Aspectos económicos - ASPECTOS SOCIALES DE LAS FAMILIAS EN EL DISTRITO DE PARCOY

CAPITULO II: ASPECTOS SOCIALES DE LAS FAMILIAS EN EL DISTRITO DE PARCOY

3.1. Aspectos económicos

In this research project the production of timeline drawings, copious photographs, excerpts of writing, and lengthy oral narratives all generated a large amount of messy data, which required careful selection, analysis, and interpretation. Since participants referred to their timelines, photographs, and written texts during their interviews, these objects were perused as the recordings were listened to, transcribed, and analysed.

Having all forms of multi-‐sensorial data available for perusal during analysis was important. While meaning was derived from texts individually, putting multi-‐sensorial texts together encouraged another level of interpretation and meaning making for participant and researcher alike. Spencer (2010, p. 251) has used the term, “third effect” in reference to the third meaning derived when two photographs were juxtaposed. When engaging with multi-‐sensorial texts in my research, meanings were derived from the two texts individually, but a third effect or impact sometimes occurred when they were placed side-‐by-‐side and compared.

Sometimes texts were at odds with each other. While there was a temptation to pick holes in data that were seemingly contradictory, it was important to keep two things in mind. Firstly, I was not seeking truth. Although interested in the “what” and “when” detail in participants’ stories, I was more interested in the negotiation between multiple-‐texts and this facilitated the exploration of a deeper level of analysis. Juxtaposition and the exploration of difference between texts were vehicles for stepping outside stories. They encouraged looking more closely at the “who”, “how” and “why” of participants’ stories. These performances of narrative provided insight into the social worlds in which these stories circulate (Gubrium, 2005; Riessman, 2008).

Secondly, talk about lived experiences is rarely simply structured. Rather, it is often chaotic, fragmented, and contradictory (Frank, 1993; Sermijn et al., 2008). A lack of coherence in storytelling data, especially when stories were about family and daily life, was not unexpected (Hyvarinen et al., 2010; Langellier & Peterson, 2004). Engaging with multiple texts only made the incoherency and messiness of storytelling more obvious.

In most instances differences between texts were explored with the participant, and having a series of four interviews with each participant facilitated opening up inconsistencies. Revisiting and comparing something that was said in a previous interview with other texts like photographs or writing was common. For instance, Fiona re-‐evaluated the stories she told about her childhood after looking at old photographs, and Becky contradicted what she had written in her notebook.

Observations of differences between data, and the identification of a third meaning or third effect were also made long after interviewing had been completed. Arriving at an explanation for differences between data required critical thought and reflection. As with narrative analysis generally, multiple explanations can account for gaps and incoherencies within stories (Worth, 2008). The availability of multi-‐ dimensional, multi-‐sensorial data facilitated the process of arriving at the best explanation: they loosened anchors and long held beliefs, presented openings for a different perspective, and provided insight. The process divulged detail that might otherwise have remained hidden (see Sheridan & Chamberlain, 2011). However, I was acutely aware that while this process was insightful and important for analysis, it was also subjective and enigmatic (Spencer, 2010). Therefore, it was necessary to keep track of the interpretive route taken.

With coding being an intermediary procedure between data collection and in-‐ depth data analysis, I needed to utilise a coding frame or method that would facilitate the generation of concepts, categories, themes, and subthemes; encourage exploration,

meaning-‐making, and theorisation; and suit both the creative and theatrical, and non-‐ arts-‐based conventional (re)presentation forms and aims of my research project. No single coding frame met these requirements. I therefore combined three coding frames to facilitate the analysis of my data: dramaturgical coding, narrative coding, and process coding (Saldaña, 2009). Dramaturgical coding was useful for focusing on a participant’s intrapersonal and interpersonal experiences from a performative point of view. Participants were seen as characters in a social drama, which helped me become attuned to a participant’s motivations and perspectives. Narrative coding was useful for focusing on a participant’s storied experiences of places or settings, with messages, morals, and beliefs also suited to being explored this way. Finally, process coding was useful when searching for a participant’s ongoing processes or responses to events or experiences, while striving to solve problems, or trying to reach a goal (Saldaña, 2009). The differences between these coding frames were important. Together, they provided an analysis method well suited to my research topic and my decision to represent my findings in two distinct forms.

Coding

Coding began by digitally copying and pasting participant’s verbatim story transcripts into the first column of a three-‐column table using Microsoft Word (see Figure 9). Viewing coding much like winnowing, the next part of coding involved identifying and highlighting the elements of dramaturgical, narrative, and process coding and putting these text excerpts into the second column of the table. For instance, with

dramaturgical coding I sought examples of objectives like, “staying slim”; conflicts or obstacles impeding achieving these objectives like, “wanting to have a baby”; how participants’ dealt with conflicts or obstacles like, “limiting breast feeding”; participants’ positions or attitudes towards conflicts or obstacles like, “wanting my life back”; and emotions like, “feeling guilty”.

With narrative coding I sought types or forms of narrative. For example, a cautionary tale was, “if you had problems when you were fat these problems don’t disappear when you’re slim”; an epiphany narrative was, “I decided, right, I’m going to do something different; and that changed everything”; and an example of a genre like a comedy was, “I have a husband who continually thwarts my efforts to help him get healthy”; examples of settings were social functions such as a wedding, “every woman wants to look good on her wedding day”; features of plots like a turning point in a plot was, “I had already thrown out one skirt so it had gotten to the point where I couldn’t hide it anymore”.

Figure 9: A coding table with verbatim transcript, researcher comments, and code names.

With process coding I sought examples of ongoing action, or interaction, to situations or problems and used gerunds (words ending in “ing”) to represent these. For example, pontificating, “Fat people shouldn’t sit in McDonalds”; avoiding the slippery slope, “I don’t have the first chocolate cos it leads to the second and the third”; monitoring, “I keep my weight between 61 and 63 kilograms”; demonising, “potatoes are bad”.

Using three coding frames meant that there were sometimes excerpts of text that were evaluated using more than one code. For example, in the following excerpt Alice is talking about the constant battle she has with her husband.

I guess my husband was a trigger, and it’s still a battle now with his food, to be honest. When we were out he wanted to go to the bakery for lunch. But that’s out for me. I just won’t do it. Lucky, there was a sushi bar right next door and I thought, “Yes, you go into the bakery and have your food, I’m going to grab some sushi.” So, that’s just the way it is. Yeah, but he needs to lose weight; he’s got high cholesterol and high blood pressure. It’s frustrating ‘cos he can see me eating so well, and I’ll say, no, no, no, no, but he still goes out and buys his food. Unfortunately, Annie, the 10-‐year old, she indulges with him. I have to keep saying to him, “Do you want her to go down that diabetes path? I really don’t!” But it’s out of my control because he buys the food when I’m not around. He picks up the kids before me and he’s quite often bought something, and his idea of an occasional treat is a lot more than ‘occasional’.

This excerpt was coded using dramaturgical coding, since Alice sees her husband as an obstacle to her objective to stay slim. But she also sees him as reckless with his health, and with the health of their young daughter, which she finds frustrating. Using narrative coding, Alice is the battling heroine; she can be viewed as a “saint” at odds with her transgressor, “sinner” husband. Using process coding, Alice is “all knowing”; she is the expert, she has the answers, she knows what is wrong and what should be done. As this excerpt and example demonstrates, coding involves interpretation.

After interesting elements of the transcript texts in column one were digitally highlighted, copied and then pasted into the second column of the table, I added personal comments to these excerpts. My comments included notes about juxtaposed texts, subtexts, and both explicit and implicit interpretations of what participants had said. They were often my personal reflections about the research. Some were about my interactions with my participants, conversations with my supervisors, discussions with other researchers or people interested in my topic, and at times included relevant details and references from the literature. These personal reflections were a way for me to search within myself (Richardson, 2003a). They were as much about my story and me, as they were about my participants, and their stories. The reflections became an important and necessary reflexive lens on how my assumptions and views may have impacted on the interpretation of my data (Doucet, 2008; Henwood & Pidgeon, 1992; Morgan & Pritchard, 2005). The extent of my notes and the amount of participants’ highlighted text varied considerably from individual words or phrases, to complete sentences or a whole page of text.

Finally, descriptive key words or code words, which encapsulated both participants’ piece of highlighted text and or my interpretive comments and reactions, were chosen and entered into column three of the table (see Figure 9). Finding a code word to capture this essence was not unlike seeking a title for a song, book, or film (Saldaña, 2009, p. 3). Both column two and column three were revisited on several occasions, and comments and code words were added or changed. The coding process was fluid and iterative. As new ideas or codes were drawn from the data, earlier transcripts were re-‐examined with these in mind. Examples of initial codes drawn from the data included: pontificating, a good mother, rationalising, demonising, the slippery slope, envy, control freak, ritualising, battling, the athlete, remorse, and many others.

The next phase of analysis required looking for relationships between different codes and sorting and combining codes into broader, categories and eventually into overarching themes. These themes formed the elements of the ethnodrama such as setting, plot, costume, characterisation and dialogue, and elements of the key factors in the book chapter. All excerpts from transcripts that were represented by a particular theme were sorted into separate Word documents, which became a repository for each theme. This made seeking examples of text for a particular theme for dialogue construction for the play, and excerpts to illustrate key points in the book chapter very straightforward.

A colour coding system was used so that each transcript excerpt could be traced back to the participant. For example, all text produced by Charlotte was represented by an orange font, whereas Elizabeth was blue. Consequently, it was possible to recheck a participant’s intent, and the content and context of an original excerpt of verbatim transcript. This was particularly important for tracing back excerpts of participants’ stories that had been reduced to a juicy piece of dramatic dialogue. Figure 10 provides an example of the integrity of colour coding through to analysis for a piece of playscript in the very early stages of development.

Although the play is a work of creative non-‐fiction, its characters, and their dialogue are anchored to my participants’ stories. Importantly, the analysis used for the play and the book chapter were the same. The analysis simply took the interpretation and representation of my research findings in two different directions. My close relationships with my participants, my familiarity with their stories, and the thoroughness of my research method informed this.

In document Estrategias de vida de las familias con el incremento de la minería artesanal en el distrito de parcoy provincia de pataz 2015 (página 44-63)