Singing in troubled times. ‘This Country’ reflections on song writing and singing qualitative research

The first song I ever heard sung during a session at the International Congress of Qualitative Inquiry (ICQI) was in 2006 when David Carless sang “We Crossed the Tamar” (Carless, 2005), a song he’d written as part of a commissioned research project. The following year he returned to sing two songs, “Cold Soul” and “Stumble,” (Carless, 2007), through which he tried to incorporate his “singing self” within the straitjacket of evidence-based medicine, a culture that expects a researcher to be neutral and unaffected and is hostile toward those who use their selves in their work. In this chapter I reflect on the songwriting journey

Black is the night: masking and unmasking, social science research, and what a song might bring

An important aspect of commissioned research is how we negotiate the distance that remains unbridged between a researcher and her participants. Arthur Frank, referencing Emmanuel Levinas asks, “Do I recognise what the other is having to hold together, to carry on at all, and his or her fear of life coming apart.” He then asks us to consider what role, or what part “the other” casts us in, in the unfolding drama of their life. I like the language Frank and Levinas use as they move into the realm of performance, where we can be cast in a role, and perhaps adopt a mask to work through these types of issues

Walking into the unknown: a research journey through abuse, trauma, motherhood, poverty, and the Covid pandemic

Researching the lives of mothers with children under five from the most deprived areas of a major city in the UK during a pandemic was never going to be easy. In this performative reflection I explore how walking and the side-be-sidedness of our interaction facilitated conversation and understanding, between one young mother and myself, while also considering the way a researcher’s thoughts whirl around and respond to what is being shared, though never voiced at the time

Evoking embodied presence: these things, songwriting, filmmaking, and borrowing a performative trick from Bob Dylan

Our performative contribution to the 2019 Special Interest Group in autoethnography provided an opportunity to consider the materiality of absence and presence. Using the film These Things and the research-inspired song that underpins the film, we explore how a 5-min multimedia performative act opened possibilities for solidarity and resistance, offering ways to include the absent other

Exploring taboo issues in professional sport through a fictional approach

While the need to consider life course issues in elite sport research and practice is increasingly recognised, some experiences still seem to be considered too dangerous to explore. Consequently, stories of these experiences are silenced and the ethical and moral questions they pose fail to be acknowledged, understood or debated. This paper presents an ethnographic fiction through which we explore a sensitive set of experiences that were uncovered during our research with professional sportspeople. Through a multi‐layered reconstruction, the story reveals the complex, but significant, relationships that exist between identity, cultural narratives and embodied experiences. After the telling we consider how the story has stimulated reflective practice among students, researchers and practitioners. While there are risks involved in writing and sharing taboo stories, the feedback we have received suggests that storytelling can be an effective pedagogical tool in education and professional development

We haven't got a seat on the bus for you or All the seats are mine: Narratives and career transitions in professional golf

In this article we explore how the stories an athlete tells throughout life in sport affect her career transition experiences. We base our enquiry on a social constructionist conception of narrative theory which holds that storytelling is integral to the creation and maintenance of identity and sense of self. Life stories were gathered through interviews with two professional women golfers (Christiana and Kandy) over a six‐year period. Through a narrative analysis of structure and form we explored each participant’s stories of living in and withdrawing from professional golf. We suggest Christiana told monological performance‐oriented stories which, while aligning with the culture of elite sport, resulted in an exclusive athletic identity and foreclosure of alternative selves and roles. On withdrawal, Christiana experienced narrative wreckage, identity collapse, mental health difficulties and considerable psychological trauma. In contrast, Kandy told dialogical discovery‐oriented stories which, while being in tension with the dominant performance narrative, created and sustained a multidimensional identity and self. Her stories and identity remained intact, authentic and continuous on withdrawal from tournament golf and she experienced few psychological problems

Stories of success: Cultural narratives and personal stories of elite and professional athletes

Using a narrative methodology to explore the stories Olympic and elite athletes tell about success, we identified three alternatives to the dominant conception of success as the achievement of performance outcomes. In these alternatives, success is storied as: (1) ‘I did the best that I could’ – a controllable and sustainable story of effort and application; (2) ‘It’s the closest thing you can get to flying’ – a story where success relates to embodied experience and discovery; (3) ‘People I made the journey with’ – which prioritises relationships and connection between people. We reflect on three key insights: (1) success is a multidimensional concept, broader than the singular conception encapsulated within the dominant performance narrative; (2) through various narrative strategies, experienced athletes resist cultural pressures towards a singular conception of success; (3) for long-term performance and well-being, it is necessary to work towards multiple forms of success over time and across contexts

When two worlds collide: A story about collaboration, witnessing and life story research with soldiers returning from war

The story we share here stems from our research with British military personnel who are adapting to life with a physical and/or psychological disability after serving in the Iraq or Afghanistan wars. Throughout our research, we have struggled to answer the kinds of questions that plague qualitative researchers: How might we gain insights into intense, traumatic, even life-changing experiences? Should we be inviting individuals to recount or revisit such potent moments from their lives? What interpretive framework might we draw on to make sense of what are sometimes senseless experiences? How can we share any ensuing understanding with others without diluting, diminishing or disrespecting the lives of soldiers or their families? The story we share here – which responds to Denzin’s (2003) challenge to reanimate life and Erickson’s (2010) provocation to do so with greater modesty, visibility, and reflexivity – offers one answer to these questions

Body awareness, self-identity, and perception of exercise importance after stroke rehabilitation

A stroke is a serious life-threatening medical condition that happens when the blood supply to part of the brain is cut off. Although stroke presentation rate is decreasing, it still continues to be one of the main cause of mortality and morbidity in Portugal, its prevalence remains high. Stroke consequences, in most of the cases, results in some degree of dependence with direct implications for the daily life of the stroke survivor who goes through a long process of adaptation and acceptance of their new reality. The purpose of this study was to understand stroke survivor´s self-perceptions regarding their body awareness, body image, self-identity, and the perception of exercise importance after the rehabilitation discharge