High altitude climbers as ethnomethodologists making sense of cognitive dissonance: ethnographic insights from an attempt to scale Mt Everest

This ethnographic study examined how a group of high altitude climbers (N = 6)drew on ethnomethodological principles (the documentary method of interpretation, reflexivity, indexicality, and membership) to interpret their experiences of cognitive dissonance during an attempt to scale Mt. Everest. Data were collected via participant observation, interviews, and a field diary. Each data source was subjected to a content mode of analysis. Results revealed how cognitive dissonance reduction is accomplished from within the interaction between a pattern of self-justification and self-inconsistencies; how the reflexive nature of cognitive dissonance is experienced; how specific features of the setting are inextricably linked to the cognitive dissonance experience; and how climbers draw upon a shared stock of knowledge in their experiences with cognitive dissonance

Keeping it in the family: narrative maps of ageing and young athletes' perceptions of their futures

© Cambridge University Press 2006. Published version reproduced with the permission of the publisher.Drawing upon interviews with 22 young athletes aged on average 20 years, this article examines the ways in which they used observations of the ageing and old age of their family members to shape the ways in which they anticipated the ageing of their own bodies. The representations of the bodies, roles and lifestyles of their parents and grandparents provided ‘narrative maps’ that held pre-presentations of the young athletes’ possible futures. They included both preferred and feared scenarios about middle age and old age, particularly the opportunities they would have for maintaining physical activity and the appearance of their bodies. The young men’s and the young women’s narrative maps differed: the women’s accounts of old age gave more prominence to the loss of appearance, while the men’s focused more on the loss of control and independence. The informants were highly sensitised to the biological dimensions of ageing which, for them, meant the inevitable decline of the material body, especially in performance terms, and both genders recognised social dimensions, particularly that responsibilities to jobs and family would constrain the time available for exercise. To understand more fully young athletes’ experiences of self-ageing, and the family as a key arena for the embodied projection and inscription of ageing narratives, further research is required

Being Fred: Big stories, small stories and the accomplishment of a positive ageing identity

This is a postprint of an article published in Qualitative Research, Volume 9 (2), 83 - 99. © 2009 copyright SAGE Publications. Qualitative Research is available online at: http://www.uk.sagepub.com/journals.navThis article is informed by recent trends in narrative research that focus on the meaning-making actions of those involved in describing the life course. Drawing upon data generated during a series of interactive interviews with a 70-year-old physically active man named Fred, his story is presented to illustrate a strategic model of narrative activity. In particular, using the concepts of `big stories' and `small stories' as an analytical framework, we trace Fred's use of two specific identities; being fit and healthy , and being leisurely to analyse the ways that he accomplishes an ontological narrative where the plot line reads; `Life is what you make it'. The ways in which this narrative enables Fred to perform a narrative of positive self-ageing in his everyday life is illustrated. Finally, the analytical possibilities of being attentive to both big and small stories in narrative analysis are discussed

The physical activity experiences of men with serious mental illness: Three short stories

Objectives: Although a considerable amount of research has explored the effects of physical activity on mental health, the voices of people with mental illness have been largely excluded from published reports. Through this study we aim to foreground service users' voices in order to shed light on the personal and subjective nature of the relationship between physical activity and serious mental illness (SMI). Methods: An interpretive case study approach was used to explore in depth the physical activity experiences of three men with SMI. Creative analytic practice was used to write three creative non-fictions which, as first-person narratives, foreground the participants' voices. Results: We present three short stories in an effort to communicate participants' personal and subjective experiences of physical activity in an accessible, engaging, and evocative manner. We hope to: (i) provide potentially motivating physical activity success stories for others who live with SMI; (ii) increase awareness among mental health professionals of the possibilities of physical activity; and (iii) provide an empathetic understanding of possibilities and problems of living with SMI which may help challenge the stigma surrounding mental illness. Conclusions: For us, the stories communicate the diversity and difference inherent in the ways men with SMI experience physical activity. We reflect on how the short story form allows these differences to be preserved and respected. We resist making further interpretations of the stories preferring instead to encourage the reader to form her or his own conclusions. © 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved

Men, Sport, Spinal Cord Injury and the Narrative Construction of Coherence

Drawing on data generated from a research project that focuses on the lived experiences of men who have experienced a spinal cord injury (SCI) through playing rugby football union, this chapter examines how a sense of coherence is constructed within one persons’ life story. Narrative studies, as Seymour- Smith (2002) notes, have documented the importance to many individual’s identities of presenting a coherent life story. Yet, the notion of coherence, a shibboleth in the field of narrative inquiry, is a contested issue. For example, Mishler (1999) argues that coherence, as a concept, is essentially and intractably ambiguous, defying efforts at formal and precise definition. For him, therefore, one way forward is to recognise the essential reflexivity of coherence and the manner in which this is a negotiated achievement among the participants involved in telling and listening to a story. Accordingly, one of the areas he ask researchers to direct their attention towards is the artful practices through which storytellers do coherence, and the complex and differentiated ways stories can be organised to serve their meaning-making functions

Qualitative methods in sport sciences: a special FQS issue

Qualitative Forschung hat ihre eigenen Stärken und kann daher gerade die Mehrdimensionalität von Bedeutungen, Kontexten, nicht-antizipierten Phänomenen, Prozessen und Erklärungen in der Welt der Sports, der Spiele und der körperlichen Aktivität erfassen. Der Beitrag gibt einen Überblick über die verschiedenen Themen des Sonderhefts der Zeitschrift 'Forum Qualitative Sozialforschung' zum Thema Sportwissenschaften. (ICEÜbers)'Qualitative research has its own particular strengths and therefore is able to grasp the multidimensionality of meanings, contexts, unanticipated phenomena, processes and explanations which can be found in the world of sport, games and physical activity. The article gives an overview over the different subject fields and articles covered by this special issue of the Forum Qualitative Sozialforschung/ Forum: Qualitative Social Research on sport science(s).' (author's abstract

The Muscled Self and Its Aftermath: A Life History Study of an Elite, Black, Male Bodybuilder

This article draws on the life history of an elite, black, male bodybuilder to explore the social meanings of muscle in the construction and confirmation of specific forms of masculine identity. Attention is given to childhood experiences in a hostile environment and how this initiated a quest for a hyper-muscular body. Having successfully achieved this aim by winning a British Championship a turning point moment prematurely terminates his sporting career. The aftermath of this moment for his sense of self are examined by focusing on experiences of the following: negative pain, an atrophying body, the loss of a disciplined body and an athletic identity, and becoming ‘black again’ in a small body. Finally, some reflections on the muscled self and its aftermath are provided

Experiences and Expectations of Biographical Time among Young Athletes

In this article, we explore how biographical time is storied by a particular group of young athletes in relation to their experiences and expectations of embodied ageing. The data suggests that at present, as able and sporting bodies, their everyday experiences are framed by the cyclical, maximizing, and disciplined notions of time associated with the social organization of sport. In their middle years, however, it was perceived that time would be pressured. In contrast, when talking about old age, empty time and static time were expected. The ways in which three different narratives of self operate to shape the projected experiences of time for these individuals are highlighted, and the implications of this process for their ability to access diverse narrative resources of ageing is discussed

Changing bodies, changing narratives and the consequences of tellability: a case study of becoming disabled through sport

This article explores the life story of a young man who experienced a spinal cord injury (SCI) and became disabled though playing the sport of rugby union football. His experiences post SCI illuminate the ways in which movement from one form of embodiment to another connects him to a dominant cultural narrative regarding recovery from SCI that is both tellable and acceptable in terms of plot and structure to those around him. Over time, the obdurate facts of his impaired and disabled body lead him to reject this dominant narrative and move into a story line that is located on Norrick’s (2005) upper-bounding side of tellability. This makes it transgressive, frightening, difficult to hear, and invokes the twin processes of deprivation of opportunity and infiltrated consciousness as described by Nelson (2001). These, and the effects of impairment, are seen to have direct consequences for the tellability of embodied experiences along with identity construction and narrative repair over time. Finally, some reflections are offered on how the conditions that negate the telling of his story might be challenged