Using crystallization to understand loneliness in later life: integrating social science and creative narratives in sensitive qualitative research

2021 ◽  
pp. 146879412110059
Author(s):  
Barbara Barbosa Neves ◽  
Josephine Wilson ◽  
Alexandra Sanders ◽  
Renata Kokanović
Keyword(s):  
Qualitative Research ◽  
Creative Writing ◽  
Social Science ◽  
Older People ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
Vulnerable Populations ◽  
Lived Experiences ◽  
Later Life ◽  
Care Homes ◽  
Social Phenomena

This article draws on crystallization, a qualitative framework developed by Laurel Richardson and Laura Ellingson, to show the potential of using sociological narratives and creative writing to better analyze and represent the lived experiences of loneliness among older people living in Australian care homes. Crystallization uses a multi-genre approach to study and present social phenomena. At its core is a concern for the ethics of representation, which is critical when engaging with vulnerable populations. We use two case studies from research on loneliness to illustrate an application of crystallization through different narrative types. To supplement our sociological narratives, we invited author Josephine Wilson to write creative narratives based on the case studies. Josephine was awarded the prestigious Miles Franklin Literary Award in 2017 for Extinctions, a novel exploring themes such as later life and loneliness. By contrasting the two approaches—sociological and creative narratives—we discuss the implications of crystallization for qualitative research.

Understanding diversity in later life and a new culture of aging: Sociology of aging in Japan

2021 ◽  
pp. 026858092110053
Author(s):  
Daisuke Watanabe
Keyword(s):  
Social Science ◽  
Older People ◽  
Social Isolation ◽  
Social Problems ◽  
Family Care ◽  
Later Life ◽  
Social Disparities ◽  
Mutual Aid ◽  
Care Problems ◽  
Sociological Studies

This essay introduces sociological studies on aging and related topics in Japan since 2000. It argues the three following points. First, the results of sociological studies on aging, and those from related social science disciplines, have moved away from a uniform understanding of aging to reveal greater diversity in the process. Second, it has become apparent that older people face various social problems, such as social isolation, social disparities, and family care problems. Studies have argued that it is essential to support mutual aid in the community. Finally, the reflexivity of high modernity attempts to push the problem of aging towards autonomy, but a new culture of aging assumes that dependence has the potential to overcome this reflexivity.

Sex in an ideology of love

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Torbjörn Bildtgård ◽  
Peter Öberg
Keyword(s):  
Older People ◽  
Life Course ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
Intimate Relationships ◽  
Later Life ◽  
Sexual Intimacy ◽  
Sexual Norms ◽  
Gerontological Research ◽  
The Life Course ◽  
Loving Relationship

Until recently the sex life of older people was more or less invisible in family and gerontological research. This chapter contributes to breaking this silence by focusing on the role and meaning of sex in intimate relationships in later life. Based on biographical case studies, the chapter investigates how sexual norms have changed over the life course of contemporary cohorts of older people and how they have experienced this change. The chapter considers sexual intimacy as part of new intimate relationships established late in life and questions the persistent assumption that older people who date are primarily looking for companionate relationships. It is shown that older people’s ideas about sex are deeply embedded in an ideology of love, where sex tends to be viewed as a natural part of a loving relationship, while sex outside of a loving relationship – also in a loveless marriage – is frowned on.

scholarly journals Reflexivity in Qualitative Research: A Journey of Learning

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Erlinda Palaganas ◽  
Marian Sanchez ◽  
Ma. Visitacion Molintas ◽  
Ruel Caricativo
Keyword(s):  
Qualitative Research ◽  
Lived Experiences ◽  
Research Process ◽  
The Philippines ◽  
Research Project ◽  
Social Phenomena ◽  
Research Findings ◽  
Conducting Research

Conducting research, more so, fieldwork, changes every researcher in many ways. This paper shares the various reflexivities – the journeys of learning – that we underwent as field researchers. Here, we share the changes brought about to ourselves, as a result of the research process, and how these changes have affected the research process. It highlights the journey of discovering how we, as researchers, shaped and how we were shaped by the research process and outputs. All these efforts were done in our attempts to discover and understand various social phenomena and issues such as poverty, development, gender, migration, and ill health in the Philippines. This article includes the challenges encountered in our epistemological stance/s and personal and methodological concerns shown in our reflexivity notes/insights. Indeed, it is when researchers acknowledge these changes, that reflexivity in research constitutes part of the research findings. It is through this consciousness of the relational and reflective nature of being aware of personal and methodological concerns that we honor ourselves, our teammates/co-researchers and all others involved with the research project. As researchers, we need to be cognizant of our contributions to the construction of meanings and of lived experiences throughout the research process. We need to acknowledge that indeed it is impossible to remain “outside of” one's study topic while conducting research.

scholarly journals Colonizing the Aged Body and the Organization of Later Life

2014 ◽  
Vol 35 (11) ◽  
pp. 1699-1717 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paula Hyde ◽  
Diane Burns ◽  
John Hassard ◽  
Anne Killett
Keyword(s):  
Older People ◽  
Later Life ◽  
Social Practices ◽  
The Body ◽  
Care Homes ◽  
Social Segregation ◽  
Normative Concepts ◽  
The Everyday ◽  
Mental Decline ◽  
Corporate Colonization

Based on fieldwork in residential homes, arrangements for the care of older people are examined with reference, primarily, to Deetz’s theory of ‘corporate colonization’. Extending this theory, it is argued that grouping such people in care homes can result in a form of social segregation, one that reflects the management of the aged body in relation to normative constructions of dependence. Focusing on the experiences of residents, the everyday effects of narratives of decline on disciplining the lives of older people are assessed, with this analysis taking recourse to the work of Foucault (1979). The result is the identification of three related concepts at work in the colonizing process of the aged body: (i) appropriation of the body – the physical and social practices involved in placing older people in care homes; (ii) separation from previous identities – how a range of new subjectivities are produced in the process of becoming a ‘resident’; and (iii) contesting colonized identities – the ways in which residents can attempt to challenge normative concepts of managed physical and mental decline. Overall the disciplining of the body is theorized not only as an adjunct to the notion of corporate colonization but also, more generally, as a prominent and powerful organizing principle of later life.

“We Speak the Truth!”

2019 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 53-80
Author(s):  
Sari Hanafi
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Content Analysis ◽  
Social Science ◽  
The Political ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
Social Phenomena ◽  
The Social ◽  
Academic Qualifications

This study investigates the preachers and their Friday sermons in Lebanon, raising the following questions: What are the profiles of preachers in Lebanon and their academic qualifications? What are the topics evoked in their sermons? In instances where they diagnosis and analyze the political and the social, what kind of arguments are used to persuade their audiences? What kind of contact do they have with the social sciences? It draws on forty-two semi-structured interviews with preachers and content analysis of 210 preachers’ Friday sermons, all conducted between 2012 and 2015 among Sunni and Shia mosques. Drawing from Max Weber’s typology, the analysis of Friday sermons shows that most of the preachers represent both the saint and the traditional, but rarely the scholar. While they are dealing extensively with political and social phenomena, rarely do they have knowledge of social science

Coding in Qualitative Research

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mohammad Yaghi
Keyword(s):  
Qualitative Research ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
Qualitative Data ◽  
Doctoral Dissertation ◽  
Sufficient Data ◽  
Trial And Error ◽  
Amount Of Information ◽  
Potential Problems

In this chapter, Yaghi offers detailed suggestions on how to code qualitative data after they have been gathered. Based on his doctoral dissertation, this chapter explains that the logic behind coding qualitative data is to turn a significant amount of information into categories that can be used to explain a phenomenon, reveal a concept, or render the data comparable across different case studies. It also elaborates through examples from author’s fieldwork in Tunisia, Egypt, and Jordan on four potential problems that may face researchers in coding qualitative data. These are the questions of preparation, categorization, consistency, and saturation. The chapter concludes by asking researchers to be flexible, and open to the process of trial and error in coding, to confront the data with questions before categorization, and to gather sufficient data on their topics before running their qualitative surveys.

Museum Studies

2020 ◽  
pp. 516-537
Author(s):  
Erica L. Tucker
Keyword(s):  
Qualitative Research ◽  
Natural History ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
Research Design ◽  
Museum Studies ◽  
Historic Sites ◽  
Design Data ◽  
Museum Visitors ◽  
Ethnographic Fieldwork ◽  
Data Analyses

This chapter describes and discusses the major qualitative research methods used to study museums. These methods include analyses of visual displays and reconstructions; interviews with museum visitors, professionals, and stakeholders; as well as ethnographic fieldwork in museum settings. The chapter explores how these methods can be adapted to the study of exhibits, galleries, programs, and museums as knowledge-generating institutions from a range of case studies conducted by museum practitioners, anthropologists, historians, and other museum studies scholars at a variety of museums. Case studies are drawn from works that examine ethnographic, natural history, art and community museums as well as historic sites. Approaches to research design, data analyses, and writing up are also examined.

A Systematic Methodology for Doing Qualitative Research

2020 ◽  
pp. 002188632098271
Author(s):  
Denny Gioia
Keyword(s):  
Qualitative Research ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
Behavioral Science ◽  
Methodological Approach ◽  
Scientific Rigor ◽  
Systematic Methodology ◽  
Applicable Knowledge

The Journal of Applied Behavioral Science is in the enviable position of being a go-to journal for many readers seeking useable insights for solving practical problems in managing modern organizations. A perennial source of such knowledge has been case studies, but case studies have been treated as questionable sources of widely applicable knowledge because they have been assumed to be idiosyncratic and to lack adequate “scientific” rigor. In this brief article, I argue for using a methodological approach to studying single cases that addresses both these thorny problems.

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