La hija del jardinero y los rumores del servicio: “La siesta en el

After studying the narrative data thoroughly the Probe Enhanced Interview Study was conducted. The purpose of starting this phase with the probes study was to sensitize the participants for the upcoming interviews and also to reflect on the initial insights of the pilot study. The idea for the probes study arose from the variety in the prelimi- nary data from the pilot study. The stories provided were truly varied. They were mainly about memories and emotions connected to jewelry. And when the wearing of jewelry was mentioned, it was often about wearing it on special occasions. I wanted to examine the everyday wearing of jewelry more closely. I asked women to document their everyday wearing of jewelry using self-documentation kits I provided them. The Probe Enhanced Interview Study, including the self-documentation, were conducted in two locations, first in the Chicago area in the United States and then in the Helsinki area in Finland. The reason for investigating women in different locations was not to make a comparison study between practices in different cultures but rather to see possible similarities, and widen the variety of research participants. There were of course differences in behav- iors between women in Finland and the United States, but the main reasons to wear and possess jewelry were rather alike.

The Design Probes tool is a self-documentation tool developed precisely for design- ers and design researchers to get inspirational and sensitive information from users (Mattelmäki 2006). I used the Design Probes tool to sensitize the participants to this truly personal topic before the interviews. They received probes kits before the interviews and were asked to self-document their everyday wearing of jewelry for nine days. I supposed that nine days, which in many cases included two weekends and five weekdays, would be a long enough time to find out about the differences in wearing jewelry between everyday life (often weekdays) and special occasions (often weekends) (see also Rybczynski 1991). Some of the participants kept the probes kits for a longer period of time even though they only documented nine days. They did not necessarily document days they wore the same jewelry as earlier, but rather waited for days they wore other pieces of jewelry.

The probes kits included nine cards, one for each day, on which participants were asked to write the story of the jewelry, describe the materials and the history of the jewelry, and illustrate the pieces of jewelry worn that day on the paper doll printed on the card.

The cards were placed in a black jewelry box with a disposable camera and instructions for how to use the kits. I wanted to make the self-documentation kits look attractive and be contained in jewelry boxes to make the participants feel important when receiving the kit. Each kit was placed in a paper bag and was delivered to the participant either by me or via

A sample card from a self documentation kit. Here Isabella is telling about her ordinary busy day’s jewelry.

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3. data and methods

mail. I felt that it was important to start the personal relationship with the participants as early as possible and I added a handwritten note to each kit. I wanted the participants to feel special because each woman and her jewelry are special.

The participants were asked to write about their jewelry, sketch it, and take a picture of themselves wearing the jewelry each day. I wanted to give participants the option to illustrate the jewelry by taking photos since not all are willing to sketch or draw, however the disposable cameras were not the best for capturing small items like jewelry. Neverthe- less, most of the women used all three media to document their jewelry. Sketching, taking photos and writing supplemented each other as sources of information. My intention was not to receive the highest quality drawings, photos, or writings about their wearing of jewelry. Thinking of their jewelry for at least nine days, reliving their memories and handling their jewelry, got the participants sensitized to their jewelry for the interviews.

All together 28 women participated in the study, 13 in the Chicago area and 15 in the Helsinki area. It was relatively easy to find the participants for this study since it seems that most women have stories to tell about their jewelry. Often when women were shar- ing these stories, they also shared a lot of their personal lives and history. All of the participants were willing to reveal a part of themselves for the sake of this study. The women I studied were: Lydia (89 yrs, fin), Isabella (84 yrs, us), Julia (79 yrs, fin), Paula (78 yrs, fin), Irene (71 yrs, us), Eva (69 yrs, us), Maija (60 yrs, fin), Linda (59 yrs, fin), Mia (58 yrs, us), Ida (58 yrs, fin), Ella (57 yrs, fin), Maria (56 yrs, fin), Heidi (56 yrs, fin), Laura (55 yrs, fin), Ingrid (54 yrs, us), Margaretha (53 yrs, fin), Amy (52 yrs, us), Emma (52 yrs, us), Sofia (51 yrs, fin), Anita (51 yrs, us), Rebecca (51 yrs, fin), Susanna (51 yrs, fin), Karla (50 yrs, us), Sara (42 yrs, us), Iris (35 yrs, us), Johanna (34 yrs, us), Erika (33 yrs, fin) and Alisa (33 yrs, us).

Since most contributors in the pilot data were middle-aged and older women, I wanted to have rather similar participants in the Probe Enhanced Interview Study. The women who participated were grandmothers, mothers or women who had the next generation in their family, but no children of their own. And of course, all of them were daughters. Since one of the main findings from the pilot study relates to multigenerational possess- ing, I was interested in studying different generations. From one family, a grandmother, mother, and daughter all participated in the study. Mother and daughter pairs from two other families participated as well. I used the snowball effect to find the participants and unfortunately I had to turn away many women who wanted to participate.

I found the Design Probes method to be an effective tool to sensitize women to the topic and get them ready for the upcoming interviews. Many times in the interviews we discussed truly touching and personal topics. I think that without the sensitizing self- documentation period before the interviews we could not have had discussions as deep as we did. Because of the self-documentation, I already knew a lot about these women and their jewelry before the interviews. I had an overview of their personal histories, knew about their everyday practices and about the people that were close to them. This allowed us to discuss the topic more deeply in a given amount of time.