Researching the Lifecourse: Critical Reflections from the Social Sciences 9781447317548

Table of contents :
RESEARCHING THE LIFECOURSE
Contents
List of tables and figures
Tables
Figures
Notes on contributors
Acknowledgements
1. Introduction
Conceptualising the lifecourse: age, generation and transition
Lifecourse methodology and epistemological choices
Time, space and mobilities: the organisation of the chapters
Part I. Time
2. Time and the lifecourse: perspectives from qualitative longitudinal research
Introduction1
The flow of lives…
…through time
Concluding comments
3. Time in mixed methods longitudinal research: working across written narratives and large scale panel survey data to investigate attitudes to volunteering
Introduction
Designing our study
Using our datasets: how the design worked in practice
Analysing data produced by writers and survey respondents across time
Learning from our mixed method longitudinal secondary data analysis
Conclusion
4. A restudy of young workers from the 1960s: researching intersections of work and lifecourse in one locality over 50 years
Introduction
The ‘need’ to look back: past studies as starting point for lifecourse research
From young workers to older workers: from original study to restudy
Some reflections on methodological complexities
Conclusions
5. A method for collecting lifecourse data: assessing the utility of the lifegrid
Introduction
The utilisation of the lifegrid in the exploration of the living and working environments of oesophageal cancer patients
Case study: sample lifegrid as produced during data collection
A critique of the lifegrid and the incorporation of useful strategies
Knowledge claims: narrative and historical truths
Concluding remarks
Part II. Space and place
6. Life geohistories: examining formative experiences and geographies
Narrating and mapping life histories
Biographical narratives: temporalising lived experiences
Spatialising life histories
Towards life geohistories methodology
Life geohistories methodology
Conclusion
7. Using mapmaking to research the geographies of young children affected by political violence
Introduction
Young children as mapmakers
Why mapmaking works in research with young children
Using mapmaking as a lifecourse research method
Conclusion
8. Keeping in touch: studying the personal communities of women in their fifties
Friendship, space and place
Researching personal communities
Conclusion
9. Triangulation with softGIS in lifecourse research: situated action possibilities and embodied knowledge
Introduction
The promise of ‘geo’biographies
Contextualised preparedness: some concepts
Triangulation
Proceeding towards the middle
An indicative example
Implications and limitations
Conclusion
Part III. Mobilities
10. Using a life history approach within transnational ethnography: a case study of Korean New Zealander returnees
Introduction
Developing a life history approach within transnational ethnography
Life history within transnational ethnography: doing research
Ethics and positionality
Analysing data
Conclusion: taking a life history approach in ethnography
11. Sensing sense and mobility at the end of the lifecourse: a methodology of embodied interaction
Introduction
Haptic epistemology: from penetration to erotic encounter
Dinner with Howard
The erotic encounter as a methodology of embodied interaction
Co-construction and the role of the researcher
Knowledge and ethics
Conclusion
12. Event history approach to life spaces in French-speaking research
Introduction1
From migration to life spaces: French research using the lifecourse approach to residential mobility
Individuals circulating between European metropolises: a lifecourse approach to life spaces and data collection issues
Individuals circulating between European metropolises: a lifecourse approach to life spaces and data analysis choices
Conclusion
13. Using an intersectional lifecourse approach to understand the migration of the highly skilled
Introduction
Structure, agency and skilled migration
Using an intersectional lifecourse approach
Methodological implications
Case study: highly educated Iranians leaving Sweden
The benefits and drawbacks of using an intersectional lifecourse approach
Conclusion
Index

Citation preview

RESEARCHING THE Critical reflections from the social sciences

Edited by Nancy Worth and Irene Hardill

RESEARCHING THE LIFECOURSE Critical reflections from the social sciences Edited by Nancy Worth and Irene Hardill

First published in Great Britain in 2015 by Policy Press North America office: University of Bristol Policy Press 1-9 Old Park Hill c/o The University of Chicago Press Bristol 1427 East 60th Street BS2 8BB Chicago, IL 60637, USA UK t: +1 773 702 7700 t: +44 (0)117 954 5940 f: +1 773 702 9756 [email protected] [email protected] www.policypress.co.uk www.press.uchicago.edu © Policy Press 2015 British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A catalog record for this book has been requested ISBN 978 1 44731 752 4 hardcover The right of Nancy Worth and Irene Hardill to be identified as editors of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved: no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior permission of Policy Press. The statements and opinions contained within this publication are solely those of the editors and contributors and not of the University of Bristol or Policy Press. The University of Bristol and Policy Press disclaim responsibility for any injury to persons or property resulting from any material published in this publication. Policy Press works to counter discrimination on grounds of gender, race, disability, age and sexuality. Cover design by Policy Press Front cover image: Hondartza Fraga, www.hondartzafraga.com Printed and bound in Great Britain by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon, CR0 4YY Policy Press uses environmentally responsible print partners

For my family (NW) For Ian (IH)

Contents List of tables and figures vii Notes on contributors viii Acknowledgements xii one Introduction Nancy Worth and Irene Hardill Part I: Time two Time and the lifecourse: perspectives from qualitative longitudinal research Bren Neale three Time in mixed methods longitudinal research: working across written narratives and large scale panel survey data to investigate attitudes to volunteering Rose Lindsey, Elizabeth Metcalfe and Rosalind Edwards four A restudy of young workers from the 1960s: researching intersections of work and lifecourse in one locality over 50 years John Goodwin and Henrietta O’Connor five A method for collecting lifecourse data: assessing the utility of the lifegrid Ann Del Bianco Part II: Space and place six Life geohistories: examining formative experiences and geographies Bisola Falola seven Using mapmaking to research the geographies of young children affected by political violence Bree Akesson eight Keeping in touch: studying the personal communities of women in their fifties Sophie Bowlby nine Triangulation with softGIS in lifecourse research: situated action possibilities and embodied knowledge Kaisa Schmidt-Thomé

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Part III: Mobilities ten Using a life history approach within transnational ethnography: a case study of Korean New Zealander returnees Jane Yeonjae Lee eleven Sensing sense and mobility at the end of the lifecourse: a methodology of embodied interaction Anne Leonora Blaakilde twelve Event history approach to life spaces in French-speaking research Françoise Dureau, Matthieu Giroud and Christophe Imbert thirteen Using an intersectional lifecourse approach to understand the migration of the highly skilled Melissa Kelly Index

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List of tables and figures Tables 3.1 4.1 4.2 6.1 8.1 8.2 10.1 10.2 10.3 12.1

Qualitative and quantitative data fit Tracing the respondents: contact methods and responses Sample descriptions and composition Constructing personal geographies: methods for gathering locational experiences and space–time data Selected socioeconomic characteristics of the areas used for finding a sample Main themes used in coding Interview questions/prompts: a lifecourse approach Different kinds of observations Author’s positionality Status of places frequented

46 75 76 114 147 153 187 189 192 225

Figures 5.1 6.1 6.2 7.1 7.2 7.3 8.1 8.2 8.3 9.1 9.2 9.3 9.4 12.1 12.2

Sample lifegrid 84 Roxanne’s map 105 Lexi’s map 106 Four examples of ‘home’ drawn by children 129 Eight-year-old Salima’s map of her neighbourhood community 131 Seven-year-old Nadir’s map 135 Recruitment flier 148 Diagrammatic representation of Charlotte’s personal 149 community map Number of friends and family in each ring for Alison 151 Starting points of my triangulation 165 Building further interconnections between data, stories 168 and geohabits Approaching habitus from various perspectives 170 Direct quotes from the interviewee 173 Biographical matrix used to record multi-residence 222 trajectories Number of places frequented other than main residence, 226 by age and trajectory class

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Notes on contributors Bree Akesson is assistant professor of social work at Wilfrid Laurier University, Canada, as well as treatment facilitator for the Child Psychiatric Epidemiology Group. Her current research is focused on the effects of political violence on young children and their families. She is co-editor of the forthcoming book Children Affected by Armed Conflict: Theory, Method, and Practice published by Columbia University Press. Anne Leonora Blaakilde is associate professor at Department of Media, Cognition and Communication, University of Copenhagen, Denmark. She is a folklorist, working with migration, family, and gender in a lifecourse perspective. She recently co-edited with Gabriella Nilsson Nordic Seniors on the Move. Mobility and Migration in Later Life, Lund Studies in Arts and Cultural Sciences. Since 2004 she has been the editor of the Danish journal Gerontologi. Sophie Bowlby is visiting professor in geography at Loughborough University and honorary research fellow in geography and environmental science at the University of Reading, UK. She is a fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences. Her research has focused on feminist analysis of issues of access, employment and social relationships of informal care in time-space. Her recent research has focused on care, friendship and social inclusion among children and young people and also among women in their fifties. Ann Del Bianco is an adjunct professor in the Faculty of Environmental Studies at York University in Toronto, Canada. Her recent past appointment was a senior researcher in the field of occupational cancer. Ann’s publications and research interests are in the areas of: alternative methodological approaches, the lifegrid, oesophageal cancer, environmental and occupational cancer, cancer prevention, and environmental and ecosystem health. Françoise Dureau is honorary research director in geography and demography, member of the laboratory Migrinter (International Migration: Space and Societies), Université de Poitiers, France. Her work focuses on practices of spatial mobility and transformation of urban spaces. She has published or co-published 15 books, including: Métropoles en mouvement (Anthropos); L’accès à la ville: les mobilités spatiales en questions (L’Harmattan); Les mondes de la mobilité (Presses

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Notes on contributors

Universitaires de Rennes); Mobilités et changement urbain: Bogotá, Santiago et São Paulo (Presses Universitaires de Rennes). Rosalind Edwards is professor of sociology, social sciences director of research and enterprise, and a co-director of the ESRC National Centre for Research Methods at the University of Southampton, UK. She is a fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences. Ros is co-editor of the International Journal of Social Research Methodology, and has written about qualitative and mixed methods. She has published widely in the field of family studies, with her most recent book being Understanding Families Over Time: Research and Policy for Palgrave Macmillan. Bisola Falola is a PhD candidate in the Department of Geography and the Environment at the University of Texas at Austin (USA). Her current research examines social and spatial mobility with urban minority youth. Her work also focuses on examining youth geographies and young people’s transitions to adulthood in the Global North and South. She is also interested in examining emotional and affective geographies, futurity and landscapes of the future and in conducting urban ecological research, particularly on issues related to ecological gentrification. Matthieu Giroud is assistant professor in geography at Université Paris-Est Marne-la-Vallée (France), and member of the laboratory Analyse Comparée des Pouvoirs. His work focuses on popular continuities in neighbourhoods undergoing gentrification. He has co-edited many publications including Les mobilités spatiales dans les villes intermédiaires. Territoires, pratiques, régulations (Presses universitaires Blaise Pascal) or Métropoles en débat. (Dé)constructions de la ville compétitive (Presses universitaires de Paris Ouest). John Goodwin is professor of sociology at the University of Leicester, UK. John has expertise in qualitative secondary analysis, restudies, biographical methods and the use of unconventional data sources in sociological research. He has published widely in areas such as youth transitions, work and employment and the history of sociology. Irene Hardill is professor of public policy and director of the Northumbria Centre for Citizenship and Civil Society, Northumbria University, UK. She has a particular expertise in volunteering and the voluntary and community sector, demography and ageing, and knowledge exchange and user engagement. Recent books include

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Enterprising Care: Unpaid Voluntary Action in the 21st Century for Policy Press with Dr Sue Baines (MMU, UK) and Knowledge Mobilisation and the Social Sciences for Routledge with Jon Bannister. Christophe Imbert is assistant professor in geography, Université de Poitiers (France), and member of the laboratory Migrinter (International Migration: Space and Societies). He has co-edited the publication D’une métropole à l’autre: pratiques urbaines et circulations dans l’espace européen (Armand Colin). He’s working on settlement patterns in France and Portugal and their relationships with lifestyles dynamics. Melissa Kelly is a postdoctoral fellow in the Narrative Study of Lives Programme in the Department of Sociology at the University of the Free State in South Africa. She has published several book chapters and journal articles on migration decision making, identity and belonging. Her current research considers how life history narratives can be used to understand the experiences of highly skilled cross-border migrants in South Africa. Jane Yeonjae Lee is a postdoctoral fellow at the Humanities Center at Northeastern University, USA, working on the Living in the Mobility Transition research project under her supervisor Tim Cresswell. Jane’s PhD thesis examined the everyday lives of Korean New Zealander returnees. Her research interests and publications surround topics of migration and mobilities, national/ethnic identities, religion, and health. Rose Lindsey is based in the division of Sociology, Social Policy and Criminology at the University of Southampton, UK. She is the principal investigator for an ESRC-funded project on ‘Continuity and Change in Volunteering 1981-2012’ for which she is writing a coauthored book entitled Continuity and Change in Voluntary Action for Policy Press. She is also principal investigator for another ESRC-funded project on ‘Defining Mass Observation’, a longitudinal mixed-method project that aims to increase knowledge of the Mass Observation Project’s volunteer writers. Elizabeth Metcalfe currently works as a quantitative researcher on the ESRC funded project ‘Continuity and Change in Volunteering 1981-2012’, based in the Faculty of Social and Human Sciences at the University of Southampton, UK. She is a co-author for a forthcoming book entitled Continuity and Change in Voluntary Action. Following this

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project, she will undertake a position as a statistical analyst at the Office of National Statistics. Elizabeth’s PhD from the University of Leeds was a mixed-method project that explored how ‘place’ influences acute coronary syndrome outcome among older people. Bren Neale is professor of life course and family research in the School of Sociology and Social Policy, University of Leeds (UK) and a fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences. She specialises in research on the dynamics of family life and intergenerational relationships and has published widely in this field. As director of ESRC Timescapes, Bren has supported the development of qualitative longitudinal (QL) research across academia and in government and NGO settings. Henrietta O’Connor is professor of sociology at the Department of Sociology, University of Leicester, UK. Her current work is based on analysis of qualitative data, qualitative longitudinal research and community restudies. Henrietta has particular expertise on paradata, marginalia and fieldnotes. She has published extensively on Internet methods, youth and work. Kaisa Schmidt-Thomé holds a licentiate in planning geography at the University of Helsinki (Finland) and works as a research fellow in the Department of Real Estate, Planning and Geoinformatics at Aalto University, Finland. Her main research interests focus on European urban development strategies as well as on the interplay of our physical environment and the everyday urban experience. Nancy Worth is a Banting Fellow in the School of Geography and Earth Sciences at McMaster University, Canada. Her current research examines work and social life with millennial women. She has published on temporality, sociality, mobilities and young people’s transition to adulthood in journals such as Area, Urban Studies and Geoforum. She recently co-edited Intergenerational Space for Routledge.

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Acknowledgements Nancy and Irene wish to thank all the contributors to the book for their dedication to the project. We also wish to thank the team at Policy Press, especially Emily Watt, Laura Vickers and Laura Greaves for their support and expertise.

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ONE

Introduction Nancy Worth and Irene Hardill

Lifecourse research is undertaken by researchers from across the social sciences, often working in a multidisciplinary context, using the lifecourse as an underpinning concept and/or a method of study. In this book we aim to represent the diversity of lifecourse methodologies employed in the social sciences, as well as having a concern for epistemology – how different knowledge claims are connected to our research practices. Moreover, the contributors in this edited book emphasise how different theoretical frameworks and positionality affect the research process – each contributor examines the challenges of their research design and how they worked through methodological issues – providing reflexive accounts of the process of lifecourse research, including a focus on ethical issues. This collection has its origins in a series of conference sessions held at the American Association of Geographers’ (AAG) Annual Meeting in 2012 in New York City. Besides a theme of lifecourse research, we were interested in hearing methodological reflections – why researchers approach particular questions in particular ways. Geography matters to all social scientists who employ the lifecourse as a concept and a method of enquiry, as spaces and places form the geographical context of a person’s lifecourse. Inspired by the work of Law (2004, p 5), who argues that ‘methods, their rules, and even more methods’ practices, not only describe but also help to produce the reality that they understand’, we turned our attention to methods in lifecourse research not as a primer on how to do research but as a way of thinking though the power of method to generate the results of our research. It seemed to us that these vital questions of practice are often left out of published empirical and theoretical work on the lifecourse, where discussions of the complexities of research design and its implementation are sacrificed in favour of polished accounts of final results. The AAG sessions provoked a lively discussion about how we do lifecourse research in different ways both within and across social science disciplines. We also shared stories of what methods worked in our research, which ones failed spectacularly and which ones needed

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to be adapted carefully to fit our inquiries, thinking through multiple ways of understanding ‘best practice’ and being ethically responsible to our research participants. Returning to Law (2004) and his wider call for more ‘mess’ in social science research, this collection represents our efforts to draw attention to how methods capture social life.

Conceptualising the lifecourse: age, generation and transition The lifecourse implies not simply chronological age but addresses individual and collective trajectories of experience in space, in place and through time as these are shaped by events, roles, memory and retrospection. As defined by the well-known sociologist and pioneer in the field, Glen Elder, the lifecourse is ‘a sequence of socially defined events and roles that the individual enacts over time’ (Giele and Elder, 1998, p 22). A lifecourse approach affords researchers the possibility to examine an individual’s life history using a variety of data gathering tools, and to understand how early events influence future decisions and events such as marriage and divorce or involvement in crime. Engaging qualitatively or quantitatively with time, space and mobilities enables a more finely grained understanding of everyday life, and the uncovering of how the personal is interlinked with the immediate and wider social context. Sociologists began using the lifecourse as a framework for the study of human lives and social change in the 20th century. The lifecourse as a theoretical orientation came from the desire to understand social pathways, their developmental effects, and their relation to personal and social-historical conditions. From this innovative work the lifecourse as an organising concept and a research method began to be employed by academics across the social sciences. The pioneering study The Polish Peasant in Europe and America (1918–20) was undertaken by Thomas and Znaniecki, and made use of life histories and trajectories. Thomas argued for the employment of a longitudinal approach (cf Mortimer and Shanahan, 2004), a view that was echoed by C. Wright Mills (1959) in the post war period. Within psychology, ambitious longitudinal studies were undertaken before the Second World War. One indicative example is the Oakland Growth Study of children born in 1920–21 (Jones et al, 1971). Such studies collected a wealth of data and some extended to study their research participants into adulthood. The participants in these childhood studies experienced enormous social change, and the wealth of data collected resulted in the emergence of new ways of thinking about

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Introduction

human lives and development. The changing demographic profile of the population, the result of increasing longevity, declining fertility and mortality, led to social scientists seeking to understand the lives of older people. This field of research was pioneered by Bernice Neugarten in the 1950s (Neugarten, 1996), and such studies helped to demonstrate the enormous diversity of people’s lives, and how social norms give meaning to, and even direct, individual trajectories. A further push towards the more complex treatment of human lives through longitudinal research projects occurred in the 1960s, and involved both prospective and retrospective data collection. Such an approach allowed for the collection of detailed life histories (Giele and Elder, 1998). This innovation went hand-in-hand with developments in empirical procedures, statistical techniques and interpretative approaches, which are at the heart of quantitative lifecourse research (Giele and Elder, 1998). Although lifecourse developments in the US have been quantitative to a large extent, a distinctive emphasis in European studies has centred on using individual biographies and indepth interviews (Heinz and Krüger, 2001). Social scientists have also placed emphasis on understanding the context in which individual lives are lived, including social pathways, such as the family cycle, which was conceived of as a set of ordered stages (Hill, 1970). A second such organising concept that has been used is of the ‘career’. The career has been employed as a way of linking roles across the lifecourse for individuals and the households in which they are situated (Green et al, 1999). In contemporary research on the lifecourse, three concepts predominate – age, generation and transitions, which in the following sections we examine in detail. Age is relational, employed to add context to lived experience, while generation is used as a way of temporally positioning people in relation to one another, while the concept of transitions is used to think through change across the lifecourse. Age from a lifecourse approach Before we go further we will distinguish age as biological/physiological ageing, chronological age and age as a social construction. Biological ageing is the progressive decline in physiological ability to meet demands that occur over time. Chronological age refers to the number of years a person has lived. Age as a social construction refers to the social understandings and significance that are attached to chronological age. This understanding of age can structure the lifecourse through age expectations, social timetables, and generalised age grades such

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Researching the lifecourse

as childhood. Age represents not only a point in the life span and a historical marker but also a subjective understanding about the temporal nature of life. From a lifecourse approach, age is relational – adding context across an individual’s experience and allowing comparison to a cohort (Hopkins and Pain, 2007). Both age and lifecourse can be understood as socially constructed – what it means to be 18 for example depends on one’s culture, as do the various age boundaries that are seen as important. In general, the life course is organized around the system of labour that prevails in society. This applies to the shape of the lifecourse – its most obvious temporal ordering today has become the tripartition into periods of preparation, ‘activity’, and retirement – as well as to its organizing principle. (Kohli, 1986, p 272) Work also structures many of our transitions through the lifecourse (Marshall et al, 2001). However, there is increasing attention on ‘alternative’ lifecourses that challenge age boundaries, including lifelong learning (Biesta and Tedder, 2007) and children working (Jennings et al, 2006). Studies of age from a lifecourse perspective are often rooted in place – including school, the workplace and retirement communities. This focus on age segregated institutions reflects the organisation of many societies in the global north, yet this is slowly changing to reflect less rigid adherence to the tripartite schema of education, work and leisure as, for some, lifestyles and life choices become less tied to age expectations. A further illustration of the power of the lifecourse to unite social scientists and scientists was recently seen in the UK in the New Dynamics of Ageing Research Programme (NDA), which was established by five of the UK Research Councils to better understand the way in which older people’s lives may be changing as a result of social, economic and technical developments.1 Although the lives of people over 50 years was the focus of study (Hennessey and Walker, 2011; Walker, 2007), the lifecourse was employed as an underpinning concept and as a method of study (Hardill and Olphert, 2012; Schwanen et al, 2012). With the exception of research on lifecourse and migration, there has tended to be more interest in the lives of children and young people and of older people, than in those in adulthood and midlife (although see Katz et al, 2012).

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Introduction

Generation and intergenerationality Generation is employed within the social sciences as a way of temporally positioning people in relation to one another within a family lineage and also has extra-familial uses that attempt to group people based on their time of birth, though the latter is also defined in terms of cohort (Alwin and McCammon, 2003; Szydlik, 2012). Drawing on the notion of generations developed by Karl Mannheim (1952 [1927]) in his essay, ‘On The Problem of Generations’, in which he recognised that generations are not internally homogeneous but consist of ‘generational units’ that can be differentiated based on factors including class, human geographers have examined the sociospatial consequences of the generational ordering of society. This extra-familial notion of generation is more or less analogous to the demographic notion of ‘cohort’, a concept that refers to a group of people born within a particular period of time. Traditionally social scientists have compartmentalised the study of age into the study of younger and older generations (midlife has been studied less), but the concept of intergenerationality can also be employed to think relationally, addressing connections and interactions between generational groups (Vanderbeck and Worth, 2014). Viewing intergenerationality as an aspect of social identity suggests that individuals’ and groups’ sense of themselves and others is partly based on generational difference or sameness. Moreover, these identities are not seen as fixed but dynamic, with variability reflecting differently situated contexts including systems of kinship and cultural understandings of age and generation. Intergenerationality has largely been studied within the family, including intra-family geographies of parenting, parent–child relations, grandparent–grandchild relations, and extra-familial relations. Through this approach how people’s lives are linked and interdependent has been studied, including geographies of childhood, old age and gendering. Transitions and trajectories Finally, a recent development in lifecourse research involves paying attention to transitions, particularly to young people (such as transitions from youth to adulthood or transitions they make between institutions such as school and university), but there is also work on transitions in familial relations in later life, including grandparenthood and retirement. Transitions are periods of change; they are dynamic rather than determined, marking positional change within life trajectories,

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which can be conceived of as pathways. Many researchers trace research on lifecourse transitions back to van Gennep’s (2004 [1909]) work Rites of Passage. Grenier (2012, p 41) uses a quote from van Gennep – ‘a man [sic] cannot pass from one to the other without going through an intermediate stage’[…] ‘he wavers between two worlds’ – to claim ‘that a move from one status to another is accompanied by a period of time spent in a transitional or liminal space’. More recently, Andy Furlong (2013) has traced the changing approach to transitions research by looking at how transition metaphors have evolved, starting with developmental psychology approaches in the 1960s. Based on the work of Erikson (1968) and others, direct transitions led to various ‘occupational niches’. In the 1970s, ‘routes’ and ‘pathways’ dominated the literature, as a result of more complicated transitions in the labour market; in the 1980s ‘trajectory’ became popular, as transitions became less linear and often took longer. Structuralism guided research, focusing on the power of social class and institutions. By the 1990s, there was a greater recognition of agency and transition metaphors shifted to ‘navigation’ and researchers examined the choices and possibilities for young people to determine their own future. Contemporary transitions research, focusing on youth but also older people, often blends structural and agential approaches – recognising the power of both on the lifecourse. Much current work on transitions considers the ‘destandardisation’ of the lifecourse, where traditional markers of a ‘successful’ life are no longer normative (Brückner and Mayer, 2005; Worth, 2009b). Here, the interest lies in a more intersectional understanding, considering how different social identities influence age and the lifecourse (James and Hockey, 2003; Ecclestone, Biesta and Hughes, 2009). Recent research has worked on pulling apart different aspects of modern transitions, investigating the ‘boomerang’ transition of young people returning to their parental home after higher/further education (Stone et al, 2014); experiences of migration, especially for economic opportunity (Punch, 2014); and deferred transitions to retirement (Kim and Moen, 2002).

Lifecourse methodology and epistemological choices In this collection we are concerned with the process of lifecourse research, both the practical questions of research design and praxis as well as questions of epistemology. In particular, we are interested in shedding light on ‘epistemic cultures: those amalgams of arrangements and mechanisms – bonded through affinity, necessity, and historical co-incidence – which, in a given field, make up how we know what we

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Introduction

know’ (Knorr-Cetina, 1999, p 1). Building on work in science studies, there has recently been attempts to consider knowledge production in the social sciences, the ‘turn to practice’ where Camic et al’s (2011, pp  ix–x), aim is to ‘raise the general level of understanding of the processes by which different forms of social knowledge are produced, evaluated, and put to use’. Lifecourse research is inherently a multidisciplinary social science; compared to Knorr-Cetina’s project of comparing knowledge production in biology and physics, lifecourse research in itself has many different ‘systems of thinking’, each with its own history. We argue that lifecourse acts like a ‘boundary object’ in multidisciplinary research (Star and Griesemer, 1989). Boundary objects help people from different disciplines, domains and communities build a shared understanding. A boundary object can be an artefact, an image, a text or an idea. It will be interpreted differently by the different participants. Acknowledgement and discussion of these differences enables a shared understanding to be formed. So, while qualitative and quantitative approaches may share a broad grounding in empiricism, what counts as ‘appropriate’ or ‘valid’ data, and how it is attained, can vary greatly. The range of methods employed in this collection is quite wide, including quantitative studies that often use census materials and other large data bases, in-depth qualitative approaches, including diverse visual methods, and methodological approaches that mix methods to capture information from several perspectives. Quantitative approaches The application of quantitative methods in lifecourse research is common, with human geographers, for example, employing the lifecourse in the analysis of national or regional patterns or processes such as migration between communities, within countries, and intraurban residential movements as these vary across life stages, place and time (Green et al, 1999). These have considered both individual and household scales and have drawn on sources such as the long form collected by the US Census that includes data from two time periods, on specialised publically available data sets such as the American Community Survey, and the Panel Study of Income Dynamics in the US that since 1968 has measured economic, social and health aspects of a large representative sample of families and their descendants. Outside the US, similar sources include the British Household Panel Survey, the German Socio-Economic Panel, and the Household Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia Survey (see Lindsey et

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al, Chapter Three in this collection). These include data that lend themselves to cartographic and graphic analysis and portrayal, and to statistical analysis with such techniques as logistic regression modelling and multiple regression analysis. By disaggregating groups on multiple variables they examine interactions, for example, by gender, age, marital status, income level, education, and place of origin. In so doing they demonstrate complexities of choices and behaviours in multiple stages of life beyond traditional notions of youth, midlife and old age, and also reveal issues of intergenerational relations and changing patterns of marriage. In recent years authors have been able to link individuals within their household context, for example in the UK this has been possible since the 1991 Census of Population with the publication of household data in the Sample of Anonymised Records (SARs) (Green et al, 1999). Qualitative methods An array of qualitative methods characterises much lifecourse research. Many studies employ in-depth qualitative interviews to investigate subjective interpretations and understandings of life histories (see chapters from Bowlby, Goodwin and O’Connor, Lee, Del Bianco and Kelly in this collection). The interview may take a number of forms, such as structured, semi-structured or open-ended; with structured and some semi-structured interviews gathering interviewees’ knowledge and experience of the outside world. In contrast, in more flexible interview formats, participants in the interview are seen as agents who construct meanings ‘subjectively’ not as objectively ‘found’, a view that is associated within feminist, life history and psychosocial studies. The in-depth interview is a collaborative process, constructed through the unique interaction between the interviewer and the interviewee, and as a technique it has been subject to evaluation and critique (see Bowlby’s chapter). Qualitative interviews, including field notes and digital recordings, need to be transcribed and analysed. Researchers increasingly use qualitative software packages in combination with reading and re-reading transcripts to facilitate data analysis. While such interviews yield rich data, the analysis is not always straightforward (Valentine, 1999). Qualitative interviews are commonly undertaken with a purposive sample (or a judgemental sample), one that is selected based on the knowledge of a population and the purpose of the study. It can be very useful for situations in which a targeted sample exhibiting certain characteristics needs to be reached quickly and where sampling for

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Introduction

proportionality is not the main concern. Purposive sampling is not confined to lifecourse research but is used to select participants to explore issues such as personal and household biographies. It often forms part of a mixed methods approach. Indicative of such an approach are studies of the location and mobility decisions of heterosexual dual-career households in the UK by Hardill and colleagues (Hardill, Green and Dudleston, 1997). There they worked through contacts with employers representing different economic sectors who helped the team identify approximately 140 dual-career households, who then responded to a semi-structured self-completion questionnaire survey. A subset (purposive sample) of 30 households was selected for in-depth interviews, both partners were interviewed together and then separately to gain insights into household decision making relating to career prioritisation. Some social scientists engage with phenomenology to explore deeper personal meanings. This approach is important to acknowledge for its capacities to reveal insights, and to interpret and challenge preconceived notions of human experience over the lifecourse. A key example bringing to light structures of consciousness and the meanings of places is the pioneering study of Graham Rowles (1978) who worked for a sustained period of time with five older men and women in a single neighbourhood. The method seeks to reveal the first person point of view, the significance of objects, events, of the self and others, and the flow of time in and over life. As an approach this project required suspending the researcher’s potential pre-judgements and stereotypes, following the subjects’ conversational leads, sensitivity to their capabilities and preferences, considering daily and longer time frames, and engagement in their varied and multiple spaces. Some social scientists reflect on their personal experiences of the lifecourse and those in their own families or of people with whom they have close associations. British geographer Linda McDowell (2013a, 2013b) used personal reflections to explore generational changes in mobility, work and familial lives both within their own settings and cross culturally. A growing number of studies engage with participatory (action) research, which refers to a variety of research practices that involve collaborative research, education and action that is oriented towards social change (Kindon et al, 2008). This method takes lived experience as a starting point with approaches that aim to lessen hierarchies between researchers, facilitators and participants, and to generate accurate and reliable data using ethical and inclusive approaches. It has been used in both the global north and south, and with diverse age groups, especially with children and young people. It often employs

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Researching the lifecourse

contemporary technologies, such as community radio and TV, popular theatre, public or community art, small format video, disposable cameras, internet, information and communication technologies (ICTs), and auto-photography. Video is increasingly used to raise awareness of social difference or inequality for public education and advocacy. Although children may participate in collaborative and creative ways, they are not always involved in designing the research, choosing what methods to use, or in the analysis or dissemination that might result from it so that there is often participation in research rather than participatory research per se. While this work is valuable it may not result in longer term or deeper changes that might be needed if children’s power and influence are to be increased in decisions that ultimately affect their lives. Mixing methods For a number of years lifecourse researchers have combined the collection and analysis of quantitative and qualitative data, bringing together census data or large scale surveys with qualitative data derived from surveys conducted by the research team, and sometimes by multidisciplinary teams. The central premise of combining methods in a single study or series of studies is that together they provide a better understanding of research problems than either approach alone. The burgeoning research with children and youth has perhaps been the most experimental in mixing methods. Groups of young people are engaged, for example, with visual methods such as creating videos, photographing their environments, and/or making drawings and in activities such as local walks or games. These may then be combined with semi-structured interviews as illustrated by Worth’s (2009a, 2011) study of transitions to adulthood that combined narrative interviews, audio diaries and a participatory life mapping tool to capture the complexity of young people’s experiences. Many examples of the use of these creative and experiential methods are reported in the journal Children’s Geographies (for example, see Kesby, 2007). In identifying this range of mixed methods, we note that geospatial technologies have not been widely used in lifecourse studies, although see Schmidt-Thomé’s work in Chapter Nine of this collection. Ethics and positionality Recurring themes in methodological discussions in the lifecourse literature, especially that on children and those working with

10

Introduction

vulnerable older adults, are ethical and political aspects of research. The complexities of these concerns are especially, but not only raised, in relation to ethical guidelines and clearance issues, including the ability to give informed consent, to personal relations among researchers and those being studied, to aspects of power relations when the research involves engagement with couples or groups, not only between a researcher and an individual participant. Protocols in the researcher’s home institution, for example, may not mesh with those in a host community, especially where research occurs in a foreign cultural setting, and may involve multiple layers of review. Beyond such official requirements, however, are ethical and political concerns that arise when members of a group have differential power. These may involve what are parental rights between adult researchers and young subjects, how an adult researcher establishes rapport in engaging with youth or children (Barker and Weller, 2003), or how gender and personal relations impact in group interviews or collaborative creative projects. The issues are further complicated if the research is being conducted in different cultural settings, for example in the global south, by northern researchers, where language differences and cultural expectations (for example, in relation to local hierarchies or questions of payment for participation) may arise (Sultana, 2007). Another ethical consideration involves how we design research to recognise diversity in the lifecourse. For example, there is a common assumption in the literature that ‘families’ are composed of heterosexual couples, of a married couple, a husband and wife (possibly with children). But family arrangements today are changing – they are diverse, fluid and unresolved, with a broad range of gender and kinship relations in the postmodern family (Weeks et al, 2001). There is now a greater choice of lifestyle: to live alone, with a partner (of the same or other sex) or with other individuals; to stay single or marry; to remain in or terminate relationships and subsequently divorce/marry/cohabit; to forgo/postpone childbearing or to have children within/outside marriage or other consensual unions. In settings where diseases such as HIV/AIDS have disrupted families, researchers are finding particular challenges, while those working with older adults find that adults often live alone following bereavement. Though greater choice may exist, living together remains a conjugal norm and the heterosexual household remains the most common form in many lifecourses. Finally, other examples that have been raised are whether and how ‘insiders’ or ‘outsiders’ should be engaged in interpretation or presentations (Ergun and Erdemir, 2010; Mullings, 1999). This is especially the case when the methods include participatory action in

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Researching the lifecourse

projects that aim not only to generate academic research but to bring about social change that crosses boundaries between subjects and practitioners in social or political community agencies. Joint interviews can reveal shared realities, and household dynamics, while separate interviews offer participants greater freedom to express individual views by allowing them privacy, but they can disrupt collective memory or understanding of events (Valentine, 1999). There is also a danger that interviewees tell us what they think we want to hear or hold back information for various reasons (see Bowlby, Chapter Eight). Finally, some participants are ‘harder to reach’ than others, for example, because they lack confidence, or because of age. Such a dilemma was faced by Sophie Bowlby (Chapter Eight) in her study of women in midlife. In the mixed age neighbourhoods that formed her fieldwork sites, groups of older or younger women were much more visible than middle-aged women.

Time, space and mobilities: the organisation of the chapters The following chapters examine the unique value of exploring lived experience from a lifecourse perspective. The chapters encompass ideas and observations from an array of social science disciplines, and direct attention to the powerful connection between individual lives and the historical and socioeconomic context in which these lives unfold. The collection includes research on Canada, the United States, Finland, Denmark, Sweden, Spain, France, the UK, Korea, New Zealand and the Palestinian territories. This breadth demonstrates the international interest in the concept of lifecourse as a powerful organising tool for research in the social sciences. The major contribution of this collection is its consideration of epistemological questions of lifecourse research across the research themes of time, space and mobilities. Using these themes, the chapters consider how different sources of knowledge – archival, statistical, visual, narrative, observational, and so on – influence our insights on the lifecourse, and in some cases multiple forms of knowledge are used in combination. Moreover, some authors employ a range of methods – quantitative and qualitative – combining the two traditions, mixing methods. Each chapter introduces its aims, discussing a case study project and its research design, including how problems were addressed. The practicalities of lifecourse research are also included, from data collection through to analysis, considering how we develop knowledge claims. The goal of each chapter, and of the collection as a whole, is to critically reflect on how method and

12

Introduction

methodology are implicated in our thinking on the lifecourse – why the method matters. Chapters conclude by reflecting on the implications of method for their particular research area. We have chosen a conceptual approach to organise the collection to highlight how important foci of lifecourse research can be researched in diverse ways. The collection is organised around three research themes: 1) time, 2) space and place, 3) mobilities. Therefore, rather than simply an account of a particular method, the chapters are reflexive examinations of lifecourse research, connecting discussions of theory and practice by situating detailed discussions of methodology and research design within relevant conceptual frameworks. Given this organisation, the reader can approach the text in a variety of ways: conceptually, for example, by engaging with a set of chapters on migration and mobility; methodologically, reading about qualitative or quantitative approaches; or epistemologically, thinking through the subtleties of research and how our questions and methods shape our findings. Time Time and temporality are critical to lifecourse research (Mills, 2000). Mills argues that time is often thought of as a way of structuring the lifecourse, including historical, biological and chronological understandings of time. Elder (1994) contends that the ‘timing of lives’ is an asset of lifecourse research – whether life events such as marriage or first job happen comparatively ‘early’ or ‘late’, as well as the relative impact of major events, like a period of economic austerity. Yet time can also be thought of subjectively, the idea of ‘lived time’, where we feel time flow faster or slower, or a sense of time in one’s life by thinking about the past, present and future – connecting memory, to current experiences and expectations for the future (Adam, 1994; Ansell et al, 2014; Biggs, 1999). This is a social-constructionist approach, thinking about the personal experience of time (Holstein and Gubrium, 2000). The chapters highlight the multiple ways that temporality intercedes in the lifecourse – from the chronological, including the intricacies of collecting data over time, returning to a data set after a significant amount of time has passed, charting key events year by year, to the personal, where memory and selective narrations of history emphasise important life transitions and experiences (for a fuller account see Neale, Chapter Two). Therefore, rather than simply assuming time is a stable force in lifecourse research, of days, months, and years,

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Researching the lifecourse

researchers are now thinking about how time and temporality take an active role in the lifecourse. In Chapter Two Bren Neale discusses the possibilities offered by qualitative longitudinal research for engaging critically with temporality. Moreover, besides an interest in capturing the lifecourse as the flow of lives, she also examines how lives ‘flow through time’, using the work of Adam (1994) to consider fixed and fluid constructions of time. The feature of this chapter is the way it takes complex ideas of temporality and translates them into different research approaches with clarity. Neale uses the metaphor of taking ‘slices of time’ to illustrate how lifecourse research can engage with different dimensions of time, including: 1) past-present-future; 2) micro-meso-macro; 3) intensive-extensive; 4) continuities-discontinuities; and 5) timespace. Rose Lindsay, Elizabeth Metcalfe and Ros Edwards continue with the focus on longitudinal data but from a mixed qualitative–quantitative perspective, working with narratives from the UK Mass Observation Archives and large scale panel survey data (Chapter Three). Mass Observation (MO) was established in 1937, using a team of observers and a panel of volunteer writers to study the lives of ordinary people in the UK (Hubble, 2005). The aim of MO was to enable the masses speak for themselves, to make their voices heard above the din (Hinton, 2013, 3). Lindsay et al’s work centres on the value of a mixed methods approach, where gaps in one method are covered by another. The value of their chapter lies in their discussion of the questions and complications that arise when working with data sets that do not quite fit. Rather than try and precisely compare intensive qualitative data and extensive quantitative data, they outline an approach of complementarity, where different kinds of data (using different conceptions of time) could productively ‘talk’ to each other. In Chapter Four, John Goodwin and Henrietta O’Connor revisit Norbert Elias’s lost Adjustment of Young Workers to Work Situations and Adult Roles (1962–64) (see also Goodwin and O’Connor, 2006). Their chapter evaluates the process of revisiting a forgotten research project and turning it into a restudy, tracing young workers after 50 years to see what has happened to them after significant deindustrialisation and considerable labour market change in the locality. Goodwin and O’Connor begin with an appeal to lifecourse researchers to reconsider the value of ‘legacy studies’, arguing that classic research offers a productive ‘starting point’ for contemporary research on the lifecourse. The chapter focuses on how the restudy was done – including ethically sensitive issues around contacting participants from the original study and sharing the first data set with redacted interviewer notes. In the

14

Introduction

final chapter in this first part, Ann Del Bianco details the ‘lifegrid’ method, thinking through how research records time and memory in an individual lifecourse (Chapter Five). A lifegrid is a chart that details experiences year by year, blending key moments in the lifecourse – both personal trajectories/transitions and external historical events – with specific research questions to gain a holistic picture of a participant’s lifecourse over time. Making links to important personal or historical events can engage ‘flashbulb memories’ (Berney and Blane, 1997), where participants can recall precise details about particular days in their past, allowing retrospective research to be both comprehensive and sensitive. Space and place The second part of the book, space and place, highlights the importance of context in lifecourse research. Rather than biological considerations of lifespan, or medical studies of age and ageing, the concept of lifecourse in the social sciences is concerned with understanding meaning in individual lives and how they are connected to processes of social change. One important way of thinking this through is to consider space not just as a container for life experiences, but as an active producer – considering what Doreen Massey (2005) calls ‘the life in space’. For a growing number of lifecourse researchers, thinking about how the lifecourse is embedded within space, or examining connections to specific places, adds depth to research (Katz and Monk, 1993). Moreover, Bailey (2009) argues that space and the ‘spatial contingency’ of the lifecourse, offers an important analytical lens. This emerges in research on work–life balance across the lifecourse, where work is examined in multiple sites, including the home (Moen, 2010). Larger spaces, including the pace and scale of city, can be imbricated in the lifecourse, with Jarvis’ (2005) research on London life arguing that the city itself become a force in people’s lives. For many lifecourse researchers, the spatial contingencies of everyday life (home, school, work, the street) are a way of situating or contextualising personal and social experience; moreover, understanding how we gain meaning in our lives from particular places adds depth to lifecourse research. In Chapter Six, Bisola Falola uses ‘life-geohistories’ to explore everyday spaces with young people, adding nuance to research on lifecourse transitions. Her method combines life history interviews with participatory mapping techniques as well as walking tours (go-along interviews). This approach reveals how everyday places are implicitly significant in shaping transitions to adulthood and the

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Researching the lifecourse

experience of growing up. The knowledge generated by this method is rich, as the research process encourages young people to reflect on multiple dimensions of place while being immersed in places they are familiar with. In Chapter Seven, Bree Akesson examines the value of mapmaking for research with young children affected by political violence in the occupied Palestinian territories. She carefully reflects on the process of mapmaking as a way of empowering children’s agency, validating their own knowledge about where they live, using an approach that they feel comfortable with. Importantly, she underlines the value and ethical responsibility of including young participants in the analysis of the visual data, where maps facilitate opportunities for discussion. In Chapter Eight, Sophie Bowlby outlines her research on women’s personal communities in midlife, investigating how participants ‘kept in touch’ in both real and virtual spaces. The research connects lifecourse trajectories to friendship networks through in-depth interviews and a visual schematic of each participant’s close ties. A particular strength of the chapter is its reflection on how the interviewer is implicated in the research by being more or less empathetic to participants – exposing the fallacy of the researcher as a neutral recorder of data. Using the work of Bondi (2004), Bowlby argues that it is important to pay attention to our own reactions in a research encounter, as well the impact of listening to participants’ (sometimes painful) stories. In the final chapter in this section, Kaisa Schmidt-Thomé discusses the use of ‘geobiographies’ and softGIS for lifecourse research, working at the spatial scale of the body to think through how we engage with embodied knowledge (Chapter Nine). Her aim is to move beyond methods that simply capture the verbal, drawing on the work of Karjalainen (2003) to think through how ‘meaningful events are spatially constituted’. She connects life stories and geodata together using walking interviews (cf Falola above), triangulating her participants’ experiences of everyday outdoor places with a method that emphasises the physical experience of being in a place. Mobilities The final part of the book considers lifecourse research that captures experiences of mobility and migration. In particular, family migration research is a growing interest in the social sciences, with many projects taking an explicitly lifecourse approach (Geist and McMacus, 2008; Kulu and Milewski, 2007). Moving, whether across town or migrating internationally, often connects to a period of lifecourse transition.

16

Introduction

Moreover, lifecourse researchers have been interested in how lifecourse position – childhood, adulthood, older age – influences the experience of migration, with children travelling with parents, or young people moving away from home to attend school, or older people moving in retirement (Mortimer and Shanahan, 2004). Besides age at migration, there is growing recognition of other intersecting social categories of difference in lifecourse migration research, including sexuality (Lewis, 2014), ethnicity (Finney, 2011), social class (Kynsilehto, 2011) and gender (McDowell, 2013a, 2013b). Recently, researchers have also begun to consider the impact of immobility on the lifecourse, with diverse research interested in bodily stillness during long commutes (Bissell, 2014), to waiting to hear about asylum claims (Conlon, 2011). The chapters in this final section examine how mobility connects to work, leisure, family and belonging across the lifecourse. In Chapter Ten, Jane Yeonjae Lee presents narratives of ‘1.5 generation’ Korean New Zealanders. Lee’s work combines narrative interviews, analysis of participant’s personal web pages and blogs, and her own research notes from participant observation at shared social events. Besides considering how migration disrupts and also creates new possibilities for ‘home’ over the lifecourse, her work also considers the possibilities and ethical challenges of being an insider in the research process. The chapter discusses how the project evolved into a transnational ethnography, moving beyond sites of migration to consider lifecourse data in its ‘fullest context’. The concept of positionality is further examined by Anne Leonora Blaakilde (Chapter Eleven), who details an ethnographic method for researching migration at the end of the lifecourse. Her work aims to grasp the emotional context – and sometimes awkward confusion of the research process – using thick description to give a rounded account of one man’s migration in retirement. Following Marks (2002), Blaakilde works within a ‘haptic epistemology’, valuing data from all the senses to develop a research process of embodied interaction where the research process is one of co-construction. The depth of this approach is somewhat unusual for lifecourse research on migration, and highlights the possibilities of engaging with a wide understanding of what kind of knowledge matters. Moving outwards in scale from the sensing body, in Chapter Twelve, Françoise Dureau, Matthieu Giroud and Christophe Imbert use a quantitative event history approach to understand both residential and daily mobility in France, moving beyond an often segmented approach to spatial mobility. Their hybrid approach captures ‘multilocal’ data across the lifecourse through the concept of ‘life-space

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Researching the lifecourse

trajectories’. Dureau et al’s work illustrates the usefulness of typologies for understanding different forms of mobility and multi-residence, allowing large and complex datasets to be productively organised to better understand both local housing markets and participants’ often circular mobility over time. Finally, Mellissa Kelly presents an intersectional mixed methods approach for understanding onward migration decisions in Chapter Thirteen. Her research design is concerned with highly skilled migrants’ positions as both individual and social, collecting biographical interview data and using descriptive statistics around education, employment and housing to compare the situations of onward migrants and those who stayed. Kelly’s work aims to move beyond a split between macro (push and pull factors) and micro (individual decisions) scales to encompass both structural and agential factors in migration decisions over the lifecourse. Note 1

www.newdynamics.group.shef.ac.uk/

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Part I Time

TWO

Time and the lifecourse: perspectives from qualitative longitudinal research Bren Neale

Introduction1 For groups, as well as for individuals, life itself means to separate and to be re-united, to change form and condition, to die and to be reborn. It is to act and to cease, to wait and rest, and then to begin acting again but in a different way. And there are always new thresholds to cross… (van Gennep, 1960 [1909], p 189) This quotation from an early ‘armchair’ anthropologist reflects much of what is compelling about the study of the lifecourse – conceptualised here as the flow of lives through time. Writing in the first decade of the 20th century, van Gennep was one of the first scholars to use the organising principle of the lifecourse to make sense of social practices and processes. He sought to understand how the biological processes of ageing – from birth to death – intersect with the biographical unfolding of lives – from cradle to grave. The study of individual biographies, or life journeys, is a central component of lifecourse research (Chamberlayne et al, 2000). The focus may be on the dynamics of specific ‘phases’ of the lifecourse (for example, youth, older life); transitions between these phases, or from one status or circumstance to another (for example, into and out of schooling, parenthood, employment, poverty, ill health or crime); or the mechanisms which trigger turning points or transitions. Longer term trajectories are no less important: for example, the age trajectory through childhood and adulthood into later life; the family trajectory through partnering and parenting into grandparenting; or the work trajectory through education and un/employment into retirement. The intertwining of these varied trajectories and how they influence each other is a key

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site for investigation. It is through the long sweep of a life over decades that macro-historical processes come more clearly into focus, and the cumulative influence of earlier life patterns on later life chances and experiences can be more fully investigated and understood. While individual biography is integral to lifecourse research, so too is a concern with how lives unfold collectively (interactively, relationally), and how individual and collective lives shape and, in turn, are shaped by wider historical, structural, spatial and geo-political processes. How lifecourse research is approached depends on how these domains of experience are understood, and the relative priority accorded to them. Conceptualising the lifecourse in terms of the flow of lives brings to the fore another of its key features – it is essentially a temporal process. That it involves studying lives over time (Elder and Giele, 2009) seems, at first glance, to be self evident and straightforward, a matter of creating a moving picture that charts changes and reveals what happens next. Yet trajectories, transitions and turning points do not necessarily unfold in chronological order, in a linear direction or at a uniform pace. Discerning how time is implicated in the unfolding of lives is a challenge when much existing lifecourse research is empirically driven and under theorised (Reiter et al, 2011). The complexities of biography, collective biography, history and time alluded to above have implications for researching the lifecourse. Longitudinal surveys began to develop initially in the US and the UK during the latter decades of the 20th century. Such studies are quantitatively driven, yielding social trend data from large scale, national samples. These are followed up at regular intervals, turning a ‘snapshot’ of social life into a ‘movie’ (Berthoud and Gershuny, 2000). Qualitative longitudinal (QL) research, with its roots in oral history, anthropology, ethnography and community studies, has a longer history. Defined as qualitative enquiry that is conducted through or in relation to time, QL research uses in-depth, situated enquiry, and a combination of thematic, case history and temporal analysis to discern how lives unfold. Designs are flexible and creative. Time can be built in prospectively, retrospectively, or through a combination of the two. Tracking may occur intensively, following samples through particular transitions or policy interventions, or extensively, to chart changes across the decades (Neale, forthcoming). In this chapter, ways of conceptualising the lifecourse from a QL research perspective are outlined. The chapter concludes with an exploration of the flows of time in human experience, and suggests ways to ‘slice’ time in order to enrich lifecourse research.

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The flow of lives… The lifecourse is a central organising principle of longitudinal enquiry, both qualitative and quantitative. The focus is on the unfolding lives of individuals and groups, of different ages, generations, statuses and dependencies; their positions in the life span and their life chances and experiences, relative to others; and the dynamics of these processes through biographical and historical time. The lifecourse can be investigated in a variety of ways, creating a diverse and amorphous field of study, but two approaches are outlined here. Theoretical approaches In the first, the lifecourse is defined in macrodynamic terms as a socially defined and institutionally regulated sequence of transitions which are re-enforced by normative expectations (Heinz, 2009b). Life is seen to unfold as a predictable passage through a number of fixed, developmental stages relating to the institutions of family, schooling, employment and so on: There is a central life cycle theme … that underlies much of this research. … [using] panel data to show directly how people move from stage to stage. … The standard lifecourse progressions are the regular and expected events of anyone’s life. … We expect to marry and have children at a certain age, to retire from our jobs at another. … It is possible to show whether members of the sample move along the expected trajectory from year to year. … Particular expected events, and unexpected ones (eg. divorce, unemployment), their incidence at particular ages, their prevalence across the population … constitute the individual life chances of a given state of society. (Berthoud and Gershuny, 2000, p 230) Berthoud suggests eight life stages, ranging from dependent child to old/infirm. This is one among many models of lifecourse development, or of particular ‘stages’ within it (for example, the model of childhood development posited by Piaget). Researchers vary in the degree to which they present these as prescriptive models, and Berthoud avoids being overly deterministic. Nevertheless, such models are assumed to represent widespread patterns of behaviour and, in the process, they acquire the status of normative benchmarks against which to measure the actuality of people’s lives. In such accounts, the lifecourse is assumed

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to have a universal linearity and a seeming objectivity that places it outside and ‘above’ those whose lives are under study. An alternative, microdynamic approach starts from the premise that the lifecourse is socially constructed through lived experiences and subjectivities, and the agency and social interactions of individuals and groups. While recognising the structural constraints within which all lives unfold, this approach foregrounds the subjective framing and crafting of life journeys across time and place. Social constructionists, from van Gennep onwards, have reflected this fluidity in their research. For Harris (1987, pp  27–8) the lifecourse is ‘the negotiation of a passage through an unpredictably changing environment’; while, for Holstein and Gubrium: [T]he lifecourse does not simply unfold before and around us; rather we actively organise the flow, pattern and direction of experience … as we navigate the social terrain of our everyday lives. … The meaning of our existence is artfully constructed, constantly emerging, yet circumstantially shaped. … The construction of the lifecourse is always ineluctably local. … Individuals never yield authorship of realities to deterministic structural imperatives. (2000, pp 182–4, p 210, p 32) This more malleable, constructionist approach has been reinforced through historical evidence that challenges standardised models of development: childhood and old age, for example, are relatively recent historical categories, emerging in response to wider demographic and structural changes in Western societies. In contemporary life, too, generational categories (from infancy to deep old age) are fluid and shifting as people cross generational boundaries, and as lifecourse categories expand or contract. As Hockey and James observe, ‘We have to account for changes in the shape of the lifecourse itself: it is not only individuals who change but the categories that they inhabit’ (2003, p 57). That there is nothing fixed about the way the life span is conceptualised or categorised is also reinforced in cross cultural perspective. While the life span is recognised in all societies, age and generational categories are culturally defined and constructed (Holstein and Gubrium, 2000). Similarly, social ageing is perceived in varied ways, for example, as an ‘upward’ journey to venerable status, or a ‘downward’ journey to senility (Hockey and James, 2003).

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Methodological approaches Methods for studying the lifecourse reflect and reinforce the distinctions outlined above. Heinz (2009a, p 422) suggests there are two contrasting methodologies: ‘top down’, from social structure to individual agency, and ‘bottom up’, from social action to larger social structures. The ‘top down’ approach is a defining feature of large scale longitudinal survey and panel studies. Such studies have significant value in charting broad social trends across extensive segments of the population and with considerable historical reach (given sustained funding). Through structured questions that are repeated at regular intervals, they measure what changes, for whom, the extent and direction of change, where changes occur and over what time periods. Much of the focus is on the spells of time that individuals spend in particular states. To return to Berthoud’s ‘movie’ metaphor, such studies create an epic movie, a broad ‘surface’ picture of change over the generations, generated from big ‘thin’ data (Neale and Flowerdew, 2003, emphasis added). This broad canvas is highly valuable, but also entails limitations: ‘much … lifecourse analysis does not analyse lives but presents the statistical histories of cohorts’ (Neugarten, quoted in Heinz, 2009b, p  476). The flat, ‘surface’ picture allows for an understanding of correlations between lifecourse factors, for example, between family and educational or poverty trajectories, but correlations cannot be used to infer causality. For those working with large scale, ‘thin’ data, evidence on the factors that shape lifecourse trajectories and the mechanisms through which change occurs is acknowledged to be fragile, indicating the inherent complexities of unravelling interactions between individual and structural factors (Such and Walker, 2002, p 190). Discerning these patterns requires a finer, qualitative lens, operating in particular contexts of change. This ‘bottom up’ approach, a defining feature of QL research, focuses on the intricacies of change and continuity in localised settings, the factors that trigger change, the processes by which change occurs, and the creativity of individuals in shaping or accommodating to these processes. Like all qualitative research, QL research is concerned with human subjectivity: the meanings that events, circumstances and social processes have for those who experience them, captured primarily through reflexive narratives of the self. It is also centrally concerned with human agency – the capacity to act, to interact, to make choices, to influence the shape of one’s own life and the lives of others. Agency is a dynamic concept, embodying action, process, change, continuity and endurance, and bringing subjective understandings of causality to the fore. This, then,

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is the up close and personal movie, following the twists and turns in the individual story lines, exploring the interior logic of lives to discern how change is created, lived and experienced (Neale and Flowerdew, 2003, emphasis added). The capacity to discern the mechanisms that shape lifecourse trajectories, and the causes and consequences of change in particular contexts, gives this mode of research significant explanatory power. While the large studies may reveal the wholesale movement of populations from points A to B, the ‘thick’ dynamic data generated through QL research reveals the triggers for such journeys, why they are undertaken, and their varied nature along the way. Giele (2009, p 236) makes a similar point: while ‘demographic surveys show the magnitude and distribution of migration in entire populations … only individual or family histories can reveal why one individual moves and another stays put’. The in-depth, situated nature of QL enquiry is integral to its strength, but can be seen as a limitation in a scientific tradition that values ‘hard’ statistical evidence. It is the large scale panel and cohort studies that have become established as the ‘gold standard’ research method, the ‘backbone’ of lifecourse enquiry (Elder and Giele, 2009). In 2003 Heinz noted that quantitative studies had made impressive progress in exploring the shape of life trajectories through the use of event history and sequence-pattern analysis. However: Qualitative life history or biography research seems to have made comparatively less visible progress. Though it has been recognised as an important complement to life event and trajectory studies … it has yet to become a steady companion and resides at the margins of mainstream lifecourse research. (Heinz, 2003, p 75) This tendency to view QL studies as somewhat peripheral, of use only to augment the large scale panel studies, is notably persistent: The field of lifecourse studies has matured. There appears to be more consensus on methods of data collection and on analytical strategies … Longitudinal survey research and panel studies are the principal way to chart changes in the lifecourse over time, with other methods, such as … ethnographic observation … as important supplements (Elder and Giele, 2009, pp vii–viii)

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Part of the reason for this perception, perhaps, is that these two research paradigms have developed as parallel fields of enquiry, with little cross referencing between the two (albeit their complementarity has never been in doubt). Bridging the gap The need to bridge this gap between microdynamic and macrodynamic approaches has long been recognised: We cannot hope to understand society unless we have a prior understanding of the relationship between biography and history … [the task is to] continually work out and revise your views on … the problems of social structure in which biography and history intersect (Mills, 1959, p 225) While Mills had little to say about how this relationship could be investigated, researchers had already begun to explore the connections via the ‘meso’ domain of experience. Here collectives of individuals, in communities, families, organisations and generational cohorts, provide a bridge between individual and structural processes (cf. the concept of ‘linked lives’ (Elder and Giele, 2009) and Settersten and Gannon’s (2009) model of ‘agency within structure’).QL researchers have a long history of working in this tradition, following collectives of individuals over time who share particular life circumstances and/or whose fortunes are shaped by a common passage through a changing historical landscape. In a rich variety of ways, these studies bring collective biography and historical processes into a common framework. Examples include Jahoda et al’s classic study of the effects of long-term unemployment in Marienthal (1972 [1932]) and Pollard and Filer’s study of the educational trajectories of primary school children (1999). Prospectively tracking or retrospectively sampling across generations are important strategies for linking individual lives with wider historical processes. Shah and Priestley’s (2011) study of three generations of disabled people revealed very different experiences of growing up through a shifting landscape of disability policies over many decades of change. Similarly, Giele (2009) uses retrospective methods to chart the changing environments shaping the career trajectories of three generations of high achieving women. If bridging the conceptual gap between structural and experiential understandings of the lifecourse is a challenge, so too is bridging the

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methodological gap between large and small scale studies. Here too, some progress is being made. QL research has traditionally been equated with in-depth, small scale studies, the product of individual or small team scholarship. But recent developments have seen a ‘scaling up’ of QL research in ways that can enhance the evidence base and combine depth with breadth of data and analysis. Qualitative panel studies (QPSs) are one example.2 These studies engage with larger and more widespread samples, over longer timespans (for example, Burton et al’s (2009) large scale longitudinal ethnography). In-depth QL studies need not necessarily be ‘small scale’ in terms of sample size, geographical coverage or historical reach. This scaling up process produces a new kind of movie, intimate epics that are grounded in ‘big’ rich data and evidence, yet, crucially, retain their depth and explanatory power. Parallel developments and shifts are also evident in the macro field of research. Medium scale community based panel surveys are developing (for example, Born in Bradford) that are no longer driven by the search for elusive, nationally representative samples (Rothman et al, 2013). Mixed longitudinal methodologies are being refined (Giele and Elder, 1998; Heinz, 2003; Cohler and Hostetler, 2004), while QPSs are increasingly designed to run alongside large surveys or form a nested sample within. The conceptual and methodological advances outlined above are relatively new developments but, taken together, they suggest the rise of a new methodological infrastructure within which lifecourse research can advance and flourish.

…through time While lifecourse research is centrally concerned with the flow of lives, the temporal dimensions of the enterprise, how lives flow through time, have been neglected. Engaging with temporal theory, however, is clearly important, for how the lifecourse is perceived depends, in large measure, on how time itself is perceived: To study the experience of duration, the estimation of an interval ... or the timing, sequence and co-ordination of behaviour, is to define time as duration, interval, passage, horizon, sequencing and timing. The conceptualisation is in turn imposed on the studies. .. Time does not ‘emerge’ from these studies but is predefined in the very aspects that are being studied. (Adam, 1990, p 94)

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Western notions of the ageing process are based on fundamental assumptions about chronology. We organise our temporal perceptions by connecting the past to the present, and this to the future, in linear terms. … We divide and mark our days with units of time, seemingly orienting our every action to clock and calendar. Life change and a linear chronology implicate one another. Our understanding of ageing and life change is circumscribed and propelled by our view of time passing – irresistibly, irreversibly, irretrievably, inevitably. The linear, progressive lifecourse is an artefact of this chronology. (Holstein and Gubrium, 2000, pp 35–6) A powerful critique of this dominant perception of time is offered by Adam (1990). Her main arguments are summarised here. Most of our social scientific and common sense assumptions about time are reflected in clock and calendar time, which are linked to the regular pattern of the seasons and the cycles of nature. This ‘fixed’ model of time has its source in abstract, positivist, Newtonian physics and the clear cut, reductionist dualisms of Cartesian logic. Time is perceived as an invariant, chronological, linear feature of life, a quantity that is objective and measurable, with a relentless, regular and recurrent motion that is expressed numerically. Paradoxically, ‘fixed’ time has two intertwined dimensions: it is inexorably advancing and irreversible, yet recurs in repetitive cycles (in much the same way that the lifecourse itself is perceived). Past and future are separate and identical realms, held apart by the progression of the clock. Time in this formulation provides an external structure within which our lives are measured, planned, organised and regulated. In the process time becomes a resource, a commodity and a site of power and control. Under ‘clock’ time, then, lives progress and events occur ‘in time’, for time is external to them. It is a shared background, a taken for granted presence, the constant and unvarying medium through which lives are lived and events unfold. While this view of time is a recent social construction within Western industrial societies, it is pervasive and of global significance, making it difficult to think beyond or outside it. Time is so extensively embedded in the mechanics of the clock and calendar, that the clock becomes time. Yet this model has its source in outmoded forms of scientific explanation and logic. Newtonian physics has been superseded by theories of relativity, quantum physics and ecological biology. Drawing on these insights, Adam (1990) offers a powerful way to rethink and transcend clock time, turning our common sense notions of time on

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their head to consider not events in time, but time in events. In this qualitative, experiential formulation, time is not fixed but ‘fluid’, rhythmically and perpetually emerging in multi-dimensional ways in varied local contexts. Objective, constant, one-dimensional clock time gives way to a plurality of times, held in a simultaneous relationship with each other, flowing and intersecting in complex and unpredictable ways. This, for Adam, is temporality, a realm where flows of time are embedded within our day to day lives. These flows and rhythms are relative, subjectively defined and context dependent. They inhere in and emerge from our social events and practices. Rather than occurring in time, these processes constitute time. In this fluid, temporal realm, past and future are no longer separate states that progress chronologically, in a linear direction; they are processes that flow into one another. Relativity theory demonstrates that time is curved, circular rather than linear, unfolding in a recursive (self referential) loop, such that before and after lose their meaning. Since time folds back on itself, the past is no more fixed than the future. A similar transformation occurs in our social understanding of causality. In clock time, causal sequences are implied in the linear, orderly progression from past to future; cause and effect are intimately tied to this sense of chronology. However, in the fluid realm of temporality, causality is integral to the world of experience. It emerges as a subjective, ongoing and emergent process, bound up with ever recurring, and widening cycles of influence, each embodying subtle changes that cumulate slowly and almost imperceptibly as they ripple outwards. While causality can only be discerned by looking backwards, reconstructing past lives from the vantage point of the present, it no longer becomes tenable to trace outcomes back to a single, objectively defined cause. Adam (1990) shows that unpredictable, intersecting flows of time are not confined to the social world but permeate the natural and cosmic worlds. This is where our temporal awareness arises, for temporality is a law of nature, of which our social world is a part. She demonstrates that ‘fluid’ time predates clock time and is no less pervasive in social experience. It is an enduring feature of all societies, both modern and traditional. To take one example, while past and future extensions are fundamental to all cultures these find expression in highly varied ways. The Balinese calendar does not measure the passage of chronological time but marks and classifies noteworthy social and natural events (Holstein and Gubrium, 2000). Rather than indicating what date it is, this calendar indicates what kind of time it is. In many other cultures, too, people do not order events so much as name them, with little

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sense of clock based history, chronological aging, or the cumulative effects of past, present and future. As Holstein and Gubrium observe, ‘the linear lifecourse is merely one variant. … across cultures we find depictions of ageing and life change aligning with local notions of time’ (2000, p 36). In contrasting ‘fixed’ and ‘fluid’ time, Adam (1990) is careful to avoid creating another Cartesian duality. She stresses that these are not either/or formulations: both need to be taken into account as empirical realities that influence every day existence. Even so, in the broader, more fluid formulation offered by Adam, narrowly conceived clock time loses its dominance. It becomes one among many complex flows of time that make up our temporal world. The key task then becomes a holistic one: to transcend the dualities that stultify conventional investigations of time, to discern and investigate the flows and rhythms of time – social and natural, linear and cyclical, ancient and modern, quantitative and qualitative, fixed and fluid; and, crucially, to explore the webs of their intrinsic connections, how they are implicated in each other. Two decades on, some progress has been made to import these insights into social scientific thinking although, inevitably, clock time continues to dominate social research, both qualitative and quantitative. In the large scale panel studies, time is a self evident, empirical dimension of research. A moving, chronological picture of progressions from ‘stage’ to ‘stage’ emerges through the simple expedient of building calendar time in as the medium for conducting a study. Indeed, this strategy is used in all longitudinal enquiry. But QL research is also centrally concerned with flows of time. Temporality is factored into the design and development of a QL enquiry from the outset, not only (or necessarily) as a methodological strategy, the medium through which data are gathered, but as a rich theoretical construct, and a topic of enquiry that drives data generation and analysis. Time can be ‘sliced’ along a variety of dimensions to build theory and aid investigation. Five possible dimensions are outlined here. Past–present–future: the passage of time While life trajectories can be understood through fixed chronology, it is also necessary to understand the fluidity of past and future – how they are constructed and reconstructed through the ever shifting present. Past-present-future may be understood at a macro level (re-interpreting history) as well as a micro level (overwriting biographies). From a micro perspective, the past – hindsight, memory, heritage, legacies,

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reputations – can be seen as a subjective resource that plays an important role in life planning and the ongoing construction of social identities. The future, meanwhile, is a neglected field of research, yet it has the potential to reveal the seeds of change (Adam and Groves, 2007). Recursive understandings of time emerge through a combination of prospective and retrospective methods. Using life history methods and tools such as time maps, accounts of past and future time can be generated, revisited and re-envisioned at each research encounter. This is a powerful way to understand the future orientations and changing aspirations of individuals, and the opportunities and constraints that shape their life trajectories and chances. Micro–meso–macro: the magnitude of time This dimension captures the different magnitudes of biography, collective biography and history, and their complex intersections. As shown above, historical moments or the broader sweep of macrohistory can be discerned even within the confines of a time limited study, through a creative combination of prospective and retrospective methods, and through cross generational designs. As a further example, Bornat and Bytheway (2010), in their study of the Oldest Generation, combined life history and diary methods to capture the long sweep of a life lived over decades, alongside the day to day contingencies of older age. Bringing these different magnitudes of time together enriched their analysis. Intensive–extensive: the tempo of time This dimension concerns the experiential intensity of our lives: the tenor, pace, velocity and rhythms of time and the acuteness or chronicity of change. This enables a focus on the pace and speed at which events or change occur and time is perceived to pass – whether it is slowing down or speeding up. Understanding these different tempos and how they intersect is an important dimension of lifecourse research. Studies of time use, or work–life balance, for example, may distinguish between industrial time (the rigid, impersonal tempo of the clock), and family time (which is fluid, flexible, enduring and value laden), exploring how families attempt to reconcile these different tempos (Harden et al, 2012). This dimension invites us to consider continuities as well as change. The work of enduring hardship or sustaining relationships – how, in all kinds of activity, people bide their time, is equally important to our understanding of the flow of lives.

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Continuities–discontinuities: the synchronicity of time The extent to which time is perceived to be continuous or discontinuous was first raised by Aristotle (Bastian, 2014). Synchronicity may be understood in two senses. Biographically, it concerns how far individuals feel ‘in step’ or ‘out of step’ with the dominant flows of time in a society or community (Bastian, 2014). Discontinuities can arise when there is a rupture in life experiences, whether planned or welcomed, or not, for example, through migration or the entry into parenthood, unemployment or divorce. For those undergoing challenging transitions (illness, bereavement, poverty), time may seem to shrink, creating a sense of being ‘out of time’, disoriented or dislocated from the mainstream, such that the seamless flow of life from past to future is disrupted. People commonly talk of ‘taking each day as it comes’ or ‘living in the moment’. Shortened time horizons, a sense of time as fleeting or ephemeral, can make future planning impossible and multiply risks. This is the sense of liminality discerned by van Gennep. Where it persists, this has implications for people’s trajectories and life chances. This was powerfully documented by Johoda et al (1972 [1932]) in their study of long-term unemployment in Marienthal; in this context, quantitative measures of time were meaningless. Synchronicity may also be understood in terms of the timing of life events, and how these mesh across micro and macro time. For example, the age, career and family stage reached by individuals during the Great Depression in the US had a significant impact on their ability to cope with adversity (Elder and Giele, 2009). Timing, how biographical time intersects with wider historical time, is crucial to our understanding of the flow of lives. Time–space: the geographies of time This dimension concerns the intrinsic connection between time and space – or when and where – as a key mechanism to locate and contextualise experiences and events. One of the ways that time is constituted and made tangible is through its intersection with spatial markers, particularly liminal places where we meet to reflect on our lives and finitude (Bakhtin, 1981 [1938]; May and Thrift, 2001). ‘When’ and ‘where’ can be added to our understandings of ‘how’ and ‘why’ to further enrich the meaning of social processes. While time–space is pervasive in life experiences and processes, across the micro–macro spectrum it offers particular scope for the development of temporal geographies, for comparative temporal research, and for the study of borders, boundaries and spatial transitions.

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The five temporal dimensions outlined above form a provisional basis for elaborating the intricacies of time and their complex intersections. Past, present and future, for example, can be understood at different levels of magnitude – biographically or historically, in different spatial contexts, and through differential experiences of the intensity or synchronicity of time. Endless possibilities exist for further refinement and for discerning myriad connections across and beyond these dimensions. Adam (1990) reminds us that, in focusing on one dimension of time, we should not lose sight of the others; as parts of a larger whole, they are all implicated in how lives unfold.

Concluding comments The chapter has sought to rethink our conceptualisations of the lifecourse and to bring lived experiences and complex flows of time more centrally into the picture. Time is central to the task of creating a moving picture of the lifecourse; it is the lynchpin through which to understand the relationship between agency and structure, and between the social and biological dimensions of life journeys. Since these relationships are essentially dynamic, in perpetual interplay as lives unfold, it is only through time that we can begin to grasp how agency and structure, micro and macro, the personal and social, and indeed, the natural worlds are interconnected, and how they come to be transformed (Neale and Flowerdew, 2003). A focus on time in lifecourse research is crucial. But how time is understood, its nature and parameters, is no less so. Our vision will be impoverished if it is fixed solely on the clock and calendar. Re-theorising the lifecourse by importing ideas from time theorists is necessary if we are to discern time in a broader, more fluid way, and thereby, to understand how it is experientially implicated in the flow of lives. QL research is particularly suited to this enterprise, for it brings lived experiences and flows of time into a common frame of reference. Adam (1990) observes that seeing things through the lens of time quite simply changes everything. This chapter suggests that seeing things qualitatively through the lens of time produces a richness of understanding that can greatly enhance our vision of the social world. Notes The ideas presented in this chapter were developed during the ESRC funded ‘Timescapes’ programme (2007–12, www.timescapes.leeds.ac.uk ). This programme of research was designed to advance and scale up Qualitative Longitudinal research through a national network of projects concerned with the dynamics of family life.

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Time and qualitative longitudinal research I am grateful to my Timescapes colleagues for many fruitful discussions on this methodology, and to Barbara Adam, whose contributions to the programme enriched our understandings of time. The Timescapes study (see Note 1) is another example of ‘scaling up’ – bringing thematically related studies together for a synthesis of evidence and secondary analysis of datasets. 2

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Harden, J., Backett-Milburn, K., MacLean, A. and CunninghamBurley, S. (2012) ‘The ‘family work project’: Children’s and parents’ experience of working parenthood’, Families, Relationships and Societies, 1(2): 207–22. Harris, C. (1987) ‘The individual and society: A processual view’ in A. Bryman, B. Bytheway, P. Allatt and T. Keil (eds) Rethinking the life cycle, Basingstoke: Macmillan, pp 17–29. Heinz, W. (2003) ‘Combining methods in life course research: A mixed blessing?’ in W. Heinz and V. Marshall (eds) Social dynamics of the life course, New York: De Gruyter, pp 73–90. Heinz. W. (2009a) ‘Transitions: Biography and agency’ in W. Heinz, J. Huinink, and A. Weymann (eds) The life course reader: Individuals and societies across time, Frankfurt: Campus Verlag, pp 421–9. Heinz, W. (2009b) ‘Status passages as micro-level linkages in life course research’ in W. Heinz, J. Huinink, and A. Weymann (eds) The life course reader: Individuals and societies across time, Frankfurt: Campus Verlag, pp 473–86. Hockey, J. and James, A. (2003) Social identities across the life course, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Holstein, J. and Gubrium, J. (2000) Constructing the life course (2nd edn), NY: General Hall. Jahoda. M., Lazarsfeld, P. and Zeisel, H. (1972 [1932]) Marienthal: The sociography of an unemployed community, London: Tavistock. May. J. and Thrift, N. (eds) (2001) Timespace: Geographies of temporality, NY: Routledge. Mills, C. W. (1959) The sociological imagination, Oxford: OUP. Neale, B. (forthcoming) What is qualitative longitudinal research?, London: Bloomsbury International. Neale, B. and Flowerdew, J. (2003) ‘Time, textures and childhood: The contours of longitudinal qualitative research’, International Journal of Social Research Methodology: Theory and Practice [Special issue on QL research, edited by Rachel Thomson, Libby Plumridge, Janet Holland], 6(3): 189–99. Pollard, A. and Filer, A. (1999) The social world of pupil career: Strategic biographies through primary school (Vol 2 of 3), London: Cassell. Reiter, H., Rogge, B. and Schoneck, N. (2011) ‘Times of Life in Times of Change: Sociological perspectives on time and the life course’, BIOS, 24 (2): 171–4. Rothman, K., Gallacher, J. and Hatch, E. (2013) ‘Why Representativeness should be avoided’, International Journal of Epidemiology, 42: 1012–14.

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Settersten, R. and Gannon, L. (2009) ‘Structure, Agency and the Space Between: On the challenges and contradictions of a blended view of the life course’, in W. Heinz, J. Huinink, and A. Weymann (eds) The life course reader: Individuals and societies across time, Frankfurt: Campus Verlag, pp 456–72. Shah, S. and Priestley, M. (2011) Disability and social change: Private lives and public policy, Bristol: Policy Press. Such, E. and Walker, R. (2002) ‘Falling Behind? Research on transmitted deprivation’, Benefits, 10(3): 185–92. van Gennep, A. (1960 [1909]) The Rites of Passage, London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.

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THREE

Time in mixed methods longitudinal research: working across written narratives and large scale panel survey data to investigate attitudes to volunteering Rose Lindsey, Elizabeth Metcalfe and Rosalind Edwards

Introduction The aim of this chapter is to explore the methodological and analytical challenges thrown up by an ongoing study that has been reusing and combining longitudinal qualitative narrative and quantitative survey data to research individual attitudes to voluntarism between 1981 and 2012.1 This period represents a time of economic and social policy change encompassing recession and cuts to public services; followed by relative prosperity and increase in investment in public services; and then the most recent recession and accompanying austerity measures (Timmins, 2001; Glennerster, 2007; Alcock 2011; Defty, 2011; Driver, 2008). Our study is part of a general move to promote secondary data analysis in the UK, led by the major social science funding body, the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC). Secondary analysis involves the reuse of the rich infrastructure of pre-existing social survey, interview, documents, administrative and other data that have been generated by primary researchers or various agencies, and which then are made available to secondary researchers through archiving services. Our particular project reused both qualitative and quantitative longitudinal datasets following individuals participating in these panels through time, to enable us to identify changes and continuities in volunteering attitudes and behaviours as these people moved through the portion of their lifecourse under study. However, the reuse of qualitative and quantitative data, and mixing methods are not straightforward processes, and are subject to considerable debate

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about how these may be achieved, and their relative strengths and drawbacks, as we discuss in this chapter. Notably there is the knotty issue of the basis on which these methods may be ‘mixed’ together. The endeavour becomes even more complicated when the research topic is concerned with time and the various data sets are longitudinal. In turn, this raises issues about the nature of the conceptions of time that are invoked within the datasets. In considering these complex, interlinked issues, we aim to highlight and contribute to understandings of time in lifecourse research. The chapter is divided into three sections. The first considers our reuse of selected narrative and survey datasets, their relationship with time, and how we have accounted for this when engaging with them. The second examines how we have analysed the longitudinal data produced by writers and gathered from survey respondents and how we have mixed these analyses. The final section explores what we have learnt about mixing methods in a project where the data and analyses are shaped by time.

Designing our study A mixed methods study has particular strengths for research setting out to trace individual volunteering attitudes and behaviours from the early 1980s to the present day. Quantitative analysis provides an overview of individual attitudes and behaviours, but can struggle to explain why individuals hold certain views or behave in a certain way. Qualitative analysis provides depth and nuance which can explain why individuals act in a certain way, or hold particular viewpoints, but it cannot and does not claim representativeness of its findings. Our research design aimed to potentially ‘offset’ the respective weaknesses of these two analytical methodologies by taking advantage of their joint strengths to provide a ‘complete[ness]’, and ‘comprehensive’ picture (Bryman, 2008, p 91) of volunteering behaviours and attitudes to voluntarism. The methods, processes and terminologies involved in bringing mixed methods together are still being debated (for example, HesseBiber, 2010; Cameron, 2011; Leech, 2013). Of particular relevance to us in this discussion are questions concerning the basis on which qualitative and quantitative are compatible and able to be mixed. Is one a facilitator of the other or are both approaches given equal emphasis? Are they corroborative or contradictory, complementary or integral? Does one enhance, extend or develop the other, or are they on a par? And in what order should the methods be carried out, one after the other or at the same time?

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When designing this project we avoided the notion of integration, which implies an illuminative moment when consistent findings across datasets form a perfect fit and merge into one. Rather, we preferred to conceptualise the process as bringing the analyses of our quantitative and qualitative datasets into dialogue with each other while working on these analyses concurrently. We saw the datasets as complementary, contributing knowledge towards different aspects of the substantive research. We aimed for three types of mixed method dialogue: 1. across the lifetime of the project, described by Teddlie and Tashakkori (2008, p 104) as a ‘continuous feedback loop’, to enable an iterative research process; 2. some direct comparisons between qualitative and quantitative analyses where there was a fit between the data; 3. combining substantive findings so that the sum of our joint knowledge claims would be greater than our individual findings. Crucial to the success of this process of dialogue and feedback was the selection of a complementary combination of qualitative and quantitative longitudinal datasets. Qualitative and quantitative datasets used The secondary datasets that we chose to reuse – a longitudinal writing panel and cross-sectional and longitudinal panel survey data – were generated so that they could be used for a variety of different research purposes. As we describe below, given the broad potential uses of these datasets, this has affected how we were able to apply these datasets to the substantive aims of our mixed methods study. The longitudinal qualitative data that we chose to use is the Mass Observation Project (MOP),2 which we regarded as our ‘lead’ data source. Since 1981, a national panel of self-selected volunteers has written for the MOP in response to themed questions or ‘directives’ that are sent to them three times a year. Over three decades, MOP writers have been asked to discuss a range of issues relating to UK society and their personal and political attitudes, involving past memories, current experiences and future expectations. Although most MOP writers answer the questions asked of them, their narrative scripts often stray from the theme and go ‘off piste’ (in our judgement). The results can be both frustrating and deeply rewarding to the researcher. MOP writing represents a rich source of insight into the changes and continuities in people’s lives during the time in which they have written for MOP.

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It also represents a unique source of longitudinal data; yet, to date, in following individual writers across time, this is the first research project to use the MOP as a longitudinal data source, rather than a thematic cross-sectional source. On the quantitative longitudinal side, we chose two datasets to provide facilitating, contextual insights into volunteering (see Table 3.1). The first, the British Social Attitudes survey (BSAS) is a crosssectional survey conducted annually since 1983. More than 3,000 people aged 18+, who are representative of the British population are chosen at random to take part. The BSAS measures continuity and change in people’s attitudes about ‘what it is like to live in Britain and how they think Britain is run’.3 The second, the British Household Panel Survey (BHPS) was a multi-purpose panel survey that collected longitudinal information from the same 5,500 households, comprising 10,300 individuals aged 16+, between 1991 and 2008.4 It was replaced by another survey Understanding Society (US) in 2011. Over 80% of the BHPS panel continued to participate in US. Although there is some variation in the questions asked between them, when analysed together the two surveys constitute one longitudinal panel survey. The overall aim of the BHPS/US is to understand social and economic change in Britain. Thus, as Table 3.1 shows and we describe below, these three datasets complement each other, temporally and thematically. Table 3.1 Qualitative and quantitative data fit  

Longitudinal data sources

Cross-sectional data sources

 

MOP Directives

BHPS (1991 to 2008) and US (2011) questions

BSAS volunteering BSAS views questions on welfare and political responsibility

 

Wave 1: 20 older, serial responding writers

 

Wave 2: 18 younger writers, lower response rate

2,267 people who volunteered at least once between 1996 and 2011, aged between 15 and 85 in 1996

The number of people responding and their age range varied by year. Mean age category 45 to 54, mean (sd) responders in a year: 3,392.8 (711.7)  

2012

Volunteering; the Big Society

2011

 

Volunteering behaviours

Views

2010

Work; Belonging; Survey

 

Views

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Longitudinal data sources

Cross-sectional data sources

2009

 

 

Views

2008

Economic crisis

Volunteering behaviours

2007

 

 

2006

Core British Values Volunteering behaviours

Views

2005

 

 

Views

2004

Being part of research

Volunteering behaviours

Views

2003

 

 

Views

2002

 

Volunteering behaviours

Views

2001

 

 

Views

2000

 

Volunteering behaviours

1999

 

 

1998

 

Volunteering behaviours

1997

Paid work

 

1996

Unpaid work/ Volunteering

Volunteering behaviours

1995

Where you live: community

Views

1994

 

Views

1993

 

1992

 

1991

 

1990

Voluntary Orgs/ Social

Views

1989

Divisions

Views

1988

 

Volunteering behaviours

Views Views

Volunteering behaviours

Views Views

Volunteering behaviours

Views

Volunteering attitudes

Views

Views

Volunteering attitudes BHPS begins

Views

Views

1987

 

Views

1986

 

Views

1985

 

Views

1984

Relatives, friends, neighbours

Views

1983

Work

1982

 

1981

Unemployment

BSAS begins

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Views

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How the datasets fit together The three secondary datasets chosen for this study were not designed specifically for researching volunteering, but as Table 3.1 shows, all three contain questions on volunteering. When selecting these datasets we attempted to find the best temporal and thematic fit to answer our research questions. However, despite this attention to fit, temporal and thematic gaps run through and across the datasets used. The MOP contains 15 directives with themes relevant to the substantive aims of our project: volunteering, helping out informally, membership of organisations, work, unpaid work, and voluntarism and the role of the state. These specific foci meant that the directives we planned to work with were not evenly spread across the timeframe. As Table 3.1 shows, there is some temporal bunching of our selected directives. We were concerned that these gaps in time would result in us missing reports of key events and changes in individual writers’ lifecourses, their volunteering behaviour, their attitudes towards voluntarism and the state, and their experience of events such as recession, public unrest and changes to social policy. We believed, however, that these limitations were overridden by the contribution of the sampled directives to the substantive aims of the project. The 1996 directive, entitled ‘Unpaid work’, which asks writers for accounts of their volunteering behaviour and their views on the role of voluntarism in society, is key in bringing MOP data, and BSAS and BHPS sources into dialogue. In particular, the questions asked by this directive fit well with those about volunteering attitudes in the BSAS and volunteering behaviour in the BHPS, in 1996. As Table 3.1 shows, both the BHPS and the BSAS have thematic and temporal gaps in their questions on volunteering. The BHPS did not begin asking questions about volunteering until 1996, and then did so only on alternate years. Furthermore, the questions asked are not able to provide insight into the individual attitudes towards voluntarism and the welfare state that are of interest to our project. To some extent these gaps are filled by the BSAS data set providing snapshots of annual changes in attitudes and behaviour. There are two drawbacks, however. First, the BSAS survey only asked questions about volunteering behaviour in 1998, 2000, and 2008, and its questions on volunteering attitudes only began in 1993 (see Table 3.1). Second, the same respondents are not used every year, meaning it is not possible to measure longitudinal, individual change or continuity in attitudes or behaviours. Thus there are difficulties in relating the BSAS directly to either the BHPS or the MOP data.

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At the design stage we had concerns about the individual limitations of these two quantitative datasets. However, we believed that these would be mitigated by the strength of our mixed method study which would allow us to combine the breadth of an extensive quantitative perspective with the depth of intensive qualitative approach, offering original substantive and methodological insights. We discuss the value of this endeavour later in this chapter when we examine our analyses and our knowledge claims.

Using our datasets: how the design worked in practice Sampling Our sampling strategy sought to take advantage of the respective and distinct strengths of each of our selected data sets for our project’s substantive concerns. This process was not always smooth. The challenges related not just to ensuring strategic and useful sampling within each dataset, but ensuring that these choices enabled dialogue across the qualitative and quantitative data. Our primary criterion for the MOP study was writer response rates for our chosen directives. We identified individuals who had contributed to all 15 directives, then those who had responded to 14 out of 15, then 13 and so on. This yielded a cohort of 20 seriallyresponding-writers, 14 women and 6 men. The majority are now in retirement, and began writing for MOP in their mid-30s or later. While these people are not representative of the broader UK population in terms of age, gender and status (Lindsey and Bulloch, 2014), this was offset by our ability to compare them with BHPS and BSAS respondents who are representative, to identify similarities or differences between the samples; and to compare MOP respondents with those who match them in age and volunteering behaviour in the BHPS and BSAS. This first cohort of MOP writers provided older voices that could offer insights into the volunteering lives of individuals as they moved from a midpoint (or further) in their working and family lifecourse into retirement. But we were concerned that our MOP sample selection would not allow us to explore, fully, discourses around civic engagement at different stages in the lifecourse. So we decided to sample a second group of 20 writers with good response rates from a younger mixed-gender cohort who would provide voices at an earlier stage of their working and family lifecourse. The pool of writers available comprised a mix of people who had written between 1981

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and 1996, or 1996 and 2012. We also wanted to select people with a mix of occupations, as a very loose indicator of class and educational background. However, this yielded less youthful individuals than we had hoped. Most writers in our second cohort were 30 or older at the time that they started writing, leaving us with a shortage of voices of individuals in their twenties. The eventual second cohort amounted to 18 individuals, 5 men and 13 women.5 Sampling of the BSAS survey was a more straightforward process; we were able to use the entire representative sample. However, sampling of the BHPS/US was more complex. Two different sample options were possible. The first consisted of the entire sample. Unfortunately, not all of the respondents have taken part in the panel every year so we were unable to follow these individuals through time. Instead we had to take a cross-sectional approach, treating each year as a snapshot of volunteering behaviour. The second sample option was specific: people who had volunteered between 1996 and 2011. This allowed exploration of how people transition in and out of volunteering over time, and potentially some associated lifecourse events. To reduce the impact of missing responses within the dataset, we sampled individuals who had responded to the volunteering question every year between 1996 and 2011 (serial responders), and who stated that they had volunteered at least once between 1996 and 2011 (serial volunteers). This serial responding sample also had strong similarities with the MOP volunteer writers, meaning that these two sources were compatible, enabling some direct comparisons to be made between quantitative and qualitative material within this particular timeframe. By combining and comparing these secondary data, we hoped to overcome some of their individual weaknesses, and add to our substantive and methodological knowledge base. Reflections on data fit The process of sampling and fitting our reused datasets together has not been smooth or seamless. The temporal and substantive ‘messiness’ (Law, 2007) of data originally collected for a different set of research aims has presented the primary challenge to data fit. Yet, although individually messy, when used in dialogue with other data, each dataset has much to contribute to the study, offering longitudinal and substantive complementarity and comparison.

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Analysing data produced by writers and survey respondents across time In this section we move on to explore our experiences of working with the strengths and limitations of these secondary qualitative and quantitative datasets. We note how the original methods of collecting and producing the datasets shaped our data temporally, and shaped the way in which we have gone about our longitudinal analyses. This has imposed limitations on our analyses, enabling less direct comparison of the quantitative and qualitative data than we anticipated. However, the process of bringing qualitative and quantitative data together has demonstrated the methodological strengths of attempting a dialogue. Mixing methods and reusing longitudinal data has also challenged us, as researchers, to reflect on how we have engaged with time in our research project, and how we can communicate our different methodological conceptualisations of time within a mixed method research environment. Research instruments for collecting data The research instruments for our secondary data were designed by other primary researchers, and thus were not a perfect fit with our research questions. In the case of the BHPS/US and the BSAS surveys, these were structured questionnaires that were conducted verbally faceto-face, or over the telephone. In the case of the MOP, the research instruments were directives generated by the archivists or commissioned by researchers for specific research projects. These quantitative and qualitative research instruments were used consecutively across the ‘real’ timeframe of 1981 to 2012, a linear longitudinal movement visualised in Table 3.1, which we have conceptualised as ‘vertical time’. Both types of research instrument have produced responses that occur in the individuals’ ‘now’, a form of present time that immediately becomes a point in the past. The questions fielded required respondents to loop backwards and forwards through time from their ‘now’ to their past and future. As researchers, we have also had to move mentally across these timeframes in order to make sense of the responses. We have conceptualised this respondent and researcher movement as ‘horizontal time’.

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The quantitative story The designers of the BSAS questionnaire aimed to generate responses from survey participants that could be measured quantitatively and cross-sectionally. The designers of the BHPS/US questionnaire aimed to produce responses that could be measured quantitatively, longitudinally and cross-sectionally. The temporal questions that were put to survey participants were relatively uncomplicated, and when responding they moved through simple ‘horizontal time’, usually the recent past (the last year), the ‘now’, the planned future, and sometimes a vague imagined future. In this context, recall of the recent past can be flawed (Lugtig and Jäckle, 2014). When asked to describe their experiences over the previous year participants can misjudge the length of time involved without the aid of a diary or mental landmarks to guide them through the recent past. The point in the day, week and year in which the survey was conducted can influence the responses of the participant (Tumen and Zeydanli, 2013). The rapport and relationship built between participant and interviewer, variations in how interviews were conducted, and alternatives to interviews, such as telephone or by proxy when interviews were not possible, can also affect the accuracy of responses (Lynn et al, 2004). These process provisos are not immediately accessible to the secondary analysts using this type of data. In contrast, they are very evident in the MOP data, which have provided insight into their possible effects within the quantitative data. When analysing the BHPS/US longitudinal data for this study, participants’ responses provided a wealth of retrievable, representative, demographic data across a series of consecutive individual ‘nows’. However, the absence of volunteering questions prior to 1996 meant that we were only able to look at the timeframe 1996–2011, a 15-year period that represents half the portion of lifecourse being analysed in the qualitative data. To illustrate, if a BHPS serial responder, whom we will call Sarah, volunteered every year between 1985 and 1995, but stopped volunteering in 1995, we would have no knowledge of Sarah’s volunteering. Hence we would have no reason to think of Sarah as a recently-stopped serial volunteer. Instead Sarah would be perceived as a non-volunteer after 1996, and would not be considered within our 1996–2011 sample. Although we cannot directly compare Sarah with our sample of MOP writers, our MOP sample can tell us that people like Sarah exist. The individuals who comprised the longitudinal sample we used from the BHPS/US were all serial responding, serial volunteers between 1996 and 2011. They represent a cohort of individuals, of various

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ages, who have grown older as they moved through ‘real’ longitudinal time. Their experience of ageing may be unique to this chronological timeframe. Although we are able to describe their reported attitudes, behaviours, and demographic characteristics over time, we cannot be certain why any changes or continuities in their attitudes or behaviour have taken place. These may have been associated with the process of moving through the lifecourse, but equally or additionally they may have related to other influences, such as the economic, political and social policy environment of the time. In this quantitative sample, time, age, lifecourse, and external events are entangled and connected, reducing the accuracy with which we can extrapolate the experiences of this cohort to similar BHPS/US cohorts in other chronological timeframes. Again, the MOP data has been able to provide us with analyses and insights that the BHPS/US data cannot offer. For example, MOP writers have described changes in their capacity to volunteer, and related this to the complexity of their ageing experience, discussing transitions in health, mobility and energy. Individually the BHPS/US and the BSAS analyses offer limited evidence relating to voluntarism and volunteering attitudes and behaviours across, and at particular points in, time. When used in dialogue with the MOP data, the quantitative analyses offer some corroboration of and comparison with the MOP material. However, in the most part, what they offer is a different type of descriptive insight. Driven by the representative nature of the survey participants, these analyses illuminate the different dynamic demographics of those taking part in volunteering over time. The qualitative story Our longitudinal qualitative analytical approach was to treat each writer as a single entity evolving through vertical time. We conceptualised each response to a directive as a freeze frame of a lifecourse, and the combined responses of a writer as an evolving narrative of that lifecourse. In this way we sought to contextualise reported attitudes towards voluntarism and volunteering behaviours. Within this conceptual framework we anticipated that ‘the now’ would play a large part in our analyses, allowing both complementarity, and direct comparison with the BHPS/US and BSAS responses from 1993 onwards. However, the questions put to MOP writers by the directives were far more temporally intricate than those put to the survey participants. Writers were encouraged to move through a range of time states, tenses and identities, from the retrospective private or collective past, to the

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Researching the lifecourse

imagined personal or collective future. This required us, as researchers, to track the ideas and thoughts written in these different horizontal time states through the ‘real’ vertical time of each consecutive response to a directive. This complex, superfluid MOP time could not be immediately compared with the BHPS/US data, and the qualitative data required synthesising and interpretation before bringing it into dialogue with the quantitative material to provide comparison and complementarity. Writing in ‘the now’ was not always reliable. When respondents were experiencing some sort of personal rupture or transition in their lives – such as divorce, bereavement, unemployment, sharp loss of income or a health problem – this was often elided during the time in which this was taking place, even when relevant to the directive theme being discussed. These elisions may stem from the inability of narrators to make immediate sense of these events and how they fit into their ‘nows’ and constructed identities and life stories. When a rupture is finally discussed by the narrator the effect is palimpsestic. Previous ‘scripts’ are overwritten, and the new event is presented with hindsight as ‘the past’ and absorbed into the life story. This phenomenon affected our analytical approach, in that we placed increasing value on retrospective recall. However, we noted that retrospective recall also has its limitations. Some narratives can be contradictory, and occasionally writers have refocused or reframed the past when examining it through a different lens, or in the light of recent events (Neale and Flowerdew, 2003; Lindsey, 2004). We settled on an approach that combined analysis of ‘the now’ with retrospective accounts to construct vertical personal, work, volunteering and attitudinal lifecourse histories/biographies for each writer. Contextualising voluntarism, volunteering, and attitudes towards the welfare state within these lifecourses,6 we looked for continuity and change in individual writers, and differences and similarities between writers. We were able to identify various complex volunteering trajectories associated with the lifecourses of the MOP writers sampled. However, few writers actually related their personal and volunteering experiences to external events such as recession and increased unemployment. This narrative gap may be associated with the secondary nature of the data, as the research instruments do not explicitly prompt such connections. But it also raises some interesting questions about how individuals make sense of the public and the private when constructing narratives and stories about their lives. We also sought to explore the longitudinal shape of volunteering trajectories in our concurrent quantitative analyses. This process

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was hampered by the limited timeframe of the available sample (1996–2011). Although the quantitative analyses were able to offer some cautious insights into relationships between some key life events and volunteering behaviour during this time, they were not able to provide a full understanding of the relationship between the lifecourse and volunteering. Thus, when describing volunteering trajectories, the quantitative analyses could only provide evidence for two types of behaviour within the British population: episodic or continuous volunteers. However, the quantitative analyses were able to make some associations between volunteering and recession, and provide detail on who volunteers across time, a question that the MOP data was unable to answer, given the limited size of the sample. Reflections on mixed method analytical fit Reflecting and evaluating on how we have met the original aims relating to mixing our methods (at the time of writing when we are three-quarters of the way through the project), we acknowledge that our mixed method approach to our longitudinal analyses of secondary data has provided us with some challenges, but we believe that this was a worthwhile endeavour. We have been able to maintain a continuous dialogue that has allowed us to corroborate findings emerging from the analyses of the MOP data, and enabled an iterative research process. This, however, has been less successful when making direct comparisons between qualitative and quantitative analyses, and when asking the same research questions of these analyses. The limitations of these two types of data, and their analytical fit, has not lent itself to this sort of blending. Rather, both types of analytical method have made distinctive contributions towards the project and to our understanding of time, volunteering and the lifecourse.

Learning from our mixed method longitudinal secondary data analysis At the start of this chapter, we observed that undertaking mixed methods research is not a straightforward process. It becomes very complicated when we add a research topic that is concerned with time, and draw on longitudinal, secondary datasets to undertake our analyses. In this final section we reflect on what we have learnt from this complicated and rather messy process, sharing learning that might be of benefit to those conducting longitudinal mixed method studies in the future. We reflect on: our choice of research design; the analytical

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fit between our quantitative and qualitative data; and how our datasets have lent themselves to answering our substantive research questions in relation to longitudinal time and the lifecourse. Research design Reusing data that has been collected by others is often thought of as a time-saving process, cutting out the investment of resources associated with collecting primary data. But it is not without its own challenges. In this study we had to invest time and financial resources in choosing and preparing the data (particularly the qualitative data7), and weighing up how our data sources fitted together temporally and thematically. It was particularly difficult to decide which quantitative datasets we should reuse. The BHPS/US did not offer as much data relating to our substantive research questions as a cross-sectional dataset like the Citizenship Survey. However, the value of this dataset was its longitudinality, which provided a good fit with the longitudinal possibilities offered by the MOP. Both datasets allowed us to follow individuals across time, although the timeframe in the survey data was limited by the questions asked by the research instruments. The timing of our analyses also provided challenges. The aim was for the quantitative and qualitative analyses to be concurrent, so that they could be in continuous dialogue with each other and thus encourage an iterative approach. When work began, the starting points of the analyses, the ordering of the analyses and the length of time taken to draw conclusions, differed. In particular, the qualitative data preparation and analysis took longer than the quantitative work. Although we were able to share emerging themes and hypotheses, these differences in progression and timing increased the difficulty in maintaining dialogue throughout the analysis. With retrospect, a staggered start, with the quantitative analysis beginning after the qualitative, might have benefited the project. Analyses We envisioned three types of dialogue that would bring the quantitative and qualitative analyses together. These included direct comparisons of the data and analyses, a continuous iterative dialogue/feedback loop, and combining the substantive findings in order to answer complex, mixed, research questions. As anticipated, due to the nature and limitations of the different datasets being used we were not particularly successful in undertaking

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direct comparisons between our different datasets and analyses. In contrast, although we experienced difficulties relating to the timing and concurrency of our analyses, we were able to maintain a continuous iterative dialogue. Moreover, this dialogue represented the methodological heart of the project. It included discussion of the differences in our research instruments and how these affected our analyses and conceptualisation of time. We discussed and recorded emerging themes and hypotheses. We identified where the data and findings complemented, or built on each other. We questioned whether or not (in the case of our project at least), it was essential for the different datasets to be comparable directly. Perhaps most importantly, we considered how we might bring together the ideas and concepts that were emerging from the separate analyses in an iterative and ongoing fashion. At the time of writing this chapter, we are in the process of a final dialogue, bringing together our substantive findings, exploring evidence and ideas from different angles, and combining and interweaving the results of our quantitative and qualitative analyses. Time and the lifecourse A key consideration when undertaking analyses of our datasets was that we should be aware of what type of time our datasets were able to describe and measure. The aim of our mixed method longitudinal approach was to bring together three different sorts of time: • the flow of personal biographical time, connecting the lifecourse, volunteering activities and attitudes to voluntarism, in MOP writers’ narratives; • chronological time, moving from one year to the next, in the variables about social characteristics and volunteering attitudes and behaviour, repeatedly collected through the cohort studies; • contextual public/collective time, in which we were particularly interested in the historical ebbs and flows of prosperity and austerity. The way that these multiple forms of time interact and intersect (or not) was at the heart of the mixed methods effort for our research project. Unfortunately, our survey data, which is anchored in chronological time, was unable to provide us with clear evidence of the relationship between lifecourse events and volunteering. Its primary value was in providing an understanding of who was volunteering, and how their attitudes towards voluntarism have changed across calendar time. However, the survey data also offered the potential to be mapped onto

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historical/collective events and changes in social and economic policy over time, and to explore the relationship between individual changes in behaviours and attitudes and changes in national events over time. We found that individuals like our volunteer Sarah, whom we met earlier in the chapter, reduced the intensity and frequency of their formal volunteering in 2008. We might infer that this was associated with the 2008 economic crisis. In the MOP narratives, where individuals moved through biographical time, writers described the relationships between personal lifecourse events and their volunteering attitudes and behaviours. However, few writers made explicit connections between external events, the lifecourse and volunteering, requiring us to look for inferred connections and associations. We are unsure why writers did not make these connections. This negative evidence has made us reconsider the potential of a data source like the MOP for examining the influence of public, external events on individuals. We are of the view that further work on this data source is required to explore its temporal limitations when considering the relationship between the public and the private. Although we hoped that our qualitative and quantitative datasets would provide us with a multidimensional picture of volunteering behaviour and attitudes across time, each dataset was unable to provide a comprehensive picture on its own. However, when bringing our longitudinal analyses and findings together, we have been able to build up the multilayered picture that we were aiming for, demonstrating the value of a mixed method approach. The multilayered picture resulting from mixing methods has been at its strongest in providing a comprehensive and complimentary understanding of the way in which individuals move in and out of volunteering throughout the lifecourse. The proportion of people who are long-term volunteers is relatively small, amounting to less than a third of BHPS/US respondents. Crucially however, these individuals contributed over half the total amount of voluntary activity reported by BHPS/US respondents over time. We had hoped that the BHPS could provide some correlation between life course events, public events and volunteering behaviours, for example, showing a relationship between early retirement and volunteering in the economic crisis year of 2008. Unfortunately, the data was not able to provide this sort of explicit correlation. Nevertheless we did find that the contribution of BHPS long-term volunteers became less intense and less frequent in this particular year. MOP writers, who were also long-term volunteers, wrote at length about the trigger points for entering and exiting volunteering, many of which were linked to lifecourse events. Entrance

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trigger points for some individuals represented exit trigger points for others. These include events such as starting a job, children entering the education system, or a spouse taking retirement. Several mentioned their spouse taking early retirement during the economic crisis of 2008. The fact that for some writers this was a trigger for ending their volunteering, while for others it was a trigger for beginning meant that we could argue there may have been more exiting and entering into volunteering in this year than suggested by the survey data. Indeed, the recessionary effects on volunteering can be hard to evidence if relying only on one type of data source.

Conclusion The aim of this chapter was to explore the methodological and analytical challenges encountered when reusing and combining longitudinal qualitative and quantitative data to take a lifecourse approach to studying volunteering. In particular, we have reflected on the temporal aspect of this mixed methods endeavour. Our conclusion is that, at times, working through the methodological issues involved has been a messy and difficult process. An initial issue that we faced was that when working across our multiple data sets (Mass Observation narratives and cohort surveys) the temporal and substantive fit was not exact and seamless. Despite the limitations this posed for direct comparison of qualitative and quantitative data, we hope that we have conveyed that a mixed methods dialogue had the advantage of enabling us to combine the breadth of an extensive quantitative perspective with the depth of an intensive qualitative approach. We discussed the implications of the uneven fit between the different data sets for bringing them into dialogue, which became complementary rather than directly compatible. A key issue here was the different sorts of time being engaged with through the data sets: chronological time through the cohort survey data which links into public/collective time; and personal biographical time in our narrative material which could be held against, but did not establish links to, public/collective time within itself. We argue that the process of grappling with these challenges has enhanced our understanding of the value of mixing methods to examine substantive questions related to time and the lifecourse. Notes The project is funded by the Economic and Social Research Council under its first Secondary Data Analysis Initiative (SDAI), grant number ES/K003550/1. 1

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See www.massobs.org.uk/mass_observation_project.html

3

See www.natcen.ac.uk/our-research/research/british-social-attitudes/

See https://www.iser.essex.ac.uk/bhps. Northern Ireland was not included within the data collection until 2001; this reduces how representative the sample is of the UK.

4

The gender imbalance and loss of two writers from the project relate to problems in accessing metadata on individual writers held by the Mass Observation Archive (MOA). We have worked in partnership with the MOA to gain funding from the ESRC, through the SDAI2, grant number ES/L013819/, to improve the quality of its metadata. 5

This approach required an acknowledgement that we, the researchers, were exploring writers’ lifecourses through the hierarchical lens of our own subjectivities, rather than ‘walking alongside’ the writers (Neale et al, 2012). We sought to offset this by exploring some writing using different analytical methods that might allow the voices of the writers to speak without the militating effects of our researcher identities. 6

See Lindsey and Bulloch (2014) for a detailed discussion of the difficulties relating to preparing MOP material. 7

References Alcock, P. (2011) ‘Voluntary action, New Labour and the ‘third sector’ ’, in M. Hilton and J. McKay (eds) The Ages of Voluntarism: How we got to the Big Society, Oxford: British Academy and Oxford University Press, pp 158–79. Bryman, C. (2008) ‘Why do researchers integrate/mesh/blend/mix/ merge/fuse quantitative and qualitative research?’, in M. M. Bergman (ed) Advances in Mixed-Methods Research, London: Sage, pp 87–100. Cameron, R. (2011) ‘Mixed methods research: the five Ps framework’, The Electronic Journal of Business Research Methods, 9(2): 96–108. Defty, A. (2011) ‘The Conservatives, social policy and public opinion’, in H. Bochel (ed) The Conservative Party and Social Policy, Bristol: The Policy Press, pp 61–76. Driver, S. (2008) ‘New Labour and Social Policy’, in M. Beech and S. Lee (eds) Ten Years of New Labour, Basingstoke: Palgrave MacMillan, pp 50–67. Glennerster, H. (2007) British Social Policy: 1945 to the Present (3rd ed), Oxford: Blackwell.

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Hesse-Biber, S. N. (2010) Mixed Methods Research: Merging Theory with Practice, New York, NY: Guilford Press. Law, J. (2007) ‘Making a mess with method’, in W. Outhwaite and S.  P. Turner (eds) The Sage Handbook of Social Science Methodology, London: Sage, pp 595–606. Leech, N. (2013) Mixed methods research, Oxford Bibliographies Online: http://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/view/document/ obo-9780199756810/obo-9780199756810-0074.xml Lindsey, R. (2004) ‘Remembering Vukovar, forgetting Vukovar: constructing national identity through the memory of catastrophe’, in P. Grey and O. Kendrick (eds) The Memory of Catastrophe, Manchester: Manchester University Press, pp 190–204. Lindsey, R. and Bulloch, S. (2014) ‘A sociologist’s field notes to the Mass Observation Archive: a consideration of the challenges of ‘re-using’ Mass Observation data in a longitudinal mixed-methods study’, Sociological Research Online, 19(3), www.socresonline.org. uk/19/3/8.html. Lynn, P., Jäckle, A., Jenkins S. P. and Sala, E. (2004) ‘The impact of interviewing method on measurement error in panel survey measures of benefit receipt: Evidence from a validation study’, ISER Working Paper No. 2004–28, Colchester: University of Essex, http://www. iser.essex.ac.uk/files/iser_working_papers/2004-28.pdfwww.iser. essex.ac.uk/pubs/workpaps/pdf/2004–28.pdf. Neale, N. and Flowerdew, J. (2003) ‘Time, texture and childhood: the contours of longitudinal qualitative research’, International Journal of Social Research Methodology, 6(3): 189–99. Neale, B., Henwood, K. and Holland, J. (2012) ‘Methods and resources for researching lives through time: the timescapes approach’, Qualitative Research, 12(1): 4–15. Teddlie, C.  B. and Tashakkori, A. (2008) ‘Quality of inferences in mixed methods research: calling for an integrative framework’, in M. M. Bergman (ed) Advances in Mixed-Methods Research, London: Sage, pp 101–19. Lugtig, P. and Jäckle, A. (2014) ‘Can I just check...? Effects of edit check questions on measurement error and survey estimates’, Journal of Official Statistics, 30(1): 45–62. Timmins, N. (2001) The five giants: A biography of the welfare state, London: Harper Collins. Tumen, S. and Zeydanli, T. (2013) ‘Day-of-the-week effects in subjective well-being: does selectivity matter?’, Social Indicators Research, 119: 1–24.

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FOUR

A restudy of young workers from the 1960s: researching intersections of work and lifecourse in one locality over 50 years John Goodwin and Henrietta O’Connor

Introduction Since 2000 we have been undertaking a detailed restudy of Norbert Elias’s previously lost ‘Adjustment of Young Workers to Work Situations and Adult Roles’ (1962–4) project.1 This project was not only important because of its links to Norbert Elias or because it was one of the largest studies of school to work transition at that time (see Goodwin and O’Connor, 2005a), but also because there are very few ‘classic’ studies from the post war period that focused on the English East Midlands and a key centre of engineering, textiles and clothing and footwear manufacture. As part of the restudy we have considered the intersections of work, lifecourse and locality (see Goodwin and O’Connor, 2005a; 2005b; 2006a; 2006b; 2007a; 2007b; O’Connor and Goodwin, 2004; 2010; 2012; 2013a). For example, analysis of the data reveals that the transition from school to work in the 1960s was far more complex than previously thought by academics and policy makers. While the local labour market was initially buoyant, and fairly distinct from other local labour markets in terms of the levels of work available in specific sectors, examination of individual lives suggests that quality jobs were hard to obtain and retain. Moreover, the ‘gold standard’ of apprenticeship was not always experienced as the most rigorous or complete approach to training. The lives of these once young workers also reveal how vulnerable workers are to changes in the global economy. For example, individuals interviewed thought that they were entering ‘jobs for life’ and did not foresee the drastic labour market change and transformation that beset the local economy from the late 1970s onwards. Such change had significant impacts on

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subsequent careers with very few able to work in the industries for which they had originally trained. Our research was made possible by a chance rediscovery, in an attic office, of 851 original interview schedules as well as some background documents written by a research team from the 1960s. The 1960s research was funded by the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research, and carried out by the Department of Sociology at the University of Leicester, UK. The original research concentrated on how young people experienced work and adjusted their lives to new work roles in adulthood. The rediscovery of the interview booklets, and associated materials, presented us with something of a unique chance to re-examine work and employment of young people in the 1960s and the tantalising opportunity to design and undertake a restudy to ascertain what subsequently happened to those respondents as the Leicester labour market changed and transformed in the intervening 40 to 50 years. Even from our initial readings of the original interview booklets we were deeply engrossed by the richly detailed and fascinating insights they provided. The interview booklets were a veritable treasure trove that captured the qualitative experiences of one group of young people living in Leicester, UK, during the 1960s. Yet despite the draw of these detailed accounts there were fuller life stories that we wanted to examine promoted by what we read: What had happened to these young workers after the interviews had been completed? How did their lives pan out? Looking at the timespan between the original research and our rediscovery we knew that most of the once young workers would be now in their mid to late 50s and perhaps contemplating retirement or thinking about the end of their working lives. Although most were still effectively children at the time of the interview and were still living in their family homes with their parents and siblings (see O’Connor and Goodwin, 2013b), most would now have married or had relationships, become parents themselves, had grandchildren, suffered bereavements and so on. They would also have lived through at least three major recessions and were first hand witnesses to the massive deindustrialisation of the City of Leicester that had occurred continually pretty much from the moment they first entered the labour market in the early 1960s. Indeed, when they transitioned into the Leicester labour market in the early 1960s, little could they have expected the economic turmoil they would face throughout the rest of their working lives. At 15 the young workers would have reasonably expected a ‘job for life’ given the experiences of their parent’s generation, as one apprentice reflected ‘… [with] any apprenticeship you’ve got a future. You’ve got five years for a start and then after that you can rely on a

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decent wage every week afterwards for the rest of your life’. Yet, some 50 years later very little of the industries they initially entered would remain as Leicester experienced a massive decline in these traditional industries that provided employment for the local community. For this group of workers the relatively smooth ‘cradle to grave’ career did not materialise, with the confidence and optimism of many of those entering work in the early and mid 1960s being misplaced and ultimately denied. With the disappearance of local companies such as Corah, British United Shoe Machine Company and Byfords, a whole community of shared work experience was transformed and or largely disappeared. How was the impact of such massive process deindustrialisation ‘written’ into the biographies of local people? Given the possibilities suggested by the data would it really be possible to transform this failed study from the 1960s from a cross-sectional study into a restudy and find the respondents? Would it be possible bring these life stories up to date? Could a re-analysis of this data and subsequent restudy provide us with a unique understanding of the continuity and changes within a single labour market over a 50-year period? In the remainder of this chapter we begin by locating the Adjustment of Young Workers to Work Situations and Adult Roles in the broader cannon of ‘classic’ work, family and community work, family and community studies arguing that such legacy studies can represent something of a starting point for lifecourse research and should no longer be ignored as ‘historical curiosities’. We then outline our research design with the intention of providing something of a blueprint for other restudy based lifecourse research. Following this we reflect on some of the methodological complexities of researching work and the lifecourse in the way that we did.

The ‘need’ to look back: past studies as starting point for lifecourse research The period between 1945 and 1985 in British sociology was marked by a substantial number of classic studies that richly documented the experiences of work, family and community in a wide range of specific localities. These studies, some 50 to 60 years later, continue to provide a great deal of source material, both published and archival material, for those who are interested in the work, employment and life experiences of this period, work in particular community settings or, indeed, those interested in the change and transformation of labour. Classic studies such as Coal is our life (Dennis, Henriques and Slaughter, 1956), The family life of old people (Townsend, 1957),

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The blackcoated worker (Lockwood, 1958), Family and class in a London suburb (Willmott and Young 1960), Married women working (Jephcott et al, 1962), Home, school and work (Carter, 1962), The family and social change (Rosser and Harris, 1965), The affluent worker in the class structure (Goldthorpe et al, 1969), Life on the dole (Jones, 1972), Girls, wives and factory lives (Pollert, 1981) or All day every day (Westwood, 1984) have all added significantly to our understanding of work and locality and have offered meaningful insights into the history of employment, family and community in the UK. However, while such studies endure as classic research, and while they still have a significant amount of insights to offer contemporary analyses, in the main they are now relegated to ‘snapshots in time’ that are only used as historical ‘curiosities’ if they are used at all. Yet, we would suggest that for anyone interested in lifecourse research such legacy studies represent something of a ‘starting point’ and that the wholesale disregarding of such legacy studies in the social sciences is highly problematic for a number of reasons. First, within the social sciences, and sociology in particular, disciplinary boundaries or, more recently, the need for ‘impact’, have created an inexorable pressure for sociologists to narrow their gaze to the present, to the ‘here and now’ and to focus on ‘contemporary problems’ (see Elias, 1987). Yet such an approach implies that the ‘here and now’ or the issues of the ‘contemporary’ are somehow hermetically sealed off from what went before. Or more problematically what ‘issues’ there are – be it youth unemployment, the problems of older age and so forth – have simply emerged out of nowhere. Such an approach is both arbitrary and epistemologically fallacious, as Dunning and Hughes (2013, p  70) suggest: [Sociology] ought to be centrally concerned with the study of social events and processes in space and time. This means the conventional view according to which sociology and history are separate subjects, one concerned with ‘the present’, the other with ‘the past’, is arbitrary and wrong. We are also very much inspired here by Elias’s ‘sociological practice’ and the three types of research question that underpinned his approach. These are: 1. questions of ‘Homines aperti’, or what broader chains of interdependence are involved in ‘this’ (see Goodwin and Hughes, 2011, p 682);2

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2. relational questions, such as in what ways are ‘these interdependencies’ related; and 3. sociogenetic questions, such as how did ‘this’ come to be (see Goodwin and Hughes, 2011). For example, a good starting point for understanding the intersections of work, lifecourse and locality is to ask the question how did ‘this’ come to be – how did it come to be that in certain localities life histories are marked by significant periods of unemployment and underemployment? Such questions can only be answered by ‘looking back’ at change and transformation over time and the reworking of classic and/or legacy studies are, perhaps, an essential aid to this research process. Second, and a related point, is that the disregard of legacy studies is largely based on a progress model of scientific knowledge that implies all knowledge is a linear product that ‘flows’ in one direction. Again Dunning and Hughes (2013, p 126) are useful here as they illustrate this approach by evoking Elias’s metaphor of swimmers diving into the ‘stream of knowledge at particular times and places’ with the place that the swimmer ‘dives in’ being location from which all advancements originate. Yet, how do we use the knowledge amassed before we ‘dive in’? Do we disregard material from the past as old, unusable and meaningless? Or do we revisit and restudy them to find out what can be (re)learned? Third, unless using large-scale longitudinal data, such as the British Birth Cohort Studies, a dominant model of lifecourse research prompts researchers in the direction of starting new considerations in the ‘here and now’, requiring respondents to look back and reflect on their lives, rather than returning to the actual findings and data from legacy studies and developing reconsiderations of respondent’s lives about whom so much is already ‘known’. Returning to undertake full restudies of the lives of those already documented through studies such as The Affluent Worker in the Class Structure or Coal is our Life has the potential to make a substantial contribution to lifecourse research, not only because of their ‘historical interest’ but because such ‘restudy based’ lifecourse research would be starting from an existing knowledge base. This could, for example, contribute to an understanding of labour market change and offer comprehensive insights into the impacts of such change, and other social changes, on and within individual life histories. As Laub and Sampson (2003, pp 284–5) argue:

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Because our focus is on within-individual patterns of stability and change, we must rely on longitudinal data that other investigators began collecting many years ago in order to empirically study various life adaptations over the long term. There is no other way to proceed. Or as Brown (2001, p 1) suggests, There are in my view still too few studies which involve re-interviewing respondents about whom information is already available from an earlier project so as to provide a longitudinal dimension … [and] it is important to seize every possibility which does occur. Our chance discovery of a ‘lost’ classic research project, from the same period as those highlight above, presented us exactly with the prospect Brown described as it afforded us the possibility of transforming a once cross-sectional study into a longitudinal study of single group of workers in the same locality over a 50-year timespan. Such an opportunity inevitably prompted the questions: • What actually became of the young workers from this study? • How have their experiences of work and employment changed and transformed over the course of their own lives (how did their lives become to be ‘this’)? • Is it possible to conduct a restudy, perhaps similar to Laub and Sampson (2003), that will fully reveals the ‘within-individual’ patterns of continuity and change – the continuities and changes within one group of once young workers interviewed originally in the early to mid 1960s?

From young workers to older workers: from original study to restudy The original research was ‘concerned with the problems which young male and female workers encounter during their adjustment to their work situation and their entry into the world of adults’ (Young Worker Project, 1962, p 2). Elias suggested that young workers have to make an adjustment to roles that were not fully understood by them and for which schools had not prepared them. He was also concerned to investigate ‘these wider adjustments which young workers have to make in their relationships with older workers and supervisors in the

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factory or workshop; to the problems and to their role as workers; and to their roles as money earners in home relations and in their leisure time’ (Young Worker Project, 1962, p 2). This position was translated into five specific areas of enquiry: adjustment to relationships with older workers and supervisors; adjustment to job problems; adjustment to role as workers; adjustment to role as ‘money-earner’ in home relations; and adjustment to role as ‘money-earner’ in leisure time. From this, a semi-structured interview schedule was developed that contained 82 questions split across five sections: Work; Family and Expenditure; Leisure; School and Work; and General. The interview schedule also included an event history diary to capture in detail the respondents’ early work experiences. The interviewers were asked to write all answers to questions verbatim if possible and always in as full detail as the time and circumstances allowed. The interviewers was also asked to make a series of general comments at the end of the interview schedule giving the interviewers’ general impression from the interview, noting any problems connected with work, family or leisure. The interviews were conducted with a sample of young people drawn from the Youth Employment Office index of all Leicester school leavers from the summer and Christmas of 1960 and the summer and Christmas of 1962. The target group was to include all those with one year’s further education and the sample was further structured by the school attended (secondary, technical, grammar or other), by the size of firm entered in first job and whether they were trainees or not. The sample was divided up into five sub-groups and, using a table of random numbers, a target sample of 1,150 young people was identified and 882 interviews were completed. An additional 28 interviews were undertaken as part of a pilot study in a nearby town. Fieldwork began in 1962 and ended in 1964. As we have outlined elsewhere (see Goodwin and O’Connor, 2005a) just as the fieldwork was completed, the research team had resigned (due to problems with working practice, academic direction, and disagreements about the structure of the sample structure and the theoretical framework). Ashton and Field (1976) used a sample of the cases in their work; however, the majority of the data was never analysed or published until our restudy. In 2000 the rediscovered interview schedules formed the basis of a restudy in which we aimed to trace and re-interview a sample of the original respondents in order to explore work and transitions throughout the lifecourse. The restudy was designed and operationalised as follows: Transcription of original data. The original interview studies were originally found in an attic office and the first task was to sort the schedules to ascertain the full extent of the data we had. Following

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collation and sorting the data were transcribed and entered into a Filemaker Pro 7 database. As suggested above, although previously not fully analysed, these interview schedules provide very detailed information on the transition to work in the 1960s. Given the complexity of the data it was essential that we had an easy mechanism for accessing, searching and manipulating the data and, as such, a bespoke database that mirrored the design of the original interview schedules was thought to be essential. Secondary analysis of the data. We then undertook a full secondary analysis of the interview schedules to identify key themes (such as the complexity of past school to work transitions, the influence of family and gender on the transition process, and the experiences of young people in the midst of an ‘adult world’ of work) to drive the future direction of the work. This included a secondary analysis of the extensive interviewer notes included at the back of each book. As we, and others have argued elsewhere, the use of interviewer notes as a starting point for restudies and secondary analysis is essential (see Savage, 2005; Goodwin and O’Connor, 2006a; 2009). Analysis of background literature and correspondence. As suggest above, alongside the discovery of interview schedules we also retrieved a limited amount of supporting documentation written by the original research team. However, these materials were partial, incomplete and inconsistent at best. As such it became clear that, in order to make effective use of the data, we needed to understand a great deal more about the design and operationalisation of the original research. However, Savage (2005, p 2) offers a cautionary note by suggesting ‘given the impossibility of archiving the original and complete context in which qualitative studies were conducted, there are doubts about how researchers are really able to use such material to assess the validity of classic studies themselves’. To address this we adopted a two-pronged approach. First, we contacted known surviving members of the 1960s research team for an interview and to seek permission to access any archived materials they had. Some of the research team had retained extensive archives of correspondence and notes relating to the project (see Goodwin and O’Connor, 2005a; O’Connor and Goodwin, 2013a). Second, a significant source of documentary evidence relating to the original research was the archived collection of Norbert Elias’s papers at the Deutsches Literaturarchiv, Marbach, Germany. We were able to visit to the archive and retrieve correspondence, draft papers and other documents relating to Elias’s interests in youth transitions. These documents provided significant insight into the project design, sample composition and Elias’s emerging ‘transition as shock’ hypothesis;

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moreover, the correspondence and memorandum detailed the reasons for the failure of the original research (see Goodwin and O’Connor, 2005a) Tracing original respondents. To have any chance of exploring work and employment over the lifecourse we needed to find the original respondents. We did this by adopting a range of approaches. First, for those respondents who originally gave consent, we wrote to their last known address. Such an approach, while effective, is problematic. We were only able to do this as the original interview schedules contained extensive biographical data that, following current research conventions, would have been removed from the interviews as a part of an anonymisation process. Such a practice has obvious implications for any researcher interested in revisiting data and the same respondents. Indeed, the removal of biographical data renders much archived data useless for those wanting to undertake a restudy (for a wider discussion of this, see O’Connor and Goodwin 2013a). We had to request permission from the ESRC to use this data as the basis for the restudy and offered assurances that all identifiers would be removed on completion of the whole project. Second, we made use of publicly available sources such as the local telephone directory and the electoral register. Third, we also employed a publicity strategy using local print and broadcast media for advertisements and public appeals. We also utilised the internet in the tracing process and the details of our respondents were checked against data contained on the Friends Reunited website (www.friendsreunited.co.uk). Finally, where we had found respondents and were able to re-interview them, we asked the respondents if they were still in contact with their school friends and checked their responses against the names we had from the original 1960s data. Follow up interviews. The follow up interviews were semi-structured, covering topics such as work and life history, education and training, relationships, families and households, income, older workers, and retirement and leisure time activities. However, the research instrument also included a qualitative topic guide to allow the respondents to elaborate on aspects of their lives. Indeed, despite our research instrument having some structure, the interviews tended to be more open and qualitative in nature. The respondents often began the interviews by talking about significant life events that meant the interview schedule had to be adapted during the interview process. We did not prevent any of the respondents from discussing issues that they felt were significant. The respondent’s original responses to the first study also generated further reflective data and it is clear that the

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respondents enjoyed hearing about their answers from 40 years earlier. The majority of the interviews were taped with consent, although a few respondents did object and their responses were recorded in writing. Visual methods and data. As well as the oral testimonies collected through interviews we supplemented the standard interview technique with photo elicitation. Initially conceived as an aide memoire we asked the respondents to provide photographs of themselves at age 15 or 16 to use as a prompt to think about their lives to date. This was supplemented with photographs of the respondents at the point of interview and photographs of the factories and working sites that were described in both the original and follow up interviews. Asking respondents to provide picture of themselves as teenagers proved invaluable for a number of reasons. First, it was a useful starting point for the interviews and often ‘broke the ice’ with respondents being able to talk about themselves in the pictures and ease themselves into the formal part of interview. Second, and following Elias’s assertion that the past and present and not separate but are instead linked as part of the same processes, we wanted the respondents to talk about how their lives had changed in the intervening 50 years. The pictures served as a useful prompt to think about key life events and how these had unfolded since leaving school. For some, this was quite an emotional experience as the images evoked previous relationships, previous friendships, family members and themselves as younger people. Third, we were keen to revisit early work experiences and the photographs served as something of a mechanism for this. The pictures disrupted the then and now dichotomy. It was less about ‘that was me then’ and ‘this is me now’ but more a prompt to discuss a process of ‘becoming’, discussing themselves and the processes of change and transformation. Finally, and almost inevitably, the pictures prompted discussions of fashions and style as well as body image and ageing. We used these as cues to ask the respondents to describe themselves ‘then’ further and to reflect on what they were like as youngsters. For example: R:

well that’s a photograph of all my chums there … that’s when I went on holiday with one of my friends … HO’C: Where are you? R: There … yeah, we all had quiffs in those days, and Brylcream HO’C: [laughs] it’s a brilliant photo, really good, R: yeah, tells a thousand words doesn’t it. JG: How, how would you describe yourself in that photo, looking back?

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R:

Cool cat [laughs]… We had a crew cut then, oh yeah, yeah, you had to have the baseball boots as they were called in those days. This was on a school holiday in Lynmouth, er, that was meself, that was [xxxx]. That bloke works for the [xxxx], a bloke called [xxxx], he’s a photographer ... It looks like I’m holding a hand there but I’m not,

The respondent’s comment that the picture ‘tells a thousand words’ encapsulated fully what we wanted to achieve with the pictures. The images gave us significant insights that would not have been as ‘clear’ if the respondents had described their younger selves without such visual prompts. A further issue is the response that the pictures provoked from us as researchers. Not being alive at the time of the original interview, the pictures for us located the respondent’s temporally, located them within workplace settings or particular localities within the city that we had no way of ‘knowing’ otherwise. Beyond this, the images also evoked personal reflections and memories of similar pictures of our parents and other family members from that time, which somehow, made the research more meaningful.

Some reflections on methodological complexities The process of transforming a once cross-sectional study from the 1960s into a longitudinal study that would offer usable and meaningful insights into the working lives of one community of workers over a 50-year period was fraught with methodological complexity and uncertainty despite our clearly worked out strategy. To that end we have had to engage directly with the methodological issues generated by the research from the outset. For example, our approach to studying the lifecourse through reusing data from a legacy study raises obvious ethical concerns around authenticity, voice, issues of representation of both the researchers and researched, and the legitimate use of previously collected biographical data. All of these concerns can only be dealt with by careful very handling of the data, sympathetic analysis of the data and a recognition that in undertaking restudies of past work we are not here to audit the sociological research practice of past researchers or fieldworkers (O’Connor and Goodwin, 2013a). Likewise, there are epistemological and ontological concerns. The very act of repurposing data could be viewed as being equally problematic. As Savage (2005) again suggests it is, perhaps, unclear how such data from legacy studies can ‘… be used to address different questions to those posed by the

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original researchers. Given that the past studies inevitably address questions posed by past researchers, how much of the material is likely to be prescient to contemporary researchers?’ (Savage, 2005, p  2). However, as we have seen above, artificially separating the past and present in this dualistic manner is unhelpful and only serves to reinforce a sense of the past that is somehow separate to the present. Despite the apparently different concerns of the researchers who worked on the original legacy studies and ourselves, the data has much to offer for those who revisit it and re-examine it via a ‘contemporary lens’ (see Goodwin and O’Connor, 2006a). However, despite our continued and necessary engagement with these debates, there are two further issues relevant to lifecourse research that we would wish to highlight here. First, to undertake lifecourse research in this way relies on the ability of later researcher to trace respondents and/or participants of those earlier studies. For this to be successful means that later researchers need to have access to original sampling frames, original project notes and, most difficult of all, some biographical identifiers if the idea is to identity the same individuals (less important if subsequent research wants an approximate or ‘matched’ sample). As suggested above we were incredibly fortunate that such personal identifiers had not been stripped out of the interview booklets; however, even if one has access to biographical identifiers the tracing of respondents over time is not straightforward. With the biographical information for the interview booklets, and using the tracing methods outlined above, we located 157 of the original respondents (representing around 18 per cent of the original sample). Of these 97 were re-interviewed. However, actual tracing methods themselves were hugely variable in their success rate. We obtained greater positive outcomes for this group by using ‘traditional’ communication methods such as mail and telephone. We originally held high expectations of being able to use the Internet to track down our respondents but the effectiveness of web based search was limited and somewhat disappointing (see Table 4.1 for breakdown). An additional problem was that the tracing of the respondents took far longer that we had envisaged, with respondents replying to our letters up until the end of the funded phase of the research. Moreover once we had managed to locate respondents it could often take multiple phone calls and letters to secure agreement for access and re-interview. Nor was identifying and finding respondents any guarantee that the respondents would agree to participating in the restudy. Of the 60 traced but not interviewed, they either refused to participate, were traced and subsequently moved overseas, or died between the tracing and the

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A restudy of young workers Table 4.1: Tracing the respondents: contact methods and responses Contact method Direct mail – electoral register/telephone directory

1,200

Direct mail – original home address

650

Direct emails – Friends Reunited

27

Press advertisement – Leicester Mercury

5

Negative responses Returned by Post Office

98

Returned as ‘wrong person’

276

Positive tracing responses Positive response by mail

49

Positive response by telephone/email

96

Positive response to press advertisement

3

Positive response from Friends Reunited

9

Of those traced Refused to participate

50

Emigrated

5

Traced but deceased

5

Traced and re-interviewed

97

Total traced

157

follow up interview. In all there were 50 definite refusals to participate. A common cause of refusal to participate was a suspicion on behalf of the respondents that we had simply traced the ‘wrong person’. Given the near 50-year time delay between original interview and possible re-interview it was clear that many did not remember taking part in the original research and they did not believe us when we suggested they had indeed participated – even when we confirmed some basic family details such as the addresses that they had previously occupied. Finally, we also became aware that our methods were not capturing many women (see Table 4.2). The main problem was marriage and the changing of names. As such, techniques such as searching the electoral register and local marriage registers were ineffective for tracing women and obviously the low proportion of women represents a clear limitation for this approach to research the lifecourse. A second concern relates to what data we should share with those respondents who we traced and re-interviewed. The argument above is that there is clear analytical value in basing studies on respondents about whom something is already known. Almost inevitably, given the

75

Researching the lifecourse Table 4.2: Sample descriptions and composition Group

Original target sample

Archive sample

Reinterviewed

Pilot study

28

0

-

Practice*

16

-

-

‘A’ – boys who had left school in summer or Christmas 1962, with less than one year’s further education.

330

243

26

‘B’ – boys who had left school in summer or Christmas 1962, with more than one year’s further education.

160

130

27

‘C’ – boys who had left school in summer or Christmas 1960, with less than one year’s further education.

300

202

34

‘D’ – girls who had left school in summer or Christmas 1962, with less than one year’s further education.

200

155

6

‘E’ – girls who had left school in summer or Christmas 1960, with less than one year’s further education.

160

105

4

Totals

1,150 (28) †

85 (16)†

97

Actual study

Notes: * The practice schedules appeared to be ‘dry-run’ interviews with actual respondents. Some vary in the degree to which they were completed. † Totals including practice/pilot surveys.

focus of our research and our interest in their lives, and the fact that we had data relating to an earlier study, the respondents themselves clearly wanted to find out more about their own early lives and their own responses to original interviews conducted in the 1960s. Our initial responses to request for access to the data was that we should simply share the original interview booklets with the respondents. However, such an approach raised a number of significant challenges. First, as we have documented elsewhere (see Goodwin and O’Connor, 2006a; 2009) the field notes section of the interview booklets contained the initial reactions or thoughts of the fieldworkers, some of which (and perhaps reflected broader social changes as well as changes in research practices) were sexist, racist, biased in terms of social class, or contained commentaries of family members, friends and relatives or the respondents themselves that were less than positive. Access to such commentaries could cause needless upset and anger. As such we decided to either redact or fully remove the interviewer notes sections from any data we handed over to the respondents. Second, the point at which we shared data was also crucial as we neither wanted to appear

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as if we were simply ‘fact checking’ the data in the earlier interviews nor did we want to provide the earlier responses that may shape, influence or alter answers to our questions in the follow up study. To resolve the two issues we decided that we would give the respondents their full interview transcript, minus the field notes at the end of the interview, but where there was uncertainty (such as the dates of early jobs, names of employers) we would refer to the original interview data to help clarify the sequencing of events and to ensure that we obtain as accurate a picture of work in the lifecourse as possible.

Conclusions Despite the complexity of using a ‘legacy study’ as the starting point for our restudy, despite the time it took to trace the respondents, negotiate with the past research team, re-code and transcribe 851 interview transcripts of handwritten, sometimes unreadable script, it is clear to us that developing an understanding of the lives of one group of young then older workers in one locality in the way that we have done was both fascinating and incredibly rewarding. It was a complex process, and it was messy in many respects but, as Brown (2001) and others suggest, we as researchers need to do more of this type of research, engaging in further ‘looking back’ at old studies and revisiting those about whom much is already know if we are to fully understand the intersections of work, locality and the lifecourse in all of their rich and varied complexities. Indeed, such an approach as the one we adopted would be a useful model to follow for anyone interested in questioning the assumed linearity in people’s lives or the assumed logical and standard sequencing of life events in the ‘past’, the ‘present’ and the ‘future’. By revisiting respondents about whom we already know so much we have been able to demonstrate that very few have lived anything remotely representing a ‘standard’ linear life demarcated by particular events at particular times. As Elias suggests the ‘idea that people have always experienced … sequences of events … as an even, uniform and continuous flow … runs counter to evidence we have from past ages as well as our own’ (Elias, 1992, p 33). Without such restudies, without revisiting the past coupled with our over reliance on the ‘cross-sectional snapshot’, so dominant in contemporary social sciences, we run the risk of simply reinforcing the view of temporal uniformity within and across lives.

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Notes This chapter is based on the ESRC project ‘From Young Workers To Older Workers: Reflections on Work in the Life Course’ (R000223653).

1

Homines aperti being an approach to sociological analysis that emphasises interdependence, rather than what Elias perceived the dominant homo clausus modes of thinking in sociological analysis that positions ‘individuals’ as unique, separate ‘worlds unto themselves’ (see Elias, 2000, p 472).

2

Acknowledgements Our gratitude goes to the staff of the Deutsches Literaturarchiv and the friends and colleagues at the Norbert Elias Foundation. We would like to thank Nancy Worth and Irene Hardill for their patience while we wrote this chapter and to colleagues and friends who presented at the AAG Annual Conference, New York, February 2012. References Ashton, D. N. and Field, D. (1976) Young workers: From school to Work, Hutchinson: London. Brown, R.K. (2001) Correspondence with the author regarding the rediscovery of the ‘Young Worker Project’, 6 February 2001. Carter, M. (1962) Home, school and work: A study of the education and employment of young people in Britain, Pergamon Press: London. Dennis, N., Henriques, F. and Slaughter, C. (1956) Coal is our Life: An analysis of a yorkshire mining community, London: Tavistock Publications. Dunning, E. and Hughes, J. (2013) Norbert Elias and Modern Sociology: Knowledge, Interdependence, Power, Process, London: Bloomsbury Academic. Elias, N. (1987) ‘Retreat of the sociologists’, Theory, Culture and Society, 4: 223–47. Elias, N. (1992) Time: An essay, Oxford: Blackwell. Elias, N. (2000) The civilizing process: Sociogenetic and psychogenetic investigations, Oxford: Blackwell. Goldthorpe, J., Lockwood, D., Bechhofer, F. and Platt, J. (1969) The affluent worker in the class structure, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Goodwin, J. and Hughes, J. (2011) ‘Ilya Neustadt, Norbert Elias and the Leicester department: personal correspondence and the history of sociology in Britain’, British Journal of Sociology, 62(4): 677–95.

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Goodwin, J. and O’Connor, H. (2005a) ‘Exploring complex transitions: looking back at the ‘golden age’ of youth transitions’, Sociology, 39(2): 201–20. Goodwin, J. and O’Connor, H. (2005b) ‘Engineer, mechanic or carpenter: boys’ transitions to work in the 1960s’, Journal of Education and Work, 18(4): 451–71. Goodwin, J. and O’Connor, H. (2006a) ‘Contextualising the research process: using interviewer notes in the secondary analysis of qualitative data’, The Qualitative Report, 11(2), www.nova.edu/ssss/QR/QR112/goodwin.pdf. Goodwin, J. and O’Connor, H. (2006b) ‘Norbert Elias and the lost young worker project’, Journal of Youth Studies, 9(2): 159–73. Goodwin, J. and O’Connor, H. (2007a) ‘Continuity and change in forty years of school to work transition’, International Journal of Lifelong Education, 26(5): 555–72. Goodwin, J. and O’Connor, H. (2007b) ‘Researching forty years of learning for work: the experiences of one cohort of workers’, Journal of Vocational Education and Training, 59(3): 349–67. Goodwin, J. and O’Connor, H. (2009) ‘Through the interviewer’s lens: representations of 1960s households and families and in a lost sociological study’, Sociological Research Online, 14(4), www. socresonline.org.uk/14/4/6.html. Jephcott, P. with Sear, N. and Smith, J.  H. (1962) Married women working, London: George Allen and Unwin. Jones, M. (1972) Life on the dole, London: Davis-Poynter. Laub, J. H. and Sampson, R.J. (2003) Shared beginnings, divergent lives: Delinquent boys to age 70, Harvard: Harvard University Press. Lockwood, D. (1958) The blackcoated worker: A study in class consciousness, London: George Allen and Unwin. O’Connor, H. and Goodwin, J. (2004) ‘She wants to be like her mum’, Journal of Education and Work, 17(1): 95–118. O’Connor, H. and Goodwin, J. (2010) ‘Utilising data from a lost sociological project: experiences, insights, promises’, Qualitative Research, 10(3): 283–98. O’Connor, H. and Goodwin, J. (2012) ‘Revisiting Norbert Elias’s sociology of community: learning from the Leicester restudies’, The Sociological Review, 60(3): 476–97. O’Connor, H. and Goodwin, J. (2013a) ‘The ethical dilemmas of restudies in researching youth’, YOUNG: Nordic Journal of Youth Research, 21(3): 289–307.

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O’Connor, H. and Goodwin, J. (2013b) ‘Beyond ‘average’ family life: a secondary analysis of atypicality in 1960s families’, Families, Relationships and Societies, 2(2): 299–308. Pollert, A. (1981) Girls, wives, factory lives, London: Macmillan Press. Rosser, C. and Harris, C. (1965) The Family and Social Change: A study of family and kinship in a South Wales town, London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. Savage, M. (2005) ‘Revisiting classic qualitative studies’, Forum Qualitative Sozialforschung/Forum: Qualitative Social Research, 6(1), http://www.qualitative-research.net/index.php/fqs/article/ view/502. Townsend, P. (1957) The family life of old people: An inquiry in East London, London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. Westwood, S. (1984) All Day Every Day: Factory and family in the making of women’s lives, London: Pluto Press. Willmott, P. and Young, M. (1960) Family and class in a London suburb, London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. Young Worker Project (1962) ‘Minutes of Second Meeting 7 March 1962’, unpublished, University of Leicester (Teresa Keil Collection).

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FIVE

A method for collecting lifecourse data: assessing the utility of the lifegrid Ann Del Bianco1

Introduction The lifecourse can be studied using a number of different research designs and methodological approaches – all presenting their own set of challenges and benefits. In recent years there has been increasing use of the lifegrid for both quantitative and qualitative studies. The application of the lifegrid is appealing to many researchers for a variety of reasons. It is especially useful for studies where a longitudinal focus is integral to the research objective(s), and such is the case with lifecourse research. Compared with traditional longitudinal studies, the administration of the lifegrid is a less costly alternative and is relatively easy to use with some training (Holland et al, 1999). The lifegrid is explored in its capacity as a data collection tool. The aim of this chapter is threefold. Given that the critique of the lifegrid is informed in part by others’ experiences of using the lifegrid, but also in part by my own, the first aim of this chapter is to provide a very brief overview of the research design, sample and method which informed my experiences, providing some detail of the lifegrid itself and drawing on a case study to demonstrate the type of output it may generate. The second and primary aim of this chapter is to assess the utility of the lifegrid and to suggest strategies which could potentially be incorporated to overcome some of the challenges associated with its use. The third and final aim of this chapter is to highlight the differences between historical and narrative truths and explore how these play a role in the types of data obtained via the use of the lifegrid.

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The utilisation of the lifegrid in the exploration of the living and working environments of oesophageal cancer patients The lifegrid was used in a study which included a sample of 46 oesophageal cancer patients (see also Novogradec, 2012). These participants were recruited by means of purposive sampling from hospitals where ethics approval was obtained within the regions of London and Toronto, Ontario. A narrative research design was utilised whereby participants shared their life stories as it pertained to the key risk factors for oesophageal cancer documented in the literature. Participants’ narratives were provided around a predetermined set of questions and variables of interest such that participants discussed their experiences and exposures in relation to the same factors. In this respect, the narratives collected were fairly structured. The main objective of the study was to gain a context sensitive understanding of the risk factors for oesophageal cancer. The living and working environments of oesophageal cancer patients were examined in this regard. I was interested in time and place, and how exposure risk and individual response strategies were affected. In order to achieve the study objectives, several sources of data were used to inform the research. The lifegrid was one of the main data collection tools utilised. However, it was implemented in conjunction with other tools including a semi-structured interview guide, occupational and residential summary boxes, occupational risk maps and residential pictures, and a series of other supplementary research tools. At the beginning of all interviews, participants were asked whether they were familiar with the lifegrid. None of the participants had seen such an interview tool and most were intrigued by its ability to capture different aspects of their lives as shared during the interviews. The function of the lifegrid was explained to all participants and they were informed that the lifegrid would be completed with a pencil and eraser such that corrections could easily be made and were to be expected. The lifegrids were printed as two 11” by 17” spreadsheets. This larger size was used to suit the older population and for ease in completion. Used in its original form, the lifegrid looks like a spreadsheet with a series of rows and columns with the former denoting a timeline and the latter capturing variables of interest. Each blank lifegrid consisted of 11 columns and 98 rows. From left to right, the headings of each of the columns were as follows: (1) external event; (2) age; (3) year; (4) personal/other life events; (5) education; (6) lifestyle: smoking; (7) lifestyle: drinking; (8) residence; (9) occupation; (10) other; (11)

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other. The rows captured the contents of the columns by year and/ or age (Figure 5.1). Lifegrids were prepared in advance, as suggested by Berney and Blane (2003), in that both dates of birth and diagnosis were collected prior to the interview. Also, all lifegrids were labelled with the same external events occurring over time (for example, Terry Fox run/John Lennon shot, fall of Berlin Wall, etc. – see Figure 5.1) which could be used as ‘flashbulb memory cues’ during the interviews. Flashbulb memory cues have the ability to capture the routine and mundane by linking memories to extraordinary events (Berney and Blane, 2003). For example, assuming the event was of some significance to the participant, they may be able to remember exactly what they were doing when they heard that the World Trade Towers had collapsed. Before working with the lifegrid, participants were asked to verify that the dates recorded on the lifegrid were correct. Personal life events were added as participants shared their life stories (see column A in Figure 5.1 for an example). Both life trajectories (long-term extended patterns reflecting major life domains such as work, relationships, and living arrangements; Belli, 1998) and life transitions (a discrete life change or event within a trajectory often accompanied by shared ceremonies or rituals such as a wedding ceremony; Mitchell, 2003) were captured. The former were collected via stories told while filling in the columns pertaining to occupations, residences, etc., and the latter through the adoption of questions used in a study by Ravanera et al (2004) which were incorporated in the semi-structured interview guide and plotted on the lifegrid (see italicised text within columns A, B, and E in Figure 5.1). During the interviews, a ruler was used to ensure that information being conveyed was not mistakenly entered into the wrong cells of the lifegrid. The average length of each face-to-face interview was approximately four hours. The average age of the sample was 66 years old; 91% of interviews took place at the participant’s home. Approximately 83% of the sample was either retired or too sick to return to work which likely played a factor in participants’ ability to devote so much time to the interview. Both methodological and technique triangulation as described by Denzin (1978) and Humble (2009) were utilised to validate and ensure completeness of the data. In line with Lieblich et al’s (1998) works on narrative research, data was analysed via holisticcontent, categorical-content, and chi-square analyses. My research demonstrated how lived experiences and exposures do not occur in isolation.

83

84

1st Gulf War

Fall of Berlin Wall

Challenger & Chernobyl Accidents

Terry Fox Run/John Lennon shot Reagan & Pope John Paul II shot

End of Vietnam War/ Fall of Saigon

Henderson scores goal

Man on moon/ Woodstock Festival

Cuban Missle Crisis J.F.K. shot

Vietnam War Began

Korean War

External Event

1967 1968 1969

18

19 20

1987 1988

38 39

40 1989 41 1990 42 1991

1985 1986

36 37

1982

33

1983

1981

32

1984

1979 1980

30 31

34

1976 1977 1978

27 28 29

35

1973 1974 1975

24 25 26

22 1971 23 1972

1970

1965 1966

16 17

21

1949 1950 1951 1952 1953 1954 1955 1956 1957 1958 1959 1960 1961 1962 1963 1964

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15

Age Year

father passed away

first child left home started relationship with current partner (has 2 kids) divorced

mom passed away

house fire farmhouse repaired

wife had brain tumour removed & became vegetative; hospitalized permanently; car accident

2nd biological son born

1st biological son born

1st marriage

met wife & moved in together

1st wife's child born

1st car

moved out of parents' house

born

A. Personal/Other Life Events

Figure 5.1: Sample lifegrid

stopped

started

B. Education

2 p a c k /d a y

1 p a c k /d a y

1 p a c k /2. 5 d a ys

1 pack/2 weeks

Smoking

1 beer/wk

drinking alone: 24 beer, 40oz rum & 26 oz rum/day

26 oz rye/ few wks shared with friends

Drinking

C. Lifestyle

lived by creek: May-Dec back to current address - old farmhouse (rent)

current address - old farmhouse (rent)

lived by creek for a month; then rented farmhouse in Delhi

wife's parents' house (Delhi:rent) D e lh i - L a n d St . h o u s e (re n t) wife's parents' house (Delhi:rent) Delhi - Cove Rd. house (rent)

frie n d 's p la c e (D e lh i: re n t)

fa rm d u rin g fa rm in g s e a s o n ; home (Delhi: rent) after

Langton: parent's house (rent)

D. Residence

tobacco farm (summers)/ sawmill with cousin (winters)

unemployed - collected unemployment insurance

laid off - not enough work

Sawmill

tobacco farm (seasonal)

to b a c c o c o m p a n y (in d o o r)

tobacco auction barn

tobacco and potato farms

tobacco field (summer)/ township: cleaning roads & trees (winter)

E. Occupations

social assistance

environmental tobacco smoke wife smoked in house

environmental tobacco smoke father smoked in house

very dusty work

v e ry dusty work

v e ry d u s ty wo rk

F. OTHER G. OTHER

Researching the lifecourse

stressful

Assessing the utility of the lifegrid

The lifegrid, used in conjunction with other supplementary tools, was especially useful in providing a contextual understanding of time and place in relation to the risk factors for oesophageal cancer. Completed lifegrids allowed for the holism of lifecourse data to be retained and provided a deeper understanding of the inter-relatedness of life events and variables of interest (for example, living and working environments, lifestyle). The completed lifegrid allows for a visual depiction of the lifecourse and is an invaluable tool for case studies, as demonstrated in Figure 5.1 and the following sample case study.

Case study: sample lifegrid as produced during data collection Figure 5.1 depicts a portion of a participant’s lifegrid as constructed during the data collection stage. Pseudonyms have been used to retain anonymity. All lifegrids were completed by hand; however, the lifegrid provided in Figure 5.1 has been reproduced electronically. It is possible that lifegrids could have been collected electronically rather than by hand, but it is unclear how this may have impacted the unique interview features of the lifegrid method such as participant–interviewer rapport and dynamics as well as other aspects such as the length of the interview and ease of making corrections and connections during data collection. The completed lifegrid provides an illustrative understanding of the lifecourse in whole and in part. When the participant provides narratives and further elaboration it allows the researcher to gain a better understanding of the participant’s life. Certain periods of time are also often elucidated. For instance, as explained by the participant, and depicted in Figure 5.1, it is learned that the life event of moving out of their parents’ house (which is also a life transition), alongside boredom at work (in farming), contributed to an increase in smoking patterns in 1966. Later it is learned that the 1982–86 timeframe was particularly stressful for the participant beginning with the permanent hospitalisation of their spouse and a car accident, and ending when their first child left the home (also a life transition). During this period of time, drinking patterns were affected by life events (as denoted by the arrow depicted in Figure 5.1, from column A to column C – Drinking). Also, the lack of work, and later the temporary lack of shelter resulting from a house fire, left caring for the children extremely difficult. During this time, temporary homelessness via living by a nearby creek was experienced for a seven-month period after which time unemployment insurance and social assistance was collected. However, the participant describes this experience as “camping out”.

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It is apparent that this was not uncommon for the participant as he had described doing so previously in 1975 when he was between residences. It is later learned that the participant eventually started a new relationship with someone else and sought closure via a divorce from his first wife whom he reports he was not able to care for on his own. The participant describes feeling the financial burden of raising three children on his own over the years and how he did not want to seek out social assistance but had no choice. He also describes how drinking had become a coping mechanism for dealing with the stress of losing a functional spouse (see also Figure 5.1, columns A, C – Drinking, D, E, and F for a depiction).

A critique of the lifegrid and the incorporation of useful strategies As noted in my previous work (Novogradec, 2012), some of the early uses of the lifegrid were reported by Balán et al (1969) and Blum et al (1969) who researched the lifecourse in relation to social, geographical and occupational mobility. Since then, the lifegrid has been documented for its ability to aid in the accurate recall of sociodemographic data when archival records from some 50 years prior gathered from the Boyd Orr and Mass Observation Archive were compared against present day responses (Berney and Blane, 1997). Although Berney and Blane’s (1997) findings were based on a small sample size and data were not tested against other interview methods, other data collection tools which function in a similar fashion to the lifegrid such as the life history calendar and event history calendar have been tested and have shown good results (Yoshihama et al, 2005; Belli et al, 2007; Sayles et al, 2010). One of the greatest features of the completed lifegrid is that it provides data transparency. It not only organises lifecourse data visually, it also provides both a bird’s eye view of the entirety of the lifecourse and easily allows for a visual representation of the clustering of events (Holland et al, 1999; Novogradec, 2012). If the researcher enables the participant to unpack their lives as they work their way through completing the lifegrid, then there is little need to explicitly ask about connections between different variables of interest collected and those made apparent on the lifegrid. Conversely, if the participant does not mention how different aspects of the lifecourse are connected, the completed lifegrid provides the researcher an opportunity to directly address findings as they appear on the lifegrid to better understand if, how and why certain factors are related to each other. For instance,

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Assessing the utility of the lifegrid

the completed lifegrid may show that drinking history and a change in residence occurred at the same time as a divorce. The participant’s narrative will likely elucidate these connections, but if they do not, the researcher can use the completed portion of the lifegrid to carefully probe further (Novogradec, 2012). The completed lifegrid visually displays connections and provides an opportunity for the researcher to probe further given that the connections are discussed shortly after being placed on the lifegrid as returning to previously collected data for more detail may be a little more challenging (Novogradec, 2012). The utilisation of the lifegrid allowed for more robust data to be collected and meant that several discoveries were made during the data collection stage rather than later during analysis. For instance, it was often made clear why an increase or decrease in drinking patterns may have occurred. A change in occupation may also have been reported as playing a role in this regard. Drinking patterns may have increased during a certain period of time as a result of a change in work culture where drinking with clients was reported as ‘part of doing business’ and was perceived as integral to networking. On reflection, some participants were able to provide explanations of drinking patterns in relation to other aspects of their lives at a particular point in time, providing a contextual understanding in this regard. Nevertheless, participants may or may not always understand the reasons behind a change in behaviour. Just as encountered when adopting more conventional research designs and methodological approaches investigating these kinds of lifestyle changes, the researcher should be mindful that participants may problematise explanations. Hence researchers should be aware of the types of knowledge claims that are being generated, as discussed further in the section on knowledge claims, below. For the researcher, the completed lifegrid aids in keeping order and control over the large amount of detailed information being collected. In this regard, a completed lifegrid is similar to having to maintain two different, but similar, sets of field notes (Bell, 2005). The sequence of events are more easily assessed in comparison to tapes or interview transcripts and can shed light on unintelligible portions of recordings or field notes (Bell, 2005). The utilisation of the lifegrid assists in unveiling the omission of certain information when probes pertaining to specific details are asked (for example, employment similar in nature). However, researchers should be aware that sequences of brief or similar natured employment and/or residential occupancy are not always easily recalled despite the use of various recall strategies outlined below. The inclusion of

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structured narratives could be used to attempt to bridge some of these gaps; however, even under these circumstances I found that narratives do not necessarily always provide clarity as they are often jumbled. Common to other interview methods, the ability to accurately sequence the lifecourse is contingent on the participant’s ability to recall and actively engage. Nevertheless, there are strategies which the use of the lifegrid enables that assists in sequencing such as: i) bounding information through the use of anchors or other information specific to that period of time (for example, recalling their place of residence when J.F.K. was shot or when they first married); and ii) renegotiating information in light of other information (for example, noting that a hiatus from work occurred later than originally reported as revealed when recalling educational history). It is recommended that reference to dated documents of relevance to residential and/or employment history such as employment records be integrated if or when possible in order to better trigger recall when accurate sequencing proves to be challenging (Novogradec, 2012). Recall strategies and their implications on the quantity and quality of data and temporality Initially applied primarily to quantitative studies and among an older population, researchers have elicited accurate participant recall of simple information namely through the use of: i) anchors (personal and/or external life events and ‘flashbulb memory cues’); ii) the temporal reference system; and iii) cross-referencing information against other columns/variables of interest (Berney and Blane, 1997; Berney et al, 2000; Holland et al, 2000; Berney and Blane, 2003; Edwards et al, 2006). Other recall strategies such as: iv) retelling the lifecourse in a chronological order; v) being mindful of the order of questions asked; vi) integrating other sources of evidence; and vii) allowing other family involvement/participation have also shown to be helpful (Novogradec, 2012). Through the incorporation of these various recall strategies, data quantity can be increased. These recall strategies are now discussed further. The reference to personal events is often used as anchors to pinpoint transitions and trajectories. Like the use of external events (which are based on historical truths), personal events can also be used as anchors to ground recall. In fact, the recall of one event or piece of information may prompt the recall of other lifecourse data. Encouraging strategies can also be used to calculate an unknown date in relation to another event. For example, a participant may recall having surgery the same

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year that a sibling got married or a calculator can be used to work back from known to unknown dates in time (for example, “my granddaughter, who was born in 1953, was 15 when we moved out of our country home”; Novogradec, 2012). Bell (2005) has also reported that the quantity of data is increased through the use of personal events but argues that the quality of data is not since participants feel the need to continuously add events to the lifegrids rather than elaborating on existing information. It is argued that the end result is the production of event centred data based on factual information (that is, what occurred at which time) rather than a rich dataset (Bell, 2005). This could indeed be the case with less forthcoming participants and those that do not respond to probes or engage the researcher; however, in my experience preparing participants in advance can avoid this conundrum for the most part. I found that if participants are told at the beginning of the interview that continuously adding less significant events to the lifegrid is not the focal point of the study, this could be avoided. Preparing the participants’ expectations is essential. As the interview progresses, new anchors will inevitably be added as they are embedded in the narratives and dates will be renegotiated in light of the other information that surfaces over the course of the interview. Therefore, both the researcher and participant must be prepared to make adjustments to the lifegrid. Participants should be informed that changes to the lifegrid should be expected and allowed. This proviso should alleviate the potential of participants feeling offended by renegotiations of lifecourse data in light of other information provided as the lifecourse is captured. It should also eliminate the potential for the participant to hesitate correcting the ‘expert’ interviewer as reported by Bell (2005). The quality of data can be enhanced by integrating other relevant research tools such as a semi-structured survey tool, summary boxes, rich pictures and occupational risk maps. However, researchers should be mindful that a substantial amount of organisation and attention is required. Further, depending on the study type and research objective(s), the incorporation of various other data and dated documentation such as clinical measures, environmental data, and historical maps can assist in enhancing the quality and the quantity of data sought. The completed lifegrid has the ability to increase the quality of data since it is inherently contextually driven. In this regard it can provide an understanding of how and why things have happened in the past, and how that past may be affecting the present. The lifegrid is based on a temporal reference system for the participant and researcher to use. It provides a visual representation

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of data gaps, unlike more traditional questionnaire-based methods. This visual depiction of the lifecourse ensures that both the researcher and participant are referring to the same point in time, assuming that they are both utilising the lifegrid as a reference guide throughout the interview. Since the application of the lifegrid is a very detail oriented and specific method it requires significant amounts of cognitive efforts from both the participant and researcher. This could lead to lengthy interviews, especially as the level of complexity increases (for example, several variables of interest/columns are being captured and for instance a long residential history is also being provided). This could also become an issue if a lot of time is spent cross-referencing dates and/or other information between columns. Nevertheless, cross-referencing is an important recall strategy which is one of the key features of the lifegrid. It allows for an internal check of data errors, enhances participants’ memory by allowing them to cross-reference different aspects of their lives, and it also lends itself to increasing the quantity of data obtained. By cross-referencing, participants can share what was occurring in their lives at a specific point in time, recalling where they were living and working. For instance, a participant may use a personal anchor, such as the death of their father, to share that times were tough during that period of their life and that they worked more hours at the foundry so that they could help pay the bills for the big house they were living in on 51st Street. Using the temporal reference system to cross-reference among different columns and rows of the lifegrid allows not only for recapping, verifying and internally checking the same data collected in different ways, but it also assists in filling data gaps which may exist. The completed lifegrid displays transitions and trajectories if questions are posed properly by the researcher, and if information such as age and certain life domains are captured (for example, asking about life transitions such as when first left home; when completed education; when first started working on a regular basis, etc. as denoted in italics within Figure 5.1 are useful). These depictions can prove to be invaluable since the researcher may then be able to decipher when certain life transitions took place and can integrate proper probes to explore why. When participants speak chronologically about their residential, educational and occupational histories, it provides insight as to when transitions and trajectories took place. The importance of speaking in a chronological order about different aspects of the lifecourse is integral for several reasons. When the participant recalls information in a manner that bounces around different dates it is tiresome for

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them and difficult for the researcher to follow. The researcher can aid in enhancing the participants’ memory by asking wider contextual questions (for example, ‘what’, ‘why’, ‘how’) before attempting to capture relevant dates (‘when’) (Yow, 1994; Berney and Blane, 2003). This technique is especially useful and may lead to interesting discoveries. However, it may also lead to meaningless tangents irrelevant to the study objectives and may risk a loss in participant interest. Also, it is more challenging to revisit information and press for detail once it has already been discussed or if the participant is constantly being interrupted for clarification of dates. Instead, being mindful of the time the participant wishes to devote, as well as the level of detail required to meet the objectives of the study, the incorporation of tools such as the ones incorporated in my study (for example, occupational and/or residential summary boxes, rich pictures and risk maps, dated photographs, pathology reports or medical records) can help gather the detail necessary when discussing a specific period in time before moving into depth in the next time period (Novogradec, 2012). Nevertheless, the incorporation of other research tools will require much organisation and additional effort on the part of the researcher. Researchers will need to be well prepared and have the ability to anticipate when further elaboration may be required; probing as necessary while remaining attentive to narratives being told without being distracted by which tools they will need to draw from (Novogradec, 2012). Indeed, if an organised system is not implemented (for example, the use of flags, proper probing throughout) there is evidence that this could prove to be challenging for some researchers. Used in conjunction with an interview guide, Haglund (2004) reported that the incorporation of the lifegrid was too time consuming and distracting and hence chose to fill out the lifegrids afterwards based on interview transcripts. Recall may be hindered if the participant has not provided enough information in the first place or if they have under-reported or forgotten certain information. I found that spousal involvement may assist in remembering past information, but also has the potential to act as a hindrance. Approximately 72% of the sample were males and other research has shown that women have slightly higher recall accuracy than their husbands (Auriat, 1993). This may have explained why spousal involvement was helpful for the majority of cases where spouses played a role in assisting with recall. Nonetheless, in interviewing couples alone and together using the lifegrid, Bell (2005) reported several discrepancies and inconsistencies which lead to confusion. One of the most valuable resources in assisting to overcome these issues is

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making reference to documents and/or items that have dates on them and that may be of some relevance such as dated diaries, photographs, medical, financial or employment records, funeral or memorial cards, etc. (Novogradec, 2012). The use of the lifegrid allows participants to gradually reveal pieces of information about themselves. However, it may also assist in them inadvertently sharing details of their lives they may not have necessarily intended to share (for example, having a child out of wedlock). The completion of the lifegrid provides a temporal and spatial structure of the lifecourse. It aids in building rapport with the participant, is a useful way of engaging the participant in the research process, and once completed can be likened to the dynamics of completing a jigsaw puzzle together (Anderson and Brown, 1980; Holland et al, 1999; Parry et al, 1999). I also experienced that there is an element of surprise by the participant about the familiarity the researcher is able to demonstrate with their lives, even though they were the ones who initially provided the information. As a result of this, participants may look to researchers to assist in filling in the gaps. Therefore, it is crucial that researchers are careful not to lead the construction of the lifegrid. Reverting to various recall strategies as well as other documentation is necessary to avoid distorting accounts by guessing or making assumptions (Novogradec, 2012). The use of the lifegrid for qualitative studies The lifegrid has also been successfully used in qualitative research (Parry et al, 1999; Parry et al, 2002; Richardson et al, 2008; Mackichan et al, 2013), among a younger population group, and applied in both a reconstructed format (Wilson et al, 2007), and in its original form (Richardson et al, 2009), emphasising the versatility of the lifegrid. However, there have been some discrepancies in the literature as to whether or not the lifegrid can or should be used for qualitative interviewing. I had little trouble obtaining rich data for my study, although the use of supplementary tools may have aided in this regard. Richardson et al (2009) reported that the adoption of the lifegrid offers great potential for the exploration of health experiences within a personal and historical context but warns that it is less useful for research objectives interested in exploring attitudes. Bell (2005) found that it was very difficult to phrase questions so that they unpacked the subject’s opinions on events in their lives rather than simply prompting a recap of the events at that time. However,

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Wilson et al (2007) reported having a different experience and were able to capture how young adolescents located parental substance abuse in their narratives. Parry et al (2002) also successfully used the lifegrid for qualitative interviews which examined smoking behaviour over the lifecourse. It is worthwhile to mention that both Bell (2005) and Wilson et al (2007) chose topics of a personal nature and that there was great variation in sample size between Bell’s (2005) study (n=6) and Wilson et al’s (2007) study (n=38). Also, Bell (2005) included a column on the lifegrid entitled ‘relationship issues’ whereas Wilson et al (2007) did not include ‘parental substance abuse’ on the grid. It is hypothesised that conceivably several factors may have played a role in Bell’s (2005) conclusions. Perhaps the integration of more general questions or probes and supplementary tools if/when possible, and a larger sample size may have made a difference. Also, the reconstructed format of the lifegrid adopted by Wilson et al (2007) may have also played a role.

Knowledge claims: narrative and historical truths The use of the lifegrid stimulates recall in a factual and pragmatic way (Anderson and Brown, 1980; Parry et al, 1999). This is very much in line with the collection of historical truths that are concerned with timing, duration and sequences of events, happenings, or place (Scott and Alwin, 1998; Bell, 2005). Narrative truths, on the other hand, ‘are constructed around a core of facts or life events, yet allow a wide periphery for freedom of individuality and creativity in selection, addition to, emphasis on, and interpretation of these “remembered facts” ’ (Lieblich et al, 1998, p 8). When the application of the lifegrid is integrated with supplementary questions and tools, participants’ stories are brought to life through memory recall which is anchored by events and other details that are of significance to them. This recall is often given through current mindsets where the type of narrative is often influenced by the participant’s stage of life or state they are in (Clausen, 1998; Scott and Alwin, 1998). Thus, researchers must be mindful of the differences between historical truths and narrative truths that are gathered via the lifegrid and should take measures, such as the ones alluded to above, to ensure the accuracy of data which reflect historical truths. The lifegrid as a data collection tool can aid in the accurate recall of the lifecourse. With the integration of probes, and a mixture in the style of questioning, the researcher can draw out different types of truths. For instance, asking questions such as ‘when did “x” happen?’

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requests a discrete piece of information (Riessman, 2008, p  25), and will result in the construction of the lifegrid where reference to traumatic events are recalled in a practical way and used as a landmark. However, posing questions such as ‘tell me what happened’ will invite an extended account as suggested by Riessman (2008, p 25) and allows depth to these events.

Concluding remarks The lifegrid has been successfully used for both quantitative and qualitative research and can capture historical and narratives truths. The researcher must be mindful which of the knowledge claims are being reflected by the participant and the implications these have on their research objectives. Through the integration of various recall strategies the extent of forgetting past events are reduced, thus increasing data quantity. The quality of data can be enhanced with the incorporation of other research tools relevant to the research objectives, such as, but not limited to, a semi-structured survey tool, rich pictures, occupational risk maps, pathology and other medical reports, clinical, employment and environmental records, and relevant dated documents. The lifegrid is highly versatile, aids in building rapport and can provide a contextual understanding of the lifecourse. It also allows for a visual representation of the lifecourse, transitions and trajectories which are possible if the proper line of questioning is incorporated; this feature can prove to be invaluable in lifecourse research. The temporal aspect of the lifecourse can be accurately obtained via the lifegrid given that various recall strategies and supplementary tools are implemented. The lifegrid is highly recommended for use as a supplementary tool to guide similar research. Note 1

The author has previously published under the name Ann Novogradec.

References Anderson, J.  E. and Brown, R.  A. (1980) ‘Notes for practice: life history grid for adolescents’, Social Work, 25(4): 321–3. Auriat, N. (1993) ‘My wife knows best’: A comparison of event dating accuracy between the wife, the husband, the couple, and the Belgium population register’, Public Opinion Quarterly, 57(2): 165–90.

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Balán, J., Browning, H.  L., Jelin, E. and Litzler, L. (1969) ‘A computerized approach to the processing and analysis of life histories obtained in sample surveys’, Behavioral Science, 14(2): 105–20. Bell, A. J. (2005) ‘ ‘Oh yes, I remember it well!’ Reflections on using the life-grid in qualitative interviews with couples’, Qualitative Sociology Review, 1(1): 51–67. Belli, R. F. (1998) ‘The structure of autobiographical memory and the event history calendar: potential improvements in the quality of retrospective reports in surveys’, Memory, 6(4): 383–406. Belli, R. F., Smith, L. M., Andreski, P. M. and Agrawal, S. (2007) ‘Methodological comparisons between CATI event history calendar and standardized conventional questionnaire instruments’, Public Opinion Quarterly, 71(4): 603–22. Berney, L. and Blane, D. (1997) ‘Collecting retrospective data: accuracy of recall after 50 years judged against historical records’, Social Science and Medicine, 45(10): 1519–25. Berney, L. and Blane, D. (2003) ‘The lifegrid method of collecting retrospective information from people at older ages’, Research Policy and Planning, 21(2): 13–22. Berney, L., Blane, D., Smith, G. D., Gunnell, D. J., Holland, P. and Montgomery, S. M. (2000) ‘Socioeconomic measures in early old age as indicators of previous lifetime exposure to environmental hazards’, Sociology of Health and Illness, 22(4): 415–30. Blum, Z. D., Karweit, N. L. and Sorensen, A. B. (1969) ‘A method for the collection and analysis of retrospective life histories’, Report no. 48, Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University, Center for the Study of Social Organization of Schools. Clausen, J. A. (1998) ‘Chapter 8: life reviews and life stories’ in J. Z. Giele and G. H. Elder (eds) Methods of life course research: Qualitative and quantitative approaches, Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, pp 189–212. Denzin, N.  K. (1978) The research act: A theoretical introduction to sociological methods, New York: McGraw-Hill. Edwards, R., Pless-Mulloli, T., Howel, D., Chadwick, T., Bhopal, R., Harrison, R. and Gribbin, H. (2006) ‘Does living near heavy industry cause lung cancer in women? A case-control study using life grid interviews’, Thorax, 61(12): 1076–82. Haglund, K. (2004) ‘Conducting life history research with adolescents’, Qualitative Health Research, 14(9): 1309–19. Holland, P., Berney, L., Blane, D. and Davey Smith, G. (1999) ‘The lifegrid method in health inequalities research’, Health Variations: The Official Newsletter of the ESRC Health Variations Programme, 3: 8–9.

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Holland, P., Berney, L., Blane, D., Davey Smith, G., Gunnell, D. J. and Montgomery, S. M. (2000) ‘Life course accumulation of disadvantage: childhood health and hazard exposure during adulthood’, Social Science and Medicine, 50(9): 1285–95. Humble, Á.  M. (2009) ‘Technique triangulation for validation in directed content analysis’, International Journal of Qualitative Methods, 8(3): 34–51. Lieblich, A., Tuval-Mashiach, R. and Zilber, T. (eds) (1998) Narrative research: reading, analysis, and interpretation, Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Mackichan, F., Adamson, J. and Gooberman-Hill, R. (2013) ‘ ‘Living within your limits’: activity restriction in older people experiencing chronic pain’, Age and Ageing, 42(6): 702–8. Mitchell, B. A. (2003) ‘Life course theory’, in J. J. Ponzetti (ed) The international encyclopedia of marriage and family relationships (2nd edn), New York: MacMillan Reference. Novogradec, A. (2012) ‘An exploration of the living and working environments of esophageal cancer patients: Gaining a contextual understanding of the risk factors for disease’, PhD dissertation, Toronto, Ontario: York University. Parry, O., Thomson, C. and Fowkes, G. (1999) ‘Life course data collection: qualitative interviewing using the life grid’, Sociological Research Online, 4(2), http://www.socresonline.org.uk/4/2/parry. html Parry, O., Thomson, C. and Fowkes, G. (2002) ‘Cultural context, older age and smoking in Scotland: qualitative interviews with older smokers with arterial disease’, Health Promotion International, 17(4): 309–16. Ravanera, Z. R., Rajulton, F. and Burch, T. K. (2004) ‘Patterns of age variability in life course transitions’, Canadian Journal of Sociology, 29(4): 527–42. Richardson, J. C., Ong, B. N. and Sim, J. (2008), ‘Experiencing and controlling time in everyday life with chronic widespread pain: a qualitative study’, BMC Musculoskeletal Disorders, 9(3), http://doi: 10.1186/1471-2474-9-3. Richardson, J. C., Ong, B. N., Sim, J. and Corbett, M. (2009) ‘Begin at the beginning… using a lifegrid for exploring illness experience’, Social Research Update, 57: 1–4. Riessman, C. K. (ed) (2008) Narrative methods for the human sciences, Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Sayles, H., Belli, R. F. and Serrano, E. (2010) ‘Interviewer variance between event history calendar and conventional questionnaire interviews’, Public Opinion Quarterly, 74(1): 140–53.

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Scott, J. and Alwin, D. (1998) ‘Retrospective versus prospective measurement of life histories in longitudinal research’, in J. Z. Giele and G. H. Elder (eds) Methods of Life course research: Qualitative and quantitative approaches, Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 98–127 Wilson, S., Cunningham-Burley, S., Bancroft, A. and Backett-Milburn, K. (2007) ‘Young people, biographical narratives and the life grid: young people’s accounts of parental substance use’, Qualitative Research, 7(1): 135–51. Yoshihama, M., Gillespie, B., Hammock, A.  C., Belli, R.  F. and Tolman, R. M. (2005) ‘Does the life history calendar method facilitate the recall of intimate partner violence? Comparison of two methods of data collection’, Social Work Research, 29(3): 151–63. Yow, V. R. (1994) Recording oral history: A practical guide for social scientists, London: Sage.

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Part II Space and place

SIX

Life geohistories: examining formative experiences and geographies Bisola Falola One day I followed Stephen around school as he rushed to get his teachers to sign a permission form for a field trip to a nearby college. As we hustled from classroom to classroom, he started to narrate his actions: ‘I need to stop by Mr Daniels and get this form signed … okay now to Mrs Travis, she’s the best, she helped me get through high school …, outside, hmm no one sits here anymore, not since freshman year, the BISA kids [arts magnet programme] took it over … oh look, [he says pointing to a wall lined with pictures of previous graduating classes] 1974 that’s my grandma, that’s how long my family’s been going here … That’s why we fought so hard keeping Benson High open … okay around this corner, no not that way, I never go down that hall … now to Mrs Norrell’s room, it used to be Mrs Redmond’s room but she left us, it was really sad …’ (Stephen) As he recalled his high school experiences through the different places, spaces and objects around him and, as his actions shifted in relation to the geography around him, I realised that my current methods of gathering young peoples’ life histories were missing these embodied experiences of place. I was capturing participants’ key experiences in everyday places but not how their everyday places ‘took on significance’ and drove their beliefs and actions. I needed to rethink how to capture participants’ formative experiences as well as their formative geographies. As a result, I started to explore methodologies that would enable me to move from collecting life histories to exploring life geohistories. By focusing on life geohistories, I shift attention to how place and space exert influence over the lifecourse. The affordances and

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constraints people encounter in and through their daily life spaces can impact their ability to find employment and pursue careers, marry and sustain families, and access the resources and opportunities that support their development through different life stages and transitions. Changes in life direction, status or identity such as leaving home, becoming a parent, going back to school or retiring are often constituted in and through new life spaces, and entail negotiating the social and spatial circumstance of shifting daily geographies. In viewing life transitions and trajectories as relationally produced with people’s lived geographies, it becomes important to examine how the methods we use to capture and analyse people’s biographies account for the formative nature of space and place. This chapter focuses on the methodological approach I used to examine how place shapes young people’s lifecourse development. I begin by explaining why I decided to gather young people’s life histories and why I chose to use oral and visual narrative methods. I then explain the benefits of these methods by using examples to draw attention to their most useful aspects for lifecourse research. From here, I discuss the limitations of this approach and outline why I shifted from life history interviews to gathering and analysing life geohistories. Then, I discuss the reasons for this theoretical and methodological shift via a critique of the temporal hegemony of biographical narratives. I conclude by outlining how life geohistories can serve as both a methodological approach and a conceptual tool for spatialising lifecourse research by exploring the challenges and opportunities offered by this framework.

Narrating and mapping life histories In 2012, I began two research projects that focused on examining the relationship between place and young people’s life trajectories. Both projects were conducted with African American and Latino/a youth (9–22 years old) in environments marked by marginalisation and socioeconomic disadvantages. One project examined the process of becoming a high school senior at Benson High, while the other examined the process of growing up in the Cathedral Court Terraces, a low-income public housing community in South Benson, US.1 In order to examine how their everyday experiences in and of place shaped their aspirations and lifecourse development, I conducted participant observations and gathered their life histories. Life histories, encompassed within biographical narratives,2 are stories that convey the evolution and meaning of the narrator’s life. In telling this narrative, the narrator organises his/her life events into a story

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that expresses how s/he developed in relation to social structures and the circumstances of his/her needs and desires (Fischer, 1991; Linde, 1993). As a result, the biographical narratives people tell can be used to examine how they make meaning of their lives, understand the significance of past choices and events, and negotiate societal structures and transformations (Elder, 1998; Elder and Giele, 2009). I gathered participants’ life histories by pairing oral narrative interviews with visual methods of eliciting biographical narratives such as through mapping and participatory diagramming. During the interviews, I asked participants to tell me about their journey through high school3 and childhood (for example, ‘tell me your story of becoming a senior from when you started as a freshmen to where you are now’; ‘tell me the story of your life here at the Cathedral Court Terraces, from when you first moved in to now’). I then used narrative prompting methods to encourage them to share more detailed stories about particular experiences (Chamberlayne et al, 2000; Wengraf, 2001). I also prompted participants to discuss their experiences through mapping in order to examine how their interactions in everyday places influenced their actions and beliefs. Mapping, as a biographical approach, has been used to examine how people conceptualise their life spaces and represent their lifecourse over time and space (Pain, 2004; Worth, 2011; Futch and Fine, 2014). Through the process of mapping, the narrator is prompted to interpret his/her map and explain its significance. As a result, the researcher is able to explore how participants situate themselves in relation to their life spaces and engage participants in a tangible discussion about how they perceive their lived geographies. Mapping, as a narrative and dialogical approach, can therefore generate deep conversations about ‘how a person moves through space, changes and is changed by space, and then how space can be embodied, metabolized and carried over time within a person’ (Futch and Fine, 2014, p 53). Mapping, as a narrative and geographical tool, documents how people’s activities unfold over time and space. While not used in my research, cartographically accurate approaches such as GIS and grounded visualisation can also be used to map participants’ everyday experiences. In these approaches, people’s experiences are geocoded and then visually related to a geographic context. The cartographic visualisation allows the participant (and researcher) to examine their spatially motivated behaviours (Kwan, 2008; Kwan and Ding, 2008; Wiebe and Branas, 2011; Boschmann and Cubbon, 2014). Through the process, participants gain the opportunity to re-examine, interpret, and make meaning of their spatialised lives.

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For my research projects, I used visual narrative methods to explore how participants’ everyday surroundings structured their experiences and key turning points. Participants engaged in one or all of the following: 1) mapped their everyday places and use the map to narrate their journey through high school or childhood; 2) created life maps and charted the key events, places and people that shaped their lifecourse transitions (Thomson et al, 2002; Worth, 2011; Bagnoli, 2009); and 3) created life-line charts to discuss their future pathways and imagined adulthood at different points in time and space (for example, ‘in 5, 10, 20 years, where will you be living, going to school, working?’) (Thomson and Holland, 2002). The combination of these narrative approaches proved useful in uncovering significant events and places as well as how participants perceived their everyday geography. Roxanne’s map of her ‘day in the life’, for example, revealed how the stress of working two jobs and going to school influenced her perception of home as a place of relief and rejuvenation. But her home, marked with question marks (see Figure 6.1), is also a conflicted space of support. It does not emotionally provide her everything she needs so she tries to find places that address this gap: ‘home, that’s where I start and where I finish … so that’s where I learned everything, that’s where I got it from, if something happens after I leave I don’t have to think about it till I come back. Everything happens in between these two places [leaving and coming back home] and this place [home] is the same thing. … [and] I go to the lake every night … to hang out, think, zone out.’ (Roxanne) Roxanne’s interpretations of her map revealed how the experiences and emotions from one location spill over into the next, shifting how she aims to use her daily life spaces to support her wellbeing and plan her next steps, both short and long term. Her everyday surroundings function as a closed loop system where she strives to balance, restore and preserve the affective balance of her daily geography. These methods also generated insights into the obstacles young people identified as limiting their lifecourse development. The process of mapping prompted many participants to reflect on the meaning of their spatial mobility and the level of their spatial extensibility or entrapment:

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Life geohistories Figure 6.1: Roxanne’s map

‘My days really do change, sometimes my day would just be me eating, watching TV, maybe pass out, maybe eat some more. Like sometimes I’ll stay at home like all day. But there’ll be days where I do … active things (chuckles), but now I don’t have anything productive besides homework and it’s not even homework, I just gotta go to class and read. [You’re trying to say you don’t do enough.] Yeah, I feel like, I feel like I’m not gonna be doing enough … like you know, I wish I had a job, I do think about that sometimes …’ (Lexi)

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For Lexi (see Figure 6.2), the map of daily life spaces represented her daily activities and thus what she was doing with her life. This map was therefore a reflection of the status and potential of her biographical development, which she viewed as limited and stuck in place. This discussion about spatial mobility as a reflection of lifecourse progress or stasis very well may not have been uncovered without the mapping process. Figure 6.2: Lexi’s map

Based on my participant observations at the high school and community, I also came to realise that these interviews were documenting a particular slice of participants’ experiences in and of place. More specifically, the interviews were not capturing how participants inhabited their everyday places and the schemata of meaning they used to negotiate their everyday geography. I began to wonder what kinds of information about place biographical narratives

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elicit and occlude. And second, I wondered if biographical narratives capture the significance of place (for example, from examining key turning points to influential places) or if these narratives were instead using space and place to represent time, where place was signifying key turning points rather than capturing the spatial contingencies of daily to lifecourse changes.

Biographical narratives: temporalising lived experiences The assertion that narratives privilege time over space is neither new (Herman, 2001; Herman et al, 2005; Ryan, 2014), nor my main point of concern. Rather, I want to understand how the temporal mechanics of biographical narratives influence what the narrator and researcher are able to uncover about the spatialities that shape people’s lifecourse development. In this section, I first examine the cultural specificity and temporal structure of biographies. I then discuss how this narrative structure positions space and place as a setting and the antithesis of action, and outline how this perception can limit our understanding of the relationship between place and life trajectories. In telling our life histories, we impose a narrative order and way of knowing on our lived experience (Bruner, 1988). We translate our continuous experience over time and space into key events, then select and sequence those events based on culturally accepted notions of what counts as a tellable life story (Habermas and Bluck, 2000; Wang and Brockmeier, 2002). In the Western convention, narrating one’s biography entails talking about the self as a protagonist, discussing key life stages and social markers (for example, childhood, education, marriage, career), including cause and effect sequences such as epiphanies and turning points, and tracing current outcomes to earlier experiences (Polanyi, 1989; McAdams, 2008). These narratives about personal change over time also draw on dominant plotlines. Western life stories are often told through themes of struggle over conflict, the quest to achieve the good life and journeys of redemption or selffulfilment or of decline versus continual lifetime progress. Biographical narratives, therefore, frame lived experiences into a culturally relevant genre of stories guided by a chronological causality (Polkinghorne, 1995; Chamberlayne et al, 2000; Czarniawska, 2004). As a result, the telling of one’s life history becomes a point where narrativity and lived experience are fused via a constructed temporality. The narrated self therefore becomes an ‘expression of a person’s existence through time’ (Polkinghorne, 1988, p 134). If lifecourse changes are narrated,

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interpreted and given meaning through time, then what role is given to place? In narrating life histories, place supports time by describing the setting where action happens. The description of place, however, should not distract from the story or prevent the reader from understanding the chronological flow of events (Ronen, 1986; Herman et al, 2005; Ryan, 2014). Place is minimally described and also translated from a world that exists simultaneously into a ‘medium structured in time’ (Zoran, 1984, p  312). This temporal release of spatial information (for example, describing a neighbourhood) makes it difficult for the audience to build a mental map of spatial relations. It limits the listener’s ability to understand and imagine the geography of the narrator’s lived experience. Gaps in representing the dynamic experience of place accumulate from how the narrator translates her lived experiences to what the listener or the researcher is able to conceptualise and then retell for others. The narrative style and scale at which place is described can also translate the dynamic of lived place into a general context, or a storyworld. Following Bakhtin (2002), a storyworld or chronotope can be conceptualised as a specific combination of space and time, or setting and plot, that structures the rules of a narrative. Life stories can function as a chronotopic genre, or stories that correspond with familiar expectations about the setting and the series of events that are likely to occur (Keunen, 2000; McAdams, 2008). In a biographical narrative, casting the storyworld of one’s narrative as ‘a rough inner city neighbourhood’ can, given a few details, sufficiently describe a place and set expectations about the type of life story to come (for example, a story of hardship marked by triumph and escape, or a story of struggle and entrapment). A biographical narrative told as a chronotopic genre can couple place with plot in a way that seems explanatory but, in actuality, lacks the information needed to understand how place structures connections between everyday experiences and lifecourse changes. The perception of place as setting and not plot operates through the narrative phases, from gathering to sequencing, analysing and storying one’s life history. In identifying what to include in one’s biography, cultural and narrative convention encourage narrators to focus on key events. As such, everyday places may seem irrelevant or superfluous. Places deemed influential may actually be used to signify an important point in time; that is, what is narrated is not the place but the before and after life changes that the particular place represents as a point in time. Along the same lines, research methods encourage researchers to elicit biographical narratives by asking open-ended questions to uncover the

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chronology of key events. The questions asked and the data generated are both chronologically structured (Connelly and Clandinin, 1990; Cortazzi, 1993; Clandinin and Connelly, 2000; Wengraf, 2001) such that in the process of collecting biographical narratives spatial questions are filtered through a temporal lens or translated into temporal concerns (From: Examine how the material and social grounds of Benson High influenced students’ journey through high school. To: Tell me the story of your journey from being a freshmen to now). The marginalisation of place through the narrative process further establishes time as the interpretive force of lifecourse changes. In narrating one’s life story, the temporal coherence of the narrative often aligns with the biographical coherence – the chronology and biographical development follow the same trajectory – such that the chronology of events is endowed with analytical power. As such, understanding the chronology of the story becomes the way to examine the cause and effect of life outcomes. This equation of chronology with causality, however, is often an illusion (Crites, 1986; Sandelowski, 1991) that needs to be resisted in order to truly account for the drivers of lifecourse change (Connelly and Clandinin, 1990). In other words, focusing on how and why lifecourse shifts transpire is not simply a function of time or even of chronology. Instead, the importance of the narrative lies in examining the passage of one state to another. Understanding the reason events become linked – the plot – rather than the chronology is what makes a biographical narrative a meaningful story of one’s life (Ricoeur, 1980, p 171). In this view, place becomes central to the gathering and analysing of biographical narratives, as an active driver of lifecourse changes and as a narrative element that via the plot can convey changes in a person’s biography. In order to effectively plot participants’ life histories, lifecourse research methods should help participants to recall the range of experiences, events, moments and emotions that mattered in everyday life (Horton and Kraftl, 2006), and describe through multiple senses how those experiences transpired within and through their everyday geographies. The process of narrating, sequencing and interpreting their life history should enable participants to better recall life experiences as well as their lived geographies.

Spatialising life histories In rethinking my methodological approach, I elicited participants’ stories of their situated and relational experience in and of place. In the process, I incorporated walking tours or go-along interviews into the

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project and used my participant observations to conduct more spatially directed narrative interviews (see also Schmidt-Thomé, Chapter 9). Walking tours involve interviewing participants while they give a tour of their neighbourhood or go about their daily routine (Kusenbach, 2003; Hein et al, 2008; Carpiano, 2009; Evans and Jones, 2011). Through asking questions and observing, the researcher is able to examine how people perceive their environment and how they give meaning to their everyday places and to themselves within it. Since navigating familiar environments and accessing one’s personal geography can provoke memories and embodied experiences (Ingold, 1993; Horton and Kraftl, 2006), walking tours are well suited for examining people’s experiences over time and space, and for following their biographical development (Marcus, 1995; Kusenbach, 2003). For my projects, I asked participants at the high school and community to take me on biographical walking tours. I began the walking tours with a brief open-ended prompt, for example: ‘A lot has happened over the past four years here. You’ve become a senior. I want you to take me on a tour of the school and tell me about becoming a senior here at Benson High.’ I audio recorded these individual hour-long interviews with wireless microphones so participants and I could move and talk more freely during the interviews. Some participants were immediately at ease and welcomed acting as a tour guide and narrating their experiences. Other participants took more time to become comfortable with being visible within their everyday environment. Walking tours, like the one conducted with Stephen, were effective at revealing how participants inhabited their daily life spaces. The tour created opportunities to examine participants’ embodied experience of place and to explore the dialectical relationship between participants and their everyday surroundings: ‘Coming into Eastside I was like so scared because, I was just like it’s high school, everything’s different, I’m just gonna fail all my classes, … And then I got here and it was just open arms … It was like a family a really big family … [a girl runs up and play hits him] … oh Jessica, friend of 14 years here, went to elementary school with her [they high five each other] … before I wasn’t feeling school, and I was just not coming to school … like art for me, my freshmen year, is what got me to like open up to people, got me more social, it got rid of basically like all the fears I had about high school … Mrs Travis (art teacher), has grown to become my favourite teacher, … she’s like the epitome

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of what it means to be a teacher … she’s like a mentor to me.’ Jessie, a teacher assistant sees us walking down the hall and calls out to Stephen: ‘Do you guys realise that half of the school year is almost over for you seniors … so are you gonna be like the salutatorian … (well) good luck.’ ‘Thanks Jessie,’ Stephen replies. [We continue walking and someone jumps out at us from the boys bathroom, screaming] … ‘that terrified me, oh my god, I was not expecting that [the other guy is laughing] … well, I have no idea who he was, I don’t know him … (that’s) another thing that I really love about Benson High … everyone is really accepting … I think everyone else just like gets accustomed to the atmosphere of the school and they just take it easy and go with the flow and that’s just like how it goes …’ Mrs Page walks up to Stephen and says: ‘Hey sorry to interrupt but just before I forget, Nancy asked for you and she wants you to just like check in’ … ‘Okay,’ Stephen replies. (Stephen) Through the walking tours, participants shared encounters, and experiences that transpired within their daily life spaces. As a result, a personal geography of their experiences and emotions began to take shape: ‘… like almost every single spot in this complex [has a memory] like, right here this was our … second family type of thing … and we’d come over here a whole lot cuz [because] we’d like to get away from our parents … oh and right up this hill there’s a spot you can skip [school] at or that, that I’ve seen kids skip [school] at … over there is the Y … Mrs Patrice, who worked at the Y, she was extra cool … like everybody used to go to her about everything, myself, cuz I had a lot, a lot, a lot of stress and a lot of uh problems and anger … she’s actually one of the people that inspired me to want to work with kids.’ ‘… I had friends that we would chill … Then I had some friends that we was like some rebels, we liked to do a lot of crazy stuff like over here by the Center … one day we took the road block signs and put ’em on the streets … and we would laugh our butt off [as cars stopped]. And this other

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one time, on this same hill, I just bought these airsoft guns … [These] steps right over here is like a good [spot], a lot of kids used to skip over here.’ ‘Pretty much when I came [here], it was a whole different playing field from my hometown … [it was] kinda rough, there was a lot of fights … I remember there was these two kids I knew … like their family lived up the hill … and the other family lived down here … both these families were like beefing hard … you better not be friends with this side or this side, cuz if you’re friends with them, you better stay up there … when I first came [here], I did not come outside for a whole year …’ ‘What got you out?’ I asked him. ‘Remember I told you the first year of high school when I moved [here] … I started skipping a lot, and then it made it to where I got around, and made it to where I started coming outside.’ (Brandon) Brandon’s walking tour, and the personal geography it fleshed out, brimmed with opportunities to examine his lifecourse development and ask questions about his decisions and actions, speculate about the trajectories that may have developed, and explore how his experiences and beliefs changed in relation to his everyday geography. Walking tours also helped to reveal contradictions and omissions that may prove fruitful for analysis (for example, asking Brandon about his reluctance to identify himself as someone who skipped school, and why he linked skipping with becoming more familiar with the neighbourhood). With walking tours, participants can still engage in self preservation and exclude particular places, events and emotions. The act of walking within familiar landscapes, however, also encourages participants to spontaneously share stories and narrate a flow of experience. This flow of narration also means that the data generated may contain more information than approaches that focus primarily on gathering key events and turning points. This, however, may even be beneficial as knowing what information is significant may not be clear in the beginning of a project. In developing and rethinking my methodological approach, I modified how I collected oral and visual narratives. I primarily used my observations to ask questions that captured more facets of participants’ experience of place and identify when space and place were influencing their actions. For example, I could examine participants maps and narratives in a more spatially nuanced manner and ask targeted, ‘insider’

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follow-up questions (such as ‘why do you only stay down the hill?’, ‘what do you remember about walking down the 600 hallway?’). As a result, I could now use the interviews to ask questions about how participants and inhabited their daily life spaces.

Towards life geohistories methodology Life geohistories, as a methodological and conceptual framework, aims to examine what we can learn about people’s lives and lifecourse through place and through examining the narratives of their personal geographies. The spaces and places people experience shapes their lifecourse, as it guides the formation of early life identities, aspirations and expectations, and as it impacts the opportunities and constraints people encounter as well as how they navigate these life events and turning points. Because space and place exert influence over the lifecourse (Hörschelmann, 2011), examining life geohistories can reveal how and why some people are able to take advantage of their personal geographies, and enable researchers to better examine how biographies become constructed as people negotiate the social and spatial circumstances of their daily life spaces. This approach of capturing life geohistories, therefore, seeks to recover and equally privilege space in the narration, interpretation and analysis of biographical narratives. The goal of using life geohistories is to thus construct personal geographies as a way to capture participants’ experiences in and of place, generate spatialised data for narrative analysis, engage participants in analysing this data and as a result generate geographically grounded stories of their life history. Personal geographies can be thought of as the situated experiences and emotions participants have accumulated over time and space. Constructing these personal geographies entails gathering different aspects of participants’ locational experiences: this ranges from their encounters in everyday places and their spatial practices to their embodied and affective experience of place and their perceptions of place. Methods such as mapping, participatory diagrams, qualitative GIS and walking tours, which gather locational experiences, can be used in constructing participants’ personal geographies in the form of life geohistories. Narrative techniques that capture participants’ space–time data also apply, along with other forms of oral and visual narrative techniques that can be paired with the methods listed (Table 6.1). The resulting ‘map’ of a participant’s personal geographies can be cartographically accurate or be more spatially inflected. Table 6.1

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Researching the lifecourse Table 6.1: Constructing personal geographies: methods for gathering locational experiences and space–time data Cartographic maps

Qualitative GIS Participatory GIS Sketch maps

Participatory diagrams and maps

Mental mapping Life maps Relief maps (intersectional analysis)

Narrative interviews

Walking tours, go-along interviews Photoelicitation, photovoice

Space–time data tracking

Digital diaries, audio diaries, activity journals Mobile phone tracking and surveys Social network and information and communications technology (ICT) data

shows how these methods can be used by themselves or combined as part of an integrative approach to gathering life geohistories. It is important to note that this approach does not view place as a static container of a personal history or as a landscape that is filled with meaning that can be accessed and duplicated as it is or once was (Ingold, 1993; Crang and Travlou, 2001). Rather, it views place as holding ‘the key to discovering meaning’ (Ingold, 1993). This approach, therefore, aims to find ways to situate people in relation to their lived geographies ‘such that meaning can be discovered’ and they can provide grounded, relational accounts of their experiences. If, as Ricoeur (2000) asserts, the ability to examine our past and tell our life histories ‘begins with memory, not history’ (cf Hannoum, 2005), then finding ways to help participants to recall and construct their personal geographies is an important task of lifecourse research. Eliciting life geohistories entails shifting from analysing narratives, where methods gather fully formed, cohesive narratives as data, to conducting narrative analysis. Narrative analysis involves gathering events and experiences as data, integrating the events into meaningful sequences, and producing stories as the outcome (Polkinghorne, 1995). The goal of narrative analysis, which seeks to examine ‘how and why a particular outcome came about’, mirrors the aims of lifecourse research. Guiding participants through interpreting their personal geographies and paying attention to how they resolve contradictions, what they omit and explain away, may enable us to better understand what drove their particular trajectories as well as what did not matter. Although constructing narratives from data opens up questions about authorship, having the participants narrate and interpret their life experiences is, in large part, what makes biographical narratives meaningful. As a

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result, participants should be involved in narratively analysing their personal geographies.

Life geohistories methodology Collecting and analysing life geohistories raises fundamental questions about how geographic narratives are conceptualised as a narrative process and a methodological approach. Efforts to write geographic narratives (Cole, 2012, 2014; Sebald, 1997), which narrate a character’s life and life experiences across place, are often viewed as fragmentary, disconnected and as pre-narratives. The more spatial coherence becomes a guiding factor, the more the work is said to have limited narrativity (Azaryahu and Foote, 2008; Corrigan, 2014). In this view, geographical narratives lack a clear sequence of events and an explanation of how disparate events are related. As a result, when applied to biographical narratives, they do not, and perhaps cannot, provide entirely cohesive accounts of lifecourse changes. But Western biographies were not formerly coherent and fully formed. The cultural convention of narrating biographies has shifted from being related as incomplete streams of consciousness to a format where events are sequenced, unified under a single plot, and move towards to a final state. Additionally, being presented with a biographical narrative that does not explain the meaning and significance behind key events does not mean that the narrative lacks a plot or a casual chain of events. The rationale for what caused a change in the character’s state and the sequence of events that matter may be contained in a series of emplotted episodes (Bertaux and Kohli, 1984) or may be told through ‘small stories’ that are presented as part of a trajectory of interactions (Georgakopoulou, 2006; Bamberg and Georgakopoulou, 2008). Rather than relying on an overarching storyline, the themes that emerge from the episodic stories are what convey the meaning of the story (given that we as the audience look for it). As such biographies, as geographical narratives, may take the form of open-ended narratives held together by themes and relational connections. These connections can be viewed through multiple trajectories – much like the lifecourse these narratives aim to capture. The question then becomes not whether geographic narratives are fully coherent narratives, but rather how we should understand and analyse a narrative that is told through a geographic arc. The analysis of geographic narratives presents another key area of challenge: how to evaluate the impact of place on life trajectories. This evaluation must consider the spatial scale of analysis and how place will

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be re-storied or narrated since the end result of this analytical process is a(nother) narrative. Answering these questions may lead to the following narrative analysis approaches: 1) analyse the individual places within a participant’s personal geography, identify the positive and negative impacts of those places, and determine their characteristics; 2) associate each turning point of a person’s lifecourse with an influential place or spatial practice (the scale of analysis would depend on the events being analysed, as the aim of this approach is to situate life events in the particular contexts (space-times) that shaped and were shaped by those experiences; analysis of significant life experiences would therefore always be associated with a defined and causal space-time); or 3) examine a participant’s geographies as a unique assemblage. This approach aims to identify how geographies, as networks of social and spatial interrelations, impact participants’ biographical development. It focuses on examining how changes in everyday places or in people’s actions and beliefs can shift their daily geography and, therefore, propel new possibilities. Thus, examining the influence of multiple contexts and tracing shifts in geographic assemblages is important to analysing the spatial drivers of life trajectories. In capturing life geohistories we are examining how place becomes significant to lifecourse development. At the same time, by determining the scale of analysis and narrative approach, we are, in part, deciding which places or geographies are privileged and are helping to shape how place is understood as a driver of lifecourse processes. These methodological and theoretical implications also have social and political ramifications. A wide range of US place-based programmes have been proposed as ways to improve the life prospects of urban minority youth (such as Promise Neighborhoods, Choice Neighborhoods, Moving to Opportunity program, Harlem Children’s Zone). These policies, however, are divided along the same lines as the questions outlined above (Tough, 2009; Moore et al, 2009; Anthony and UNICEF, 2012; Gennetian et al, 2012). Some policies argue for programmes focused at the home scale while others aim to make interventions at the school, community or city scale. Efforts to collect geographic indicators of lifecourse progress, mainly for youth, are also divided among: a) approaches that favour examining places found to be at risk and prone to limiting peoples’ future prospects; b) approaches that identify the perceived pathways that lead to upward or downward social mobility; and c) approaches that attempt to determine how to create environments that support young people’s development and future life prospects.

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Lifecourse researchers are well positioned to address these challenges of understanding how place impacts life trajectories. However, in order for lifecourse studies to influence these place-based policies and provide normative guidance, the issues raised above must be considered and addressed through the course of empirical research.

Conclusion Biographical narratives, ‘as a special practice and form of temporalisation’ (Chamberlayne et al, 2000), impact how place is presented in life stories and how place is, therefore, viewed in relation to lifecourse changes. More specifically, the privileging of time and chronology, as well as the positioning of place as setting and the antithesis of plot, flattens lived geographies into particular representations of place. These representations occlude the embodied and relational dimensions of participants’ experiences in everyday places, and the dialectical and shifting relationship between participants and their everyday geographies. This, as a result, diminishes the narrator’s ability to account for how everyday places influenced the biographical development. Methodologically, it also skews analysis towards examining perceptions of place and influential places at the expense of understanding the process of how place and everyday geographies take on significance and become formative as they shape and shift lifecourse development. Addressing the temporal bias of biographical narratives presents an opportunity to develop narrative techniques that elicit life histories from a geographical or space–time perspective. Methods, such as life geohistories, that aim to spatialise lifecourse research enable narrators to better recall and account for multiple dimensions of their experiences in and of place, focus on gathering the accumulation of experiences and life events that comprise participants’ personal geographies, and examine ways of generating biographies as the outcome of narrative analysis. This approach, in being well suited to explore multiple trajectories and branching pathways, also enables researchers to better examine the factors that link early experiences to future decisions and life outcomes. Engaging participants in analysing their lives through their personal geographies may also help create geographic counter stories, which, for marginalised groups, are narratives that aim to use their complex experiences of place as a way to counter the dominant, often singlestoried, linkage between their life spaces and projections of diminished or limited life trajectories. Geographic counter stories, by opening up different approaches to viewing and telling narratives of place, can lead

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to new ways of imagining and analysing life histories and lifecourse trajectories. In other words, the process of constructing a biography, as an act of generating a story about ‘who I am and how I got that way’ is also a practice of self legitimation. The ability to examine different kinds of stories, take different perspectives in analysing one’s life, and re-story one’s life, can therefore facilitate the process of narrative recovery and coping and coming to terms with one’s biography and lifecourse (Pennebaker and Seagal, 1999; Pennebaker, 2000; McAdams, 2008; Bernasconi, 2008). For marginalised populations, the ability to examine one’s lifecourse through telling their own narratives of place and examining their personal geographies supports the process of constructing self understandings that better account for their lived realities and the telling of lifecourse stories that include the effects of broader societal and spatial structures. Additionally, this process of eliciting life geohistories, by linking participants’ spatial practices with their lifecourse, may also enable researchers to advance more grounded narratives about how spatial immobility and entrapment influences the lives of marginalised people. Rather than viewing their lives and geographies as shaped within fixed contexts of immobility and entrapment, examining the life geohistories of marginalised groups can reveal the mix of mobilities created as they negotiated their everyday geographies as well as the social and spatial extensibilities that may have shifted and helped to improve their lifecourse. Lastly, this effort to spatialise lifecourse research through rethinking the process of collecting and analysing biographical narratives is based on challenging the idea that self understanding and biographic understanding derive from temporality and from knowing ourselves through time. It instead calls for theories and methods that can advance our ability to understand ourselves and examine our lives and lifecourse through place, through our lived geographies, and through the development and analysis of life geohistories. Notes 1 The names of the city, neighbourhoods, communities and schools included in this chapter are fictitious in order to protect the anonymity of participants.

In this chapter, life histories are viewed within the context of biographical narratives, but biographies, autobiographies, life histories and life or personal stories can be further differentiated by their theoretical origins and methodological merits. This group of narratives, however, are similarly structured by their distinct use of narrative as a way

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Life geohistories to understand people’s experiences in everyday contexts and by the rules that govern how these stories are told and related to lived experiences. High school, in this chapter, consists of the 9th through to the 12th year of an American student’s education. A typically freshmen in high school (9th grade) is 14 or 15 years old. A graduating senior is typically 17 to 18 years old. 3

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Polkinghorne, D. E. (1988) Narrative knowing and the human sciences, Albany: State University of New York Press. Polkinghorne, D.  E. (1995) ‘Narrative configuration in qualitative analysis’, International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 8(1): 5–23. Ricoeur, P. (1980) ‘Narrative time’, Critical Inquiry, 7(1): 169–90. Ricoeur, P. (2000) La mémoire, l’histoire, l’oubli, Paris: Seuil. Ronen, R. (1986) ‘Space in fiction’, Poetics Today, 7(3): 421–38. Ryan, M.-L. (2014) ‘Space’, the living handbook of narratology, www. lhn.uni-hamburg.de/article/space. Sandelowski, M. (1991) ‘Telling stories: Narrative approaches in qualitative research’, Image: the Journal of Nursing Scholarship, 23(3): 161–6. Sebald, W.  G. (1997) The emigrants (2nd edn), New York: New Directions. Thomson, R. and Holland, J. (2002) ‘Imagined adulthood: Resources, plans and contradictions’, Gender and Education, 14(4): 337–50. Thomson, R., Bell, R., Holland, J., Henderson, S., McGrellis, S. and Sharpe, S. (2002) ‘Critical moments: choice, chance and opportunity in young people’s narratives of transition’, Sociology, 36(2): 335–54. Tough, P. (2009) Whatever it takes: Geoffrey Canada’s quest to change Harlem and America, New York, NY: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. Wang, Q. and Brockmeier, J. (2002) ‘Autobiographical remembering as cultural practice: Understanding the interplay between memory, self and culture’, Culture and Psychology, 8(1): 45–64. Wengraf, T. (2001) Qualitative research interviewing: Biographic narrative and semi-structured methods, Thousand Oaks: SAGE Publications. Wiebe, D. J. and Branas, C. C. (2011) ‘Daily activities and violence in community landscapes’, in H. Newburger (ed) Neighborhood and life chances: How place matters in modern America, Pennsylvania: University of Pennsylvania Press, pp 89–102. Worth, N. (2011) ‘Evaluating life maps as a versatile method for lifecourse geographies’, Area, 43(4): 405–12. Zoran, G. (1984) ‘Towards a theory of space in narrative’, Poetics Today, 5(2): 309–35.

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Using mapmaking to research the geographies of young children affected by political violence Bree Akesson

Introduction Mapmaking can be a process by which individuals orient themselves and navigate from place to place. The process of mapmaking can also be used as a tool for understanding one’s sense of place. The mapmaking experience is rooted in what Sobel (1998, p 5) identifies as ‘our visual, kinesthetic, and emotional experiences’. As a visual method, mapmaking provides one example of how individuals engage with place. Individuals throughout the lifecourse – from young children to ageing adults – influence and are influenced by place. And in order to better understand individuals’ experience with place, research methodologies have increasingly turned to visual methods. For example, the burgeoning field of children’s geographies has pioneered visual methodologies in order to understand the emplaced experiences of children in a variety of contexts. In this chapter, I focus on mapmaking as a promising method in lifecourse research, specifically illustrating how I have used it in research to investigate young children’s personal geographies.1 As defined by Blaut and colleagues (2003, p  165), mapmaking is the process by which one creates a text ‘that represent a geographical landscape in the traditional map-like way, reduced in scale and depicted as though viewed from overhead’. However, for young children, a map may be more broadly conceptualised as a drawing that depicts spaces and places. The process of mapmaking is especially relevant for a methodological exploration of place, because maps represent an epistemological process – how one sees the world and one’s place within it. Sobel (1998, p  3) notes that mapmaking is an ‘inherent human endeavor’ for a range of ages and stages from the young child to the older adult: ‘Just as the young child has an innate tendency to learn to

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speak and count and sing and draw, the child also has a tendency to make maps’. Indeed, maps, in their many forms, are one of the earliest forms of visual information (Wood, 1992). Furthermore, because of their visual nature, maps are easily accessible to children. Berger’s (1990) notion that ‘Seeing comes before words … and establishes our place in the surrounding world’ confirms the importance of the visual in the early stages of the lifecourse. Pink (2007) notes that, in order to understand any research project, one must understand the relationship between theory and method. Therefore, I will first develop the relationship between theory and method by describing the main theoretical underpinnings for considering mapmaking as a methodology for research with young children affected by political violence. Then I will discuss mapmaking as a participatory methodological approach to investigate young children’s experiences and describe research that aims to better understand young children’s mapmaking abilities. I follow this by exploring why mapmaking is a viable methodology with young children and how maps and mapmaking should be analysed in the context of research with young children. Theoretical underpinnings First, I acknowledge the ideas expressed by the field of children’s geographies, which views children as a source of knowledge about their own lives and environments (van Blerkand et al, 2009). Rather than passive subjects, young children are constantly negotiating and reconstructing their environments in profound ways. This is supported by Langsted’s (1994) view of children as experts in the own lives and Qvortrup and colleagues’ (1994, p 2) view of ‘children as beings, not becomings’. However, for children in settings of political violence, these conceptualisations of childhood are often eclipsed by a deficits-based approach to research. Furthermore, young children’s roles in conflict are often overgeneralised. For example, children in settings of political violence have been portrayed as either helpless victims of violence or future agitators of violence. Yet, these are one dimensional depictions of children’s engagement in violent settings. In fact, narrow representations can undermine local coping strategies (Dawes, 2000). They also tend to overwhelm and silence the multiple experiences and roles that young children play in political violence. A major anthropological review article by Korbin (2003) found that children’s voices were largely absent from the literature examining childhood and violence. Therefore, it is important to understand

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young children’s lived experiences growing up amid political violence by using methodologies that acknowledge children as a key source for understanding the dynamics about their own lives. This leads to my second theoretical underpinning, which emphasises the importance of a methodological approach that empowers young children and their families. Children – especially young children – affected by political violence are faced with the challenge of often being in a powerless position. Agency is difficult to come by in a place where one fears that one’s home may be destroyed or one’s family may be taken away. Children’s agency may be limited or restricted by their restriction to place, which impacts on their experiences and understandings (Gilliam, 2003). However, power is not divided equally among all children. Some children may exercise agency, while others may not be fully able to. For young children, their ability to exercise agency may by limited or diminished by war and violence. Nevertheless, their agency still exists, and research methodologies should consider ways in which to access and enhance young children’s agency. Third, in addition to emphasising the importance of young children as active agents in their own lives, young children are nested in interlocking systems of family and community. As a component of the family and community system, they can be an important source of knowledge about their own lives and communities. Yet at the same time their experiences are constantly shaped and influenced by those around them. Understanding the young child from this ecological perspective allows for siblings, caregivers and members of the child’s social environment to be involved in the research process. Therefore, any research methodology should consider the ways in which children, families and communities interact with each other, and make efforts to gather data from these multiple sources. Using the above theoretical underpinnings to inform my approach to mapmaking as a methodology with young children, the following presents a discussion of mapmaking as a methodological approach to investigate young children’s experience in the context of political violence. Mapmaking as participatory Because of their position in an adult-dominated society, children may not feel comfortable expressing their views or be taken seriously by adults. Therefore, researchers working with children continually struggle with how to best encourage children to express their views by enhancing their willingness to communicate and increasing the richness of the data (Hill, 1997). Furthermore, traditional research

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methods with children have been criticised because they do not consider children’s involvement in the research process (Veale, 2005). This is especially true with research on young children and their families living in contexts of political violence, where research participants often occupy a passive role in the methodological process. These traditional forms of research are based on a positivist approach, which utilises empirical methodologies borrowed from the natural sciences to investigate phenomena (Berg, 1998). Using a positivist lens, the researcher objectively follows the behaviours of ‘subjects’ with tools such as individual interviews, surveys or checklists to generate a large quantity of data. While these studies still contribute to our growing knowledge about war-affected children, a sole reliance on positivist strategies leads to outcomes that do not wholly represent the complex lived experiences of young children and their families (Boyden and de Berry, 2004; Veale, 2005). There is, however, a place for positivist methods when sensitively combined with other complementary methods to provide a complete picture of young children’s lives. For example, Leitch’s (2008) research with children in Northern Ireland has found that narrative methodologies are made more readily accessible by the integration of visual image making. The use of participatory methods with young children has become of increasing interest as a means of giving children a voice, treating them as active agents, and recognising that they have something important to say about the world around them. Image making processes, such as mapmaking, engage young children holistically, creatively and practically in an activity that connects with their ability (Anning and Ring, 2004). Image making provides an opportunity to represent experience, through a tangible process and product. Participatory researchers work with participants to help them ‘define their own reality and challenge imposed knowledge’ (Veale, 2005, p 254). Chambers (1997) recommends that methods should shift the balance of emphasis: from -etic to -emic, closed to open, individual to group, verbal to visual, measuring to comparing, and extracting information to empowering local knowledge. Then, the research process becomes one of reflection and consensus in order ‘to stimulate the articulation of multiple voices and positions’ (Veale, 2005, p 254). These kinds of participatory techniques provide opportunities for young children to express themselves in meaningful ways, while also offering a means of empowerment and fuller participation in society and in decision making matters that may affect them.

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Young children as mapmakers Due to the prevalence of popular child development theories over the past decade, such as Piaget and Inhelder’s (1967) theory of development of spatial cognition, it was previously assumed that young children lacked the capacity for abstract thinking and therefore did not have developed mapping abilities (Downs et al, 1988; Liben and Downs, 1997). This misconception has persisted into the present with concern that young children’s experiences are limited by their age, and therefore anything they have to contribute to research is based on insufficient knowledge (Boyden, 2004). Similarly, in research with war-affected children, very few studies include young children as research participants. Framed by Piaget and Inhelder’s (1967) stages of child development, researchers such as Matthews (1984) and Bell (2002) have explored children’s spatial awareness using visual representations of place. Mental maps and aerial photographs have been used to explore children’s spatial development (Blaut, 1997). Blades and colleagues (1998) used similar techniques to establish similarities in mapmaking abilities among young children across cultures. And several researchers have found that young children have significant mapmaking abilities (Blades et al., 1998; Blaut, 1997; Blaut and Stea, 1971; Blautand et al, 1970; Blaut et al, 2003; Blaut, 1991; Matthews, 1995; Matthews, 1992; Matthews, 1987; Mitchell, 1934; Plesterand et al, 2002; Sowdenand et al, 1996). Sitskoorn and Smitsman (1995) found that infants as young as six-months-old have spatial awareness around them and can construct knowledge based on their experiences. Hancock and Gillen’s (2007) cross-cultural research revealed that two-year-old children understand and invest meaning in domestic places. Similarly, Gallacher (2005) determined that two- and three-year-olds are able to creatively negotiate space and time. Blaut et al (2003) have found that children aged 3–5 years are able to interpret aerial photographs and simple maps. The implications of this work are important. As Blaut and colleagues point out, pre-literate children can, because of their proven ability to understand visual representations, be exposed to a rich breadth of information at a young age. Therefore, children are more competent than conventional Piagetian models of childhood suggest. Pearce (1977) describes children as being firmly established within the mother–family matrix until age four, and so these systems greatly influence a young child’s map of the world. From ages four to seven the child begins to explore the world beyond the home (Sobel, 1998). But this may vary by culture, where children are out on the street at

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an early age, being looked after by an older sibling and other children in the neighbourhood (Rogoff, 2003). Studies show that children as young as four years from various cultures have mapping abilities including the perceptual and scale interpretation abilities to read and understand simple maps (Blades et al, 1998). At the ages of five and six, children are still engaged in the early childhood processes and their world is small, contained and dominated by the senses: The right hemispheric mode of spatial and visual perception dominates, and feelings and pictures are main forces in the organisation of the child’s world. The houses, trees, and animals are faces in the landscape that carry a certain emotional valence and their ‘look’ needs to be preserved along with the relationship between the child and the aspects of his or her surroundings. (Sobel, 1998, p 21) These elements become part of a child’s personal geography. In his cross-cultural research to learn more about how children engage in placemaking at different ages and stages, Sobel (1998) found that young children often identify with the place that is most important to them, and for young children, the place they most value is home. For example, in my research with Palestinian children and families exploring the concept and meaning of place (Akesson, 2014a), children’s homes dominated their maps of their neighbourhood communities (see Figure 7.1 for four examples from different children). The home was often located in the centre of the paper, taking up the majority of the space. Even if other homes were in close proximity, the children often focused on drawing only their own home. As children develop, their maps becoming neighbourhood maps incorporating dimensionality, pathways and meaningful places. In other words, as children’s awareness of space broadens so do their visual depictions of place. The following section will look more closely at the existing research that use mapmaking with children, and identify common elements, as well as the rewards and challenges, that support this as a viable methodology for young children and their families affected by political violence.

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Mapmaking with young children Figure 7.1: Four examples of ‘home’ drawn by children

Why mapmaking works in research with young children Positivist methods of information gathering tend to focus on extraction techniques, such as surveys and interviews (Boyden and de Berry, 2004; Veale, 2005), which are useful in their own right. However, young children and children who have experienced distressing events may not be able to fully engage through these methods (De Lay, 2003). The addition of qualitative techniques – such as mapmaking – to the existing methodological toolbox is effective with war-affected children,

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because these methods are versatile, adaptable and often considered more culturally valid than a sole reliance on traditional methods of data collection (De Lay, 2003; Hart et al, 2007). In this way, mapmaking is an alternative approach to gain the participation of young children in an effective, meaningful and visual way. As an alternative approach to data collection, mapmaking provides important and diverse data about place from young children’s perspectives. And mapmaking can be used as a starting point for more detailed data. This is especially useful with young children, as research indicates that drawing helps facilitate recall (Butler et al, 1995; Gross and Hayne, 1998; Gross et al, 2009). Using maps as a visual research methodology can act as a prompt to encourage research participants to reflect on their physical environments or as ‘a catalyst for oral description’ (Young and Barrett, 2001, p 144). De Lay’s (2003) mobility maps were used after the 1994 Rwandan genocide as a tool for family tracing and social reintegration with young children separated from their families. Children drew a simple picture showing people and places visited before separation. The mobility map became the basis for a narrative interview between the child and the worker. Through these maps, many children were reunited with their families and local communities. Young and Barrett (2001) found that maps (as well as drawings) helped to facilitate discussion with children to explain the importance of places on the maps. They conclude that the combination of visual and oral research methods resulted in a much richer data set than from discussion alone. Leitch’s (2008, p 39) research in Northern Ireland encourages the dynamic combination of drawings and narrative to frame children’s personal and social experiences: ‘Image-making provides an opportunity to represent experience, a tangible process and product, within which stories are inherent, or out of which stories are (re)created’. In my research with Palestinian children and families (Akesson, 2014b), children drew maps, which served as a prompt for more detailed discussion of their experience of place in political violence. Eight-year-old Salima, who lives in the small and violent space of Balata refugee camp, drew a map of her neighbourhood community and described as follows: “It’s school, a house, and um, … Palestinian flag and the shop market … [and] the sun.” She then showed me another drawing (see Figure 7.2), explaining, “It’s … the mosque and children are fighting the tanks by throwing stones … because they are taking our men and arresting them.”

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Mapmaking with young children Figure 7.2: Eight-year-old Salima’s map of her neighbourhood community

Salima’s description of her map prompted a discussion about the impact of the political violence on her perception of and experiences in her neighbourhood community. This illustrates how mapmaking can be used as a prompt for discussions about aspects of children’s lives that might not easily emerge in words alone. Maps help researchers understand place from children’s perspectives, because the process is based on children identifying spaces they recognise as important. As a research methodology, mapmaking can provide a diverse amount of information about young children’s relationship with their environment. There are several examples of mapmaking’s utility as a tool for exploring placemaking. During research in Uganda, Young and Barrett (2001) found that mapmaking was an important visual method for gaining insight into street children’s perceptions of their urban environment. De Lay (2003) used mobility maps to visually and spatially identify children’s and family’s day-to-day activities, threats to the child’s wellbeing, and resources available to resist those threats. Though maps vary in the type of data they produce, these studies indicate that they produce valuable insight into children’s relationship with place. Finally, as a participatory research approach, mapmaking capitalises on children’s strengths: their local knowledge of their environments, their attention to detail, and their visual and verbal communication skills. Mapmaking utilises these skills, playing to children’s strengths rather than their weaknesses, which is aligned with a strengths-based perspective in social work. These tools create a research environment in which the children are at ease, are able to express themselves

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freely, and do not feel the risk of giving a wrong answer (De Lay, 2003). By addressing the multitude of ways that young children communicate, mapmaking acknowledges the diversity of children. Clark (2004a) recognised this when she was developing the Mosaic approach, acknowledging a need to create a methodology that moved beyond the spoken word with young children in order to capture the complexities of their everyday experiences. Therefore, mapmaking can shed light on children’s geographies by recognising the diverse experiences of childhoods and the different ways that children engage and communicate.

Using mapmaking as a lifecourse research method Mapmaking can (and should) be used with other research methods for a richer understanding of individual experiences through the lifecourse. At the same time, mapmaking can be used beyond the micro-individual level with children’s families and communities to better understand their sociospatial experiences. Using mapmaking in conjunction with other methods better captures the breadth and depth of children’s experiences than reliance on a single technique. Other visual methods have been used successfully with children to explore their relationship with the environment, while at the same time engaging children in the research process. Through focus groups, photography and mapmaking, Hart (1997; 1979) studied children’s multiple places – from the home to the wider community – to map out the territory of childhood. Clark’s (2004b) Mosaic approach, a multi-method approach to gain deeper understanding of children’s relationship with their environments, used photographs, walking tours and mapmaking to engage young children in research about their relationship with place. Clark demonstrated that, as visual depictions of young children’s environments, mapmaking – in combination with other qualitative research methodologies – can help provide a complete picture of young children’s personal geographies. There are several practical reasons for using visual methods such as mapmaking with other methodologies. First, a multi-method approach allows for triangulation of results at two levels: between different tools and between different sources of data. In their multimethod study, Young and Barrett (2001) found that the triangulation of data was a highly effective child-centred method when researching children’s relation to their environment. Second, using a range of methods provides several perspectives of young children’s views and experiences. It allows children to communicate in different ways, reducing the chance that they will only convey what they think

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adults wants to hear. A multimodal approach also ensures that young children’s personal geographies are not reduced to only one aspect and provides a deeper understanding of how children understand and navigate their environments. For example, in Young and Barrett’s study, using these methods in concert ‘revealed a detailed picture of children’s knowledge of place use and their place preferences and fears’ (pp  154–5). Combining different modes of inquiry also provides a holistic understanding of childhood and its relation to place in the context of political violence, while respecting children’s agency as social actors and active participants in the creation of their own worlds of meaning. Analysing maps and mapmaking The biggest challenge to the use of visual methodologies is how best to analyse and represent the data. This is based on its supposed ambiguity of interpretation as compared to other forms of written or verbal texts. Critics suggest that the inherent polysemic, or multi-meaning, nature of visual material creates a more subjective analysis, which is problematic among certain research traditions. When working with visual data – and especially when working with children’s visual representations – one should be willing to allow for polysemy, whether during data collection or during the presentation of results. In this way, mapmaking allows for a variety of analytical paradigms and explorations. In Psathas’s (1979) study of mapmaking, he found that human-drawn maps should not be considered geographer’s maps. In other words, maps should not be evaluated as to whether they are drawn to scale and bounded by the real world. Rather, they should be perceived of as ‘maps with a purpose’, operating with a special sense of place for the mapmaker. In other words, research that uses mapmaking as a methodology should use ‘human interpretation as the starting point for developing knowledge about the social world’ (Prasad, 2005, p 13). But an additional question arises when working with children: How much can the researcher allow children’s images to speak for themselves such that their visual language is not reinterpreted through an adult lens (Fielding, 2004)? Just as there are vast forms of visual representations, there are several ways to evaluate visual representations. Borrowing from Wright’s (1999) approach to reading photographs, Banks (2001) suggests using two criteria to evaluate visual images: internal narrative (content) and external narrative (context). The internal narrative – what Wright (1999) calls ‘looking through’ – is the story that the image communicates.

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The external narrative – what Wright calls ‘looking behind’ – is the social context within which the image was produced and the social relationships that are occurring when the image is viewed. In other words, the internal narrative is primarily for information gathering, whereas the external narrative addresses information about the nature of the environment beyond the visual data. When analysing young children’s maps, one must be prudent in reading both the internal and external narratives, while also distinguishing between both. Banks (2001) suggests an initial reading of the internal narrative, while considering that all visual representations are the product of human action, ‘entangled to varying degrees in human social relations’ (p  12). Visual data therefore may require a wider frame of analysis – and a reading of the external narrative that goes beyond the actual image – in order for the researcher to grasp the complex connections between person and place. Like all visual documents, a map has little meaning in and of itself. Rather, as Psathas (1979) indicates, it is the interpretation and explanation from the mapmaker that is important. In the case of using visual methods with young children, the participants’ own explanations of why they generated the details on the maps is what is important for the research process. In my research with Palestinian children and families (Akesson, 2014b), seven-year-old Nadir drew the map shown in Figure 7.3. As a researcher, I could certainly make assumptions about the map, which in my viewpoint depicted soldiers with large guns shooting. But, as Nadir explained, the map was much more complex, depicting nearby mountains where there is more violence than in his neighbourhood community. Nadir explained that even though the violence is far away in the mountains, he is still aware of it and it affects him. My exchange with Nadir shows that as one methodological tool to unearth young children’s experience with place, mapmaking is not about interpreting the maps that young children draw; rather it is about the process of bringing young children’s knowledge to bear on the visual representation of place. Boyden and Ennew (1997) recommend not conducting visual methods with children if there is no opportunity for children to explain or interpret the images they have produced or if the researchers are not familiar with the children’s cultural ‘ways of seeing’ (p 116). The authors claim that visual research that fails to follow these basic procedures cannot be called participatory, will not likely be considered scientifically valid, and may in fact be unethical. In their study of children’s places, Darbyshire and colleagues (2005) acknowledged that they did not create a space for children to discuss their visual documents (photographs and

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Mapmaking with young children Figure 7.3: Seven-year-old Nadir’s map

maps), leading to an adultist approach to research. The authors reflected: ‘While a picture may indeed be worth a thousand words, we have no doubt that the children’s thousand words would have enhanced this aspect of the study’ (p 429). Clark (2004a) addresses the issue of interpretation in research with visual methodologies, not as a way to unearth one true meaning, but rather to provide young children with multiple opportunities to express their views and experiences. Tolfree and Woodhead (1999) describe this process:

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It’s not so much a matter of eliciting children’s preformed ideas and opinions. It’s much more a question of enabling them to explore the ways in which they perceive the world and communicate their ideas in a way that is meaningful to them. (p 21) Additionally, research with children should include a reflexive component, with researchers critically reflecting on both their role and their assumptions (Davis, 1998), but also on their choice of methods and their application (Punch, 2002).

Conclusion In advocating for the use of mapmaking as a participatory visual methodology for researching the lifecourse, I am not suggesting that such a method is always useful or applicable or that it is without its limitations. However, as an empowering nonverbal visual method, mapmaking opens up multiple possibilities for working with individuals who may not engage through traditional research methods, such as, in the case of my research, young children and their families affected by political violence. To conclude, I would like to revisit the theoretical underpinnings introduced earlier in this chapter. First, mapmaking recognises young children as a source of knowledge about their own lives. As young children are increasingly being recognised as meaning makers in their own right, research methodologies should follow suit. The use of visual methods enables researchers to investigate children’s diverse experiences with place and to explore children’s different geographies. Indeed, there is a great deal to learn about young children’s relationship with the physical world. Second, mapmaking can be used as a methodological tool to empower and increase agency, because the approach gives child participants a voice in the research. As a participatory methodology, mapmaking acknowledges that the child participants are in the best position to speak about their lived experiences. Using participatory visual approaches to empower and increase agency can be as simple as helping young children use methods that they feel comfortable with and which help them to communicate their experiences, when they may not otherwise have such opportunities. Third, embracing a social ecological approach, I believe that mapmaking can be used as a research tool with the whole family. However, with the exception of Boğaç’s (2009) study on place attachment among families in Cyprus, few studies utilise mapmaking with both war-affected children and their

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families. While there are several excellent studies that use mapmaking with children (for example, Clark, 2004b, Dennis et al, 2009, and Literat, 2013), no studies to date use mapmaking with young children and their families affected by political violence. As a methodology, mapmaking explores place by actively illustrating the relationship that young children have with their environments. As Burke (2005, p 30) notes, mapmaking ‘reveals meanings, feelings, and personal histories interwoven into children’s places’. In this way, mapmaking can be a powerful visual representation of young children’s personal geographies and how they see their place in the world. Note Young children are defined as under the age of nine. I have chosen this age range for two reasons: first, the majority of place-based research focuses on older children (Derr, 2002; Hay, 1998). Second, young children are underrepresented in research with populations affected by political violence (Hart et al, 2007).

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Blaut, J., and Stea, D. (1971) ‘Studies of geographic learning’, Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 61(2): 387–93. Blaut, J., McCleary, G.  S. and Blaut, A. (1970) ‘Environmental mapping in young children’, Environment and Behavior, 2: 335–49, doi:10.1177/001391657000200305 Blaut, J., Stea, D., Spencer, C. and Blades, M. (2003) ‘Mapping as a cultural and cognitive universal’, Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 93: 165, doi:10.1111/1467-8306.93111 Boğaç, C. (2009) ‘Place attachment in a foreign settlement’, Journal of Environmental Psychology, 29: 267–78, doi:10.1016/j. jenvp.2009.01.001 Boyden, J. (2004) ‘Anthropology under fire: Ethics, researchers and children in war’, in: J. Boyden and J. de Berry (eds), Children and youth on the front line: Ethnography, armed conflict and displacement, New York: Berghahn Books. Boyden, J. and de Berry, J. (2004) ‘Introduction’, in J. Boyden and J. de Berry (eds) Children and youth on the front line: Ethnography, armed conflict and displacement, New York and Oxford, UK: Berghahn Books, pp xi–xxvii. Boyden, J. and Ennew, J. (eds) (1997) Children in focus: A manual for participatory research with children, Stocklholm: Rädda Barnen. Burke, C. (2005) ‘ “Play in focus”: Children researching their own spaces and places for play’, Children, Youth, and Environment, 15: 27–53. Butler, S., Gross, J. and Hayne, H. (1995) ‘The effect of drawing on memory performance in young children’, Developmental Psychology, 31: 597–608. doi:10.1037/0012-1649.31.4.597 Chambers, R. (1997) Whose reality counts?: Putting the first last, London: Intermediate Technology. Clark, A. (2004a) ‘Commentary’, in V. Lewis, M. Kellett, C. Robinson, S. Fraser and S. Ding (eds) The reality of research with children and young people, London and New York: Open University, pp 157–61. Clark, A. (2004b) ‘The Mosaic approach and research with young children’, in V. Lewis, M. Kellett, C. Robinson, S. Fraser and S. Ding (eds) The reality of research with children and young people, London: Sage Publications, pp 142–56. Darbyshire, P., MacDougall, C. and Schiller, W. (2005) ‘Multiple methods in qualitative research with children: More insight or just more?’, Qualitative Research, 5: 417–36, doi:10.1177/1468794105056921 Davis, J.  M. (1998) ‘Understanding the meanings of children: A reflexive process’, Children and Society, 12: 325–35, doi:10.1111/j.1099-0860.1998.tb00089.x

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Dawes, A. (2000) ‘Cultural diversity and childhood adversity: Implications for community level intervention with children in difficult circumstances’, paper presented at the Children in Adversity Consultation, Refugee Studies Centre, Oxford. Dde Lay, B. (2003) Mobility mapping and flow diagrams: Tools for family tracing and social reintegration work with separated children, New York: International Rescue Committee. Dennis, S. F., Gaulocher, S., Carpiano, R. M. and Brown, D. (2009) ‘Participatory photo mapping (PPM): Exploring an integrated method for health and place research with young people’, Health and Place, 15: 466–73, doi:10.1016/j.healthplace.2008.08.004 Derr, V. (2002) ‘Children’s sense of place in northern New Mexico’, Journal of Environmental Psychology, 22: 125–37, doi:10.1006/ jevp.2002.0252 Downs, R. M., Liben, L. S. and Daggs, D. G. (1988) ‘On education and geographers: The role of cognitive developmental theory in geographic education’, Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 78: 680–700. Fielding, M. (2004) ‘Transformative approaches to student voice: Theoretical underpinnings, recalcitrant realities’, British Educational Research Journal, 30: 295–311, doi:10.1080/0141192042000195236 Gallacher, L. (2005) ‘ “The terrible twos”: Gaining control in the nursery?’, Children’s Geographies, 3: 243–64, doi:10.1080/14733280500161677 Gilliam, L. (2003) ‘Restricted experiences in a conflict society: The local lives of Belfast children’, in K. F. Olwig and E. Gulløv (eds) Children’s places: Cross-cultural perspectives, London and New York: Routledge, pp 39–57. Gross, J. and Hayne, H. (1998) ‘Drawing facilitates children’s verbal reports of emotionally laden events’, Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied, 4: 163–79, doi:10.1037/1076-898X.4.2.163 Gross, J., Hayne, H. and Drury, T. (2009) ‘Drawing facilitates children’s reports of factual and narrative information: implications for educational contexts’, Applied Cognitive Psychology, 23: 953–71, doi:10.1002/acp.1518 Hancock, R. and Gillen, J. (2007) ‘Safe places in domestic spaces: Two-year-olds at play in their homes’, Children’s Geographies, 5: 337, doi:10.1080/14733280701631775 Hart, J., Galappatti, A., Boyden, J. and Armstrong, M. (2007) ‘Participatory tools for evaluating psychosocial work with children in areas of armed conflict: A pilot in eastern Sri Lanka’, Intervention, 5: 41–60, doi:10.1097/WTF.0b013e3280be5a34

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Hart, R. (1979) Children’s experience of place, New York: Irvington Publishers. Hart, R. (1997) Children’s participation: The theory and practice of involving young citizens in community development and environmental care. London: Earthscan. Hay, R. (1998) ‘Sense of place in developmental context’, Journal of Environmental Psychology, 18: 5–29, doi:10.1006/jevp.1997.0060 Hill, M. (1997) ‘Participatory research with children’, Child and Family Social Work, 2, 171–83, doi:10.1046/j.1365-2206.1997.00056.x Korbin, J.  E. (2003) ‘Children, childhoods, and violence’, Annual Review of Anthropology, 32: 431–6. Langsted, O. (1994) ‘Looking at quality from the child’s perspective’, in P. Moss and A. Pence (eds) Valuing quality in early childhood services: New approaches to defining quality, London, UK: Paul Chapman. Leitch, R. (2008) ‘Creatively researching children’s narratives through images and drawings’, in P Thomson (ed) Doing Visual Research with Children and Young People, London and New York: Routledge, pp 37–58. Liben, L.  S. and Downs, R.  M. (1997) ‘Can-ism and can’tianism: A straw child’, Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 87: 159–67. Literat, I. (2013) ‘Participatory mapping with urban youth: The visual elicitation of socio-spatial research data’, Learning, Media and Technology, 38: 198–216, doi:10.1080/17439884.2013.782037 Matthews, H. (1995) ‘Culture, environmental experience and environmental awareness: Making sense of young Kenyan children’s views of place’, The Geographical Journal, 161: 285–95. Matthews, M. (1984) ‘Environmental cognition of young children: Images of journey to school and home area’, Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, New Series 9: 89–105. Matthews, M.H. (1987) ‘Gender, home range and environmental cognition’, Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, 12(1): 43–56. Matthews, M. (1992) Making sense of place: Children’s understanding of large-scale environments, Hemel, Hempstead, and Hertfordshire, UK and Lanham, MD: Harvester Wheatsheaf/Barnes & Noble. Mitchell, L. S. (1934) Young geographers: How they explore the world and how they map the world, New York, NY: Bank Street School. Pearce, J. C. (1977) Magical child: Rediscovering nature’s plan for our children (1st edn), New York: Dutton. Piaget, J. and Inhelder, B. (1967) The child’s conception of space, New York: W.W. Norton and Company, Inc.

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Pink, S. (2007) Doing visual ethnography: Images, media, and representation in research (2nd edn), London and Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications. Plester, B., Richards, J., Blades, M. and Spencer, C. (2002) ‘Young children’s ability to use aerial photographs as maps’, Journal of Environmental Psychology, 22: 29–47, doi:10.1006/jevp.2001.0245 Prasad, P. (2005) Crafting qualitative research: Working in the postpositivist traditions, New York: ME Sharpe. Psathas, G. (1979) ‘Organizational features of direction maps’, in G. Psathas (ed), Everyday language: Studies in ethnomethodology, New York: Irvington Publishers, pp 203–25. Punch, S. (2002) ‘Research with children: The same or different from research with adults?’, Childhood, 9: 321–41. Qvortrup, J., Bardy, M., Sgritta, G. and H. Wintersberger (eds) (1994) Childhood matters: Social theory, practice and politics, Public policy and social welfare, Aldershot: Avebury. Rogoff, B. (2003) The cultural nature of human development, Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. Sitskoorn, M. M. and Smitsman, A. W. (1995) ‘Infants’ perception of dynamic relations between objects: Passing through or support?’, Developmental Psychology, 31: 437–47. Sobel, D. (1998) Mapmaking with children: Sense of place education for the elementary years, Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann. Sowden, S., Stea, D., Blades, M., Spencer, C. and Blaut, J. M. (1996) ‘Mapping abilities of four-year-old children in York, England’, Journal of Geography, 95: 107–11. Tolfree, D. and Woodhead, M. (1999) ‘Tapping a key resource’, Early Childhood Matters, 91: 19–23. van Blerk, L., Barker, J., Ansell, N., Smith, F. and Kesby, M. (2009) ‘Researching children’s geographies’, in L. van Blerk and M. Kesby (eds), Doing children’s geographies: Methodological issues in research with young people, London and New York: Routledge, pp 1–8. Veale, A. (2005) ‘Creative methodologies in participatory research with children’, in S. Greene and D. Hogan (eds), Researching children’s experience: Approaches and methods, London: Sage Publications, pp 253–72. Wood, D. (1992) The power of maps, New York: The Guilford Press. Wright, T. (1999) The photography handbook, London: Routledge. Young, L. and Barrett, H. (2001) ‘Adapting visual methods: Action research with Kampala street children’, Area, 33: 141–52, doi:10.1111/1475-4762.00017

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EIGHT

Keeping in touch: studying the personal communities of women in their fifties Sophie Bowlby

Friendship, space and place This chapter is about a research project on the friendship afforded to women in their fifties by members of their ‘personal communities’ and their interactions with information and communication technologies (ICT). The research examined the informal social interactions of women in ‘midlife’ in the context of their lifecourse trajectory to date and their anticipations of the future. It focused, in particular, on the time–space context of these interactions, exploring the time–space scheduling of ‘keeping in touch’ and the real and virtual spaces within which these social interactions took place. The empirical research was carried out in the summer of 2013 in Swindon, UK.1 Here a ‘personal community’ is defined as a ‘network of ties’ (Wellman, 1982, p 3) with a group with whom a person has significant relationships of sociable companionship and/or informal support. The group may include both kin and non-kin members and members may not all know one another. Its membership changes over time as people cease to be or become significant or die (Spencer and Pahl, 2006). The research focused on women in their fifties for three main reasons. First, while the use of specific age limits is arbitrary, it was a simple method for finding women in what is, for most, an important period of transition in their lifecourse trajectory. It is a time when, for many, the demands of childcare lessen, offering opportunities to establish new friendships which may be valuable in later life, while care for parents or grandchildren may become more onerous. It is also a time when retirement is no longer distant and health worries may increase. Very little research, apart from Airey (2005), has examined this significant period in women’s lives.

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Second, women in their fifties now have experienced major changes in the opportunities open to and in social expectations of women. Consequently most of these women will have spent significant periods in employment and many will have experienced job change, divorce or repartnering, which is likely to have affected the membership of their personal communities. In these respects their experiences are different from those of the women in their 70s and 80s whose friendships and social support in old age have been widely studied in earlier research (Jerrome, 1992; Qureshi and Walker, 1989; Wenger, 1991; Gray, 2009) or of many of the women included in earlier studies of kinship and friendship (Willmott, 1987; O’Connor, 1992; Finch and Mason, 1993). Third, these women have spent much of their adult lives without the new communication technologies of mobile phones, texting, emails and social networking which are commonplace among younger women. We know little about the impacts of these developments on how friendship and support is practised among this cohort and whether there are significant inequalities of access to or familiarity with such technologies among them. It may be thought that access to such technologies will have substantially changed the ways in which they interact with their friends as virtual communication replaces or augments many face-to-face encounters. Alternatively, it may be that many or most of this cohort of women make little use of new ICT. What then were the research questions? The research asked about how these women’s relationships of sociable companionship and informal support are practised over space and time. It asked how these relationships are affected by and affect the meanings accorded to the spaces in which they ‘take place’. The research asked whether and how women in their fifties in England use different forms of ICT to keep in touch with their personal community and how ICT impacts on the nature of their relationships with kin and non-kin. It also investigated what activities people share in different places and spaces with kin and non-kin, and whether some women have limited access to ICT because of a lack of information, skills or income. These research questions were set within the broad framework of ‘caringscapes’ (Bowlby et al, 2010; Bowlby, 2012) which emphasises that ‘caring’ activities – including the support and companionship of friendship – take place in a diversity of temporal and spatial frames which affect how they are organised. For example, the diverse temporalities of bodily rhythms, of long- and short-term employment activities, and of domestic work will affect the times available for contacting and sharing activities with friends and kin. Varying temporalities also are inescapably bound to diverse spatial frames and scales of activity.

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These may range from individual ‘mental maps’ of the accessibility and desirability of different ‘real’ places or ‘virtual’ social networks, to the mundane effects of transport networks and the spatial distribution of consumer services, or to the varying spatial scales over which such services are organised. In keeping with this ‘caringscapes’ framework, the research recognised that a woman’s personal community today will be influenced by the placing, timing and content of the experiences and social contacts of their earlier life. Thus the time–space patterns traced through each woman’s activities, social contacts and economic engagements over their lifecourse to date were likely to be important to any understanding of the relationships in their current personal community. It was recognised that these would be influenced by the everyday scheduling of current activities such as employment, other caring responsibilities – for example, care for older relatives – and domestic work. They might also be influenced by plans for or anticipations of future changes in such activities, such as retirement or relocation.

Researching personal communities Research design The research was conceived as an exploratory, qualitative investigation of the influence of a variety of factors on the social practices involved in friendship. As explained, there was to be a particular focus on ICT, lifecourse trajectories, and the roles of kin and non-kin. The research did not aim to provide a representative picture of the friendship practices in England of women in their fifties but rather to provide some understanding of the range of complex social relationships involved and the factors influencing them. It was thus important to include women from a diversity of social positions but it was not important that they be a random, representative sample of women in their fifties. The overall sample size was limited by the resources at our disposal – the empirical data was to be collected over a five-month period by two people, working part-time through one-to-one, face-to-face qualitative interviews. With these restrictions in mind we aimed to carry out 30 interviews. Contacting our sample The recruitment and interviewing were carried out by me and Caroline Day. We had already decided to carry out the main research in Swindon,

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a city 80 miles west of London. The choice of Swindon was partly to do with convenience (Swindon is an easy 40 minutes’ drive from Reading where I live, and Caroline was living in and had grown up in Swindon) and partly to do with Swindon’s characteristics. It is an ‘ordinary’, fairly prosperous mid-sized English town that owes its initial growth to its development as a centre for the manufacture of railway rolling stock in the 1840s and further growth to its designation as an Expanded Town in the early 1950s. Today it retains some manufacturing industry – notably Honda – but also financial services, the headquarters of a wide range of service companies and the UK Research Councils (Bassett et al, 1989; Bassett and Harloe, 1990). It has a generally unexceptional socioeconomic makeup, although it has a lower than average ethnic minority population (84.6% of the population was recorded as being of White UK ethnicity as against 79.9% for England as a whole in the 2011 census). Since one research question concerned the possible impact of income levels on access to technology we needed a sample that included both wealthy and poor women. We chose two areas within Swindon, aiming to carry out 15 interviews in each area. The first comprised the prosperous ward of Old Town and Lawn (including Broome Manor) and the second the less prosperous wards of Penhill and Pinehurst and Gorse Hill (see Table 8.1). Although, as the table shows, the areas differ significantly in their socioeconomic makeup, they are also internally diverse, ensuring that the survey would include women from a wide range of socioeconomic situations. There are no simple methods of identifying women in their fifties to recruit. We started recruitment in May 2013 in Penhill, Pinehurst and Gorse Hill by contacting local community groups, putting posters and fliers in local shops and placing a notice in a local community newsletter whose editors kindly allowed us to advertise free of change (see Figure 8.1). Potential interviewees were promised a £30 voucher to spend in a local supermarket, Tesco, or a department store, Debenhams, as a thank you for taking part. We knew that we could not make much use of snowballing since we did not want to interview women who were part of the same friendship network – we wanted a diversity of personal communities. Our initial recruitment attempts were strikingly unsuccessful – the local groups we contacted proved inappropriate – they were aimed at older or far younger women. After nearly a month, we had four successful responses to the newsletter advertisement and one woman who responded to a poster but then withdrew. We decided to try recruiting door-to-door between 5.30 p.m. and 8 p.m. on a weekday.

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Studying the personal communities of women in their fifties Table 8.1: Selected socioeconomic characteristics of the areas used for finding a sample Old Town and Lawn (%)

Gorse Hill, Pinehurst and Penhill (%)

England (%)

Higher managerial, administrative and professional (persons)

19.5

4.1

10.4

Lower managerial, administrative and professional (persons)

28.9

11.8

20.9

Routine occupations (persons)

5.5

20.7

11.0

Long-term unemployed (persons)

1.1

3.0

1.7

White British (persons)

85.8

85.3

79.8

One person household 65 and over (households)

11.8

13.2

12.4

One family household all aged 65 and over (households)

9.7

5.2

8.1

Lone parent household with dependent children (households)

3.7

10.4

7.1

Households in Owner Occupation (households)

70.9

46.3

63.4

Households in Social Renting (households)

7.1

40.0

17.7

Households Private Renting (households)

17.2

12.0

16.8

Source: Census 2011, Key statistics, www.neighbourhood.statistics.gov.uk.

Both areas have well-defined housing sub-areas and we targeted a different sub-area on each occasion. At each house we spoke to people who answered the door, giving them a leaflet and asking if they or anyone there was eligible and willing to arrange an interview with us at a date convenient to them; we put leaflets through the doors of houses when we had no answer. This method – although time consuming – proved far more successful. We spent about 13 women hours and recruited 18 people (13 of whom were face-to-face contacts). Seven other people were recruited through posters or fliers in shops or community centres. The remaining six were recruited through snowballing (two) and, as mentioned above, the newsletter (four). We were helped in our door-to-door recruitment by sunny weather which put us and those we spoke to in a good mood – we had almost no unpleasant responses and many friendly ones. Despite our overall success we found that we had no responses from women with an ethnic minority background from any of our methods of recruiting although we did knock on the doors of many ethnic minority households. We

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Researching the lifecourse Figure 8.1: Recruitment flier

decided not to make a special effort to recruit such women, given our resource constraints. What to ask? Designing the interview schedule We proposed to use semi-structured interviews as a tried and tested method of gaining an understanding of how people thought about and practised their friendships. Spencer and Pahl (2006) had already carried out a fascinating study using such interviews that explored

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the roles of kin and non-kin in changes in friendship over time. They asked their respondents to place people ‘important to them’ on a ‘map’ of three concentric circles, with the most important people at the centre and the least important in an outer circle (see Figure 8.2 for a diagrammatic representation of one respondent’s map). Subsequent studies of friendship had also used this approach (Roseneil, 2006). We also decided to use such a map and adapted Spencer and Pahl’s interview schedule to focus on issues of place and use of ICT rather than on changes in friendship over time. Figure 8.2: Diagrammatic representation of Charlotte’s personal community map2 Family Friend

We followed their procedure and sent interviewees a letter before the interview enclosing a sheet of 21 stickers and asking them to list on each one ‘people who are important to you now – these could be family, friends, neighbours, a partner or spouse, or people you work with’. They were asked to put people’s ages, how far away they lived and – for non-family members – how they met (for example, ‘school’ or ‘friend of a friend’) on each sticker. We also asked them to fill in three tables – the first two asked for details of people currently living in their household and of any children not in the household. In order to gain some information about their lifecourse the third table asked them to ‘fill out the Table below with details of what you feel were important changes in your life, and whether these involved a change in

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where you lived and what sort of paid or unpaid work or education/ training you were doing’. In the interview we then asked them to place the stickers on the ‘map’. We then planned to select three friends and three family members and to ask them to tell us in more detail about their relationship with these six people; how they kept in contact with them and whether, how and where they had face-to-face meetings; the support and companionship they provided and the types of activities they shared in different places. We also asked them to discuss the meaning of friendship, to compare the different ways they kept in touch with people, to compare relationships with family and friends and to talk about who they would turn to for specific types of help or advice. We piloted the first draft of the survey in Reading and made several modifications, including adding further questions about friends made at work and about neighbouring. We did not anticipate that the interviews would raise many ethical issues. Participants were guaranteed anonymity; they were told they did not have to answer any questions they did not wish to answer and could withdraw from the research at any time. They were offered the opportunity to receive a summary of the findings (which everyone asked for). The interview schedule was approved by the Ethics Committee of the School of Archaeology, Geography and Environmental Science at Reading University. However, significant ethical issues concerning the analysis and interpretations of the results became apparent as the research progressed and these are discussed later. The interviews went broadly as planned. The shortest was 43 minutes and the longest 3 hours. Four people did not fill out the stickers or questionnaire in advance but we were able to cover the relevant material during the interview. Most interviewees listed between 10 and 16 people in their personal community although some named as few as 4 and a few named well over 20 (the largest personal community had 29 members). In the event we rarely limited the discussion about ways of keeping in touch to six people since interviewees talked to us about their contacts with and feelings about each person as they put the stickers on the map. Sometimes they grouped people together with whom they had similar patterns of contact. The lifecourse table was designed to elicit a description of events and not of feelings or reflections and very few people added reflexive comments to it. However, filling it out served to foreground their life history in people’s minds: in the interviews, when discussing the members of their personal community, people talked quite extensively about their past life and its influence on their current relationships and the emotions involving the people they had listed or had decided

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Studying the personal communities of women in their fifties

to leave out. Having both a list of important events and people’s discussion of those events in relation to their personal communities was very helpful in analysing and interpreting the interview material and making sense of the current shape of each personal community. Analysis of the data Some of the data were easy to quantify. For example, the number, ages, distance to and kin status of each person placed in each ring. The interviews also allowed us to make a rough estimation of the number of times a friend was contacted via different media and how often they were seen face to face. We could also count the number of different media used by each person. These data can be used to create graphical pictures (Figure 8.3) and typologies of personal communities. For example, measures of the distribution of the number of kin and non-kin friends, such as the median and inter-quartile range, can be used to identify personal communities that have an ‘average’ mix of both or those that are kin dominated or non-kin dominated. Figure 8.3 Number of friends and family in each ring for Alison* Alison

6 5

Family Friend

4 3 2 1 0 1

2

3

4

5

Note: *Many respondents wanted to put their stickers overlapping ring boundaries. Hence the codes above are: 1 = Ring 1; 2=Ring 1/2; 3=Ring 2; 4= Ring 2/3; 5=Ring 3.

However, this approach raises some awkward epistemological issues. As stated earlier, the sample is not representative of any particular group of women so descriptive statistical measures only apply to this particular group. They cannot be used to say that, for example, having more than 11 non-kin friends in your personal community is unusually ‘high’, even though only one quarter of this particular sample had 11

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or more non-kin friends. Thus, in analysing the data we have sought to use the numbers as simply one element in categorising personal communities and not to use particular numerical boundaries as fixed arbiters. Nevertheless, such categorisation can be a useful starting point for a more qualitative interrogation of the quality and type of relationships in each of the numerical ‘types’. A simple analysis of the numbers of kin and non-kin members of people’s personal community threw up some interesting issues. For example, seven of the ten people with particularly ‘high’ numbers of non-kin friends came from the more affluent area. This prompted further exploration of the social background and lifecourse experiences of women with and without many non-kin friends. The interviews were a potentially rich source of information on feelings about friendship and family, about the intertwining of lifecourse experiences and friendship practices and the role of place and space in friendship practices. Every interview was recorded and transcribed. Caroline and I had done roughly half the interviews each (17 for Caroline and 14 for Sophie) and as soon as they were completed we discussed the themes that had struck us when doing the interviews. Then several disparate interviews were read through and further potential themes identified. Each interview was then read through in conjunction with the lifecourse questionnaire and the ‘map’ of the interviewee’s personal community. We found the lifecourse table and the interview discussion of lifecourse events to be complementary. The lifecourse table could be criticised for forcing people to prioritise residential moves and employment or educational changes and downplaying more emotionally significant moments. However, alongside people’s less structured, partial and allusive discussions in the interview, we found the table provided valuable clarity over the ordering of events while the interview gave us some understanding of the emotional and practical reasons for lifecourse changes. A summary sheet was completed for each respondent detailing the ICT used, the places they had lived, their employment history and that of their partner (if relevant), their relationships with siblings and grandchildren, their overall relationships with friends; a summary of notable features of their lifecourse and an interpretation of its importance to their personal community; and an interpretation of notable features of the interview. The text was coded into 13 broad and overlapping themes (Table 8.2). Any particular section of text might be, and usually was, coded as relating to several themes. Since there were only 31 interviews, it was decided not to use a software package but to use Word to draw

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together text with similar codes. Reading through this text then allowed the identification of subsidiary or cross-cutting themes and patterns. A further step was to qualitatively compare the responses of women with different social characteristics, residential histories or types of personal community. Since this chapter is concerned with methodological issues rather than with the findings of the study there is not the space to detail differences between women on any of these dimensions or to report on the rich complexity of findings from the data. However, the spatial patterning of the relationships making up the women’s personal communities and a few of the broad patterns linking ICT use with friendship practices that emerged from the data are outlined below. Table 8.2: Main themes used in coding Themes 1. Kin relationships

7. Time–space relationships

2. Non-kin relationships

8. Place

3. Neighbouring relationships

9. Embodiment

4. Friends versus family relationships

10. Support/Care

5. Keeping in touch

11. Identity

6. Activities shared with friends/kin

12. Gendered expectations 13.Future expectations

Most relationships in women’s personal communities were ‘local’ in the sense that over half (55%) the members lived within 10 miles and over three fifths (64%) lived within 40 miles. As expected from earlier studies (Wellman, 1979; Spencer and Pahl, 2006) there was no evidence of local, territorial ‘communities’. As Wellman said over 35 years ago of his East York study, Canadian respondents’ contacts were organised as ‘differentiated networks and not as solidarities’. Those who had lived in Swindon since birth or for most of their adult life were more likely to have close family living nearby, while traces of more mobile lives were discernible in the far flung, longstanding friendships or family contacts of others. Women’s histories of employment and of family relationships – including having or not having children; the deaths or illness of partners, siblings, children and parents; and divorce or separation – were the two elements of the lifecourse most important to understanding current personal community maps and current time–space patterns of contact.

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One woman, in talking about how she had chosen who to include or exclude from her personal community, said they were people who were ‘in my life’. Data analysis showed how everyday routines such as employment and family obligations ensured quite regular and often frequent face-to-face meetings that kept some ‘friends’ and ‘family’ in each other’s lives. For those living further than about half a day’s drive away, contact was maintained through less frequent face-to-face meetings (ranging from about once a month to once a year or less) and by the use of a variety of old and new ICT. These ICT were phones – used by all; emails – used, but not frequently for contacting friends, by 20 women; Facebook – used by ten women, generally as a way of following the doings of others rather than by making frequent personal posts; and Skype or Facetime – used by 10 of the 31 women. The most important new ICT used was texting – used by 27 of the 31 women. It was central to organising not only long phone conversations but also face-to-face meetings with people living both nearby and further afield. It was also of great importance as a method of signalling concern and interest in the lives of others, whether or not they lived far apart. It provided a way of being intimate without using the richer, but more temporally and spatially demanding, forms of communication offered by face-to-face meetings and phone calls. As such, it offers an intensification of everyday ways of being ‘in the lives’ of others and a new facet of intimacy. Difficulties and dilemmas The epistemological pitfalls of using quantitative measures of the characteristics of a non-representative sample have been mentioned above. Of course, these pitfalls are not unique to quantitative measures but the apparent certainty of numbers and the ease with which they can be manipulated to provide typologies are a temptation to misuse them. However, qualitative data also pose well known epistemological problems (Lather, 2009; Silverman, 2011; Trainor, 2013). There is the obvious danger that interviewees tell us what they think we want to hear or hold back information for various reasons (Silverman, 2011; Bryman, 2012). Of particular concern in this study is that in interviews we ask people to verbalise feelings and emotions that are not frequently described and that they may not normally scrutinise. We also asked them to be reflexive about relationships, many of which may be taken for granted elements of their everyday lives. During the interviews almost everyone made the important, but not unexpected, point that meeting their friends ‘face-to-face’ was

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what they preferred. Despite frequent reference to ‘body language’ and ‘eye contact’ and sometimes to ‘hugs’, people struggled to put into words the significance of embodied, face-to-face meeting. This is not surprising, since people’s emotional reactions to an experience are not always easy for them to identify, let alone to convey verbally – there may be a ‘gap’ between the experience and feeling and the ability to describe them in words. Embodied encounters will convey information between participants that is not consciously registered but belongs in the domain of ‘affect’. Here ‘affect’ is understood as relating to the interactions between ‘bodies’ that influence emotional responses, often without conscious cognition. Academic interest in affect reflects a desire to acknowledge the importance of bodily sensation and movement in social interactions and to move beyond a focus on purely verbal or symbolic representations of social encounters (Davidson and Bondi, 2004; Tolia-Kelly, 2006; Thrift, 2008; Bennett, 2009; Bondi, 2014). Thus it is not surprising that respondents found the value of face-toface meetings difficult to describe while maintaining that “you can’t beat meeting people face to face” (Charlotte). These difficulties make it problematic to make claims about the ‘truth’ of people’s feelings and experiences based on retrospective accounts given in an interview. Not only may people find it difficult to identify and describe their emotions and to recall and describe past events, there is also the question of the researchers’ ability to ‘understand’ the emotional and social context which interviewees attempt to describe. The importance of embodied encounters and the emotions they can generate between participants was exemplified in the interviews which were, of course, face-to-face meetings. All except two took place in people’s homes, which added a further layer of emotional response and social assessment to our encounters. In the interviews people told us about many difficult emotions and situations stemming from experiences such as: unhappy childhoods; violent or unfaithful partners; family members’ involvement in crime or drug taking; mental health problems; and bereavement. They also talked of many intensely pleasurable emotions involved in friendship and family relationships, of mutual care and support, of grandparenting, new or restored relationships, new jobs and hopes for the future. Both Caroline and I felt that we had experienced moments of empathy and mutual understanding between us and many interviewees. In contrast, we sometimes felt uncomprehending or critical of people’s reactions or views. These observations about the complex process of interviewees and researchers identifying, describing and interpreting emotions in interviews raises the issue of whether we can achieve

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reliable knowledge about the feelings of others. Bondi (2014) has discussed the value of an understanding of the psychoanalytic concepts of transference and counter-transference to the problem of producing knowledge about the emotions of others. While sharing some of the doubts about psychoanalytic approaches (Thomas, 2007; Holland, 2007; Kingsbury, 2010), I find her suggestions of using the emotional responses of the interviewer as part of the ‘data’ used to interpret the interview material and of recognising the importance of the ‘receptive unconscious’ particularly helpful. A complication is that with two interviewers it is necessary to exchange information on our feelings about interview encounters and the places in which they took place. Unfortunately, we did not keep research diaries – an omission I now much regret. But it is proving possible to discuss the interview experience and to interrogate our emotional reactions and to bring this discussion to bear on our analysis of the interviews. Bondi also emphasises the dangers of an unreflective ‘empathy’ with the interviewee, which risks ‘effacing the other’s emotional experience by assuming it is the same as one’s own’ (Bondi, 2014, p 53; see also Watson, 2009). This issue is also of particular salience to this research. Furthermore, there is a danger that we may be more sympathetic to or influenced by the accounts of respondents with whom we felt emotional ‘affinity’ and, perhaps, less receptive to the accounts of those with whom we felt no such affinity. This is a particular aspect of the well discussed need to pay attention to how the positionality of the researcher may affect interpretations (Limb and Dwyer, 2001). Nevertheless, it is a danger worth recognising. Finally, the emotional responses of our respondents to the interview process and our own emotional responses raise questions of ethics. First there is the perennial problem of whether asking people to talk about aspects of their personal lives will prove harmful to them. Although we were given ‘informed consent’,3 respondents may not have anticipated that talking about their personal communities could raise uncomfortable emotions. Many women said they found it enjoyable or interesting but the risk remains. We plan to give them the opportunity to communicate their reactions when we send them a summary of the results of the research. Second, there is the question of whether doing the interviews might upset Caroline or me as we heard about difficult lives or compared the relationships in our own personal communities with those of the women we talked to (Widdowfield, 2000; Husband et al, 2001; Evans, 2012). While some women’s stories were upsetting and it did make us both reflect on and re-evaluate our own situations, we both had prior experience of this type of interviewing and, in this

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case, were not unduly affected by it. Third, we are aware that when we send back the summary of the research to our respondents the information we give may make some of them compare their situation unfavourably with those of others. This is a particular risk in relation to data on the number of ‘important’ friends and family people have; the frequency and nature of contact with these people and the kinds of support they receive. We know from the interviews that this is a question some people were anxious about and there were a few people with very small personal communities. We will emphasise that there is no ‘normal’ or ‘absolute’ standard by which to assess one’s personal community.

Conclusion The research aimed to collect data that would allow us to place a particular aspect of women’s lives – their relationships of sociable companionship and/or informal support – in the context of the multiple temporal and spatial frameworks which shape and are shaped by those relationships. In particular, it sought information on the temporality of their lifecourse and on their current everyday activities and means of communicating over time and space. The methods used foregrounded the significance of lifecourse events to the research participants. Respondents were able to use the concentric circle ‘map’ to physically represent the importance of their emotional and material links to the different members of their personal community. The process of placing people on the map, along with the lifecourse table, proved a valuable way to stimulate discussion of the (changing) relative importance of different relationships and of ways of keeping in touch over space. The interviews allowed them to augment this physical representation with talk about the emotional significance of the relationships making up their personal community. Hence they could discuss the emotional and material significance of the taken-for-granted, mundane, face-toface and distantiated interactions, via different communication media, that constitute those personal relationships over time–space. The resulting data revealed the importance of migration histories and their entanglements with changing employment and family relationships; of travel time and available travel modes; of the places within which relationships are practised – especially the significance of the workplace, the home and of public spaces and quasi-public spaces (pubs, cafes and restaurants); and of the virtual contacts enabled by the mobile phone, computer and social media to the current social content and frequency of women’s interactions with members of their personal communities.

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Carrying out lifecourse research with women in midlife – a neglected group – allows the researcher to explore these women’s understandings of the interactions between past lifecourse events, current concerns and anticipations of the future. In particular, the research shows how the story of a lifecourse can be told through the shifting relationships and technologies which constitute someone’s personal community. The many events impacting on these relationships and discussed by the participants – such as education, employment change, illness, birth, bereavement – are the focus of much lifecourse research and can be further illuminated by recognition of the temporally and spatially variable companionship, support and sense of identity gained from kin and non-kin. The emotional importance of such ties, while challenging to ‘measure’ and interpret, is central to the stories through which people make sense of their lives and hence should be central in our attempts to understand those lives. The technical and financial resources and assets available to people at different times and places also affect the patterns of contact and interaction available to them. A focus on such personal relationships, resources and contacts, as in this research, can ensure that analysis of the temporal that is so central to lifecourse research does not neglect the significance of the spatial – of the changing types of interactions and spatial contexts that also shape people’s lifecourse. Notes 1

The research was funded by Leverhulme: Grant EM-2012-061\7.

2

All names are pseudonyms.

The form asked people to sign the statement ‘I am willing to take part in an interview about my informal social relationships and for the interview to be recorded’. It also promised anonymity and that they could withdraw from the research at any time without explanation. The letter that they were sent had told them ‘We are interested in finding out about the relationships of women in their fifties with, for example, friends, family, neighbours, workmates or people they know in other contexts and how these relationships are changing at this point in their lives. We are also particularly interested in how women keep in touch with these people and how they manage this – for example through organised or casual face-to-face meetings, by texting, through chatting on the phone, writing letters, using email or Skype or social media such as Facebook or combinations of these.’ 3

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References Airey, L. (2005) ‘Women in their fifties: Wellbeing, ageing and anticipation of ageing’, CRFR Briefing 24, Centre for Research on Families and Relationships (CRFR): Edinburgh, https://www.era. lib.ed.ac.uk/handle/1842/2766. Bassett, K., Boddy M., Harloe, M. and Lovering, J.(1989) ‘Living in the fast lane: Economic and social change in Swindon’, in P. N. Cooke (ed) Localities: The changing face of urban Britain, London: Unwin Hyman, pp 45–85. Bassett, K. and Harloe, M. (1990) ‘Swindon: The rise and decline of a growth coalition’, in M. Harloe, C. G.Pickvance and J. Urry (eds) Place, Policy and Politics: Do localities matter?, London: Unwin Hyman. Bennett, K. (2009) ‘Challenging emotions’, Area, 41: 244–51. Bondi, L. (2014) ‘Understanding feelings: Engaging with unconscious communication’, Emotion, Space and Society, 10: 44–54. Bowlby, S., McKie, L., Gregory, S. and MacPherson, I. (2010) Interdependency and care over the lifecourse, London and New York: Routledge. Bowlby. S. R. (2012) ‘Recognising the time–space dimensions of care: Caringscapes and carescapes’, Environment and Planning A, 44(9): 2101–18. Bryman, A. (2012) Social research methods, Oxford: OUP. Davidson, J. and Bondi, L. (2004) ‘Spatialising affect: Affecting space: An introduction’, Gender, Space and Culture, 11: 373–4. Evans, M. (2012) ‘Feeling my way: Emotions and empathy in geographic research with fathers in Valparaiso, Chile’, Area, 44: 503–9. Finch, J. and Mason, J. (1993) Negotiating family responsibilities, London: Routledge. Gray, A. (2009) ‘The social capital of older people’, Ageing and Society, 29(1): 5–31. Holland, J. (2007) ‘Emotions and research’, International Journal of Social Research Methodology, 10: 195–209. Husband, G., Backett-Milburn, K. and Kemmer, D. (2001) ‘Working with emotion: Issues for the researcher in fieldwork and teamwork’, International Journal of Social Research Methodology, 4(2): 119–37. Jerrome, D. (1992) Good company: An anthropological study of old people in groups, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Kingsbury P. (2010) ‘Locating the melody of the drives’, The Professional Geographer, 62: 519–33.

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Lather, P. (2009) ‘Against empathy, voice and authenticity’, in A. Y. Jackson and L. A. Mazzei (eds), Voice in qualitative inquiry: Challenging conventional, interpretive and critical conceptions in qualitative research, Abingdon and New York: Routledge. Limb, M. and Dwyer, C. (2001) (eds.) Qualitative methodologies for geographers, London: Arnold. O’Connor, P. (1992) Friendships between women, Hemel Hempstead: Harvester Wheatsheaf. Qureshi, H. and Walker, A. (1989) The caring relationship: Elderly people and their families, London: Macmillan. Roseneil, S. (2006) ‘On not living with a partner: Unpicking coupledom and cohabitation’, Sociological Research Online, 11(3), www.socresonline.org.uk/11/3/roseneil.html. Silverman, D. (2011) Qualitative research (3rd ed), London: Sage Publications. Spencer, L. and Pahl, R. (2006) Rethinking friendship: Hidden solidarities today, Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press. Thomas, M. (2007) ‘The implications of psychoanalysis for qualitative methodology: the case of interview and narrative data analysis’, The Professional Geographer, 59: 537–606. Thrift, N. (2008) Non-representational theory: Space, politics, affect, Abingdon: Routledge. Tolia-Kelly, D.  P. (2006) ‘Affect: An Ethnocentric Encounter? Exploring the ‘Universalist’ Imperative of Emotional/Affectual Geographies’, Area, 38(2): 213–17.Trainor, A. A. (2013) ‘Interview research’, in A. A. Trainor and E. Graue (eds) Reviewing qualitative research in the social sciences, Abingdon: Routledge. Watson, C. (2009) ‘The impossible vanity: uses and abuses of empathy in qualitative enquiry’, Qualitative Research, 9: 105–17. Wellman, B. (1979) ‘The community question: The intimate networks of East Yorkers’, American Journal of Sociology, 84(5): 1201–31. Wellman, B. (1982) ‘Studying personal communities in East York’, Research Paper 128, Toronto: Centre for Urban and Community Studies, University of Toronto. Wenger, G. C. (1991) ‘A network typology: From theory to practice’, Journal of Aging Studies, 5(2): 147–62. Widdowfield, R. (2000) ‘The place of emotions in academic research’, Area, 32(2): 199–208. Willmott, P. (1987) Friendship networks and social support, London: Policy Studies Institute.

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NINE

Triangulation with softGIS in lifecourse research: situated action possibilities and embodied knowledge Kaisa Schmidt-Thomé

Introduction In this chapter I focus on the possibilities that embodied knowledge opens up when undertaking research on the lifecourse. Shotter (2009) argues that social theorists often overlook embodied knowledge as they evaluate human action through causes (emphasising structures) or reasons (emphasising agency). In my work on ‘geobiographies’ I connect the highly contextual and unique with lifecourse information, specifically relating current everyday life (especially outdoor activities) with the habitualities developed over a participant’s lifecourse. I examine embodied knowledge as a joint outcome of the lifecourse and its geographical context – space and place. In this chapter I use geocoordinates as a contextual tool and to underline that the conditions of action are also shaped by the material world, the ‘geo-’ of the geobiographies. I provide indicative examples of lifestories, ‘softGIS’data (derived from a PPGIS1 application thematising experience-based data of everyday environments) and walking interviews. I draw some data from a larger project that used softGIS to study the ways the citizens used their urban environments for different outdoor activities. I aim to uncover the self-evident that seems to escape when we verbalise our experiences but which may be grasped by going back and forth from the respondent to his/her past and present everyday environments, both memorised and reactualised. After this brief introduction, the next section focuses on the promise of ‘geobiography’ as a concept, the third section on preparedness to act. In the fourth and fifth sections I show how I triangulate between methods and data sources, and in the final section I open up a pilot

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case, which is followed by discussion, and a conclusion. In comparison with many studies I move between a single case and a larger dataset somewhat unconventionally, to gain an appreciation of the intricacy of the phenomena under scrutiny.

The promise of ‘geo’biographies Pauli Tapani Karjalainen (2003, p  87) has been interested in the triad of place, memory and self, and has developed the concept of geobiography: ‘the expression of the course of life as it relates to the places lived’. For Karjalainen, the focus is on how meaningful episodes are spatially constituted. Carpelan’s novel Urwind is for him an example of creative literature that shows ‘how intimate sensing works out in the many layers of place realities’ (Karjalainen, 1999, p 1). The main character is the centre of the ‘playground of identity questions, in which the process of writing is the main medium’ (Karjalainen, 2003, p 89). Of particular resonance to me is his conceptualisation of the past, the present and the future being co-present here and now (Karjalainen, 2003, p 87). This intersection is ‘a kind of density from which the scattering to time and space happens … because we are never just now but also no more and not yet, and because we are never just here but also elsewhere’ (Karjalainen, 2003, p  87). Karjalainen (2008, p 21) has written ‘that the past and the future do not have the same material thickness as the present has’, because only the present is realised happening from a certain vantage point, albeit surrounded and tinted by the past (memories) and the future (expectations). I study geobiographies through this chiasm where future orientation has a past in the present; indeed, as Karjalainen (2003, p 91) comments, Carpelan’s novel tells us, ‘don’t forget to remember, it leads you forward’. I am not contesting the claim that utilising works of art can bring us closer to understanding the human condition (Ley, 1985), rather I argue that geobiographies can shed light also on living, real, flesh-and-blood individuals, although at present geobiography remains under-used. For me it holds two promises. First, it does not reduce the material, physical world into a passive stage, but sees materiality within the ‘promiscuous combinations’ of the ‘material’ and the ‘social’ (Thrift, 1996, p 24). Lorimer (2005, p 85) points to studies that show how material affinities play a major role in people’s lives. It is in this spirit that I focus on the ‘geo-’ of the lifelines, to show that the physical, or the remembered feel of it, can matter even when already remote both in terms of time and distance.

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Another promise embedded in the concept of geobiography is the lifelong perspective, the learning and ageing process along our life span. As I started my project, I anticipated finding some kind of a ‘lifetime geography’, that is, a joint venture of lifecourse geography and time-geography. It seems that the ‘time-space choreography of the individual’s existence’ at ‘lifetime (biographical) scale’ (Pred, 1977, p  208) has been little used empirically. Pred (1981) refers to some interesting applications, and Katz and Monk (1993)2 mention and develop some, but most of what I have encountered tend to focus on shorter periods of time such as seasonal or daily mobility (for example, Vilhelmson, 1999). As Hartmann (1981, p 282) remarked, even in Mårtensson’s (1979) study on the formation of biographies in space-time environments ‘her understanding of a biographical situation places more emphasis on the sum of daily living conditions than on the changes in a life-time perspective’. As Frändberg’s (2008) work on (still) young Swedes seems to have come the closest to a lifetime view, it seems that ‘lifetime geography’ is still largely unexplored. Only Hägerstrand (1978) had both imagination and persistence as he collected data about the lifepaths of all the inhabitants living in his home village. There are a number of approaches for gathering life course data, including ‘lifegrids’ (see Chapter 5 in this book), or the Chicago School approach (for example, Shaw, 1930) or the study by Goodwin and O’Connor (see Chapter 4 in this book), revisiting Norbert Elias’ abandoned material. I opted for none of these because I felt that there is still much work with the conceptualisation of geographies prior to data collection, and ended up making my own triangulation framework (see Figures 9.1–9.3).

Contextualised preparedness: some concepts John Shotter (2009) is interested in the preparedness that we develop through our lifecourse in order to act in various situations and interactions that we have ended up being part of. Alongside explaining action as if it had structural grounds or originated in free agency and individual reasonings, he would like to see a third dimension, which keeps the explanations attached to embodied, situational understanding. For an individual it is central to learn to anticipate, to get prepared to act in situations that are unique on the one hand, but on the other hand are somehow familiar from respective situations. While searching for conceptualisations for this third dimension, embodied understanding, Shotter (2009, p 220) guides his readers to turn to Samuel Todes’ (2001)

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suggestion of the concept of poise, position of preparedness. We do not act in the environment by taking a glance and then turning away in order to contemplate what (kind of representation) was at stake. We are present and try to foresee how to best prepare for what we have in front of us, largely based on lateral similarities across situations. The way Bourdieu (2000, p 139) has coined action opportunities resembles what Shotter is seeking. Supported by their habitus, individuals can endlessly adapt themselves to partially changed contexts and to find very complex wholes meaningful. The disposition/tendency to act in a certain way in certain situations is an accumulation from earlier ones, rooted in, ‘all the walks of life one has travelled’ (Peltonen, 2006, p 160). Afterwards, in particular, action can be interpreted as if it had been oriented towards a conscious goal although it can sometimes be ‘pure result’ of earlier orientations, certain ways to act that seemed interesting in other contexts. These past ‘investments’ (Bourdieu 1994, pp 151–3) can be felt in present practices as ‘interests with durée’ in time (Peltonen, 2006, p 175). Action, for Bourdieu, does not rely on knowledge-based decision making, which is constrained by a set of factors. If anything, it is about individuals improvising their action contextually, by virtue of their experience, utilising the different capacity modes provided by their habitus. Habitus would thus not determine the forms of social action but would structure internalised preferences derived through life experience. According to Kivinen (2006), habitus integrates past experiences into a system of durable and transferable dispositions. One could see habitus as having ‘sense of the game’, or ‘eye for the game’, a non-conscious flair for what to do in a given situation (Kivinen, 2006, p 244).

Triangulation I wish to take up the gauntlet and try to take the embodied understanding on board – together with the ‘reasons´ and the ‘causes’. My methodological choice is to start triangulating by searching for entry points in the corners of this triangle (see Figure 9.1). First, I look at my research participants in the light of the available background information (as a proxy for the ‘causes’) and their lifestories (‘reasons’) and through their everyday habitualities (‘embodied knowledge’/‘geohabits’). Then I try to bridge the gaps with other methods and data sources. Thematically my focus is on the current everyday life – the outdoor activities in particular – of my research participants, and the connections of these habitualities with their earlier lifecourse. I use geo-coordinates as a tool to stick to the context as

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Triangulation with softGIS in lifecourse research Figure 9.1: Starting points of my triangulation Collection of lifestories as auto-geobiographies A proxy of ‘reasons’

Individuals: background context data

Localised data on ‘geohabits’ A proxy of the embodied preparedness?

A proxy of ‘causes’

well as to underline that the conditions of action are shaped also by the material world, the ‘geo-’ of the geobiographies. Lifestories The most obvious avenue to studying geobiographies is to approach them as stories/narratives, geographical autobiographies. I am aware but not at all concerned about the stories not corresponding with the past as such. They are reports of the past as they happen to emerge here and now, and would never be repeated 1:1 at another occasion. A key figure in oral history studies, Alessandro Portelli (2006, p 55), wrote that what people believe in their memories contains more information than what ‘really’ happened. Oral sources tell what people did but crucially also what they wanted to do, what they believed to have done, and afterwards consider having done. And what is told is equally important as is how it is told. J.  P. Roos (1988), who has used autobiographies to study the changing way(s) of life in Finland, has written about the particularity of autobiographies as research material. For him, autobiographies are attempts to describe one’s own life from a certain perspective, as if it was a coherent whole. It is this illusory, constructed coherence (Bourdieu, 1986) that makes autobiographies so interesting for Roos (1988). He allies with the stories rather than looks down on them being full of

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empty conventions: ‘The narrative structure is by no means something alien to life but essentially belongs to it. Stories are something that is essentially connected to human experience and action’ [my translation] (Roos, 1988, p 220). Furthermore, an autobiography is always told to someone, according to particular aims and motivation (Roos, 1988, pp 220–1). We can talk about autobiographic contracts at play (Vilkko, 1987, pp 32–3, cited in Roos, 1988, p 219), and about them differing between written and oral formats. During my work I have struggled to learn that, however ‘learnt’ the narrative modes or storylines were, I should sensitise myself to what they are good at. I sympathise with Carolan (2008) who sees the world of embodied experience revealing itself to us even when brought to the realm of representations. ‘It is not that we cannot represent sensuous, corporeal, lived experience but that the moment we do so we immediately lose something. Representations tell only part of the story, yet they still have a story to tell, however incomplete’ (Carolan, 2008, p  412). We can get a taste of the respondents’ worlds through their words (Carolan, 2008). Geohabits and background data about the individuals via a ‘softGIS’ application I have also utilised data collected about everyday life, sociospatial practices with the help of maps, in order to grasp the current ‘geohabits’ of my research participants. ‘Geohabits’ are situated performance, the affordances we live through, and their patterning, the repetition of certain ways of acting, the usual choices we make, albeit nonconsciously, when taking up with our everyday surroundings. I also think of them as being mobile, to some degree: if we take up with new surroundings, we might take old ways of orientation with us. The data has been derived by a PPGIS (Public Participation GIS)1 application called softGIS, which collects geocoded, experience-based data from citizens online, with map-based questionnaires (Kyttä and Kahila, 2011). The development of this approach began in 2005 with a thematic emphasis on perceived environmental quality but it has since been developed both to improve its applicability in the different stages of the urban planning process and to better analyse everyday urban life (Kyttä et al, 2011; Schmidt-Thomé et al, 2013). For the case at hand I have used data from the Urban Happiness project (carried out by my colleagues, a team led by Marketta Kyttä, in 2008–09), collected among others from the residents of the neighbourhood called Töölö,3 in Helsinki. The softGIS questionnaire utilised in the project had several sections (for example, localising perceived environmental quality,

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key everyday services, important daily routes as well as development suggestions). It also gathered certain background information about the respondents, such as age, gender, family type and the number of years lived at their current residence, to profile the participant against the available statistical data. Among the benefits of utilising the softGIS data is the possibility to invite large audiences to share information about their location-based habits that are harder to grasp via interviews. The ‘banal’ information about our daily ‘doings’ and ‘likings’ does count, but few people see the point in sharing them with others. But this is possible via the softGIS platform, which seems to elevate the mundane by asking for it via a sophisticated internet application. Another benefit from this kind of data is that the map-based questionnaires tend to utilise tools that we are not overly familiar with. As people are nowadays often confronted with questionnaires and interviews, such tools are used to produce a subjectivity vis-à-vis people who are strangers; it is nearly quotidian. The softGIS application may still have a certain novelty value here; it is not (yet?) shared knowledge what a ‘correct’ response is according to a certain habitus/lifestyle/political sympathy. We could say that there is still room for the creative, the performative that surfaces when we trust intuition. For sure there are also drawbacks to the method. For instance, we are normally very much conditioned by the actions of others in the street, but here each respondent is very much alone when pondering over exactly what to report. The birds’ eye view of maps could also be quite alien, if it alone was used to trace the actualisation of past experience.

Proceeding towards the middle As the three kinds of data sources are not yet connected to each other, I will now explain how I tried to build bridges between them. This kind of triangulation is similar to the research methodology Tolia-Kelly (2010) designed for her study of postcolonial Englishness. She brought the stories of migrants (testimonies), selected material objects (artefacts) in their homes and a series of pictures/art works (visual archive) to a triangulated record to study ‘ecologies of citizenship’ (Tolia-Kelly, 2010, p 39). For me it was the stories, the urban settings of Töölö and maps that were brought together; they are the different sources that ‘speak to different ways of knowing’ (Crang, 2005, p 230).

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Researching the lifecourse Figure 9.2: Building further interconnections between data, stories and geohabits

as auto-geobiographies

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A single response linking with other kinds of pasts

soGIS data on geohabits

Walking interviews As a bridge between the ‘geohabits’, as revealed by the softGIS respondents of an area, and the lifestories, I proposed walking interviews. Walking along and observing the everyday life of research participants has a long tradition in ethnography/anthropology (Lee and Ingold, 2006), but the use of ‘walking and talking’ methods is of recent interest across the social sciences (Clark and Emmel, 2010; Jones et al, 2008). Some find walking interviews, or go-alongs, ideal when studying people’s relationship with space (Jones et al, 2008), and for some they bring ‘greater phenomenological sensibility to ethnography’ (Kusenbach, 2003, p 478). The main added value that I see in comparison to room-based or other ‘sitting’ interviews is the elicitation process of walking through the everyday settings of the participant. As Clark and Emmel (2010) point out, this process can prompt more and other kinds of discussions and reveal some everyday practices of the interviewees. They also provide opportunities for something unanticipated to happen, for example, for third parties actively affecting the course of the interview. Such interruptions are often considered disruptive in an interview situation, but when

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studying material affinities, encounters with various ‘things’ can also be left to play a role. I see walking interviews as a possibility to approach the role of embodiment and to answer Crang’s (2003, p  501) call about pushing ‘further into the felt, touched and embodied constitution of knowledge’. As Ingold (2011) says, it is as wayfarers that human beings inhabit the earth. We ‘negotiate a way through a zone of admixture and interchange between the more or less solid substances’ (Ingold, 2011, p 122) that a standard interview would remain detached from (Kusenbach, 2003), unless explicitly addressed with support materials such as photographs (Anderson, 2004). As Hall et al (2006, p 3) say, while place has been under discussion during a walking interview, it has also been under foot, as an active participant, ‘able to prompt and interject’. Individual softGIS responses As a bridge between the ‘geohabits’ and the background data (described above) about the person as an inhabitant of the studied area, I have used single softGIS responses. This has been done with the consent of the participants, as it would be against the code of conduct in softGIS to be able to combine the participant with his/her response data. An individual answer to the survey might not be very informative as such, but when seen in connection with the neighbourhood context as a whole, it can open up interesting links. The same holds for the other direction – the lifestory of the individual and the present day map might have interesting interconnections. If I can, on the one hand, have data about the present interpretation of meaningful spatial relations as reflective witnessing of one’s life and, on the other hand, data about localised, personal ‘hot spots’, I can probably tell apart some broader dimensions that matter and should be studied further. Echoing Roos (1988, p 50) again, everyday life is the established/customary life, which makes no autobiography, but the orderliness of which is valuable. Profile tools The third and final bridge in my triangulation efforts is a hypothetical one, as no matching data was available from the Urban Happiness project. It could be built by the respondent profile tools, with the help of which it has been possible to identify a series of ‘user groups’ among the residents. In a recent softGIS study (the Everyday Urbanity project also run by Kyttä’s team in 2010–13), for instance, the respondents

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were grouped to three resident ‘tribes’: busybodies, homebodies and neighbourers according to their reported behaviour (approached in the questionnaire with a series of continua between two different but not necessarily opposite habitualities, between which the respondent could move a slider). The user groups are then somewhat different from what I call reference groups, that can be formed from the more conventional background data – the ‘middle-aged’, the ‘above average income’, the ‘highly educated’. To sum up, I have tried to triangulate between methods and data, and to tease out different ways of knowing, and identified at least six different ways of trying to understand the studied individual (or a habitus). The lifestories not only tell about people’s life but also about the life people are constantly seeking, and offer people space for their own reflections. The softGIS data that connects the habitualities with the neighbourhood, in turn, tells about mundane facts and non-reflected choices. When related with the participant profiles – both as users of their neighbourhoods and as representatives of their demographic and socioeconomic reference groups, we can maybe see one solution to studying habitus in its everyday context.

Figure 9.3: Approaching habitus from various perspectives Collecon of lifestories as auto-geobiographies

life sought after

STORY

reflections

Lifestyle profile tools

Walking interviews: actualising the past

user group

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Triangulation with softGIS in lifecourse research

The bridges can be seen as my attempt to tease out the ‘placial’ out of the habitus – how certain sociospatial and thus material relations can be shown to matter. I wish to find something that existing work has not managed to recognise and to give a feel of how this something can be surfaced later in future applications. Where Roos (1988, p 133) was pondering why people do not speak more about the ‘things’, the everyday items that are important for them, in their autobiographies, I feel that I have developed one solution: they would be likely to tell if some other methods and data were used in combination with analysing the stories.

An indicative example I now provide an indicative example, a resident of Töölö, corresponding to the best dataset available for my purposes at that time. First I asked her to provide a softGIS response using the Urban Happiness project questionnaire. Then we met for a geobiography interview four days later, at a location she suggested, and several months later we agreed to complement the study with a walking interview. At the time I asked her to become part of my project, we were acquaintances, but over the course of the research we have become friends. With a research assistant, I produced a series of maps. First we looked at the ‘places of happiness’ data from the Urban Happiness project, as the dataset was one of the most comprehensive ones. From the 356 respondents for the project in Töölö, a total of 291 had marked their most important place of happiness on the map. For our intentions it was unfortunate that only 156 of them had indicated also the type of their most important childhood environment.4 It would have been interesting to see whether the background of our indicative person corresponded with the data from other respondents with same background in terms of childhood environment. The indicative person had indicated that her most important childhood environment corresponded with ‘scattered rural’ and we thus sought for a possible urban–rural divide in terms of responses. First we mapped all places of happiness and then picked up responses that corresponded with either ‘city centre’ or ‘scattered rural’ background. The map showed some tendencies, far from clear patterns, we thought, and continued further. We tried to group the respondents with the help of an additional dataset from the project, the ‘years lived in current residence’, in combination with the childhood environment. The created subgroups then became very small and it seemed that

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proceeding along this route with quantitative analysis of some kind would not bring much added value. However, the two mappings were useful in another way, as they indicated some ‘hot spots’. It was possible to find some ‘places of happiness’ that several recent movers with rural roots appreciated, but where no urbanite was found among the ‘fans’. Respectively it was possible to locate a hot spot of the urbanites, having hardly any ‘rural fans’. Interestingly, our indicative person, representing rural roots, proposed the very ‘rural hotspot’ as the location for the geobiography interview. I kindly ask the reader to keep this small coincidence in mind. In the geobiography interview the interviewee was not given many limitations in terms of what and how she should tell. I asked her simply to tell her geobiography as a lifestory in space, or a place portfolio, in free order and depth of detail. She proceeded most of the time chronologically, describing first her childhood environment in some depth and then moved forward to describe later stages of life and the corresponding geographical settings. As she has both travelled a lot and lived abroad for several years, she had a great deal to tell. She had also clearly thought about the implications of moving around more than many other people might have. She also seemed to enjoy going through the lifecourse and, apart from a few points in the interview, she did not seem to feel like revealing personal, confidential information. Displayed in Figure 9.4 are descriptions of some important places my interviewee wanted to share with me. I invite you to anticipate, where, in what kind of environment she grew up? For me these lines are rigid: riverbank! It is evident that the ways she deals with water elements and something being ‘on the other side’ of them is very important in her life. She can also partially put into words her own way to orientate with/against the water and the shores. She gave me a number of hints how and where to tease out the non-linguistic ways of knowing that might be far more difficult to trace with less ‘geo-conscious’ persons. However, her being well able to reflect on the water-relations does not necessarily mean that she is more water-relations-oriented than most other people. There might be very water relations-oriented persons who are hardly aware of being such. This kind of metonymic relations tend to become and remain rather subconscious during the lifecourse. However, apart from the single response that I had got from my interviewee, I did not yet have much information about her current everyday life practices. The Urban Happiness project questionnaire was more oriented towards the questions of perceived environmental quality than everyday life practices. However, it did collect information about some of the most important everyday places – the work place, a

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shop frequently used, etc. As the map about my interviewees response indicated, this was hardly a synonym of her daily everyday network. Had we already undertaken the next softGIS supported project ‘Everyday Urbanity’, I could have asked her to fill that questionnaire, too. In that case there would not have been any other data from the same area, but at least I could have got her routine spots mapped without having to ask for them. Instead, I tried to grasp them with the help of a walking interview. Figure 9.4: Direct quotes from the interviewee When talking about the time she spent in southern France, she said: “There the water is considerably close but as it is the Mediterranean, it also tells apart … […] … it is a very clear border and what is on the other side of it – you know, as we spent time also in Marseilles – there is North Africa very close but very far at the same time.” Her travel to New Zealand came coupled with this comment:”On the other hand there you get the feeling, really concretely, that you are far away from something else, that when you stand at some shore you think that the next target is Argentina or so. Here [in Helsinki], when you think, we are always close to something else, and on the other side of the water, here close by is some environment that is to us pretty familiar or so.” In the Töölö softGIS questionnaire she had mapped her place of happiness on the island of Seurasaari, which lies adjacent to Töölö in the Taivallahti Bay. As a response to why exactly this place, the rocks of the Seurasaari shoreline, would be her selection she had written:”The sea shore is a relaxing environment and the presence of the city [on the opposite side] at the same time gives a cosy feeling of safety.” It became very obvious that her relationship with water was very important, and she came to talk about it herself, too:”I feel that the vicinity of the water is important, it’s hard to imagine living really inland without a direct relation with the water.”However, she continued:“I have a kind of respect for the water, so I could not easily be a sailor type of person really, as I always have this respect for the water.” What about guessing where she grew up? “I grew up there at the riverbank, and the vicinity of the river shore was at many levels imp… – how

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Researching the lifecourse personal things should I open up here?” … “My grandmother taught me to respect the water deeply … […] … so it kind of gave a certain flavour to the geography that you really were aware of it being dangerous, even it was close, peaceful and streamy, but at the same time you know that it has a dark side.”

The walking interview was carried out one foggy autumn evening as she would take her dog out for its regular evening walk. We had agreed to meet close to her home in Töölö and to take a walk wherever she felt like going to. We ended up walking through Hesperia Park and then around Töölö Bay; both of which are popular urban parks. As we walked, I asked some questions about where she would normally head when taking a walk and why. We also discussed freely about our lives in Helsinki and went back to the earlier geobiography interview. I also used the opportunity to let her reflect on one finding of mine. Then I tried to proceed to question her about other everyday routines. Where I saw no problem of knowing the interviewee prior to the biographical interview, I felt surprisingly uncomfortable at this stage of the walking interview. Some everyday life issues suddenly seemed very personal, and I felt that some of my questions were either useless or too intimate. As I wrote in my research diary after the interview, I could not be myself in that situation, where I felt like an intruder. However, I think this feeling might not have bothered all interviewers as much as it did bother me. I also think that I could well utilise walking interviews in the cases where I would not have to meet the interviewees outside the research process. After the experience I searched for ‘warnings’ about uncomfortable feelings in methodology handbooks but I was unable to find one. While worries about observer effects or interviewees mixed feelings are thoroughly considered, why is the researcher’s discomfort silenced?5 Why would we have to push ourselves through data collection with an uneasy feeling even if seems to distract the communication? Despite this methodological discomfort, the walking interview was helpful as it highlighted the importance of her dog to her daily life. If there was no dog in the household, she certainly would not take regular walks, nearly independent of the weather. I am sure we could have talked about the role of the weather all way through the interview, inspired by the foggy autumn evening. Both the fog and the dog thus opened up topics which we might not have touched at all. There were also numerous interruptions in the interview as she, or both of us, turned to talk to her dog, who had his say about the chosen route.

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Implications and limitations The clearest implications of my work are research oriented. I can come up with suggestions on how researchers could approach certain topics otherwise in order to acknowledge a broader range of factors, more of the ‘background hum’ of the everyday happenings. As a member of the softGIS team I try to both sharpen certain questions asked via the softGIS questionnaires and to propose new/alternative ones that could better tease out the non-linguistic ways of knowing and thinking. If we ‘all know’ that, for example, water-related affordances are so crucial, why do we seldom include them in our explanatory models? If we can assume that dog ownership plays a comparable role to car ownership in terms of how it shapes our everyday lives, shouldn’t we then include that aspect in any survey addressing related topics? It is not evident that social groups (defined through popular variables of culture, income, education, age, ethnicity and gender) diverge from each other in terms of their ‘doings’ (Carolan, 2009). Although the orientation issues that I have described are somehow common to all of us, I feel that they should not be dismissed as selfevident. Neither should we consider understanding the complex patterning of our unique time–space continua as an impossible mission. I also think that introducing new variables into established research practices should be a high priority. Why do we focus mainly on socioeconomic and demographic variables, etc., and leave many other things aside? Is the availability of certain statistics more than a bad excuse to repeat the same analyses time and again?

Conclusion In this chapter I have sought to focus on the self-evident that often seems to escape when we verbalise our life experiences; but these may be captured by going back and forth from the research participant to his/her past and present everyday environments, both memorised and reactualised. The softGIS toolbox supports this endeavour, but at the same time the toolbox faces challenges regarding the placing of ever more relevant questions in the future. Triangulation between different data sources for the same individual has provided me with an opportunity to reflect on the limitations of measurability and the role of new methods at those limits. I encourage social scientists to explore the embodied dimension; to work as a kind of detective who is going back and forth from the studied individual to their surroundings, past

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activities and own witness statements. If these are all anchored in place/ space, the findings come with the contexts where they also belong to. Notes PPGIS refers to (the combination of technological and analytical) solutions that are used to inform and improve planning and decision -making processes with geographically specific information collected from the public (cf Brown and Kyttä, 2014). With origins in the spheres of science and administration, the possibilities of combining crowd-sourced information with other geocoded data is becoming increasingly accessible to, for example, community organisations (Schmidt-Thomé et al, 2014).

1

Prior to their book project Katz and Monk (1993) shared my expectations nearly 20 years ago. We had probably been reading the same texts praising the potential of Hägerstrand’s approach and thought that somebody had for sure taken up the challenge also in empirical work. Katz and Monk (1993) themselves, in turn, are successful in offering a collection of studies overarching the whole lifecourse, but only one entry on lifestories of West Indian elderly women focuses on the same people in different life stages.

2

Töölö consists of two urban neighbourhoods (‘Fore Töölö’ and ‘Back Töölö’, together nearly 30,000 inhabitants) adjacent to the city centre. 3

The locations to choose from were: centre of a city, a suburb, a village or a town in the countryside, a sparsely populated area, or outside Finland.

4

I am not sure whether Crang (2005, p 231) touches on this issue, when he cites Thrift (2003, p 106) on fieldwork being ‘a curious mixture of humiliations and intimidations mixed with moment of insight and even enjoyment’.

5

References Anderson, J. (2004) ‘Talking whilst walking: A geographical archaeology of knowledge’, Area, 36(3): 254–61. Bourdieu, P. (1986) ‘L’illusion Biographique’, Actes De La Reserche En Sciences Sociales, 62. Bourdieu, P. (1994) Raisons pratiques. Sur la théorie de l’action, Paris: Éditions du Seuil. Bourdieu, P. (2000) Pascalian meditations, Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.

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Brown, G. and Kyttä, M. (2014) ‘Key issues and research priorities for public participation GIS (PPGIS): A synthesis based on empirical research’, Applied Geography, 46(1): 122–36. Carolan, M. S. (2008) ‘More-than-representational knowledge/s of the countryside: How we think as bodies’, Sociologia Ruralis, 48(4): 408–22. Carolan, M.  S. (2009) ‘ ‘I do therefore there is’: enlivening socioenvironmental theory’, Environmental Politics, 18(1): 1–17. Clark, A. and Emmel, N. (2010) Realities Toolkit #13. Using Walking Interviews, Manchester: ESRC National Centre for Research Methods. Crang, M. (2003) ‘Qualitative methods: touchy, feely, look-see?’, Progress in Human Geography, 27(4): 494-504. Crang, M. (2005) ‘Qualitative methods: there is nothing outside the text?’, Progress in Human Geography, 29(2): 225–33. Frändberg, L. (2008) ‘Paths in transnational time-space: Representing mobility biographies of young Swedes’, Geografiska Annaler: Series B, Human Geography, 90(1): 17–28. Hägerstrand, T. (1978) ‘Survival and Arena: On the Life History of Individuals in Relation to their Geographical Environment’, in T. Carlstein, D. Parkes and N. Thrift (eds), Timing Space and Spacing Time, Vol. 2: Human Activity and Time Geography, London: Edward Arnold, pp 122–45. Hall, T., Lahua, B., and Coffey, A. (2006) ‘Stories as sorties’, Qualitative Researcher, 3(3): 2–4. Hartmann, R. (1981) ‘On the Formation of Biographies in SpaceTime Environments by Solveig Martensson’, Economic Geography, 57(3): 282–4. Ingold, T. (2011) Being alive. Essays on movement, knowledge and description, Oxford: Routiedge. Jones, P., Bunce, G., Evans, J., Gibbs, H., and Ricketts Hein, H. (2008) ‘Exploring space and place with walking interviews’, Journal of Research Practice, 4(2): Article D2. Karjalainen, P. T. (1999) ‘Place and Intimate Sensing’, The Thingmount Working Paper Series on the Philosophy of Conservation, Department of Philosophy, Lancaster University. Karjalainen, P. T. (2003) ‘On geobiography’, in V. Sarapik and K. Tüür (eds) Place and Location: Studies in Environmental Aesthetics and Semiotics III, Tartu: Estonian Literary Museum, pp 87–92. Karjalainen, P. T. (2008) ‘Paikka, aika ja elämän kuva’, in A. Haapala and V. Kaukio (eds) Ympäristö täynnä tarinoita, Kuopio: UNIpress, pp 13–31.

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Katz, C. and Monk, J. (1993) Full circles. Geographies of women over the life course. London: Routledge. Kivinen, O. (2006) ‘Habitukset vai luontumukset?’, in S. Puronen and J. P. Roos (eds) Bourdieu ja mina, Tampere: Vastapaino, pp 227–65. Kusenbach, M. (2003) ‘Street phenomenology: The go-along as ethnographic research tool’, Ethnography, 4(3): 455–85. Kyttä, M. and Kahila, M. (2011) ‘Softgis methodology’, GIM International, 25(3). Kyttä, M., Kahila, M., and Broberg, A. (2011) ‘Perceived environmental quality as an input to urban infill policy-making’, Urban Design International, 16(1): 19–35. Lee, J. and Ingold, T. (2006) ‘Fieldwork on foot: perceiving, routing, socializing’, in P. Collins and S. Coleman (eds) Locating the field. Space, place and context in anthropology, Oxford: Berg, pp 67–86. Ley, D. (1985) ‘Cultural/humanistic geography’, Progress in Human Geography, 9(3): 415–23. Lorimer, H. (2005) ‘Cultural geography: the busyness of being `morethan-representational’ ’, Progress in Human Geography, 29(1): 83–94. Mårtensson, S. (1979) On the formation of biographies in space-time environments, Lund: Meddelanden från Lunds universitets Geografiska institution, Avhandlingar LXXXIV. Peltonen, L. (2006) ‘Fluids on the move: An analogical account of environmental mobilization’, in Y. Haila and C. Dyke (eds) How nature speaks: The dynamics of the human ecological condition, Durham, NC: Duke University Press, pp 150–76. Portelli, A. (2006) ‘Mikä tekee muistitietotutkimuksesta erityisen?’, in O. Fingerroos, R. Haanpää, A. Heimo and U.-M. Peltonen (eds) Muistitietotutkimus. Metodologisia kysymyksiä, Helsinki: Tietolipas 214, SKS, pp 49–64. Pred, A. (1977) ‘The choreography of existence: Comments on Hägerstrand’s time-geography and its usefulness’, Economic Geography, 53(2): 207–21. Pred, A. (1981) ‘Social reproduction and the time-geography of everyday life’, Geografiska Annaler. Series B, Human Geography, 63(1): 5–22. Roos, J. P. (1988) Elämäntavasta elämäkertaan - Elämäntapaa etsimässä 2, Jyväskylä: Tutkijaliitto. Schmidt-Thomé, K., Haybatollahi, M., Kyttä, M., and Korpi, J. (2013) ‘The prospects for urban densification: A place-based study’, Environmental Research Letters, 8(2).

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Schmidt-Thomé, K., Wallin, S., Laatikainen, T., Kangasoja, J., and Kyttä, M. (2014) ‘Exploring the use of PPGIS in self-organizing urban development: Case softGIS in Pacific Beach’, The Journal of Community Informatics, 10(3). Shaw, C. R. (1930) The Jack-Roller. A deliquent boy’s own story. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Shotter, J. (2009) ‘Bateson, double description, Todes, and embodiment: Preparing activities and their relation to abduction’, Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour, 39(2): 219–45. Thrift, N. (1996) Spatial formations, London: Sage Publications. Thrift, N. (2003) ‘Practicing ethics’, in M. Pryke, G. Rose and S. Whatmore (eds) Using social theory: Thinking through research, London: Sage Publications. Todes, S. (2001) Body and world, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Tolia-Kelly, D. (2010) Landscape, race and memory, Farnham: Ashgate. Vilhelmson, B. (1999) ‘Daily mobility and the use of time for different activities’, GeoJournal 48(3): 177–85.

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Part III Mobilities

TEN

Using a life history approach within transnational ethnography: a case study of Korean New Zealander returnees Jane Yeonjae Lee

Introduction Since early the 2000s, the number of long-term immigrants to New Zealand deciding to return to their homelands has increased. Simultaneously, Korea has made changes to its residency policy in an attempt to attract ‘global talent’ back to its shores. The result has been an increase in the number of overseas Koreans returning from their emigration destinations. The processes driving this movement and the experience(s) of returnees on resettlement have received little attention in research. My research project (Lee, 2012) focused on the everyday experiences of the 1.5 generation1 Korean immigrants of Auckland, New Zealand, who permanently returned to Korea between 1999 and 2009. Moreover, the journeys of those returnees who moved back to New Zealand after living in Korea for a short period were traced. In total, the lives of 40 returnees and nine re-returnees were explored through a life history approach within transnational ethnography including semi-structured interviews and participant observation. The research argued that although transnational linkages facilitate movements and allow immigrants to make strategic life choices across borders, longings for home as well as a sense of national identity and belonging remain prevalent among recent Korean New Zealander returnees. While most returnees learn to value and embrace their hybrid identities and find ways to settle permanently in Korea, some eventually move back to New Zealand in the ongoing quest for ‘home’. The process behind knowledge production is highly subjective and it functions as an important determinant of both the research process and

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the research outcomes. Nevertheless, there are not enough places in which we can converse about how fieldwork gets prepared, carried out, analysed, and finally written. This chapter is a place for the privileging of such important matters. In this chapter, I reflect on certain aspects of my personal journey throughout the study of young Korean New Zealander return migrants. My personal migration journey, the fact that I was an immigrant before becoming a researcher, was significant to this study in terms of shaping its initial research design and the way I analysed my findings. In the next section, I explain how I began to develop a life history approach within ‘transnational ethnography’ in an attempt to expand traditional ethnography approaches and to expose the nature of my ethnographic work. I employed a life history approach within transnational ethnography to develop the complexity of research on return migration. Return migration is a significant phase of a migrant’s lifecourse that casts light on their sense of home, belonging and identity. With the methodological context established, I explain my research methods in chronological order. Starting from the early pilot study in 2008, I discuss step by step the methods employed to gather data. In the conclusion, I further highlight the significance of taking a life history approach in research about immigrants.

Developing a life history approach within transnational ethnography What distinguishes ethnography from other qualitative research methods is that it gives emphasis to the ‘natural way’ of studying and spending extensive time with the participants with the goal of becoming ‘immersed’ (Rose, 1997) into the researched world. An ethnographic approach is taken more or less ‘to understand parts of the world as they are experienced and understood in the everyday lives of people who actually “live them out” ’ (Cook and Crang, 1995, p 4). By being part of the study participants’ everyday setting, one can start to unfold the complex experiences of marginality and exclusion. By taking an ethnographic approach, the researcher no longer seeks a straightforward narrative, but is concerned with finding multiple angles to explore the multifaceted nature of people’s life and culture. Ethnographic work can be conducted in various settings by both ‘outsider’ and ‘insider’ researchers. Christou (2006) and Tsuda (2003), who are both return migration researchers, employ ethnography as their main methodological approaches to examine returnees’ everyday lives. Both scholars spent extensive amounts of time with their study participants in their everyday settings of workplaces and social

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gatherings. Christou (2006) argues that her familiarity with her study participants (American Greek returnees) and Greece helped her to carry out her ethnographic research. Being a young female researcher, who shared a similar age and comparable migratory experiences with the study participants, she was able to easily make herself belong to them (Christou, 2003). On the other hand, Tsuda (2003), who studied Japanese Brazilian returnees, discussed his difficulties of being an insider researcher. The hardest thing for Tsuda (2003) was that he was well educated and socioeconomically ‘superior’; hence he was always seen as the ‘outsider researcher’ by the returnee workers despite his ethnic familiarity. Reading through various ethnographic methods used by migration researchers, I came to the understanding that there are both positive and negative sides to carrying out this type of research. It was clear to me that my study was going to follow an ethnographic design. I knew that I wanted to understand the returnees’ everyday lives in their ‘fullest context’. I was in a position in which I could encounter the everyday lives of Korean immigrants every day throughout my research journey. First, in New Zealand I was living with my sister and mum who have been discussing my sister’s return for many years. My sister eventually returned to Korea in early 2010. From her migratory experience, I was able to understand a returnee’s decision making process ‘as it was happening’, and I could also gain a retrospective understanding from one’s early childhood. I could also appreciate the importance of a family’s role in a returnee’s life as an insider in the ‘family of a returnee’. Second, I developed close relationships with many of the 40 Korean New Zealander returnees in Korea I interviewed. I was already a close acquaintance of several and I became friends with several more. As a result, after the initial fieldwork in Korea, I could easily talk to them through phone calls and emails, hear about their news through other mutual acquaintances, and even read their everyday lives through their personal blogs, websites and social networking sites, such as in Facebook and Cyworld.2 Third, being a migrant meant that the topic of Korea and the ‘myth of return’ (Anwar, 1979) was part of my everyday conversations with family and friends. The amount of information, thoughts and reflections became enormous and I felt overwhelmed at some points during my fieldwork process. I could not stop analysing and enquiring into my everyday activities. Gradually, I realised that my study ‘site’ was not just a single location of Korea, but my field location was ‘everywhere’ (Nast, 1994) across the physical and non-physical spaces I was engaged with. I began to consider my

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methodological framework as a ‘transnational ethnography’ and started to seek a more systematic way to document my everyday encounters. In the beginning, I wanted to switch off the scholar’s part of my brain because on many occasions I felt like a spy; listening to my friends’ conversations while secretly thinking of how this might be useful to my study. But such a struggle inside me quickly became a passion and I realised that studying my everyday surroundings was actually helping me learn about the people in their most ‘natural’ setting. All of the initial methods of ‘trying to become a returnee’ and ‘trying to become immersed into Korean culture’ were just ‘doing what’s told’ from ethnographic literature (Cook and Crang, 1995; Parr, 2001). Although carrying out the initial ethnographic work in Korea provided significant information for my research, I was artificially making myself enter the ‘field site’ of Korea to study the people in that particular location. In reality, their lives are strongly connected to New Zealand, and also to the non-physical world of online communities, where even more critical information could be gained. Wilding (2007), an Australian anthropologist, has used the term ‘transnational ethnography’ and has clearly argued: For ethnography to be applied to transnational contexts, I would suggest that it was first essential that fieldwork be reimagined so as not to require the ethnographer as ‘research instrument’ to be located in a single, other, place – where a group of people were long-term residents – for an extended period of time. (p 336) Indeed, studying the returnees’ everyday activities is always situated within the transnational context as their lives are always here and there across borders and beyond to the online communities. Wilding (2007) further illustrates the irony of transnational ethnographers putting emphasis on being at multi-local places, travelling from Brazil to Cuba and to Argentina (Scheper-Hughes, 2004) or travelling back and forth between places to call it a ‘transnational’ ethnography. Yet, there is a difference between being multi-local and translocal (Wilding, 2007). By being translocal, you are employing a ‘transnational’ practice from a location to study transnational lives, which can be argued as the most ‘natural’ way to study transnationals’ everyday settings (Brickell and Datta, 2011). Following such a view of my personal encounters, I started to develop my focus of observation from a ‘translocal’ angle, both in physical and online spaces. Hence, by using the term ‘transnational ethnography’, one of my main methods became (participatory)

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observations of Korean immigrants and returnees around me – before, during and after my actual interviews took place in Korea and New Zealand. In other words, my ethnographic work and ‘field’ observation did not have to be limited by a physical location. Along with the methodological aim, this research took on a life history approach (Wallace, 1994) in order to collect information from their very initial stage of migrating experience to New Zealand from Korea to gain a holistic understanding. Life history approach was utilised as a powerful tool in this research. It allowed me to focus on the participants’ life narratives, and to gain a rich understanding of their long-term motives. Taking a life history approach along with the transnational ethnography helped me to vividly explore the complexities of the participants’ lives.

Life history within transnational ethnography: doing research My fieldwork began in 2008 with a pilot phase in which casual conversations were carried out with seven returnees in Korea. In 2009, interviews were conducted with 40 returnees in Korea and then nine re-returnees3 were interviewed in New Zealand. Online and print media analysis and participant observation were conducted throughout the entire course of my fieldwork period. My interviews were semistructured. I had some prepared themes and questions, but questions were altered and more questions were asked according to participants’ personal interests and circumstances. As I indicated earlier, I took a life history approach in order to gain a holistic perspective on their return trajectories. There were three parts to my interview as shown in Table 10.1. I started by asking them about their childhood and teenage experiences in New Zealand, their present return experiences, and moved to thematic themes related to their near future. Although I did Table 10.1: Interview questions/prompts: a lifecourse approach Stage I: Pre-return phase

Stage II: Return migration

Stage III: Thematic

Reasons for immigrating to NZ Teenage years in NZ Good and difficult times

Reasons for returning to Korea Life in Korea (work and family) Connections to NZ Future plans

Gyopo and identity Citizenship Nationalism Home Inclusion and exclusion

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not have any predetermined order, I made sure that I touched on all three parts to my interview questions (see Table 10.1). One of the most important interview practices was preparing prior to the interviews and making extensive field notes afterwards. For some of the participants, I had already known their occupations and basic background information through the mutual acquaintance who introduced us. Hence, I tried to do some research on their occupations and designed some specific questions accordingly. Also, after each interview, I wrote one to two pages of field notes including my first impression of the person, the interviewee’s gestures and facial expressions, their work place or house settings, and the conversations that were carried out when the audio-recorder was not recording (those on our way to the interview place and directly after the interview finished). Sometimes, interviewees started to talk about the most interesting things and shared their personal opinions soon after the recorder was turned off. Hence, writing notes through retrospective memory was critical and they were mostly carried out shortly after I had left the interviewee. A strong point of connection with the participants was that we are all 1.5 generation immigrants. The participants used terms such as ‘as you know’ and also told me more personal stories ‘off the record’. These really helped me to make connections with them and allowed them to trust me and freely express their feelings to me. Some even said that I was the first person to know any of their inner most feelings. It is contended that ‘insiders may build trust and develop relationships with their respondents in ways that outsiders may not be capable’ (Palmer, 2001, p 66). Besides interviews, participant observation was highly critical to my research project not only to gain ‘complementary evidence’ (Kearns, 2010), but for its provision of useful background information. Importantly, observational methods allowed me to be self reflexive. Through various observational methods (see Table 10.2), I could gain a contextualised and holistic understanding about the returnees’ lives. Some of the returnees were my close friends whom I spend most of my free time with; I visited their houses and we went on a couple of road trips together while I was in Korea. Although in many cases observation is ‘the outcome of active choice rather than mere exposure’ (Kearns, 2010, p  242), on many occasions, I was simply exposed to the returnees’ lives because they were included in my everyday activities outside my research life. Nonetheless, I started to document my experiences with a number of returnees, which I also openly told

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Using a life history approach within transnational ethnography Table 10.2: Different kinds of observations Observations

Locations, Time

Description

(A) Individual observation at informal social gatherings and personal settings

Returnees’ houses, cafes, restaurants, bars, shopping malls, researcher’s house, streets

The researcher’s everyday settings. Majority of the observations were not intended. Often notes were taken retrospectively. In some occasions, mobile phone was used to take notes immediately. The researcher was in complete participation. Some photos were taken.

(B) Event observation at formally organised social gatherings

The University of Auckland Alumni event in Seoul; 22 May 2009

(C)Site observation

Various areas and people around Seoul and Auckland2008–10

A number of facilities and places that were mentioned by the interviewees were observed by the researcher. Additional information was found through internet. Little or no researcher participation.

(D) Online observation

Returnees’ personal blogs, websites and social networking sites, email conversation, phone calls

Fifteen participants’ personal online blogs, websites and social networking sites, such as Facebook and Cyworld, were visited once or twice a week over a period of one year. Notes were taken occasionally. In a majority of times, complete observation was carried out with little participation.

March–July 2009

YLN (Young Leader’s Network) formal dinner in Seoul ; 11 June 2009

The alumni event was an intentionally organised event by the researcher. YLN formal dinner was not organised by the researcher. Both events were attended with the intention to observe with particular themes. Participants and non-participant returnees were spoken to and observed at various levels. Extensive notes were taken after each event. Some photos were taken.

July 2009–2010 (E) Self observation (Self-diary participation)

The researcher’s personal life in Korea and New Zealand

Full participation and some intentional observation. The researcher’s ‘insider’ experiences in Korea and New Zealand were documented in personal journals. This journal is different from ‘field notes’.

March 2009–2010

them. On other occasions, I also observed the returnees’ lives from a distance through online spaces (see Table 10.2). Table 10.2 illustrates how participant observation was significant in terms of making sense of my interview data and to understand the participants’ lives from various angles. Observation ‘A’ (Individual observation) provided some highly private information, which I could not have gathered had I not been a family member or a close friend of the participants. Although observations did not happen intentionally, I took notes when I found something compelling or interesting during

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conversations. Event observations (Observation ‘B’) happened twice while I was based in Seoul in 2009. Prior to the fieldwork in Korea, I contacted the University of Auckland’s alumni office and asked whether I could organise an alumni event while I was in Korea. They were happy to provide some funding for the event and gave me the key alumni contacts in Seoul. During the process of organising the event, I was able to be in contact with a small number of Korean New Zealander returnees who were happy to help out with organising the event. Through numerous meetings with them, I was able to learn about their lives and migratory stories (and they also became my interview participants). At the event itself, I also met a large number of Korean and non-Korean graduates from the University of Auckland. I was invited to attend the YLN (Young Leader’s Network) formal dinner. At the dinner, I met a group of Korean New Zealander returnees with whom I made contact. At both events, I observed the dynamics of the event, overheard some conversations, and also fully participated in the event. Because I attended both events with the intention to observe, I was more aware of the ‘happenings’ and remembered the details. The observations were written into descriptions and they were useful in making sense of my data and providing context in my result sections. Site observation (Observation ‘C’) was most malleable in its nature. On some occasions, I took a walk along the busy streets in Seoul and remembered the things that were said by my participants about the ‘busy lifestyle’ in Korea. In contrast, when I returned to New Zealand, I observed the differences in the living environment. I decided to take notes of my feelings (what I could do, see, hear, touch, and smell) towards the different places of Korea and New Zealand. I took pictures of various sites and tried to make sense of them from my own perspective. There were also a number of specific sites that I visited such as the immigration office in Seoul, banks, a gym and shopping malls in Korea. I used these facilities as an insider and also observed the difficulties and benefits that were mentioned by the participants. Those notes were valuable in terms of providing a vivid description of the differences between places in Korea and New Zealand. Online observation (Observation ‘D’) was the easiest one to do in terms of the time and techniques. However, it was the most difficult one to write about mostly for ethical reasons. As mentioned earlier in the chapter, my online observations mainly involved visiting the social networking sites of the returnees (that is, Cyworld and Facebook). The benefit (or irony) of this observation was that I was exposed to some incredibly private stories from a distanced position. Through the personal journals and pictures that were posted on the

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participants’ profiles and websites, I could understand their happiness and difficulties of living, complexities of the human mind, sometimes contrasting information with the interview data, and sometimes it even made me re-evaluate priorities for my own life. While this exercise was significant, I had to be aware of the ethical issues. Hence, I did not make many notes about the individual participants, but more or less used the observation as a ‘thinking tool’ (Kearns, 2010) to give me prompts and directions in analysing my interview data. On some occasions, I did ask the participants whether I could use some of their quotes or pictures (if it seemed ethical at that time). The last observational method (‘E’ – Self-observation) was an experimental method. My initial attempt was to conduct an ‘autoethnography’ (Butz and Besio, 2009; Ellis and Bochner, 2000), ‘a form of self-narrative that places the self within a social context’ (Butz and Besio, 2009, p 1), which means the boundary between the researcher and the objects of representation becomes blurred and the research subjects obtain a new perspective. I wanted to experiment with this method in a rather small scale form, through my experiences of living in Korea as a returnee. In order to experiment with this method, I had made sure that I was based at an institution while I was in Korea. My experience of living as a visiting researcher at Seoul National University (NSU) provided a ‘social place’ for me in Seoul. Through my everyday interactions with the local Korean students, I gained new feelings, experiences of identity negotiations, and I could truly compare myself with other returnees and understand their stories to a greater extent. In 2010, I conducted nine further interviews with a group of Korean New Zealander returnees who were now living in New Zealand. Hence, this group was termed as the ‘returned returnees’ or ‘re-returnees’. I was interested to talk to a number of returned returnees because empirically, there are a large number of them in Auckland. I wanted to find out what made them return back to New Zealand after making such a big step to return to Korea. From the 40 interviews in Korea, it was clear that the returnees’ experiences varied hugely according to personal circumstances. For some, return meant a reconnection to their roots and belonging, while for others return did not bring them much happiness. When I was aiming to deeply analyse this idea, it was a logical step to talk to those who decided to return back to New Zealand – hypothesising that they have returned back to New Zealand because they had negative experiences in Korea. I ended up talking to nine returned returnees. Most of the participants had lived in Korea for around two years and worked in various kinds

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of occupations. All of them were single, which made it easier for them to move between places. Moreover, all of the participants’ parents were living in New Zealand. The stories about re-returnees were critical in adding comparisons and richness to the current data. Importantly, they added understanding of their post-return experience in New Zealand in terms of narrating their identity negotiations and growth.

Ethics and positionality I observed not only my study participants with whom I conducted interviews, but also immigrants and non-immigrants around me. While observing the people around me every day seemed like a logical choice to carry out an ethnographic study, I had to be careful about what I was observing and how I was observing for various ethical reasons. I had to be reflexive and be cautious about the circumstances of my positionality. Table 10.3: Author’s positionality Research methods

Consequence

Negotiation

Pilot research in Korea, As a 1st year 2008 PhD student, I was visiting Seoul as part of my conference trip. I had read around the basic literature on return migration, home, and identity politics.

Positionality

As a researcher, I did not have much knowledge about the returnees’ lives at this point. As an insider, I had many close friends who were returnees.

I tried to be disconnected from my research while I was talking to the returnees. I had to keep my questions very simple.

Participant observation + interviews (40 returnees) in Korea, 2009

Making contacts with the returnees was very easy. Yet, some of the interview participants were too closely related to each other. I was involved in many social gatherings of returnees.

When interview participants asked me about other returnees, I maintained confidentiality. I played down my role as a researcher and stressed my ‘insiderness’.

I was an insider immigrant researcher. I was living in Korea for a short term and was based at an institution as a visiting researcher. I also had many close friends who were returnees.

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Positionality

Consequence

Negotiation

Participant observation + interviews (9 rereturnees) in NZ, 2010

Within New Zealand, I was an immigrant, researcher, and a family member. Most interviews and observations were done when I was 3rd year researcher, hence I had more knowledge.

I could be more open about my positionality among my family and friends in NZ. I could be strategic and ask chosen questions to the interview participants in New Zealand.

Because I had already talked to numerous returnees, I was constantly observing my relatives, friends and family. While I could gain useful information, I had to be more reflexive.

Online participant observation, 2009–2010

I consider myself as 1.5 generation and x-generation. I am aware of many online sites that are used by young Korean and NZ online users. I have access to computers and a smart phone.

Because I was close friends with a large number of returnees, I had easy access to their everyday lives through online communities. I could understand their lives this way.

I had to be careful not to ‘scrutinise’ their lives too much. I did not use any of the quotes or photos without asking the returnees’ permissions. At the same time, I had the privilege to further look into their lives.

I was involved in many activities at SNU with the local students. I was also spending a lot of time with other returnees. I observed myself being a complete returnee and a researcher. I wrote an extensive field journal.

I had to be careful not to be ‘selfindulgent’ and spend too much time on worrying about my own personal politics. I had to draw a line and focus on what I was writing for rather than writing about every single experience.

Self diary participation, I am an insider 2009–2010 1.5 generation. I had lived in Korea as a returnee in 2005, and could experience it again in 2008 while I was in Korea for fieldwork. I had access to the local Korean community.

Table 10.3 explains a number of my subject positions which affected my research process, and how I coped with the consequences.

Analysing data I employed discourse analysis to analyse my interview data. Although discourse analysis originates from a linguistic approach (Brown and Yule, 1983), social scientists also employ the practice by emphasising the significance of context which affects oral texts (Wood and Kroger,

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2000; Hannam, 2002; Van Dijk, 2009; Waitt, 2010; Hammersley, 2003). Within geography, discourse analysis is often described as an interpretive tool to determine the ‘rule’ or the ‘structure’ which governs particular oral, written and visual texts (Waitt, 2010). In other words, ‘rather than letting the words speak simply for themselves, discourse analysis treats texts as mediated cultural products which are part of wider systems of knowledge which may set the limits for, or discipline, everyday life’ (Hannam, 2002, p 195). It is difficult to explain how discourse analysis is different from other forms of qualitative analysis such as grounded theory which also attempts to seek a ‘contextual’ understanding. It is argued that discourse analysis places ‘greater emphasis on variability (both within and between persons) than do other methods of qualitative analysis’ (Wood and Kroger, 2000, p 28). Indeed, my research objective was not to make a grand theorisation on Korean New Zealander’s return migration, but to illustrate the complexities of their lives and depict their narratives as they are. By conducting discourse analysis, I not only looked for ‘what’ they said, but focused on ‘how’ that oral text has been produced through a shared sociological, historical and cultural understanding. I looked for connotations in their narratives and attempted to ‘contextualise’ their norms, values and perceptions. The writing part of the research was challenging. I had to be ‘self reflexive’ and I have encompassed so many different kinds of materials (ranging from interviews, pictures, written notes and secondary data) which have been strategically put into a certain order to convey my arguments along the way. Bondi (2004) talks about the irony behind academic authority. There are contradictions when it comes to reflexive writing because we are problematising our way of thinking and subjective understandings, yet we still have to speak in strong voices and argue clearly as academics. This was the most difficult aspect of my writing process as I was trying very hard not to generalise, yet there were certain things that had to be or overemphasised in order to fit into my argument. Indeed, I was always contemplating whether I was simply representing my data or ‘re’-presenting (Bennett and Shurmer-Smith, 2001). Was I changing any of the data to make it fit what I wanted to say? I tried hard to stay away from ‘re’-presentation, and simply just represent narratives and stay true to participants’ stories.

Conclusion: taking a life history approach in ethnography In this chapter, I have illustrated the initial research design, my research methods, and how I attempted to make sense of my data and material

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to produce my written work. I showed that taking a ‘transnational ethnography’ approach to study the participants was not the initial design of this project. Deciding to study their online spaces and engage with their everyday activities more actively came from my personal realisation of ‘already being in my study field’ in my everyday encounters. Hence, the research developed further to document the returnees’ lives not only through interviews, but through observing their lives more actively. The research methods in this study mainly involved semi-structured interviews with 40 returnees in 2009, and later with nine re-returnees in New Zealand. Observations of their lives were conducted in direct and indirect ways which ranged from spending time with the participants in personal settings, occasional events such as the University of Auckland alumni event, and also indirectly through their online communities. As discussed, I was heavily involved in the research participants’ lives and was aware of the role of my positionality. I attempted to reflect on my role as the observer. During my analysis and writing process, I attempted to develop a more critically distanced analysis in which my personal knowledge and subjectivities had minimal impact on my findings. At the same time, the fact that I had close relationships with some of the study participants and that I was an insider researcher created a strong researcher–participant bond. This bond allowed a much more nuanced finding about the returnees’ lives that may not have been possible for an outsider researcher to obtain. Taking a life history approach to return migration was significant in highlighting the longer-term factors which affected the returnees’ decision making processes. For instance, by considering their life histories, I was able to see returnees’ motivations to return as having grown over the course of their time as part of an ethnic minority in New Zealand. Given most participants immigrated to New Zealand as early teenagers, for some this sensitive identity development phase of participants’ lives was affected by their minority status in their host society. Through the difficult experiences of growing up as ‘Asian kids’, they slowly acquired a sense of alienation and felt inferior to the majority of young people. Trying to ‘fit in’ during their school years was stressful and some recalled bullying at school. Even those who seemed to be well integrated and those who made Western friends easily never felt fully included and accepted. These difficulties eventually led to a return ‘home’. In doing so, I was able to argue through my research finding that the returnees’ return motivations were part of a long-term process, rather than a ‘strategic’ decision based on job opportunities, which is the more widely acknowledged return intention within a transnational framework. Without taking a life history approach and

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ethnographic methods, such a complex but vivid picture of returnees’ motivations could not be achieved. Notes I follow the broader definition used by Bartley and Spoonley (2008, p 68) to refer to ‘children, aged between six and 18 years, who migrate as part of a family unit, but who have experienced at least some of their formative socialisation in the country of origin’. 1

2

‘Cyworld’ is an online community that is widely utilised by Korean online users.

3 As I refer to the group of returnee Korean New Zealanders who decided to return to New Zealand after living in Korea for a short period of six months to two years.

References Anwar, M. (1979) The myth of return: Pakistanis in Britain, London: Heinemann. Bartley, A. and Spoonley, P. (2008) ‘Intergenerational transnationalism: 1.5 generation Asian migrants in New Zealand’, International Migration, 46(4): 63–84. Bennett, K. and Shurmer-Smith, P. (2001) ‘Writing conversation’, in M. Limb and C. Dwyer (eds) Qualitative methodologies for geographers: Issues and debates, London: Arnold, pp 251–63. Brown, G. and Yule, G. (1983) Discourse analysis, Victoria: Cambridge University Press. Brickell, K. and Datta, A. (eds) (2011) Translocal geographies: Spaces, places, connections, Surrey: Ashgate. Bondi, L. (2004) ‘10th Anniversary address for a feminist geography of ambivalence’, Gender, Place and Culture, 11(1): 3–15. Butz, D. and Besio, K. (2009) ‘Autoethnography’, Geography Compass, 3(5): 1660–74. Christou, A. (2003) ‘Migrating gender: feminist geographies in women’s biographies of return migration’, Michigan Feminist Studies, 17: 71–103. Christou, A. (2006) Narratives of place, culture and identity: secondgeneration Greek-Americans return ‘Home’, Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press. Cook, I. and Crang, M. (1995) Doing ethnographies, Norwich: Geobooks.

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Ellis, C. and Bochner, A. (2000) ‘Autoethnography, personal narrative, reflexivity: Researcher as subject’, in N. K. Denzin and Y. S. Lincoln (eds) The Handbook of Qualitative Research, Newbury Park, CA: Sage Publications, 733–68. Hammersley, M. (2003) ‘Conversation analysis and discourse analysis: methods or paradigms’, Discourse and Society, 14(6): 751–81. Hannam, K. (2002) ‘Coping with archival and textual data’, in P. Shurmer-Smith (ed) Doing Cultural Geography, London: Sage Publications, 189–98. Kearns, R. (2010) ‘Seeing with clarity: undertaking observational research’, in I. Hay (ed) Qualitative Research Methods in Human Geography (3rd edn), Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp 241–57. Lee, J. Y. J. (2012) ‘Return migration of young Korean New Zealanders: Transnational journeys of reunification and estrangement’, PhD dissertation, University of Auckland. Nast, H. (1994) ‘Women in the field: critical feminist methodologies and theoretical perspectives’, Professional Geographer, 46(1): 54–66. Palmer, J. (2001) In the midst of two cultures: 1.5 generation Korean Americans’ acculturation process and ethnic identity development, Iowa: University of Iowa. Parr, H. (2001) ‘Negotiating different ethnographic contexts and building geographical knowledge: empirical examples from mentalhealth research’, in M. Limb and C. Dwyer (eds) Qualitative methodologies for geographers: Issues and debates, London: Arnold, pp 181–98. Rose, G. (1997) ‘Situating knowledge: positionality, reflexivities and other tactics’, Progress in Human Geography, 21(3): 305–20. Scheper-Hughes, N. (2004) ‘Parts unknown: undercover ethnography of the organs-trafficking underworld’, Ethnography, 5(1): 29–73. Tsuda, T. (2003) Strangers in the ethnic homeland: Japanese Brazilian return migration in transnational perspective, New York: Columbia University Press. Van Dijk, T. A. (2009) Society and discourse: How social contexts influence text and talk, New York: Cambridge University Press. Waitt, G. (2010) ‘Doing Foucauldian discourse analysis – revealing social realities’, in I. Hay (ed) Qualitative research methods in human geography, Victoria: Oxford University Press, pp 217–40. Wallace, J. B. (1994) ‘Life stories’, in J. F. Gubrium and A. Sankar (eds) Qualitative methods in aging research, Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, pp 137–54.

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Wilding, R. (2007) ‘Transnational ethnographies and anthropological imaginings of migrancy’, Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 33(2): 331–48. Wood, L. and Kroger, R. (2000) Doing discourse analysis: Methods for studying action in talk and text, Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications.

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ELEVEN

Sensing sense and mobility at the end of the lifecourse: a methodology of embodied interaction Anne Leonora Blaakilde

We do violence to the complexity of lived experience when we make analytical cuts between emotions and thought, or emotion, the senses, thought, and action. (Davies, 2010, p 25)

Introduction The sun is setting over the Mediterranean Sea far below me, and my front view is a locked gate, seeming in a hostile way to knot the tall fence together around a complex of luxurious accommodations on the top of a mountain by the Turkish Riviera. The car I am sitting in is sloping backwards at an angle of approximately 20 degrees, the back pointing drastically downwards, down the mountain; the driver, 83-year-old Howard, is unsuccessfully trying to make the remote controller open the gate. I know he has had some drinks today, which worried me a little as I got into his car 20 minutes prior to this moment. In the early afternoon, I met him while participating at the Danish men’s weekly bowling games, doing my fieldwork in this area in order to study elderly retired Danes living in Turkey. He invited me to a restaurant this evening, and as we met in the city at six o’clock, he asked me to leave my car and get into his. When departing the city via the highway along the sea, he said that we would go to his home first to have a drink. Slightly uncomfortable, I realised that I could either refuse and tell him to let me out of the car, or I could learn from this as any other fieldwork experience – and I chose the latter. Now, in a car leaning backwards directly down a small and winding mountain road, I hear Howard saying that the remote does not work, and he’ll try from outside. With drops of sweat on my forehead I think: ‘My God, does he know how to work the handbrakes, and do they

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work properly? Should I hop out of the car right now?’ He gets out of the car, leaving a thick book in the front window inside. The book is a mix between a calendar and a notebook, typical for many Danes, where you keep track of appointments and write notes at the same time. Howard’s notebook is full of old journal cuttings and memory notes, and he calls it ‘My Memory’. International retirement migration (IRM) is a phenomenon of increasing research interest concerning retirees who practise migration to the ‘solar utopias’ of the world (Simpson, 2015). This phenomenon has been studied in a broad range of disciplines, and from the perspective of different national groups, (King et al, 2000; O’Reilly, 2000; Gustafson. 2002; Ackers and Dwyer, 2004; Bozic, 2006: Balkir and Kirkulak, 2009).The field is characterised by people who migrate after retirement. They have been categorised into different types of foreign residents. These are: full-time residents who live the year round in their new host land, returning residents/second home owners who are residents in their new host land and stay most of the year but return once in a while to their country of origin, and seasonal visitors who travel back and forth, but stay mostly in their home country. O’Reilly (2000) and Williams et al (1997) have slightly different terms which are incorporated here. I have carried out fieldwork studies in Spain and Turkey. The case in this chapter is from Turkey, where I spent five weeks in the spring of 2013, doing participant observation and interviews with 16 Danish permanent residents, aged 42–79 years, and I participated in a variety of social events in both public and private spaces. My studies in Turkey, and previously Spain, pinpoint the heterogeneity of the elderly people who choose to spend their later life in a foreign country. Among all the topics studied, like motivations for moving, health practices in national and transnational contexts, social life and national identity, the results vary depending on the people in question and their life situation – socially, economical, in terms of health, etc. (Blaakilde, 2007a; 2007b; 2013; Blaakilde and Nilsson, 2013). There seems to be an overall representation of courage and audacity, mobility and flexibility connected to the migration act, even though many of the interviewees were suffering from various diseases. However, if their functional health seriously deteriorates, life can become much more complicated than when living in their home country, Denmark. In that case, most of them decide to return to Denmark, in order to get access to healthcare services in a context they understand, and where (maybe) family or friends are around. Hence, spatial situatedness, mobility decisions and return migration imply difficult considerations.

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Furthermore, returning to the homeland can be comprehended as a double decline; life in the solar utopia was indeed chosen because of the higher level of life quality experienced there. In this chapter, the focus of empirical interest is centred around one Danish retirement migrant, Howard, menaced by mental degeneration, who is attempting to maintain and perform a life as it was before. The later part (and maybe more) of his life course is characterised by mobility and transnational experience, and mental illness may imply consequences related to spatiality, which are different from the lives of persons with a lifelong residence in their home country. The primary argument presented in this chapter will be an examination of the ways methodology focusing on senses and embodied interaction can contribute to an understanding of decline at the end of a person’s life course. In Davies and Spencer (2010) anthropologists and psychoanalysts are calling for more methodological employment of senses and emotions in ethnography, and this chapter contains a contribution to this request. The methodological approach chosen is influenced by a ‘haptic epistemology’ (Marks, 2002), trying to grasp and transfer the process of making sense by means of sensing, listening, and by embodied mobility in space. This haptic methodology is first contextualised with a brief introduction to approaches previously examined by ethnographic scholars. Next, the methodology will be presented along with an analysis of Howard’s responses and reactions to a kind of mental decline which is not rare at the end of the life course, and which can have crucial impacts when related to a person accustomed to living a mobile life. The chapter concludes by arguing that the employed sensuous theory and embodied interaction of the ethnographer is fundamental in order to grasp a kind of understanding of this kind of life situation as a part of lifecourse research. The perspective provides an argument for ambiguous co-construction perspectives by means of post-phenomenology, allowing for a dissolving of classic dualisms like body/mind and subjectivity/objectivity. Such dualisms are normally adherent to appraisals of objectivity, whereas the argument in this chapter is that intersubjectivity is indispensable for achieving understanding of life course experiences.

Haptic epistemology: from penetration to erotic encounter Haptic epistemology is a sensuous theory and an approach which can be very fruitful within life course research. It is pronounced by the film critic and film professor Laura U. Marks, who is inspired by Merleau-

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Ponty’s phenomenology of embodied perception (Merleau-Ponty, 2002 [1945]). Further inspiration comes from Deleuze and Guattari’s rhizomatic philosophy focusing on organic forms of intertwinement and multiple foldings as a basis for epistemic understanding of the complexity of the world (Deleuze and Guattari, 2005). Semantically, words synonymous with ‘touch’ and ‘movement’ connote both bodily and emotional features. In her book Touch, Laura Marks employs the term ‘haptic’ for a contact that moves, like a mimetic: ‘it presses up to the object and takes its shape’. However, it should not be considered a positioning as a mere representation, rather it resembles a process: ‘a robust flow between sensuous closeness and symbolic distance’ (Marks, 2002, p xiii). For Marks, the haptic is related to ‘the erotic’, and she defines ‘erotic’ as the ability to oscillate between closeness and distance. ‘A lover’s promise is to take the beloved to that point where he or she has no distance from the body – and then to let the beloved come back, into possession of language and personhood’ (Marks, 2002, p xvi). From a methodological perspective, this relates to an ongoing discussion among scholars of ethnography regarding the implications of the term ‘participant observation’, which involves a kind of paradox between the ethnographer concurrently being a participant and an observer at a distance (Clifford and Marcus, 1986). Ethnography has always involved experiential methodology. Bronislaw Malinowski reported in 1922 from the Trobriand Islands that his close observation in the daily lives of the natives was a necessary scientific approach in order to ‘penetrate’ the ‘mind’ and ‘mental attitude’ of the native Trobriands (Malinowski, 1984 [1922], p xv and p 19). Malinowski’s modernist, functional ideals represented a hermeneutical approach and a positivist epistemology with the aim of getting the most scientifically valid account of the ‘native’s vision of the world’; from ‘his (the native’s) point of view’ (Malinowski, 1984 [/1922], p 25). Fifty years later, Clifford Geertz criticised a stance then taken within ethnography, which praised ‘emic’, ‘inside’, ‘experience-near’ and subject-penetrating ideals of the ethnographer getting ‘into someone else’s skin’ (Geertz, 1979, p 227). Geertz, on the other hand, argued for an analytic interpretation of the symbols, signs, and structures following a textual interpretation (Geertz, 1972; 1979). Both Malinowski and Geertz conveyed ideas of ‘The Native’ as a subject who is in contact with and interpreted by the ethnographer, but they did not struggle much in epistemological terms with their own subjectivity, their relationship and interaction with this native; the ethnographic ‘other’. Such considerations were propounded by other anthropologists from the 1980s and onwards in the ethnographic wave of reflexivity and crisis of representation (Ruby,

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1982; Clifford and Marcus, 1986). In line with the advancement of social constructivism, ethnographers were challenged with previously learned, strong epistemologies of modernism grounded in dualisms like subjectivity/objectivity, language/world, and in deeply embedded notions of the subject as a firm, delineated container (Lakoff and Johnson, 1980). After the waves of postmodernism, poststructuralism and the linguistic turn, most social sciences have no expectations of a privileged or objective representation of a given observation (Katz, 1994; Gergen and Gergen, 2014). The constructivist epistemology presupposes that contact and interaction is inherent for any comprehension of the world; and that neutral objectivity is not a realistic – nor an ideal – aim to anticipate (Hacking, 2007). Transposed to ethnographic methodology, this means that knowledge is created by – and because of – the ethnographer’s interaction with a specific field of interest. Furthermore, ‘messy’ methodologies, founded on interpretations and performances of multiple identities and interactions influenced by situatedness, authorise methodological uncertainty (Denzin, 1997; Law, 2004). This interactionist point of departure takes us back to Laura Marks’ sensuous theory of touch, which may contribute to new methodologies of sensing and understanding phenomena of the unknown. In this case, it concerns the consequences of bodily decline for elderly people accustomed to living mobile lives. The haptic epistemology is embedded in a post-phenomenological approach to the body. Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology of the body presents a foundation for human sensing of the world and a critique of the dualistic distinction between body and world. Embodied experience is, according to Merleau-Ponty, the substratum of human cognition (Merleau-Ponty, 2002 [1945]), which means that knowledge and understanding are results of actions and doings rather than the opposite causality (Jackson, 2005). The ethnographer’s touching is included in this post-phenomenological approach, which constitutes Marks’ interpretations of the erotic element of a haptic relationship. In a haptic relationship our self rushes up to the surface to interact with another surface. When this happens there is a concomitant loss of depth – we become amoeba-like, lacking a center, changing as the surface to which we cling changes. We cannot help but be changed in the process of interacting. (Marks, 2002, p xvi) For the purposes of this chapter, I use sensuous theory and haptic methodology to get a sense and an idea; to understand how it is to

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be a person like Howard, a previous mobile and capable body now in mental decline.

Dinner with Howard Finally, the fence drew apart, Howard entered the car and drove into the gated community – I survived! It was an urbanised area of expensive villas, of which few seemed currently inhabited. His home was all white with exclusive furniture and fur carpets; only the paintings were colourful, some of them painted by his wife, he said. I asked him about his wife; he said that she preferred to stay in Denmark now, painting. Her hearing was so bad; she did not find amusement in travelling anymore, or even in meeting other people. Everything in the house was immaculate and reminded me of an article in a Home and Living magazine. He showed me all the rooms and as we looked at the tidy and lifeless bedrooms – his, those of his wife, his daughter, and her family – he very directly asked me to go to bed with him. The surroundings being so clean and the situation so straight made it very easy to refuse. There was no bodily contact at all, and my primary reaction was of slight pity for this old man, who accepted my refusal just as plain as he had posed the question. Then we went down to the huge kitchen/living room where he offered Raki, the strong, Turkish alcoholic drink. My thoughts turned to the trip down the mountain in the car, and I suggested we leave for the restaurant. He assured me that we were going there afterwards, but now we would have a drink on the terrace. So we went out on the terrace with a wonderful view over the dark Mediterranean Sea with lights shining from various spots in the hilly landscape, he with a large Raki, me with a small. Maybe the Raki helped me; I was not sweating with fear as we drove down the mountain, and I forced myself to think about studies on the importance of embodied experience in old drivers (Hansen and Hansen, 2002; Kirk, 2012) even though these studies did not include anything about alcohol intake. And now it was dark. While driving along the highway, Howard expressed worry that he could not find the restaurant. He was not sure if it was shut down, but he assured me he had been there lots of times during the years he had stayed in Turkey. Finally, he found the fish restaurant, and we spent some hours eating a delicious dinner. During the meal, Howard told me his life history and showed me pictures from ‘his memory’ – the thick notebook. In the fish restaurant, Howard told me about his career as a young sports hero. Cuttings from newspaper journals in ‘his memory’ documented him as a proud, tall and handsome winner from the

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middle of the 20th century. Then he became the owner of a successful company. Other newspaper cuttings revealed specific events in which he had participated, dressed in a white suit with broad lapels in the 1970s. The presentation he made for me was clearly an arranged performance, organised as a persuasive plot of success, and its steady (and paper documented) components testified to the impression of a well-polished and repeated life story. It was clear from his story that he had been a popular figure among the Danes in Turkey. However, since I, a trained life history interviewer, kept asking him more questions about his life, he also diverged from the strict storyline of the newspaper cuttings and told other stories from his life, even though he did not remember all the details he would have wanted to tell. For instance, he talked about his family, and revealed that his wife had always been angry with him because of his recurrent adultery. He told me that he liked to come down and spend time in his house in Turkey once in a while to amuse himself, but that he actually felt quite lonely. Once again, he asked if I would go home with him after dinner. As he drove me back to my own car, he admitted that his loss of memory was worrisome for him, and that he felt kind of lonely here.

The erotic encounter as a methodology of embodied interaction My encounter with Howard was far from erotic, though that was maybe an intention of his. But Marks’ ‘erotic encounter’ implies an analytical approach to our embodied interaction which can bestow an understanding conveyed by means of three analytical aspects: ‘touch’, ‘embodied map’, and ‘materialised mind’. Touch The most salient bodily impression in me was my fright of being a victim of Howard’s (lack of) driving abilities, which resulted in an explicit physical reaction in me; I lost control indeed of my body by sweating and considering skipping out of the car. Reversely, my bodily presence did not seem to influence Howard’s body much. Verbally, he pronounced a bodily desire, but his body did not send a congruent signal. Moreover as I, verbally as well, tried to influence his bodily intake of alcohol, I had no success, though the possible consequences of this scared me and constituted a risk to my person – and to his. This embodied encounter with Howard can be read as erotic in terms of Marks’ definition (Marks, 2002), since I fearfully lost control of my

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body, but ‘came back into possession of language and personhood’. The interaction also represented a relation between me, him and the external world, since this experience resulted in my worries about him driving about in his car while he was alone in Turkey. Could this driving result in risk, either for himself or for other people? These considerations represent an oscillation between embodied encounter, and observation and reflection from a distance; between past tense related to his experience, present tense related to my immediate fear, and future tense related to my reflections and worries about his whereabouts. The situation was, however, not quite similar to an ‘amoeba-like’ reaction, as Marks calls it (see the earlier quote from Marks, 2002, p 203), because neither of us were performing a mimetic reaction of each other’s. Contrary to me, Howard kept very calm in front of the fence; it was apparently an ordinary situation for him. The ‘ordinary’, however, is a multi-layered term. What was ordinary for Howard was of course not ordinary for me. Ordinariness varies in a temporal manner as well; what was previously ordinary for Howard was not all that ordinary for him any longer. His mind was no longer as it used to be. His difficulty in finding the well-known restaurant was an indicator of this problem. As a passenger I could sense the tenseness in him while he was driving, just as well as I could understand cognitively from his talk about the ‘disappeared’ restaurant. Embodied map When Laura Marks writes about the haptic, she refers to Deleuze and Guatarri’s description of ‘smooth space’ which has no clear demarcation and resembles ephemeral spaces, like deserts in permanent transition. Navigating in such spaces requires a nomadic ability combining visual and tactile senses. The smooth space must be bodily experienced as well as being envisioned from well-known sites and signs. The routes and their signs are imprinted in the body, which creates a kind of embodied map complementing or substituting a printed map. Howard was trying to follow this embodied map, which used to be part of his daily life when in Turkey; he had certain routes and routines obtained from his experiences after many years as a seasonal resident there. There is no account of any diagnosis of dementia in this story, which was not part of the outspoken encounter between Howard and me. Only the loss of memory was a candid subject. However, even at the early and still unexplained outset of this diagnosis, loss of spatial orientation is recognised as a problem (Swane, 1996), and this may

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involve cartographic as well as embodied mapping. Howard’s preferred routes and actions while living in Turkey were inscribed in his bodily routines (in cooperation with his car) as a recognisable pattern, and the structure of this embodied map seemed now to dissolve. This confused his mind and disturbed his embodied interaction with his car and the places he once knew very well: the roads along the sea. The anthropologist Keith Basso (1995, p 7) wrote about place making; the making sense of place, which involves a construction of the past, of social traditions, but also personal and social identities. While trying to find his places and follow his routes in Turkey, Howard was also trying to keep up the life he had enjoyed here. He was trying to keeping it in existence; including dimensions of his experiences, his social life and his personal identity. Sarah Pink (2007) discusses the term ‘shared corporeal experiences’ as a specific, methodological approach when the ethnographer follows a person of interest. Sharing is of course not 100% possible, but according to a classic, hermeneutical perspective focusing on partial access to intersubjective experience, the corporeal following of another person can provide an embodied sensory understanding for this person. With me as an amoeba-like person next to Howard in the car, in his house, and in the restaurant as well, he invited me to sense, absorb and comprehend his routes and his preferred places in Turkey. I also encountered Howard’s attempt to maintain his embodied map; the smooth space of this former life as an active, wealthy retired migrant in Turkey, including the habits of acting as a playboy and being unfaithful to his wife. In a lifecourse perspective, this indicates an understanding of his previous life as a retired migrant, but it also granted a present time impression of his slight bewilderment due to decline in memory. The signs of a slipping smooth space do not only indicate a spatial phenomenon, but also signify a mental state and a personal loss. Materialised memory The idea of materials as a matter of the lifeworld is presented by postphenomenology, building on Merleau-Ponty’s philosophy about an evaporation of dichotomous distinctions between body and world. The anthropologist Tim Ingold (2007) emphasises that the material and its properties have interacting significance for human life. The material case in question here is Howard’s notebook, which he clearly designates vital importance by coining it ‘My Memory’ and by keeping it by his side at all times. In line with phenomenological thinking, Howard tries to eliminate any gap between his body and his materialised ‘memory’,

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which is full of objects reminding him of his lifelong experiences. When Laura Marks writes about haptic senses, she considers Gilles Deleuze’s term ‘objects of experience’ (Marks, 2002, p  xv). Such objects can seem to represent simple and even ideal meanings, and yet, if studied meticulously, they can simultaneously contain particularities implying a variety of connotations. Howard’s notebook is filled with materialised objects of experience, representing particularities from his life, all helping him to reconstruct his lifestory in a way distinct from everyone else’s. At the same time, these particularities constitute strong pillars in a firm story, which, on the other hand, seems idealised and designates a kind of uni-linear lifestory of Howard. However, as I interrogate and challenge him with more questions, he is capable of grasping other stories that do not necessarily contribute nicely to the typified storyline. This other narrated helical and non-linear storyline affects his disposition to represent a more complex person; a human being with problems and worries, like his wife being angry with him and him worrying about his memory loss. Thus, the materialised memory operates as a prosthesis for mental capacity – and identity – by providing Howard with the necessary elements of the storyline to keep track of the whole, and by illustrating and documenting. The book is also used as a materialised medium between him, telling his story, and his audience. When he tells his story, this engenders a connection between him and his interlocutor; his remembrance enables him to nurture his membership in social relationships (Kenyon and Randall, 1997). The opposite effect is also an option, namely that the materialised memory effaces Howard’s abilities to sustain his more complex lifestory – and identity – because the strong pillars of specific details, the newspaper cuttings, tend to displace his remembrance of other elements in his lifestory – those that are not materialised and are hence more vague. Such elements may easily become misty, dim, and disappear in the shade of the materialised objects of experience. According to Paul Ricoeur’s narrative theory, narrating is a vital human act, as a social activity, configuring and reconfiguring relationships between human beings. It is also a temporal activity, configuring and reconfiguring every narrating person in a world of past and present narratives. Furthermore, it is an existential activity, configuring and reconfiguring a narrating self by means of creating personal, narrative time, which is a temporal moment in the cosmic, perpetual time (Ricoeur, 1990; 2010a; 2010b). Following this line of thought, Howard’s narrating is important, whether it is complex and curved, or steady and singular, because the act of narrating is an act of clutching hold of time – and clutching hold of life; by

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constructing narrative time, Howard is steering clear of cosmic time – he is staying alive. Howard’s materialised memory, his notebook, serves as a prosthesis of mental capacity and identity, and keeps him alive both socially and existentially. Methodologically, this materialisation of a mind also works as a tool for improvement of understanding through creating interaction between researcher and the investigated person(s).

Co-construction and the role of the researcher The three examples of analyses have shown how sensing can contribute to understanding other people’s way of making sense. Following the post-phenomenological lead, the idea of this haptic methodology is to provide a sense and an understanding of the challenges experienced by a mobile person by the end of his lifecourse while challenged by memory loss. This understanding is conveyed by disintegrating the distinction between subject and object/body and mind; and by incorporating a sensuous theory and a cultural analysis of touch, embodied map and materialised memory. The methodology primarily focuses on embodied interaction. The a priori premise is that knowledge is co-constructed; the researcher is always inherently involved in the process. There is no ideal of objectivity embedded in this methodology; contrarily the embodied and subjective part of the researcher is seen as a necessity for obtaining interaction and understanding. In the case of Howard, none of the presented analyses would have existed had the researcher not interacted with him, which entailed an embodied impression of his driving and living, an orientation into his navigating in his Turkish ‘smooth space’, and a presentation of the documents of his ‘materialised memory’. Testifying to the haptic epistemology of mutual touch, the events described would not even have happened without the presence of the researcher. Howard’s incentive to invite me for dinner was prompted by his interaction with me, and this was furthermore in congruence with previous actions of his. He was buttressing his customs and habits of going out with women; taking them home, to the fish restaurant, following the same routes as he was reconfiguring with me. In this embodied way, it is possible to learn about his previous life in the country of his second home, connecting past and present time, and it also enlightens his present bewilderment, trying to make sense and maintaining his preferred way of living.

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Knowledge and ethics With this analysis, the intention has been to interrogate the methodological process of embodied interaction. The empirical study involves the experiences of Danish elderly migrants in the Southern European regions. Most IRM studies have focused on living situation, motivations for moving, national identity and social life. The population that chooses to migrate is often termed ‘affluent’ or ‘third age’ (Warnes et al, 2004; Simpson, 2015), connoting a pleasant, active retirement life. However, as age passes by, most people become frail in different ways, but only few IRM studies include investigations of what consequences this may have for people who have chosen a life considerably more influenced by mobility than the life of most other retirees. In this chapter, the focus is on a fairly wealthy person, who has a wife and a house in Denmark. The life situation of other retired migrants might be more complicated regarding financial opportunities, living situation, social life, functional decline, etc. However, Howard has his worries; he feels lonely, and his mind is in decline. Hence, this chapter gives an insight into the end of the lifecourse of a man who is struggling to maintain his way of living in a place where mobility interferes negatively with decline in old age. One may wonder about the ethical consequences of my encounter with Howard. As described, Howard actually did reveal some secrets for me in our conversations, and I disclosed, among other things in this chapter, that he was feeling lonely. It was clear that his situation had changed from being a lively and popular person, to a person who is forgetful and lonely, having trouble finding his way in the landscape, mentally as well as cartographically. His rendezvous with me could have enhanced this feeling of social and mental decline, since I refused him and his wishes, probably reminding him of lost popularity and status. This is an unsolvable problem in ethnography; testifying to the idea of the embodied interaction, which of course not only involves the ethnographer, but also the people we study. Ethnographers may reconcile themselves while calling attention to phenomena – drawing on the epistemological valuing on sense and sentiment – and hoping that the insight, such as that about geographies at the end of the lifecourse from a study like this, also involves you, the reader, and provides us all with a better understanding of spatial aspects of later life in a frail context.

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Conclusion This chapter has presented a methodological approach to embodied interaction, inspired by haptic epistemology, which is informed by postphenomenologic, sensuous theory. The empirical case is an 83-year-old Danish man who is a double home-owner in Turkey, used to travelling between the two countries. Howard is in a process of mental decline, and the methodologies applied in the chapter exemplify how to understand responses to frailty and decline in the lifecourse, when the life situation is influenced by mobility. A premise of co-constructing knowledge is at the core of the employed methodology, emphasising the impact of interaction between researcher and the people studied. There is no ideal of objectivity embedded in this methodology; contrarily, the embodied and subjective part of the researcher is seen as a bedrock for interaction and human understanding, propelling access to interpretations of sense making and lived experience at the end of the lifecourse. References Ackers, L. and Dwyer, P. (2004) ‘Fixed laws, fluid lives: the citizenship status of post-retirement migrants in the European Union’, Ageing and Society, 24: 451–75. Balkir, C. and Kirkulak, B. (2009) ‘Turkey, the new destination for international retirement migration’, in H. Fassmann, M. Haller and D. Lane (eds) Migration and Mobility in Europe: Trends, patterns and control, Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar, pp 123–43. Basso, K. H. (1995) Wisdom sits in places: Language and landscape among the Western Apache, Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press. Blaakilde, A. L. (ed) (2007a) Når pensionister flytter hjemmefra. Ressourcer og risici ved migration i det moderne ældreliv. [When pensioneers leave home: Resources and risk related to modern old age.] Skriftserien fra Gerontologisk Institut 13. Denmark, Hellerup: Gerontologisk Institut. Blaakilde, A.  L. (2007b) ‘ ‘We live ten years longer here’: elderly Danish migrants living on the Costa del Sol’, Ethnologia Europaea, 37(1–2): 88–97. Blaakilde, A.  L. (2013) ‘A challenge to the Danish welfare-state: How international retirement migration and transnational healthpromotion clash with national policies’, in A. L. Blaakilde and G. Nilsson (eds) Nordic seniors on the move: Mobility and migration in later life, Lund: Lund Studies in Arts and Cultural Sciences, 4, pp 177–204.

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Blaakilde, A.  L. and Nilsson, G. (2013) Nordic seniors on the move: Mobility and migration in later life, Lund: Lund Studies in Arts and Cultural Sciences, 4. Bozic, S. (2006) ‘The achievement and potential of international retirement migration research: the need for disciplinary exchange’, Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 32(8): 1415–27. Clifford, J. and Marcus, G. E. (eds) (1986) Writing culture: The poetics and politics of ethnography, Berkeley: University of California Press. Davies, J. (2010) ‘Introduction: emotions in the field’, in J. Davies and D. Spencer (eds) Emotions in the field. The psychology and anthropology of fieldwork experience, Redwood, CA: Stanford University Press, pp 1–34. Davies, J. and Spencer, D. (eds) (2010) Emotions in the field. The psychology and anthropology of fieldwork experience, Redwood, CA: Stanford University Press Deleuze, G. and Guattari, F. (2005) Tusind plateauer. Kapitalisme og skizofreni. Det Kongelige Danske Kunst-akademis Billed-kunstskoler og Niels Lyngsøe, Denmark. (French original 1980) Denzin, N. (1997) Interpretive ethnography: Ethnographic practices for the 21st century, London: Sage Publications. Geertz, C. (1972) ‘Deep play: notes on the Balines cockfight’, Daedalus, The Journal of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 101(1): 1–37. Geertz, C. (1979) ‘From the Native’s point of view: on the nature of Anthropological understanding’, in P. Rabinow and W. M. Sullivan (eds) Interpretive social science. A reader, San Francisco: California University Press, pp 225–41. Gergen, K.  J. and Gergen, M.  M. (2014) ‘Mischief, mystery, and moments that matter: vistas of performative inquiry’, Qualitative Inquiry, 20(2): 213–21. Gustafson, P. (2002) ‘Tourism and seasonal retirement migration’, Annals of Tourism Research, 29(4): 899–918. Hacking, I. (2007) Representing and intervening: Introductory topics in the philosophy of natural science, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Hansen, E.  A. and Hansen, B.  L. (2002) ‘Kognitive funktioner og kørefærdighed hos ældre bilister’ [‘Cognitive functions and driving ability in elderly drivers’], Ugeskrift for Læger, 164(3): 337–40. Ingold, T. (2007) ‘Materials against materiality’, Archaeological Dialogues, 14(1): 1–16. Jackson, M. (2005) Existential anthropology: Events, exigencies and effects, New York: Berghahn Books. Katz, C. (1994) ‘Playing the field: questions of fieldwork in geography’, Professional Geographer, 46(1): 67–72.

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Kenyon, G. M. and Randall, W. L. (1997) Restorying our lives: Personal growth through autobiographical reflection, Westport, Connecticut: Prager. King, R. Warnes, T. and Williams, A. (2000) Sunset lives: British retirement migration to the Mediterranean, Oxford: Bloomsbury Academic. Kirk, H. (2012) ‘Ældre bilister - og den statsautoristerede alderisme’ [‘Ageing drivers – and the state-authorised ageism’], Gerontologi, 2012(2): 13–15. Lakoff, G. and Johnson, M. (1980) Metaphors we live by, Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Law, J. (2004) After method: Mess in social science research, London: Routledge. Malinowski, B. (1984 [1922]) ‘Foreword’ and ‘Introduction’, in B. Malinowski, Argonauts of the Western Pacific, Illinois, Prospect Heights: Waveland Press, Inc., pp xv–26. Marks, L.  U. (2002) Touch: Sensuous theory and multisensory media, University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis. Merleau-Ponty, M. (2002 [1945]) Phenomenology of perception, London: Routledge. O’Reilly, K. (2000) The British on the Costa del Sol. Transnational identities and local communities, London: Routledge. Pink, S. (2007) ‘Walking with video’, Visual Studies, 22(3): 240–52. Ricoeur, P. (1990) Time and Narrative, Vol 1, Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Ricoeur, P. (2010a) Time and Narrative, Vol 2, Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Ricoeur, P. (2010b) Time and Narrative, Vol 3, Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Ruby, J. (ed.) (1982) A crack in the mirror: Reflexive perspectives in anthropology, Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Simpson, D.  A. (2015) Young-Old. Urban utopias of an aging society, Switzerland, Lars Müller Publishers. Swane, C. (1996) ‘Hverdagen med demens, billeddannelser og hverdagserfaringer i kulturgerontologisk perspektiv’ [‘Everyday life with dementia: images and everyday experiences in a cultural gerontological perspective’], PhD thesis, Munksgaard, Copenhagen. Warnes, A. Friedrich, K. Kellaher, L. and Torres, S. (2004) ‘The diversity and welfare of older migrants in Europe’, Ageing and Society, 24: 307–26. Williams, A.  M., King, R. and Warnes, T. (1997) ‘A place in the sun: international retirement migration from Northern to Southern Europe’, European Urban and Regional Studies, 4(2): 115–34.

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Event history approach to life spaces in French-speaking research Françoise Dureau, Matthieu Giroud and Christophe Imbert

Introduction1 The study of spatial mobility in European social sciences suffers from institutional and thematic segmentation (daily mobility, tourism, residential mobility, migration). However, a growing number of studies have shown that a comprehensive, linked approach to mobility is an effective way of capturing hybrid practices that fall between residential and daily mobility (such as multiple residences and long-distance commuting: Dupont and Dureau, 1994; Lévy and Dureau, 2002; Kaufmann and Vincent-Geslin, 2012). This approach can be used to focus more on the multi-local dimension of individuals’ spatial practices across the lifecourse. Living in more than one place at once is a topic addressed by a number of Frenchspeaking geographers, who have invented various expressions for it: ‘habiter multilocal’ (Duchêne-Lacroix, 2011), ‘habiter polytopique’ (Stock, 2004), ‘espaces de vie polycentriques’ (Lelièvre and Robette, 2006), ‘ancrages multiples’ (Imbert, 2005), and for multiple residences specifically, ‘système résidentiel’ (Dureau, 2002) are conceptual attempts to capture the attachment of one individual to more than one place. All these conceptual proposals distance themselves de facto from a Heideggerian vision that favours sedentarity and even putting down roots exclusively in one place; this ultimately helped prolong and extend the theoretical and methodological debates in 1970s French social geography concerning the concept of ‘life space’ (for example, Chevalier, 1974; Frémont, 1974). In this chapter, we show how such a comprehensive linked approach to mobility is useful for understanding the life space of an individual as a set of places that have gradually become incorporated over their lifecourse, often involving changes of function and kinds of attachment to places (for instance, a holiday home becomes a main home, or

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vice versa) (Poulain, 1983). Using an inventory of 50 years of French research into residential mobility, we focus first on studies that bring a greater understanding of life space dynamics. We take residential mobility to mean any change of dwelling, whatever the distance involved. We show how data collection methods and theoretical frameworks have changed since 1950. Our hypothesis is that empirical experience has improved the theoretical debate concerning residential mobility. The rise of the lifecourse approach has shown that residence may be multi-located, and has also played a key role in understanding residential choices and the mobility they involve. The second and third sections present the methodological discussion of data collection and analysis in the Mobilités entre métropoles européennes et reconfiguration des espaces de vie (MEREV) research programme funded by the French Agence Nationale de la Recherche (ANR) from 2007 to 2010. This sought to capture how groups practising circular mobility restructure their life spaces in terms of their use of these spaces and the meanings they give to them. The programme examined how these circulations, and the life spaces involved, are adopted over an individual’s lifecourse. Our second section describes the methodological choices we made for capturing this gradual construction of life spaces over a lifetime. The last section presents various options for analysing the data and selected findings. It especially demonstrates the degree of complexity of the systems of places observed and its variation over an individual’s lifetime, but also the key role played by family issues to explain such evolutions.

From migration to life spaces: French research using the lifecourse approach to residential mobility An overview of lifecourse surveys of residential mobility can be based on the research of the Groupe de Recherche sur l’Approche Biographique (GRAB, 1999). We updated this work during the MEREV project (Dureau and Imbert, 2014). Before presenting the advances made in recent decades, we recapitulate the principles of the lifecourse approach as developed in demography. The creation of knowledge concerning residential mobility in the broadest sense, namely all changes of dwelling, whatever the distance involved, is not a new concern. However, the focus has varied in time and space as population behaviour and social demand have developed: after long concentrating on migration into towns and its effects on population distribution within a country, more attention is now paid to intra-urban mobility and its relationship with unequal access to resources (Bonvalet and Brun, 2002). The ways in which this

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knowledge has been created have also changed considerably in line with theoretical developments in each of the disciplines involved. At present more or less all social sciences create some knowledge about residential mobility. In demography, this is a relatively recent phenomenon: for many years, demographic analysis did not attribute any real status to migration, seen as merely an element confounding fertility and mortality. Residential mobility, considered as a shared field involving continual exchanges between various disciplines concerned with urban research, probably contributed to the result now observable in French social sciences: an extensive use of life histories and biographies, cutting across the usual theoretical divisions between and within disciplines (Bertaux, 1980, p 202). This interest, going beyond the ‘biographical sensibility’ noted by Demazière and Samuel (2010, p 2), is so strong as to appear suspect: the lifecourse approach is apparently being reduced to the characteristics of the material collected (an individual’s lifestory since birth, including its various aspects), while omitting the theoretical presuppositions that justified the collection of the data (Godard, 1996). A brief summary of past developments in demographic paradigms is essential to grasp the purposes of lifecourse data collection. In an article published in 2002, Daniel Courgeau recalled that it was during the 18th and 19th centuries that the transversal (or crosssectional) approach, considering events occurring at a given time, prevailed over the longitudinal approach that analyses events occurring over individuals’ lifetimes (Courgeau, 2002, p 50). The introduction of population censuses at the end of the 18th century supported the transversal approach, which remained predominant until after the Second World War. In the 1950s, there emerged the principles of aggregated longitudinal analysis by cohorts: its basic hypothesis was the independence of demographic phenomena, each to be studied ‘in its pure form’ in populations deemed to be homogeneous. Thirty years later, in the early 1980s, a new approach to individual behaviour emerged in demography. The unit of analysis was no longer the event, but the individual life history. The new paradigm can be approached by the following postulate: throughout his or her life, an individual follows a complex trajectory, which, at any given point in time, is dependent on his life history to date, the information he has accumulated in the past … (Courgeau, 2002, p 63) This new, clearly individualistic, paradigm differs radically from the methodological holism of the cross-sectional and aggregated

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longitudinal approaches. It can be used to directly address a central question: the interactions between demographic phenomena. For instance, entering adulthood may be considered as a complex set of reversible transitions comprising the residential autonomy and the beginning of both professional and marital lives. The main limitation of the life history approach thus described soon appeared: it only explains individual behaviour by that individual’s characteristics, and omits the contexts within which individual actions occur (family, district, region, etc.). To reduce this risk of the ‘atomistic fallacy’, a further development followed in the methods of life history analysis, using contextual models, then multi-level models, which introduce characteristics aggregated at various levels to explain individual behaviour. Although problems remain before these models can be fully operational, they do already present a quite novel position in demography that has the value of overcoming the contradictions between individualism and holism: … the behaviour of an individual is still considered to depend on his or her past history … [but] can also depend on the external constraints that weigh on the individual, and of which he or she may not be aware. (Courgeau, 2002, p 71) It also has the advantage of ‘replacing the notion of causality by the more flexible concept of local dependency that makes it possible to come closer to the interactions between phenomena’ (Courgeau, 1988). One may now envisage a demographic analysis of individual event histories situated within multiple spaces, and introduce multiple timeframes into the analysis (Courgeau, 2002, p 72, p 74). Since the event history approach has been used in demography, the methods for creating and analysing information have significantly diversified and been gradually improved. Data collection procedures have altered in line with the objectives and geographical and social setting of surveys, and major changes in the conceptualisation of: i) individual mobility behaviours, taken in a contextual or multilevel approach, taking account of individuals’ sociability networks; ii) individuals’ relationships with places, recognising the multi-local nature of spatial practices and mutual relationships between the various scales of mobility; and iii) individual trajectories, initially conceived as a succession of binary states defined by instantaneous transitions and now seen as complex states involving different timeframes. All these are factors that have contributed to changes in the methodologies for producing event history information of growing complexity.

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In this chapter we focus on how the multi-local nature of residence has been integrated into event histories. The event history data collection in Colombia and India in the early 1990s, analysed in GRAB (1999), made it possible to ‘zoom’ in on an event history, as long as certain precautions were observed: choice of ‘a short, recent period’; ‘preceding the event history data collection’; ‘confined to identifying work or residential situations that were irregular, unstable or intermittent, experience by particular respondents at the time of the survey (with a question filtering out such respondents)’ (GRAB, 1999, p 51). The solution found for the Bogotá (1993) and Casanare (1996) surveys (Dureau and Flórez, 1999, p 252), and applied elsewhere (Cali, Tijuana, Delhi), was used again in the late 2000s for the METAL2 and Mesure des mobilités spatiales sahéliennes3 surveys. The data collection procedure carefully adopted the principle of biographical matrices: all the places where the respondent has resided in the 12 months preceding the survey are recorded on a month-by-month matrix. The table is only completed for those respondents who have lived in more than one place in the previous year. A maximum of two residences other than the survey residence are included; for a place to be taken as a component in the respondent’s residential system, a minimum period of residence is required (in the METAL surveys, 30 consecutive or non-consecutive days during the previous year). All the experience since the 1990s confirms the effectiveness of the proposed solution for the period immediately preceding the survey: the graphical presentation of stays in various dwellings (or various jobs) provides a finely-grained picture of respondents’ ‘residential systems’, both simple and complex, as defined by all the dwellings occupied by a respondent during the year, and the length and frequency of their stays in each one. The complex residential situations thus revealed may correspond to phases of transition: a leaving home process spread over months or longer, with alternate residence independently and in the parents’ home, or a transitory period for a respondent before the rest of their family moves away, etc. Multi-residence, we defined as regularly frequenting different dwellings in addition to the ‘main’ home, may become a long-term practice: this is clearly a complex situation that needs to be recognised as such, via adequate procedures for collecting and recording information. While not only important to an individual’s lifecourse, this data can also be relevant to produce knowledge on the population of some territories (such as rural or touristic areas) affected by the variations over time of practices of multi-residence. How then is this complexity of residential systems to be captured for the whole of an individual’s residential trajectory?

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Individuals circulating between European metropolises: a lifecourse approach to life spaces and data collection issues On the basis of this evidence, we proposed a method for collecting the life space trajectories of people circulating within Europe. Their life spaces are explicitly recorded in their multi-scale dimensions: territory of daily life, the entire metropolis where the main residence is located, network of places lived in, or all reference places whether lived in or not. Our objectives included identifying the major types of circular mobility in their space and time dimensions and inequality in these movements; understanding how the practice of circulating developed over time, within individuals’ lifecourses; developing explanatory models to reveal the specific factors behind the restructuring of life spaces; observing how individuals perceive their urban activities and practices, and also the functioning of their family life at the level of their space of circulation. The survey involved three data collection phases. The first consisted of finding ‘circulators’ in such likely places as airports, railway stations and bus stations. In order to identify various types of circulation, the questionnaire, given to 600 people, covered travel outside the city of residence during the previous year. We defined circulators at this step as persons who visited at another place at least twice during the 12 months before the survey. Our purpose was to examine the various forms of circulation identified as ‘multi-located’ ways of living, varying from single professional trips to having a second home. The second survey phase focused on 56 individuals taken from the first phase, including 40 identified as ‘circulators’. As we shall see in detail, the information to be collected during this phase mainly concerned these individuals and their systems of mobility. In the third phase, 16 of the 40 ‘circulators’ who answered the second questionnaire took part in semi-structured interviews. The purpose of these interviews was to examine representations of circulation and the places lived in to allow an understanding of both the feelings (pleasure, hardship) associated with such practices of mobility and the meanings allocated of these places, and thus to go further into the interpretation of the dynamics of the life spaces. The second phase of the survey is the most important for our interest in the lifecourse approach to life spaces. Three main sets of data concerning individuals’ mobility were targeted: their life space and system of places frequented at the time of the survey, recorded in two sorts of mobility (ways of frequenting a place) – between

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European metropolises and within a given metropolis; their residential, professional and ‘circulation’ biography (places previously lived in regularly and for some time) to understand how the system of places frequented at the time of the survey had been built up; their representation of these cities and the places they lived in and how they moved through space and time. The questionnaire used during this second phase comprises five modules designed on the basis of previous research experience. The first is conventional and concerns the identification of the questionnaire. The second concerns the characteristics of dwellings occupied by the respondent in the previous 12 months: in order to record the exact location and housing conditions in the metropolises visited and verify the timetable of stays established in the first phase survey, the respondent is asked to state and describe the dwellings he occupied in the 12 months preceding the survey. The third focuses on daily mobility behaviour in the metropolises included in the system of places. The aim is to record the respondent’s current system of places with closer observation of the places frequented within the cities frequented. The fourth, an open-ended module, addresses the representation of the life space where the respondent is asked to consider their relationship with the world and more specifically their ways of seeing the cities they frequent and to identify themselves with spatial categories (from own home to world). The fifth is a biographical module (see Figure 12.1) that comprises the respondent’s residential, professional and educational trajectories since birth. It also includes outline biographies of their families: parents, spouses and children with dates of birth and death and periods of co-residence with the respondent. To determine how their system of places had been constructed, the individual’s residential trajectory was recorded not only in relation to their other types of trajectory (family, professional) by the standard event history approach (see also Del Bianco, this volume), but also with the dynamics of the system of places frequented during their lives (second homes, places regularly frequented, ‘striking’ or key places even if rarely frequented, places of work). One of the questionnaire’s innovations is that it attempts to collect all episodes of multi-residence since birth. Such a methodological choice was inspired by experience with two research surveys. In the survey questionnaire for ‘Spatial mobility in Yopal, Aguazul, Tauramena’ (see Dureau and Flórez, 1999),4 the key point in data collection for individuals’ systems of residence is presentation in a timeline of stays in various dwellings during the previous year. The second survey is entitled ‘Biographies and contact circle’ (see Bonvalet and Lelièvre, 2012).5 The biographical module of the survey

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Source: MEREV Lisbon survey 2009

Figure 12.1: Biographical matrix used to record multi-residence trajectories

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2.F: ‘in addition to these places could you indicate other places you have stayed in, with no considerations of the number of nights. If yes, could you tell me where, when and why (professional, educational reasons, touristic trips, social relations, family stay, others)?

2.E: ‘have you stayed more than 30 nights per years in an accommodation outside your place of residence at some different moments of your life? If Yes, could you tell me where, when and why (professional, educational reasons, touristic trips, social relations, family stay, others)?’

Notes: The extra places of residence throughout the lifecourse are collected in the questionnaire in two steps: 1) places where the interviewed person spent at least 30 nights a year (part 2.E ‘Periodos de multiresidência’); and 2) other places considered as noticeable to cite despite less time spent there (part 2.F ‘Outros lugares’). This segmentation into two steps was introduced in order to get a full sense of places lived and visited. The questions can be translated as:

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Event history approach to life spaces

questionnaire contains a question about ‘other places frequented’, which are often for holidays (campsite, hotel, holiday rental, friend or family member’s home, etc.). In order to achieve as exhaustive a collection as possible of places that form the system of places since birth, although this is an inaccessible ideal, two phases were designed. First, we took the 30-day threshold and extended it to the respondent’s entire biography so as to record all the ‘places frequented for at least 30 days, whether consecutively or not’ for each year of their lives. The idea in setting a threshold of duration is to activate the individual’s memory of the places they frequented. Second, ‘other places frequented’ were recorded (see Figure 12.1). For each place mentioned, the respondent was asked the reason or reasons for frequenting it (work, leisure, family, social relations, other). The collection phase appears to have gone well and feedback from the interviewers indicates that the question was easily understood by the respondents. Of the 56 people interviewed, 49 reported at least one period of multi-residence, 36 at least two and 19 at least four. The locations were identified almost at a communal level for Europe; for locations within the central municipalities of the project’s European metropolises, use of a city map was effective. One of the successes of this questionnaire is that it demonstrated that it is possible to collect multi-residence data for an entire lifetime. The other places mentioned, other than the multi-residence ones, were generally covered just as effectively, except that the reasons given for frequenting them were less systematically recorded. Furthermore, the semi-structured interviews in the third phase of the survey (with 16 of the 56 respondents) were highly useful not only for completing the missing data but also in providing more accurate information about multi-location trajectories. However, it must be stressed that the details of systems of places we have at the lifetime level do not include the amount of time spent in those places. The reason is that during this sort of event history survey it is difficult to accurately capture this aspect because individuals vary widely in their ability to recall how long they spent in one place or another over time. Consequently, any description of circulation practice based on this reading of variations in systems of frequented places can only be partial. Furthermore, although the effort of memory required of the respondent must be seen as a complex exercise in recreating and representing their system(s) of places during their lifetime, it amounts in practice to an act of recreation and representation of reality, during which the individual’s selection of places reported is guided by a range of factors driven both by their cognitive capacities and the survey procedure. We consider it important to stress that the details given of systems of

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places probably reflect as much the representations of those places – those that most ‘struck’ the individual and still remain with them – as actual behaviour. This in no way undermines the value of the analysis made, but should suggest a certain caution in interpreting its results.

Individuals circulating between European metropolises: a lifecourse approach to life spaces and data analysis choices The biographical information concerning places frequented was analysed in two ways: one focusing on the number of places other than the main place of residence, the other dealing with the status for the respondent of the places frequented. The first approach, purely quantitative and based on the number of places, examined the degree of complexity of the systems of places and its variation over an individual’s lifetime: a succession or alternation of phases of complexification and simplification. For instance, Figure 12.1 shows the variation and progressive complexity of the system of places frequented by Sergio over lifetime. Sergio was born in Lisbon in 1967 and lived there with his parents until 1996. Throughout this period, he experienced multiresidence with Oliveira do Hospital, located in central Portugal, where his parents are from. After his wedding, he moved with his wife in the periphery of Lisbon, first in Sintra in 1996 and then in Oeiras in 1998 when Sergio became Chief Financial Officer of a multinational toys company. European circulations of Sergio intensify gradually with increasing professional responsibilities: from 1996 to 1999, he regularly visits Munich, then after 1999, Barcelona; and from 2002 to 2004, he practices bi-residence between Lisbon and Amsterdam. The other approach sought to understand the meaning in the frequentation of these places and the sense of the variations in the system of places: this analysis focused on qualifying, as accurately as possible within the limitations of the quality of data collected in Phases 1 and 2, the status of each of the places frequented by the respondents in our sample (Table 12.1). The status is fixed by analysing questionnaire by questionnaire (sometimes by returning additionally to third phase’s interviews) what role(s) each place has played in the life courses (professional, family origins related, family migrations related, holiday home).In each of these analyses, the data were processed in three stages: i) characterisation, year by year, of the status of each individual’s system of places; ii) analysis of the transitions between statuses; iii) characterisation of the whole trajectory, that is, the succession of states from birth to the time of the survey.

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Event history approach to life spaces Table 12.1: Status of places frequented Code

Status of place frequented

A

Place of origin that is not a former place of residence, frequented for various reasons (family, leisure, social relations)

B

Former place of residence, whatever the reason of frequentation

C

Place that is neither the place of origin nor a former place of residence, frequented for reasons of leisure or (close) family ties

D

Place that is neither the place of origin nor a former place of residence, frequented for reasons of work or study (whether or not related to a change in occupational status)

E

Place that is neither the place of origin nor a former place of residence, where a member of the close or extended family lives who has migrated or moved (including after separation or divorce) or is circulating for professional reasons

F

Place that is neither the place of origin nor a former place of residence, frequented to visit relatives by marriage (spouse living abroad, in laws)

For example, when analysing the number of places, characterising their status consists of merely counting the number of places frequented year by year, whether this is multi-residence (2-E) or not (2-F) (Figure 12.1). This analytical view, year by year, of the system of places frequented over an individual’s lifetime is completed by an overarching approach: correspondence analysis followed by ranking. The seven resulting classes, ranked by increasing complexity of system of places, can be plotted as trajectories (Robette, 2011) of successive places coded for status and then ranked by the file recording the number of places frequented (in addition to the main residence) each year by each of the 56 members of the sample (Figure 12.2): Class 1: 15 individuals who had very simple systems of places throughout their lives (no or virtually no place regularly frequented other than their place of residence); more than 80% of their lives did not include another frequented place and the average number of other places frequented during their lives is 0.17. Class 2: 12 individuals who frequented only their place of residence during half of the years recorded and, during the other half, one place other than their main residence; giving an average number of places frequented of 0.6. Class 3: Seven individuals who spent most of their lives with one place frequented other than their place of residence, giving an average number of places frequented of 1.2. Class 4: Eight individuals with more complex trajectories. Their average number of places, only slightly higher than Class 3 (1.33)

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Researching the lifecourse Figure 12.2: Number of places frequented other than main residence, by age and trajectory class

Source: MEREV Lisbon survey 2009

is due to a succession of highly diversified coded statuses: from one place frequented other than the main residence to, in one case, six places. Class 5: Five individuals who spent most of their lives in two places: their average of two over a lifetime is significantly higher than for Class 4. They comprise three individuals under 30 who correspond closely to this situation; and two slightly older ones whose system of places had become more complex recently (three places frequented) as illustrated by Sergio’s case. The transitions between complexification and simplification of systems of places are highly varied. Class 6: Five individuals whose systems of places have seen increasing complexification, like some in Class 5. But the Class 6 complexification is more marked (from one place in youth to three or more later) than Class 5 (from two places in youth to three later), so their average is higher (2.47). Class 7: Three individuals with the most complex systems of places, namely five or more places during two-thirds of their years of life, giving an average of 5.2. This initial classification can be used to explore the variety of dynamics in systems of places. The crossing of this analysis with the contents of semi-structured interviews is very helpful to reveal what is at stake in processes of simplification, stabilisation and complexification of life spaces. To understand these processes, we simultaneously examined

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individual context (individual’s lifecourse dynamics), family context (own family and/or in laws), and, in some cases, macrostructural context (such as economic crisis or Portugal’s migration history). After a qualitative analysis of the event histories collected and interviews held, we identified five sets of cases that involved either addition or removal of places frequented: long-distance migration; spatial mobility of family members and dispersal of family reference points; relationship with place of origin; frequentation of places for leisure or holidays; frequentation of places for work. We found that these various cases may quite well be observed within a single individual’s lifecourse, as illustrated by the case of Sergio. Where this happens, the effects on the configuration of systems of places are combined, either enhancing or outweighing each other. As we can indeed see with Sergio the abandonment (since he is married) of Oliveira do Hospital, as a place of frequentation, appears to be largely offset by his practice of bi-residence with Amsterdam and by a diversification of his travels towards different European cities (Munich, Barcelona). The factors that modify life spaces may in fact be general ones, revealing the impact of economic or political structural constraints (such as Portugal’s history of internal and international migration), a country’s delayed economic opening up, the effects of economic crisis on particular sectors (multinationals’ location and operational strategies) or social constraints (qualifications and occupation; social relationships of gender). But they may also be due to more personal choices and strategies largely dependent on individual sociodemographic characteristics (age, gender), point in lifecourse trajectory (stage in training or career; stage in residential trajectory) or marital or family status. Our analyses confirm the decisive role of family and family changes in the modification of systems of places frequented and therefore the definition of life spaces throughout a lifetime. Analysis of the status of these places showed that, overall, few places are frequented for other than family purposes and reasons: few are frequented for strictly professional or educational reasons independent of any family purpose (which does not mean that the family question does not arise). In addition, we noted the impact on circulation behaviour of the bonds maintained with one’s place of family origin, changes in marital status and a new set of in laws, having or not having children, family migration history, dispersal of family members (parents, siblings, children), occupational move by spouse, the habit of spending family holidays in certain places, etc.

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Conclusion The MEREV research reinforced the idea that it is both possible and productive to collect data on an individual’s relations or attachments to places within a biographical matrix. Admittedly, it would be excessive to seek to exhaustively record all the places an individual lived in over a lifetime. Our experience does show, however, that the places frequented regularly or at length for part of an individual’s life appear to be quite easily recalled, so that it is possible to collect a set of places whose frequentation has actually affected individuals’ daily lives, whether because of family, relationship or occupational changes. Analysis of these data, however, reveals difficulties related to the complexity of the geographical information. But the twofold analysis proposed, of both the number and status of the places frequented, has made it possible to reveal a wide diversity of configurations and dynamics of systems of places, which we have sought to organise and classify by producing trajectory typologies. By focusing on the idea of ‘life space trajectories’, this chapter contributes to the latest developments in lifecourse research. It shows that we have methodological tools, both to collect and analyse, to produce knowledge on the dynamic of complex situations such as multi-residence; but also to allow a better understanding on the constitution of individual life spaces and systems of mobility over time. Besides, by revealing how individuals can be durably attached to different places in which they simultaneously stay, this approach uncovers how people who do not live permanently in a place can contribute to local dynamics (housing market, amenities and services, image of the place). So individual lifecourse trajectories, besides being an effective tool for studying mobility and migration, can also shed light on the changing aspects of living environments. Notes
 This text includes material already published in Chapters 1, 4 and 5 of Imbert et al (2014), used with permission from Armand Colin. 1

Métropoles d’Amérique latine dans la mondialisation: reconfigurations territoriales mobilité spatiale, action publique, Bogotá, 2009 (Migrinter, Universidad Externado de Colombia, Universidad de los Andes); Santiago de Chile, 2009 (L’Institut de recherche pour le développement, IRD, Universidad Católica de Chile, SUR); São Paulo, 2009 (IRD).

2

3

Niamey, 2009, IRD.

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See note 1.

5

Supported by INED,

2000–01.

References Bertaux, D. (1980) ‘L’approche biographique: sa validité méthodologique, ses potentialités’, Cahiers internationaux de sociologie, LXIX: 197–224. Bonvalet, C. and Brun, J. (2002) ‘Etat des lieux des recherches sur la mobilité résidentielle en France’, in J.-P. Lévy and F. Dureau (eds) L’accès à la ville, Les mobilités spatiales en questions, Paris: L’Harmattan, 15–64. Bonvalet, C. and Lelièvre, E. (eds) (2012) De la famille à l’entourage: l’enquête Biographies et entourage, Paris: INED. Chevalier, J. (1974) ‘Espace de vie ou espace vécu? L’ambiguïté et les fondements du concept d’espace vécu’, L’espace Géographique, 1: 68. Courgeau, D. (1988) Méthodes de mesure de la mobilité spatiale. Migrations internes, mobilité temporaire, navettes, Paris: INED. Courgeau, D. (2002) ‘Evolution ou révolutions dans la pensée démographique?’, Mathématiques et Sciences humaines, 40(160): 49–76. Demazière, D. and Samuel, O. (2010) ‘Inscrire des parcours individuels dans leurs contextes’, Temporalités, 11: 2–9. Duchêne-Lacroix, C. (2011) Entre pendularité et migration, aperçu de l’habiter multilocal en Suisse, Louvain la Neuve: Chaire Quételet Migrations internes. Dupont, V. and Dureau, F. (1994) ‘Rôle des mobilités circulaires dans les dynamiques urbaines, Illustrations à partir de l’Equateur et de l’Inde’, Revue Tiers Monde, XXXV(140): 801–29. Dureau, F. (2002) ‘Les systèmes résidentiels: concepts et applications’, in J.-P. Lévy and F. Dureau (eds) L’Accès à la ville, Les mobilités spatiales en questions, Paris: L’Harmattan, pp 355–82. Dureau, F. and Flórez, C. E. (1999) Aguaitacaminos. Las transformaciones de las ciudades de Yopal, Aguazul y Tauramena durante la explotación petrolera de Cusiana-Cupiagua, Bogotá: Tercer Mundo Editores – Ediciones Uniandes. Dureau, F. and Imbert, C. (2014) ‘L’approche biographique des mobilités résidentielles’, in C. Imbert, H. Dubucs, F. Dureau and M. Giroud (eds) D’une métropole à l’Autre. Pratiques Urbaines et Circulations dans l’Espace Européen, Paris: Editions Armand Colin, pp 33–81. Frémont, A. (1974) ‘Recherches sur l’espace vécu’, L’espace Géographique, 3: 231–8.

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Godard, F. (1996) ‘El debate y la práctica sobre el uso de las historias de vida en las ciencias sociales’, in F. Godard and R. Cabanes, Uso de las historias de vida en ciencias sociales, Bogotá: Universidad Externado de Colombia, Cuadernos del CIDS, pp 5–55. GRAB (1999) Biographies d’enquêtes. Bilan de 14 collectes biographiques, Paris: INED-PUF. Imbert, C. (2005) L’ancrage résidentiel et familial en ville nouvelle, Paris: IAURIF. Imbert, C., Dubucs, H., Dureau, F., and Giroud, M. (eds) (2014) D’une métropole à l’autre. Pratiques urbaines et circulations dans l’espace européen, Paris: Editions Armand Colin. Kaufmann, V. and Vincent-Geslin, S. (2012) ‘Plus vite, plus loin... plus mobiles?’, in S. Vincent-Geslin and V. Kaufmann (eds) Mobilité sans racines, Plus loin, plus vite... plus mobiles?, Paris: Descartes et Cie, pp 19–34. Lelièvre, E. and Robette, N. (2006) ‘Les espaces de référence des individus: définir et mesurer les espaces de vie’, in C. Bonvalet and E. Lelièvre (eds) Publications Choisies Autour de L’enquête Biographies et Entourage, Paris: INED. Lévy, J.-P. and Dureau, F. (eds) 2002, L’accès à la ville. Les mobilités spatiales en questions, Paris: L’Harmattan. Poulain, M. (1983) La migration: concept et méthodes de mesure, Louvain la Neuve: Chaire Quételet Migrations internes. Robette, N. (2011) Explorer et décrire les parcours de vie. Les typologies de trajectoires, Paris: Les collections du CEPED. Stock, M. (2004) ‘L’habiter, comme pratique des lieux géographiques’, EspacesTemps.net, www.espacestemps.net/en/articles/habitercomme-pratique-des-lieux-geographiques-en/.

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Using an intersectional lifecourse approach to understand the migration of the highly skilled Melissa Kelly

Introduction Understanding why people decide to move is a complicated enterprise (Bertaux-Wiame, 1979; Ni Laoire, 2000). Although migration may be a straightforward demographic event, the context in which it occurs and the mechanisms underlying it are often highly complex, and require careful study. To begin with, it is important to consider the individual role of the migrant. To what extent do people move freely from one place to another, and to what extent are their movements impacted by structural forces and constraints? Traditional models used for understanding migration decision making have typically emphasised either agency or structure but seldom both; moreover, some studies focus on the macro processes that ‘push’ or ‘pull’ certain categories of people towards certain environments, while others focus on the micro processes by which individuals make the decision to move (Halfacree and Boyle, 1993, p 334). Until recently, bringing the macro and the micro perspective together under a single theoretical framework was seldom attempted. Bridging these theoretical gaps – between structure and agency, and between micro and macro approaches – therefore remains an important challenge for researchers who want to understand migration in new and innovative ways. The literature on skilled migration is perhaps in particular need of new theoretical and methodological approaches. Traditional approaches to the study of highly skilled migration emphasise economic motivations. Macro approaches treat labour as something similar to capital, which flows freely between countries to meet market demands. Microeconomic theories (such as human capital theory) emphasise individual migrants’ determination to maximise their economic position by finding the best return possible on their skills and education

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(van Ham et al, 2001). There are, however, many problems with the underlying assumptions of these migration theories. Macro approaches assume no barriers to labour movement. But in reality, policy continues to play a role in directing the flow of labour between countries. Who moves where may be influenced by immigration policies which target certain educational, occupational and skill categories while restrictive policies deter so-called ‘undesirable’ immigrants. Microeconomic theories, in their turn, do not consider ‘informal training or the role of institutional factors, discrimination and other factors that lead to imperfections in the labour market’ (Iredale, 2001, p 8). Furthermore, it cannot be argued that migrants always act in an inherently economic rational way, moving to the job that provides the best possible return. As scholars such as Halfacree (2004) have pointed out, economic considerations are important and they may very well play a central role, but it cannot be assumed that economic criteria are the most important. Other factors must also be taken into consideration, and in order to identify and understand them, the migration decision making process must be carefully contextualised (Ackers, 2005). I begin this chapter by raising some issues for consideration concerning the conceptualisation of skilled migration. I then go on to discuss the potential of an intersectional lifecourse approach to address many of the weaknesses of traditional migration theories by drawing attention to the context underlying migration processes. Next I discuss the methodological implications of using such an approach. More specifically, I highlight how using multiple methods may help researchers to understand migration processes in a multifaceted way. I illustrate how the approach advocated in the chapter can be applied by drawing on a study of highly skilled migrants with an Iranian background who have chosen to leave Sweden for either London, UK or Toronto, Canada. Before concluding, I critically reflect on the approach, and its potential to contribute to migration research.

Structure, agency and skilled migration Who is a ‘skilled’ migrant? While some definitions provided in the literature centre on human capital, others focus more on work experience (Iredale, 2001; Csedo, 2008). In general, however, it could be said that skilled migrants are seen as having above average levels of education, work experience and/or skill; consequently they are generally viewed as more ‘desirable’ than other migrants and hence they are thought to have more agency than say refugees, whose moves are generally understood as forced and their choices of destinations limited.

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It is important to recognise, however, that migrants may be highly skilled, and still move, for example, through refugee programmes. In fact, refugees on the whole tend to be more educated and resourceful than people in similar political situations who choose not to move. Similarly, some people with high levels of education and skill may move as dependents rather than as skilled migrants. This is the case for many highly skilled women, for example, who move as the partners of highly skilled men (Kofman, 2000). This clearly complicates the way skilled migration is understood and blurs the line distinguishing forced and voluntary movements. If we limit the definition of skilled migration to moves made for the purpose of securing high skilled employment, it is still important to acknowledge that opportunities for ‘skilled’ migrants may not be equal across space and time (Mahroum, 2001). For those migrants who have rare skills that are also in high demand, for example, there may be many different opportunities to choose from in a variety of places. Rather than being forced to take a job in a specific place, these migrants may choose according to their place preferences. The market for other migrants’ skills and education may be smaller and more spatially dispersed; this could create a structural impetus for longdistance skilled migration (van Ham et al, 2001), especially in a global economy that encourages a highly mobile skilled labour force (Meyer, 2001). As Ackers (2005, p 104) puts it, ‘The extent to which moves in search of economic improvement or career progression constitute a form of voluntary or forced migration depends on context and also the individual’s perception.’ Depending on their position in the labour market, as well as a number of other factors, some skilled migrants may be better placed than others to exercise their place preferences. Consequently, some migrants are more able to take non-economic factors, like the social and cultural environment of different places, into account before choosing where to live. Economic and sociocultural approaches have typically been kept separate in the migration studies literature (Koser and Salt, 1997). But, as already noted, migration even among skilled migrants cannot be seen simply as an economic event. As Halfacree (2004) has argued, people’s decisions to move (or not) may also be affected by lifecourse considerations such as household/family structure, career opportunities, household income, educational opportunities, and caring responsibilities. Cultural and class considerations (such as cultural affiliations, ethnicity, class structure and socioeconomic ideologies) may also play a role. Faist (2000) similarly points out that local assets, kin and friends, a familiar language, and a network of people who share

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one’s ideals in a given place may also factor into decision making. Finally, as Kofman and Raghuram (2006) remind researchers, migration decisions are often gendered. The differing roles of men and women in various societies may also affect people’s evaluations of what different places have to offer. Depending on how much freedom individuals have to choose, making the decision to move is likely to be based on a consideration of several factors simultaneously. The complexity of the migration decision making process may be overwhelming for researchers interested in exploring migration in a multifaceted way. One may not know how to go about empirically studying migratory movements. Which theories can be used to better understand migration decision making? While there is no single correct answer to this question, in what follows I will propose an approach that, given its focus on context, I believe is particularly apt at linking macro and micro levels of analysis, and pays due attention to both the structural and more subjective factors underlying the migration decisions of the highly skilled.

Using an intersectional lifecourse approach Both intersectionality and lifecourse approaches are open theoretical frameworks, and as such, they combine well together. Scholars have combined the approaches to explore, among other things, gender and ideology (Vespa, 2009) and relational geographies of age (Hopkins and Pain, 2007). To my knowledge, however, only a few studies explicitly study highly skilled or highly educated migration using an approach similar to what I will advocate here (Kynsilehto, 2011). In what follows I will briefly outline each of the two approaches separately and review how they have been taken up in the literature on migration before discussing how they link together. According to Hancock (2007, p 63), intersectionality ‘refers to both a normative theoretical argument and an approach to conducting empirical research that emphasises the interaction of categories of difference’. Traditionally, the concept has focused on how the crosscutting relationships between race, class and gender position people hierarchically in a given space–time context. More recent approaches have tried to expand the concept to include religion and other markers of difference. Despite my earlier critique of overly economistic approaches to migration, the fact remains that one of the major factors affecting migrant mobility is work opportunities, and increasingly such opportunities are being viewed by researchers in an intersectional way. There has been a proliferation of studies dealing with the feminisation

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of migration (Boyle, 2002; Mahler and Pessar, 2006) and these often relate to opportunities in the labour market for women of certain class or ethnoracial backgrounds ( Kofman and Raghuram, 2006; Lutz, 2008). But intersectionality can also go beyond the study of migration policy issues, to explore how migrants are treated in their daily lives. Constructions of race, class and gender affect the way migrants are perceived in different spatial contexts (McDowell, 2008). As critical race and feminist theorists have emphasised, migrants may face different types of social inclusion and exclusion when compared to non-migrants. As Valentine puts it, ‘in particular spaces there are dominant spatial orderings that produce moments of exclusion for particular social groups’ (Valentine, 2007, p 19). Clearly this exclusion may affect migrants’ work experiences but also many other aspects of their lives. While it is important to identify and study the structural dimensions that limit migrant agency, it is also interesting to consider the various ways migrants challenge the way they are positioned or even strategise to overcome the constraints they face. In an increasingly global world where people with certain skills are in demand, highly skilled migrants in particular may actively choose their destinations based not only on where they think they will find the highest economic remuneration for their skills, but also a high level of social acceptance, comfort and familiarity. Their preferences may be influenced by a range of factors, many of which were discussed earlier. These may include things such as the presence of familiar social networks, or having the opportunity to comfortably practice a specific religion. Linking how the subjectivity of migrants relates to their position in intersectional social hierarchies, however, has been underexplored in the migration decision making literature. Addressing this shortcoming would, I believe, do much to develop an understanding of the nexus between the structural constraints migrants face and the ways in which they actively respond to these structures based on their own agency and subjectivity. As Hancock (2007, p 74) notes, intersectionality ‘is sympathetic and applicable to both the structural level of analysis, and individual-level phenomena’, and as such, it is highly suited to exploring migration processes in an exploratory and contextualised way. Lives are lived not only in specific spaces and places, however, but also ‘through time’ (Pratt and Hanson, 1993). For this reason, I think it is productive to combine intersectionality with a lifecourse approach that considers how people’s migration decisions are shaped by their individual life trajectories and individual biographies. Already a number of researchers have drawn on a lifecourse approach in order to explore

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how migrants’ place preferences change over the course of their lives (Ley and Kobayashi, 2005; Kobayashi and Preston, 2007). Such studies contextualise the decision to move in relation to a number of factors including the relationships individual migrants maintain with partners, family members, and friends (Geist and McManus, 2008). Another strength of the lifecourse approach is that it allows for the consideration of moves in a long-term perspective. While some studies only consider what triggers migration decision making (what happens directly before the move), the decision to move may take place much earlier in the individual migrant’s lifecourse. As Halfacree and Boyle (1993, p 337) put it, ‘Of primary importance is a need to stop regarding migration as a discrete contemplative act but to see it as “an action in time” ’. While in the past, life cycles were understood as following certain predetermined life phases, more recent approaches to understanding the lifecourse tend to be flexible, and consider the various ways events unfold in people’s lives over space and time. As Heinz and Krüger note, ‘the contemporary life-course approach examines the interaction between structural constraints, institutional rules and regulations and subjective meanings as well as decisions over time’ (Heinz and Krüger, 2001, p 33). Hence, like intersectionality, a lifecourse approach has the potential to bridge the gap between micro and macro levels of analysis.

Methodological implications Although intersectional lifecourse research could be approached in a number of ways and using a number of different methods, given their shared focus on temporality, there seems to be a natural affinity between lifecourse research and biographical methods. Over the past two decades, several scholars have promoted biographical interview approaches in particular as a good way to bridge subjectivity with broader structural processes (Halfacree and Boyle, 1993; Ni Laoire, 2000). Biographical approaches aim to understand how, over the course of their lives, individuals respond to opportunities and constraints in certain space–time contexts (Roberts, 2002). Such approaches lend themselves well to intersectional research on migration. As migrants move through space and time, the contexts in which they are embedded are constantly changing. Using a biographical approach can therefore give researchers insight into how their study participants’ subjectivity has evolved in response to external factors. Although biographical research tends to highlight the individual life trajectory constructed through, for example, qualitative interviews,

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researchers need not restrict their exploration to individual life stories. According to Findlay and Li, conceptualising migration as an individual and a social event also lends itself to the use of multiple data sources. As they put it, ‘In order to fully capture the multiple meanings of migration and the diversity of socio-cultural contexts in which migration acts are embedded, it seems desirable that a range of qualitative and quantitative techniques should be used in flexible form’ (Findlay and Li, 1999, p 54). Using multiple methods is one way to help overcome some of the limitations of single method research. It is also a good way to capture both description and explanation. Despite growing enthusiasm for using multiple methods, studies that draw on a number of dramatically different data sources are limited, and probably for good reason. Most studies that address migration processes draw on either large scale datasets or on in-depth qualitative studies to understand why people move (Andersson, 2012). Typically researchers select methods in accordance with their epistemological position, the data that is available to them, as well as the conventions in their research field, and often none of these are conducive to conducting multi-method research. For many researchers, there is a concern that using different methods may lead to a mixing of theoretical approaches, which can create confusion and a lack of conceptual clarity. I nevertheless see value in Mason’s (2006) argument that researchers should be more open to conducting studies based on multiple methods if doing so strengthens the theoretical basis of their work. Drawing on different qualitative and quantitative techniques can be highly rewarding for researchers interested in advancing a theoretical perspective that aims to bridge structure and agency, or to link the macro and micro dimensions of migration decision making. In the next section of this chapter I will illustrate how such an approach might be applied, by drawing on a four-year doctoral study I conducted with highly educated migrants who moved first to Sweden as refugees, before voluntarily moving on to a third country (Kelly, 2013; Kelly and Hedman, 2015).

Case study: highly educated Iranians leaving Sweden Sweden is a generous welfare state renowned for its relatively open migration policies, and willingness to provide all of its residents with access to affordable healthcare, free education, and a number of other benefits. It has therefore been surprising to both academics and the wider population to learn that in recent years many people with migrant backgrounds have shown a tendency to leave the country for

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onward destinations. Nekby’s (2006) finding that many of the migrants that move onward tend to have above average levels of education has furthermore raised concern that this onward migration trend may point to a loss of human capital for Sweden. When I began the project, my goal was to understand the understudied process of onward migration in all its complexity. At first I tried to keep an open mind concerning what I might find. My study could not, however, be considered grounded theory since from the very start of the research process I had a theoretical interest in exploring how both macro and micro factors had shaped the migration decisions of the people under study. My interest in capturing the complexity and nuances of migration processes also meant that I had to decide how to narrow the study. Should I focus on onward migrants belonging to one specific occupational category? Or perhaps people from one specific country of origin? I soon decided that by focusing on one specific migrant category, I would be able to draw out a specific group of people’s particular experience of living between countries, and to situate individual lives in spatial and historical context. My topic became more clearly defined when I learned from Swedish statistics that people with Iranian backgrounds are one of the migrant categories that tend to leave Sweden for countries like the UK, Canada and the US at rates significantly higher than the Swedish average (GeoSweden, 2006).1 According to the figures, out of a population of more than 50,000, 500 to 1,000 Iranian born persons leave Sweden every year, with 70–80% moving to a third country and the rest returning to Iran (GeoSweden, 2008; Kelly and Hedman, 2015). The statistics also show that many of these migrants appear to have education levels above the Swedish average. This led to a number of further questions concerning how and why these migrants may choose to leave Sweden. Employing an intersectional lifecourse approach: method and analysis Since my aim was to capture the phenomenon of highly educated onward migration from different perspectives, I devised a sequential design (Leech and Onwuegbuzie, 2009). I decided to start with a macro perspective (descriptive statistics), move to the meso level (interviews with organisations) and finish at the micro level (interviews with individual onward migrants). Adopting this multi-scalar approach allowed me to thoroughly contextualise the study in a way that would not have been possible had I simply chosen to focus on one scale of

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analysis. Moreover, it allowed for the linking of objective and subjective perspectives on the phenomenon under study. Using a detailed population database derived from Swedish government statistics (GeoSweden, 2006; 2008), I was able to identify several of the structural difficulties faced by ‘Iranian born’ people in Sweden. According to available figures, Iranian-born people have the highest education level of all major immigrant groups in Sweden, and are 8% more likely than Swedes as a whole to attain tertiary education. Despite this, statistics also show that in 2008 the employment rate of Iranian born people was below 60% (GeoSweden, 2008; Kelly and Hedman, 2015). This mismatch between education and employment is contradictory and points to the presence of structural constraints that limit the labour market participation of highly educated Iranians in Sweden. By using the database I was also able to compare those Iranians that moved on with those that stayed in terms of their employment, education and housing characteristics. Importantly, I found that it tends to be the highly educated but unemployed who leave Sweden for onward destinations. This material served as highly valuable background information for the study as a whole. However, in order to understand the specific structural contexts faced by highly educated Iranian onward migrants and, more importantly, to capture the subjectivity of these migrants, qualitative information was also needed. I chose to conduct semi-structured interviews with Iranian organisations in Sweden in order to develop an understanding of the institutions serving the interests of Iranians and, also through speaking to leaders of these organisations, to develop a better knowledge of the challenges facing Iranians in Sweden. How did the leaders view the position of Iranians in Swedish society, and what opportunities and challenges did they think Iranians had experienced in Sweden since their arrival in the country? The organisation leaders emphasised that, according to their observations, Iranians have faced difficulties achieving full economic and social integration into Swedish society. Many of the leaders interviewed attributed this to the discrimination Iranians continue to face in Sweden on account of their refugee backgrounds and association with the Islamic Middle East, something which has furthered stereotyping and, hence, negatively impacted many different aspects of their lives, including but not only their labour market experiences. According to these leaders, many Iranians in Sweden hold professional qualifications, but cannot find work. Moreover, many Iranians suffer from a belief that they are not welcome in Sweden, and therefore it is difficult for them to cultivate a sense of belonging

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to the society. These findings provided possible interpretations of the statistical data, and aided the facilitation and analysis of the biographical interviews conducted with individual onward migrants themselves. Individual onward migrants were recruited in two popular onward destinations: London, UK and Toronto, Canada. All were highly educated and had lived in Sweden for at least five years. The interviews were conducted in two parts. In the first interview, I asked the participants to tell their life stories freely, with as little interruption as possible. In the second meeting I asked more direct (semi-structured) questions, to make sure that my research agenda was addressed. Adopting this method allowed me to both chart the personal life trajectories of the participants and to explore their subjectivity. The majority of the participants presented what could be considered narratives of success as they talked about overcoming obstacles (economic, cultural and social) by moving on to places like London and Toronto which they characterised as multicultural cities that were very open to skilled migrants. Despite their high levels of education and skill, in Sweden the participants found it difficult to break free from stereotypes concerning refugees, while in these new contexts, they felt that they were perceived and accepted as middle class skilled migrants. The fact that many of the participants moved to London or Toronto through skilled migration programmes or to fill highly skilled positions helped to reinforce this perception. The finding that the individual research participants were anxious to move on to further their careers was consistent with the findings generated by the statistical data, and the interviews with organisations, and therefore helped to produce a possible explanation as to why highly educated and highly skilled Iranians might choose to leave Sweden. I nevertheless decided to take the analysis of the biographical narratives a step further. In doing so, I separated what events had actually occurred in the participants’ life stories (the ‘facts’), with the way they talked about these events (Wengraf, 2001). What I found was that while most participant narratives emphasised a desire to overcome perceived constraints in Sweden, there was more to their migration decision making than this alone. Instead, participants’ positions in class, gender and race hierarchies intersected with turning points in the lifecourse: finishing university studies, becoming unemployed, or breaking up with a partner, to influence the timing and motives behind onward moves. While many of the younger participants had experienced racial discrimination throughout their lives, for example, it was on trying to enter the labour market that this was fully realised, and also when it became a practical obstacle that, as they viewed it, had to

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be overcome. Moreover, while many of the female participants, like their male counterparts, emphasised how leaving Sweden had helped them to achieve their career ambitions, it was later revealed that many also moved not only to escape racism and discrimination, but also in response to shifting gender dynamics in their homes, or in order to support their male partners who had initiated the decision to relocate. The findings therefore suggest that migration should not be viewed as an isolated event, but rather as something entangled in the broader lifecourse which is inherently implicated by social power hierarchies.

The benefits and drawbacks of using an intersectional lifecourse approach In my view, an intersectional lifecourse approach has much to offer researchers interested in exploring why certain patterns of migration occur. Unlike more conventional approaches to migration studies, the approach allows for migration processes to be studied from multiple perspectives, at different levels of scale. This may be particularly valuable to studies of highly skilled migration, which, as noted earlier, tend to be based on economistic approaches which fail to capture relations between the objective and subjective, and the macro and micro factors underlying migration decision making. With its focus on context, the approach may also be of particular value to those wishing to explore understudied population movements on which little is currently known; one particular strength of the approach is that it lends itself to the disruption of the taken-for-granted categories that are usually used to classify migrants. In the case study outlined above, for example, the approach made it possible to challenge the binary between ‘refugee’ and ‘skilled’ migration, and to instead contribute to an understanding of the relatively underutilised concept of ‘onward migration’ (Lindley and van Hear, 2007; Ahrens et al, 2014). For those interested in employing the approach advocated in this chapter, however, there are a number of important things that must be taken into consideration. This is not an approach that leads directly to generalisable findings. On the contrary, it is best suited to small scale case study research. Adopting such an approach requires one to be quite open, theoretically and methodologically. This carries both potential risks and potential benefits. The result may be that one can produce a very in-depth, nuanced account of a migration phenomenon, something which may lead to unique findings and new perspectives. Furthermore, by drawing on multiple methods, the approach may provide valuable pathways to explanation not normally

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afforded by studies based on individual methods. In the case study shared above, for example, combining three different data sources made it possible to capture both group and individual perspectives on onward migration. It was also possible to get an in-depth sense of the structures influencing the migration decisions of highly educated Iranian migrants, and the ways in which individual migrants have used their own agency to overcome some of these structural constraints. It is important to point out, however, that when it comes to research design, using more than one method is not an inherent strength. If not handled cautiously, using multiple methods may have many drawbacks. If a research study is spread out too thinly between different methods, the findings generated by any one of the methods may be insufficient. There is also no guarantee that the findings generated by the different methods will fit together in a meaningful and coherent way. Caution should therefore be taken to ensure the utility of each data source in relation to the larger aims of the project. Multiple method research designs tend to be more complex than single method designs, and it is therefore important to reflect on what one wants to achieve with his or her study early during the research design phase. Beyond these central theoretical and methodological concerns are practical considerations. Adopting an intersectional lifecourse approach does not necessarily need to be costly, but particularly if multiple types of data sources are drawn on, researchers should think carefully about what resources they have at their disposal. Conducting a study of the kind advocated here requires a great deal of time and access to resources. In the illustrative case study, for example, access to statistical databases had to be secured, and it was necessary to find research participants and conduct interviews in multiple places. Moreover, adopting such an approach requires a great number of competencies and skills on the part of the researcher. Few researchers have the capacity to successfully use multiple data collection methods, especially when these methods transcend the well-established boundary between quantitative and qualitative modes of inquiry. It may therefore be worth conducting research of this kind as part of a team, or by seeking the assistance of researchers who have the specialised skills needed to successfully carry out certain types of data collection.

Conclusion The chapter began by reviewing the literature on skilled migration which tends to be polarised by macro and micro (economic) perspectives. In order to overcome this divide, and also to address

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the issue of structure and agency in migration decision making more broadly, the chapter outlined what can be gained by using an intersectional lifecourse approach. This approach, it was argued, makes it possible to develop a nuanced understanding of the structures that play a role in migration decision making, while not compromising the subjectivity and agency of migrants themselves. In order to maximise the potential benefits of using this approach, the chapter advocated the use of research designs that utilise multiple methods which are capable of capturing both the structural and the individual aspects of migration decision making. Multifaceted approaches to the study of migration decision making like the one proposed in this chapter tend to be much more demanding both theoretically and methodologically than conventional approaches to migration research. I nevertheless think they are necessary to move migration research forward. While we still need studies that strictly address either the macro or the micro facets of the migration decision making process, the time is ripe for acknowledging their interrelatedness and exploring it further. Like many of the migration researchers I have cited in this chapter, I believe this is best done by cultivating a greater openness to social theory and encouraging the adoption of more innovative methodological approaches. Note GeoSweden is a longitudinal database that contains micro-data on the entire Swedish population. It is owned by the Institute for Housing and Urban Research, Uppsala University. 1

References Ackers, L. (2005) ‘Moving people and knowledge: Scientific mobility in the European Union’, International Migration, 43(5): 99–131. Ahrens, J., Kelly, M., and van Liempt, I. (2014) ‘Free movement? The onward migration of EU citizens born in Somalia, Iran, and Nigeria’, Population Space and Place, doi: 10.1002/psp.1869. Andersson, R. (2012) ‘Understanding ethnic minorities’ settlement and geographical mobility patterns in Sweden using longitudinal data’, in N. Finney and N. Catney (eds) Minority internal migration in Europe, Farnham, Surrey: Ashgate, pp 263–91. Bertaux-Wiame, I. (1979) ‘The life history approach to the study of internal migration’, Oral History, 7(1): 26–32. Boyle, P. (2002) ‘Population geography: transnational women on the move’, Progress in Human Geography, 26(4): 531–43.

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Csedo, K. (2008) ‘Negotiating skills in the global city: Hungarian and Romanian professionals and graduates in London’, Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 34(5): 803–23. Faist, T. (2000) The volume and dynamics of international migration and transnational social spaces, Oxford: Clarendon Press. Findlay, A. and Li, L. N. (1999) ‘Methodological issues in researching migration’, Professional Geographer, 51(1): 50–9. Geist, C. and McManus, P. (2008) ‘Geographical mobility over the life course: Motivations and implications’, Population, Space and Place, 14(4): 283–303. Halfacree, K. (2004) ‘A utopian imagination in migration’s terra incognita? Acknowledging the non-economic worlds of migration decision making’, Population, Space and Place, 10: 239–53. Halfacree, K. and Boyle, P. (1993) ‘The challenge facing migration research: the case for a biographical approach’, Progress in Human Geography, 17(3): 333–48. Hancock, A. (2007) ‘When multiplication doesn’t equal quick addition: examining intersectionality as a research paradigm’, Perspectives on Politics, 5(1): 63–79. Heinz, W. and Krüger, H. (2001) ‘Life course: innovations and challenges for social research’, Current Sociology, 49(2): 29–45. Hopkins, P. and Pain, R. (2007) ‘Geographies of age: thinking relationally’, Area, 39(3): 287–94. Iredale, R. (2001) ‘The migration of professionals: theories and typologies’, International Migration, 39(5): 7–26. Kelly, M. (2013) Onward migration: The transnational trajectories of Iranians leaving Sweden, Uppsala: Department of Social and Economic Geography, Geographica 1. Kelly, M. and Hedman, L. (2015) ‘Between opportunity and constraint: understanding the onward migration of highly educated Iranian refugees from Sweden’, Journal of International Migration and Integration, doi: 10.1007/s12134–015–0422–4. Kobayashi, A. and Preston, V. (2007) ‘Transnationalism through the life course: Hong Kong immigrants in Canada’, Asia Pacific Viewpoint, 48(2): 151–67. Kofman, E. (2000) ‘The invisibility of skilled female migrants and gender relations in studies of skilled migration in Europe’, International Journal of Population Geography, 6(1): 45–59. Kofman, E. and Raghuram, P. (2006) ‘Gender and global labour migrations: incorporating skilled workers’, Antipode, 38(2): 282–303.

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Koser, K. and Salt, J. (1997) ‘The geography of highly skilled international migration’, International Journal of Population Geography, 3(4): 285–303. Kynsilehto, A. (2011) ‘Negotiating intersectionality in highly educated migrant Maghrebi women’s life stories’, Environment and Planning A, 43(7):1547–61. Leech, N. and Onwuegbuzie, A. (2009) ‘A typology of mixed methods research designs’, Quality and Quantity, 43(2): 265–75. Ley, D. and Kobayashi, A. (2005) ‘Back to Hong Kong: return migration or transnational sojourn?’, Global Networks, 5(2): 111–27. Lindley, A. and Van Hear, N. (2007) ‘New Europeans on the move: a preliminary review of the onward migration of refugees within the European Union’, Working Paper 57, Centre on Migration, Policy and Society, University of Oxford. Lutz, H. (2008) ‘Introduction: migrant domestic workers in Europe’, in H. Lutz (ed) Migration and domestic work: A European perspective on a global theme, Aldershot: Ashgate, pp 1–10. Mahler, P. and Pessar, S. (2006) ‘Gender matters: ethnographers bring gender from the periphery toward the core of migration studies’, The International Migration Review, 40(1): 27–63. Mahroum, S. (2001) ‘Europe and the immigration of highly skilled labour’, International Migration, 39(5): 27–43. Mason, J. (2006) ‘Mixing methods in a qualitatively driven way’, Qualitative Research, 6(1): 9–25. Meyer, J. (2001) ‘Network approach verses brain drain: lessons from the diaspora’, International Migration, 39(5): 91–110. McDowell, L. (2008) ‘Thinking through work: complex inequalities, constructions of difference and trans-national migrants’, Progress in Human Geography, 32(4): 491–507. Nekby, L. (2006) ‘The emigration of immigrants, return vs. onward migration: evidence from Sweden’, Journal of Population Economics, 19(2): 197–226. Ni Laoire, C. (2000) ‘Conceptualising Irish rural youth migration: a biographical approach’, International Journal of Population Geography, 6(3): 229–43. Pratt, G. and Hanson, S. (1993) ‘Women and work across the life course: moving beyond essentialism’, in C. Katz and J. Monk (eds) Full circles: Geographies of women over the life course, New York: Routledge, pp 27–54. Roberts, B. (2002) Biographical research, Maidenhead: Open University Press.

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Valentine, G. (2007) ‘Theorizing and researching intersectionality: a challenge for feminist geography’, The Professional Geographer, 59(1): 10–21. van Ham, M., Mulder, C., and Hooimeijer, P. (2001) ‘Spatial flexibility in job mobility: macro-level opportunities and micro-level restrictions’, Environment and Planning A, 33: 921–40. Vespa, J. (2009) ‘Gender ideology construction: a life course and intersectional approach’, Gender & Society, 23(3): 363–87. Wengraf, T. (2001) Qualitative research interviewing: Biographic narrative and semi-structured methods, London: Sage Publications.

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Index

Index Note: page numbers in italic type refer to figures and tables.

A Ackers, L. 233 action research 9–10 Adam, B. 32, 33–5 affect, and embodiment 155 age, concepts of 3–4 agency and bottom-up approach 29–30 of children 125, 126, 136 of migrants 235 Akesson, B. 16, 130–1, 134 American Association of Geographers (AAG) 1–2 analysis of embodied interaction 205–9 of life space trajectories 224–7 of maps 133–6 narrative analysis 114–15, 116 of onward migration research 240–1 of personal communities research 151–4 qualitative approach 8 quantitative approach 8 of secondary data 51–5, 56–7, 70 of transnational ethnographic research 193–4 anchors, as aid to recall 88–9 anonymisation 71 autoethnography 191

B Banks, M. 133–4 Barrett, H. 130, 131, 132–3 Basso, K. 207 Bell, A.J. 89, 92, 93 Berger, J. 124 Berthoud, R. 27 biographical approaches, in intersectional lifecourse approach 236–7 biographical identifiers 71, 74

biographical matrices, of residential mobility 219, 220–4 biographical narratives construction of 54 geobiographies 162–3, 165–6, 172 and geographic narratives 115 research with young people initial choice of methods 102–7 spatialising methodology 109–13 role of time and place in 107–9 see also life geohistories; life histories biographical time 57, 58 biological ageing 3 Blaakilde, A.L. 17 Blaut, J. 123 Bondi, L. 156 bottom-up methodology 29–31 boundary objects 7 Bourdieu, P. 164 Bowlby, S. 16 Boyden, J. 134 British Household Panel Survey (BHPS) 46, 48, 50, 52–3, 56, 58 British Social Attitudes Survey (BSAS) 46, 48, 50, 52, 53 Brown, R.K. 68

C cancer patient research 82–6 career, concept of 3 caringscapes 144–5 Carolan, M.S. 166 causality 34, 109 Census data 7, 8 children mapmaking with 123–4 children’s abilities 127–9 interpretation and analysis 133–6 multi-method approach 132–3 as participatory 125–6, 136 theoretical underpinnings 124–5, 136

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Researching the lifecourse as viable methodology 129–32 in participatory research 10, 125–6, 136 representations of 124–5 Christou, A. 184–5 chronological age 3 chronological order in biographical narratives 107–9 in lifegrid method 90–1 chronological time 33, 35, 57 chronotope 108 Clark, A. 132, 135 class, and intersectionality 234, 235 classic studies see legacy studies clock time see chronological time co-construction of knowledge 209 cohorts 5 communities in research with children 125 see also personal communities contextual public/collective time in mixed methods analysis 57–8 see also external events continuities–discontinuities dimension of time 37 Courgeau, D. 217, 218 cross-referencing, as aid to recall 90 cross-sectional (transversal) approach in demography 217 transformed to longitudinal see restudy of young workers project cultural differences concepts of life span 28 concepts of time 34–5 and research 11

D Darbyshire, P. 134–5 data, respondents’ access to 75–7 data analysis life space trajectories 224–7 maps 133–6 onward migration research 240–1 personal communities research 151–4 qualitative approach 8 quantitative approach 8 of secondary data 51–5, 56–7, 70 transnational ethnographic research 193–4 data collection event histories approach 218–19 of life space trajectories 220–4 lifegrid method

critique and recall strategies 86–92 use in cancer patient research 82–6 secondary analysis of 51 see also methodology and methods data sources 7–8 in mixed methods approach 45–50, 56 see also secondary data Davies, J. 199 De Lay, B. 130, 131 deindustrialisation 64–5 Del Bianco, A. 15 demography, evolving approaches in 217–18 discourse analysis 193–4 diversity, and ethics 11 documentary evidence, in lifegrid method 92 Dunning, E. 66, 67 Dureau, F. 17–18

E economic motivations for migration 231–2 Edwards, R. 14 Elder, G. 30 elderly migrants see international retirement migration Elias, Norbert approach to research 66–7 archived papers 70–1 restudying work of see restudy of young workers project embodied experience Merleau-Ponty’s concept of 203 use of walking tours 109–13 embodied interaction analytical approach to 205–9 and co-construction of knowledge 209 fieldwork with elderly migrants 199–200, 204–5 and women’s personal communities 155 embodied maps 206–7 embodied understanding 163–4 emotional responses of interviewers 155–6 employment see labour market Ennew, J. 134 epistemology haptic epistemology 201–4 of lifecourse approach 6–12

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Index erotic, Marks’ concept of 202, 203, 205–6 ethics 10–12 anonymisation and restudies 71 in elderly migrant research 210 and online observation 190–1, 193 in personal communities research 150, 156–7 in transnational ethnography 190–1, 192–3 ethnography epistemological issues 202–3 see also international retirement migration; transnational ethnography event history approach 218–19 life space data analysis 224–7 life space data collection 220–4 event observation 189, 190 external events, and lifegrids 83, 88

F Falola, B. 15–16 families diversity among 11 impact on life space trajectories 227 involvement in lifegrid method 91 in research with children 125 family cycle 3 field notes see interviewer notes Findlay, A. 237 flashbulb memory cues 83 fluidity of time 34–5 friendship see personal communities

G Geertz, C. 202 gender, and migration 234, 235, 241 generation, concept of 5, 28 geobiographies concept of 162–3 and lifestories 165–6, 172 geographic narratives 115 geohabits 166–7 Gershunny, J. 27 Giele, J. 30 Giroud, M. 17–18 GIS 103 softGIS 166–7, 169, 171–2, 175 go-along interviews (walking tours) 109–13, 168–9, 173–4 Goodwin, J. 14

GRAB (Groupe de Recherche sur l’Approche Biographique) 216, 219 Gubrium, J. 28, 33, 35

H habitus 164 haptic epistemology 201–4 Hardill, I. 9 Health see cancer patient research

Heinz, W. 30 historical truths, and lifegrid method 88, 93–4 Holstein, J. 28, 33, 35 Housing see residential mobility Hughes, J. 66, 67

I ICT online observation 189, 190–1, 193 use in women’s personal communities 144, 154 Imbert, C. 17–18 individual observation 189–90 intensive–extensive dimension of time 36 intergenerationality 5 international ethnography see transnational ethnography international retirement migration (IRM) categorisations 200 research on co-construction of knowledge 209 embodied interaction 205–9 ethics 210 fieldwork experience 199–200, 204–5 interpretation of maps 133–6 intersectional lifecourse approach 234–6 benefits and drawbacks 241–2 methodology 236–7 migration case study 238–41 interviewer notes and restudies 70, 76 in transnational ethnography 188 interviewers discomfort of 174 emotional responses of 155–6 and positionality 185, 188, 192–3, 195 interviews completion of lifegrids in 82–3

249

Researching the lifecourse go-along interviews (walking tours) 109–13, 168–9, 173–4 with migrant returnees 187–8, 191–2, 192–3 in onward migration research 239, 240 in personal communities research 148–51, 152 in research with young people 103, 109–13 in residential mobility research 220, 223 in restudy of young workers project 71–2 use in lifecourse research 8 Iranian migrants, case study 237–41

K Karjalainen, P.T. 162 Kelly, M. 18 Korean New Zealander migrant returnees 183 advantages of life history approach 195–6 data analysis 193–4 methodological context of research 184–7 research ethics and positionality 192–3 research methods 187–92

L labour market changes in 64–5 and skilled migration 231–2, 233 Laub, J.H. 67–8 Law, J. 1 Lee, J.Y. 17 legacy (classic) studies Elias’s young workers project 63–4, 68–9 background to restudy 63–5 design and operationalisation of restudy 69–73 methodological reflections on restudy 73–7 as starting point for lifecourse research 65–8 Leitch, R. 130 Li, L.N. 237 life geohistories 101–2, 113–15

life histories in demography 217–18 and geobiographies 165–6, 172 research with migrants see Korean New Zealander migrant returnees research with young people see young people see also biographical narratives; life geohistories life space trajectories data analysis 224–7 data collection 220–4 life stages 27 lifecourse, conceptualising 2–6, 25–6, 27–8, 31 lifecourse approach in demography 217–18 methodology and epistemology 1–2, 6–12 see also intersectional lifecourse approach lifecourse research, classic studies as starting point for 65–8 lifecourse tables, in personal communities research 149–51, 152 lifegrid critique and recall strategies 86–92 narrative and historical truths 93–4 use in cancer patient research 82–6 Lindsay, R. 14 longitudinal approach in demography 217 qualitative longitudinal (QL) research 26 bottom-up methodology 29–31 concept of time in 35 micro and macro approaches in 31–2 longitudinal studies created by restudy see restudy of young workers project mixed methods secondary analysis concepts of time 51–5, 57–9 data analysis 51–5, 56–7 research design 44–50, 56 quantitative 26, 30, 32 top-down methodology 29 of twentieth century 2–3

M McDowell, L. 9 macrodynamic approach 27, 31–2 macroeconomic approach to migration 231–2

250

Index Malinowski, B. 202 Mannheim, K. 5 mapmaking 123 with children 123–4 children’s abilities 127–9 interpretation and analysis 133–6 multi-method approach 132–3 as participatory 125–6, 136 theoretical underpinnings 124–5, 136 as viable methodology 129–32 mapping, with young people 103–6 maps analysis of 133–6 embodied 206–7 Marks, L.U. 201–2, 203, 205–6, 208 Mass Observation Project (MOP) 45–6, 48, 49, 52, 53–4, 56, 58–9 memory materialised 207–9 see also recall memory cues 72, 83 mental decline, of elderly migrants 204–5, 206–7, 208–9 MEREV research programme 216, 228 data analysis 224–7 data collection 220–4 Merleau-Ponty, M. 203, 207 Metcalfe, E. 14 methodology and methods of embodied interaction 205–9 in intersectional lifecourse research 236–7 of lifecourse approach 1–2, 6–12, 29–31, 32 mapmaking as participatory 125–6, 136 restudy reflections 73–7 in transnational ethnographic research 184–92 see also data collection; interviews; research design; walking interviews/ tours microdynamic approach 28, 31–2 microeconomic approach to migration 231–2 micro–meso–macro dimension of time 36 migration intersectional lifecourse approach 234–6, 241–2 intersectional lifecourse methodology 236–7 in lifecourse research 16–18, 235–6

motives for 231–2, 233–4, 235, 240–1 onward migration case study 237–41 see also international retirement migration; Korean New Zealander migrant returnees; residential mobility Mills, C.W. 31 mixed methods approach 10 in secondary research concepts of time 51–5, 57–9 data analysis 51–5, 56–7 research design 44–50, 56 see also multi-method approach; triangulation mobilities in lifecourse research 16–18 see also migration; residential mobility mobility maps 130, 131 Mosaic approach 132 multi-local, concepts of 215 multi-method approach in research with children 132–3 to migration 237, 241–2 see also mixed methods approach; triangulation multi-residence data analysis 224–7 data collection 220–4 definition 219

N narrative analysis 114–15, 116 narrative truths, and lifegrid method 93–4 narratives see biographical narratives; life histories Neale, B. 14 New Dynamics of Ageing Research Programme (NDA) 4 New Zealand see Korean New Zealander migrant returnees

O observation 188–9, 192–3 epistemological issues 202–3 see also walking interviews/tours O’Connor, H. 14 older people study of 4 see also international retirement migration

251

Researching the lifecourse online observation 189, 190–1, 193 onward migration case study 237–41

preparedness 163–4 Psathas, G. 133

P

Q

Pahl, R. 148–9 Parry, O. 93 participant observation epistemological issues 202–3 with migrant returnees 188, 192–3 participants see respondents participatory research 9–10 children in 10, 125–6, 136 past and present, in restudies 72–3, 74, 77 past–present–future 35–6, 162 personal communities definition 143 research on women’s 157–8 background 143–4 data analysis 151–4 difficulties and dilemmas 154–7 research design and sample 145–51 personal events as aid to recall 88–9 and life space trajectories 227 personal reflection, in qualitative research 9 phenomenology 9, 203, 207 photographs, in restudy interviews 72–3 Pink, Sarah 207 place making 207 place and space in lifecourse research 15–16 life geohistories 113–15 with young people 102–7, 109–13 studies of age and 4 and temporal structure of biographies 107–9 time–space dimension 37 in women’s caringscapes 144–5 see also geobiographies; mapmaking; residential mobility political aspects of research 10–12 political violence, mapping experience of see mapmaking Portelli, A. 165 positionality in transnational ethnography 184–6, 188, 192–3, 195 see also ethics post-phenomenology 203, 207 power relations 11

qualitative longitudinal (QL) research 26 bottom-up methodology 29–31 concept of time in 35 micro and macro approaches in 31–2 qualitative panel studies (QPS) 32 qualitative research methods 8–10 use of lifegrids in 92–3 see also discourse analysis; interviews; mixed methods approach; participatory research quantitative research 7–8 longitudinal studies 26, 30, 32 see also mixed methods approach; questionnaires questionnaires in residential mobility research 220, 221–3, 224 softGIS 166–7, 169, 171–3, 175 tables in personal communities research 149–50, 152 in volunteering research 51, 52

R race, and intersectionality 234, 235 re-returnees, in transnational research 191–2 recall materialised memory 207–9 of residential mobility 223–4 and secondary data analysis 52, 54 recall strategies 72, 83, 88–92 reflexive writing 194 see also self-observation refugees 233, 239, 240 relationships see personal communities research design mixed methods secondary analysis 44–50, 56 onward migration case study 238–40 residential mobility research 220–4 women’s personal communities 145, 148–51 young workers restudy 69–73 see also methods and methodology research sites Canada, 81 Denmark, 199

252

Index Finland, 161 France, 215 Iran, 231 Korea, 183 New Zealand, 183 Palestine, 123 Sweden, 231 Turkey, 199 United Kingdom, 25, 43, 63, 143 United States, 101 researchers in co-construction of knowledge 209 discomfort of 174 emotional responses of 155–6 positionality of 184–6, 188, 192–3, 195 residential mobility conceptualisations of 215 life space data analysis 224–7 life space data collection 220–4 lifecourse approach to 216–19 respondents access to data in restudies 75–7 profiles 169–70 tracing for restudy 71, 74–5 see also children restudy of young workers project background 63–5 design and operationalisation 69–73 methodological reflections 73–7 original study 63–4, 68–9 retirement see international retirement migration return migration Korean New Zealander migrant returnees 183 advantages of life history approach 195–6 data analysis 193–4 methodological context of research 184–7 research ethics and positionality 192–3 research methods 187–92 of retirees 200–1 Richardson, J.C. 92 Ricoeur, P. 208 Roos, J.P. 165 Rowles, G. 9

S sampling in mixed methods approach 49–50 in qualitative research 8–9

women’s personal communities 145–8 Sampson, R.J. 67–8 Savage, M. 70, 73–4 scaling up, of research 32 Schmidt-Thomé, K. 16 secondary data 43 mixed methods approach concepts of time 51–5, 57–9 data analysis 51–5, 56–7 research design 44–50, 56 see also legacy studies self-observation 189, 191, 193

self-reflexive writing 194 senses, and haptic epistemology 201–4 shared corporeal experiences 207 see also embodied interaction Shotter, J. 163–4 site observation 189, 190

skilled migration case study 237–41 conceptualisations of 232–4 micro and macro influences 231–2 migrant agency 235 Sobel, D. 123–4, 128 social construction age as 3–4 of lifecourse 28 social networking sites 144, 154, 190–1 softGIS 166–7, 169, 171–2, 175 space and place in lifecourse research 15–16 life geohistories 113–15 with young people 102–7, 109–13 and temporal structure of biographies 107–9 time–space dimension 37 in women’s caringscapes 144–5 see also geobiographies; mapmaking; residential mobility Spencer, L. 148–9 spousal involvement, in lifegrid method 91 storyworlds 108 surveys 7–8, 26, 29, 32 Sweden, onward migration from 237–41 synchronicity 37

T Thomas, W.I. 2 time and temporality concepts of 32–8

253

Researching the lifecourse in lifecourse research 13–15, 26, 35–8 in lifegrid method 89–90 and place in biographical narratives 107–9 in restudies 72–3, 74, 77 in secondary data analysis 51–5, 57–9 in women’s caringscapes 144 time–space dimension 37 timing of data analysis 56 Tolfree, D. 135–6 Tolia-Kelly, D. 167 top-down methodology 29, 30–1 touch, and embodied interaction 205–6 trajectories concept of 5–6, 25–6 in lifegrids 83, 90 personal communities in context of 143 see also life space trajectories; young people transcription of data 69–70 transitions concept of 5–6, 27 experience and recall of 54 in lifegrids 83, 90 school to work see restudy of young workers project transnational ethnography Korean New Zealander migrant returnees 183 advantages of life history approach 195–6 data analysis 193–4 methodological context of research 184–7 research ethics and positionality 192–3 research methods 187–92 see also international retirement migration transversal approach see cross-sectional approach triangulation 164–71 see also mixed methods approach; multi-method approach Tsuda, T. 184–5

V van Gennep, A. 6, 25 visual data, map analysis 133–6 visual methods in research with young people 104–6 in restudy of young workers project 72–3 see also mapmaking visualisation 103 volunteering attitudes study concepts of time in 51–5, 57–9 data analysis 51–5, 56–7 research design 44–50, 56

W walking interviews/tours 109–13, 168–9, 173–4 Wilding, R. 186 Wilson, S. 93 women’s personal communities 157–8 background to research 143–4 data analysis 151–4 research design and sample 145–51 research difficulties and dilemmas 154–7 Woodhead, M. 135–6 work see labour market; young people

Y Young, L. 130, 131, 132–3 young people researching life trajectories of initial choice of methods 102–7 spatialising methodology 109–13 restudy of young workers project background 63–5 design and operationalisation 69–73 methodological reflections 73–7 original study 63–4, 68–9

Z Znaniecki, F. 2

U Understanding Society (US) survey 46, 50, 52–3, 56, 58 Urban Happiness project 166–7, 171–3

254

“Clearly and engagingly written, this collection illustrates and reflects on diverse methodologies for enriching lifecourse studies . It is a major resource for researchers across the social sciences.” Professor Janice Monk, University of Arizona, USA

The lifecourse perspective continues to be an important subject in the social sciences. Researching the Lifecourse offers a distinctive approach in that it truly covers the lifecourse (childhood, adulthood and older age), focusing on innovative methods and case study examples from a variety of European and North American contexts. This original approach connects theory and practice from across the social sciences by situating methodology and research design within relevant conceptual frameworks. This diverse collection features methods that are linked to questions of time, space and mobilities while providing practitioners with practical detail in each chapter.

NANCY WORTH is a Banting Fellow in the School of Geography and Earth Sciences at McMaster University, Canada. Co-editor of Intergenerational Space (Routledge, 2014), her work focuses on the geographies of youth and young adulthood. IRENE HARDILL is Professor of Public Policy and Director of the Centre for Civil Society and Citizenship, Northumbria University, UK. Co-author of Enterprising Care (Policy Press, 2011), her work focuses on theorising work (paid and unpaid).

RESEARCH METHODS / GEOGRAPHY

ISBN 978-1-4473-1752-4

RESEARCHING THE LIFECOURSE • Edited by Nancy Worth and Irene Hardill

“A highly provocative and engaging work, raising questions about the epistemology of lifecourse research across themes of time, space and mobilities.” Professor Jeylan Mortimer, University of Minnesota, USA

RESEARCHING THE Critical reflections from the social sciences

Edited by Nancy Worth and Irene Hardill

www.policypress.co.uk 9 781447 317524 @policypress

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