will or should be accomplished. Kelle's paper, `Theories as heuristic tools in qualitative research', dis-cusses the way qualitative researchers (could) discover, i.e. be open to, the point of view of their subjects. He argues that the logic of this process of discovery is more or less similar to that of the natural sciences. Both make use of hypothetical reasoning. This reasoning, based on qualitative induction and abduction as described by Charles Sanders Peirce, aims at finding hypotheses that will explain certain empirical data. According to Kelle, the theoretical knowledge of the researcher is in this respect not to be regarded as an obstacle to open-mindedness but as a heuristic device that favours this state of mind. Atkinson's paper, Ethnography: Style and substance', addresses the accomplished character of descriptions of research situations (which makes it impossible to be open to these situations). These texts are reconstructions of other, primary texts (transcripts of interviews, fieldnotes, etc.), which are constructed according to textual, disciplinary and other conventions. The realization of the constructed nature of the text has led to several textual experiments. Atkinson argues that, together with this realization, constructionists should realize that they are responsible for their construction. They must be aware of the aesthetic and ethical judgements and choices that constitute the basis of their construction and of the necessity that their 'second-order' constructs have an affinity with or are a reflection of the 'first order' ones. Part 2. In the second part of this book the possibility of open-heartedness is addressed. Delamont's paper, 'Facing more fieldwork: Exhausting versus necessity', deals with something researchers are very rarely 'open' about, viz. those occasions when they do not want to conduct fieldwork at all. After a confessional narrative about her own lack of motivation to undertake fieldwork once again in schools, Delamont examines which sins of omission and commission are, and are not, acceptable in confessional accounts in the British and American sociology of education. Issues discussed include: the enhancing of status and salary, having or obtaining more interesting tasks, rivalry, getting grants, the expectation of a lack of detachment, age, and the tediousness of the subject. Verhoeven's paper, 'Closed information: The use of privileged data in research reports', addresses the ethical question about the (im)possibility to be open-hearted about confidential data, i.e. to use them for research purposes. To study this he considers two cases: (1) an interview with a well-known scholar, now deceased, who requested that it would be kept confidential, and (2) statements made by several American symbolic interactionists before and after interviews with them. Verhoeven concludes that there were four good reasons to publish the interview with the well-known scholar, whereas only those casual statements of the symbolic interactionists could have been published which were seen as not confidential, harmless to others and valid. Thomas's paper, `Openness in research: When researcher and informant's world views are incommensurable', discusses the relativistic belief that one cannot study persons from different ethnic or racial groups, sexual orientations, gender, etc. On the basis of the experience he had in interviewing and interacting with an elderly Hindu Swami, Thomas shows that meaningful communication between representatives of differing belief systems is possible and argues that this provides strong evidence against this relativistic belief. However, meaningful communication, at least in this case, is meant to answer the question of how open-hearted researchers could and should be if the open-heartedness of the subject represents a disrespect of them and their culture. Part 3. In the third part of this book, the possibility of openness in concrete situations is addressed. Duffy's paper, `Sensemaking in classroom conversations', describes a research project designed to 'open up' students' experiences of encountering ideas that are new both to the researcher and to the students themselves. The participants were invited to reflect on the assumptions that underlie their philosophies of life and their own processes of reflecting on their reflections by confronting them with new or different ideas. This made it possible to explore how one shifts from a position of 'not understanding' to a position of `understanding', which leads to the goal of this project, viz. the generation of descriptions of the experience of making sense. Shilts, Filippino, Chenail and Rambo's paper 'From solution-focused therapy to client informed research and back again' is offered as a start towards including client perspectives on treatment in family therapy and specifically on the experience of clients of interventive techniques of therapists. Instead of therapists talking about what they thought therapy was and what they thought was therapeutic for their clients in concrete situations, these and other questions were asked to the family in question after a just completed clinical session. This openness to the perspectives of the clients offered both clients and therapists an opportunity to remain mutable and flexible as well as to become co-creators in the therapeutic process. Hilhorst's paper `Diversity: dilemma or asset? The case of agrarian women in the Netherlands,' addresses the question how to reckon with the di¬versity and agency of social actors in short duration applied research. This dilemma, or challenge, that she and her co-researcher were facing when asked to carry out a study on interests of agrarian women in the Netherlands was met by adopting an open approach to the research project. More specifically, openness in this case related to openness towards the agency and diversity of the women under study as well as openness towards the terms of reference of the project. This openness resulted in the complete reversal of the initial research question. The question was turned around from: 'How can organisations reach and activate agrarian women?' to: 'How can organisations become more open, so that agrarian women can reach the organisations?'status: publishe