Ejercicios grupales para romper el hielo: calentamiento.

Ethical Issues

Ethical approval for the study was obtained from Keele University Postgraduate Research Ethics Committee prior to the commencement of fieldwork. A copy of the Postgraduate Research Ethics forms can be found in Appendix 10. In addition, the British Sociological Association’s Statement of Ethical Practice (2002) was adopted to guide the research process. Informed consent was gained with all of the women ensuring voluntary participation in the study, as outlined earlier in this chapter. According to Vaus (2001) the timing of consent is a contested issue when conducting longitudinal research as data collection is not a one off event. Therefore written consent was obtained at the beginning of initial interviews and ongoing verbal consent gained prior to

subsequent interviews. This is consistent with the ethical principles of autonomy, ‘having respect for people’, and justice, ‘treating people fairly’ (Gilhooly, 2002:213).

The women were assured anonymity and pseudonyms were used to protect their identity and confidentiality. Some of the women chose their own pseudonyms and others were happy to be assigned them by the interviewer. Interview transcripts were anonymised and audiotapes destroyed once data analysis was complete to further protect the confidentiality and privacy of the participants (Israel and Hay, 2006).

Problematic ethical and methodological issues involved in the longitudinal study of widowhood in later life include the sensitivity of bereavement, that

changes observed in relation to transition may occur due to the process of ageing, and attrition (Vaus, 2001). One of the women died in between the first and second interviews, and four of the women were unable to complete the third interview due to ill health or for personal circumstances, for example, one of the older widows Cathy, had recently lost her son. It was decided not to return the transcripts to the women due to the sensitive nature of the material, involving bereavement and family relationships, which may have caused emotional distress to the women, and also to their families in the event of their death. Although ‘member checking’ is thought to increase the internal validity and credibility of research (Finlay, 2006) this was outweighed by the need to adhere to the ethical principle of non-

maleficence, to do no harm (Gilhooly, 2002). As Israel and Hay (2006:110)

comment ‘researchers may have to assess the relative weight of a diverse array of potential harms and benefits’. Indeed according to Karnieli-Miller et al. (2009:284) ‘every choice the researcher makes (to share or not to share, when to share and what to share) has inherent ethical difficulties’. Throughout this study the women were sent regular updates on the research process and sent a final summary

Tensions faced during a longitudinal study

I have experienced a constant tension conducting a longitudinal study between being ‘ready’ to go back into the field, and keeping the women engaged in the study over long periods of not interviewing them. I had a fear that the women would lose interest in the study and withdraw (Vaus, 2001; Charania and Ickes, 2006). I employed strategies to try and combat this, sending the women regular updates on the research process and keeping in touch with Christmas cards. Some of the women responded with letters and phone calls about their news, as well as through Christmas cards. A copy of the update letters sent to participants during and following the fieldwork of this study can be found in Appendix 11. Indeed Tinker (1998) points to the length of time given by busy participants to longitudinal studies and asserts that feedback is essential if people are to feel their time has been well spent. Similarly Sixsmith et al. (2003:587) stress ‘the importance of maintaining access, trust, and credibility’ by sharing knowledge with participants throughout the research process.

Another issue is the one of being alongside the women as events in their lives unfolded, I feel privileged that the women were so willing to share intimate details of their daily lives with me over an extended period of time. In addition to interviewing the women, I have been invited for meals, shown family photographs, and been given Christmas presents and cards, Ray (2000b: 16) refers to this as ‘being privy’ to ‘daily intimacies’. At the beginning of the study I felt guarded in talking about ‘myself’ as a researcher, as time went on though I began to invest my personal identity into the relationship I was developing with the women, and talked freely about my own personal circumstances when asked. As noted by Oakley (2005:226) there can be ‘no intimacy without reciprocity’ when conducting

longitudinal in-depth interviews. Interestingly in December 2008 when I sent out Christmas cards with an update and informing the women that I was expecting my first child in March 2009, I received an increase in responses and good will

messages reflecting the importance given to family and intergenerational ties by the older widows.

Reflexivity

With the above issues in mind, I have to acknowledge that throughout the fieldwork of this study I had been going through a parallel transition alongside that of the widowed women. My transition involved becoming, and being a divorced woman, and subsequently meeting a new partner. Although Steier (1991:4) and others talk about ‘personal ity’ being ‘traditionally, banned from research’, more recently the process of engaging in reflexivity has been viewed as adding to the credibility and confirmability of findings (Mays and Pope, 2002; Smith, 2006; Finlay, 2006). As outlined earlier I kept a reflective research diary and as the study progressed I recognised many of the loss issues and challenges to personal identity that the women were experiencing, as well as ones that they were not. For example, I would not be married to the same partner for life, I also had to negotiate the ‘stigma’ of being divorced. In addition, not having children, as many of the women did, I experienced an awareness of being childless, which became more acute as I talked to the women about their personal communities and experiences of Christmas. At thirty-seven and with no long-term partner the very real possibility of never becoming a mother myself was heightened by my conversations with the women.

new members of my personal community assuming more importance in my social world as an unmarried rather than a married woman. For myself as for the women, Christmas was a very emotional and symbolic time of the year, whereas in the past I would have created a Christmas around my husband, I too had to spend it with ‘another’ family. These are not necessarily negative experiences but they are significant and telling events in the change process.

The issue of distance between the interviewer and interviewee, particularly when both are women, and when the study involves repeated interviewing has been discussed by Oakley (2005). For her ‘personal involvement is more than dangerous bias: it is the condition under which people come to know each other and admit others into their lives’ (2005:231). The interactive process of the interviews conducted, that is the investment of me as researcher and the older widows as participants, was illustrated in particular by one of the women, Beatrice. During the third and final interview in 2006 Beatrice reflected on the change she had noticed in me as well as in herself over the last eighteen months: ‘You look well this time, you do look nice as if you’ve changed a lot, yeah, yeah, yeah you look nice, you look well’.