scholarly journals Reflections on the Process of Researching Disabled People's Sexual Lives

2013 ◽  
Vol 18 (3) ◽  
pp. 105-117 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kirsty Liddiard

This article offers a reflexive account of the processes, politics, problems, practicalities and pleasures of storying disabled people's sexual lives for the purposes of sociological research. Drawing upon a doctoral study which explored disabled people's lived experiences of sex, intimacy and sexuality through their own sexual stories, the author considers how her identity, subjectivity and embodiment – in this case, a white, British, young, heterosexual, disabled, cisgendered woman with congenital and (dependent upon the context) visible impairment – was interwoven within and through the research methodology; most explicitly, as an interlocutor and co-constructor of informants’ sexual stories. Given the paucity of reflexive research in this area, a number of reflexive dilemmas are identified which make important methodological contributions to qualitative sociology, disability studies scholarship and research, and current knowledges of the emotional work of qualitative researchers (Dickinson-Smith et al. 2009).

2020 ◽  
Vol 93 (4) ◽  
pp. 215-226
Author(s):  
V. V. Zubkov ◽  
◽  
P.G. Sidorov ◽  

The article presents the results of a pilot sociological study of migration perceptions of the population, the reasons for their formation, as well as the factors and conditions under which the willingness to live and work in the Khabarovsk Territory is realized. The analysis of the results of the survey, which according to the research methodology was conducted in two target groups ("residents of the region" and "student youth"), indicates the stability and reproduction of migration intentions as a determined willingness and desire to leave the place of permanent residence in the Khabarovsk territory. The sociological approach to the study of migration perceptions of the target groups under study consists in determining the target attitudes, guidelines and expectations from moving, due to the status-role set and personal attitudes of respondents.


Author(s):  
Zanib Rasool

This chapter considers poetry as a creative or arts-based method within social research. It argues that poetry as a research methodology can elicit thoughts, feelings, and emotions, and can give a platform for marginalised voices, such as women and girls, as it enables those silenced voices to be heard — and heard loudly. Poetry offers one way to capture the knowledge held in communities, particularly among those whose voices have been traditionally marginalised, like young people and women. Poetry provides us with a different lens for making sense of everyday interactions, contradictions, and conflicts. Poetry allows us to express different perspectives of our lived experiences — a mosaic of autonomous voices freed through poetry.


Author(s):  
Helen Hernandez ◽  
◽  
Laurie Dringus ◽  

We reflect on our process of working with an adapted framework as an effective strategy for analyzing and interpreting the results of our qualitative study on the lived experiences of insulin pump trainers. Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) was applied as the overarching research methodology and was encapsulated into a framework adapted from Bonello and Meehan (2019) and from Chong (2019). We describe this framework as the “embodiment of discovery” to posit the researcher’s tangible experience of discovering the meaning of data that also brought transparency to the researcher’s process for data analysis and interpretation. We present challenges the doctoral student researcher experienced working with the framework through three phases and various steps performed during the analysis. We recommend the framework may assist novice researchers as a tool for wayfinding and scoping the structure of data analysis and interpretation. We conclude that novice researchers should not fear finding their “embodiment of discovery” in adapting creative or alternate methods for qualitative analysis.


Author(s):  
Kala Dobosz ◽  

The presented story, which the reader and the reader will find in the text (when I am silent), comes from interviews collected during my research in the Netherlands in 2013. The research problem I chose at that time – the issue of the identity of Tamils from Sri Lanka in the Netherlands – I decided to investigate using a modified version of the biographical method, which is increasingly used in sociological research. Such a model of analysis is common today also in studies on migration processes, and especially in studies on the problem of refugee. Using this method, in the analytical part, I present the refugee life cycle based on the schema of the rituals of passage by Arnold van Gennep. Therefore, I use a model drawn from anthropological research, namely the pattern of individuals going through certain stages in their development and in the process of social functioning. After the first part, where I outline the research methodology and the main theoretical assumptions, I provide a first-person narrative of one of the people who left Sri Lanka, and her life was inextricably intertwined with the local nearly 30-year civil war.


2015 ◽  
Vol 20 (3) ◽  
pp. 48-61 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yiu Tung Suen

This paper contributes to the theorization of ‘choice’ within sociological understanding of singlehood. Previous sociological research on singlehood has largely focused on the lives of heterosexual singles. A choice narrative permeates such literature, depicting singlehood as a celebratory story that brings about the potential to disrupt the couplehood culture in society. Based on in-depth interviews with 25 self-identified single gay men over the age of 50 in England, this article finds that although gay singles share similarities with straight singles, there are gay-specific features of singlehood that can be identified, in terms of the limit of ‘choice’. Although some older single gay men drew on the cultural discourse in the gay community, which decentres the conjugal couple, and claimed freedom of sexual exploration as a positive aspect of being single, there was also a strong sense that many older gay men's status of being single was shaped by a larger history, and hence, they were afforded no choice in choosing whether to be single or not. Taking these findings together, this paper suggests that there are ideological, historical and cultural factors that distinguish the lived experiences of single gay men as being different from those of heterosexual singles. This paper argues that although the discourse of ‘choice’ helps sociologists to understand that singlehood need not be understood as necessarily a negative experience, older gay men's experiences of singlehood caution that the choice narrative shall not mislead the analysis to focus singlehood merely on the individual level. Instead, singlehood needs to be understood as deeply socially and historically embedded.


2008 ◽  
Vol 13 (5) ◽  
pp. 1-12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Erene Kaptani ◽  
Nira Yuval-Davis

The paper is based on the ESRC research project: ‘Identity, Performance and Social Action: Community Theatre Among Refugees’ which is part of the research programme on ‘Identities and Social Action’. After describing the project, the paper examines the methodological specificities and different stages of Playback and Forum Theatre. The latter includes image work, character building, scenes and interventions. It argues that overall participatory theatre, techniques as sociological research methods, provide different kinds of data and information than other methods – embodied, dialogical and illustrative. The paper ends by examining the circumstances in which the use of these techniques as research methodology are be beneficial. It also calls for an overall wider use of these techniques in sociological research, especially to study narratives of identity of marginalised groups, as well as to illustrate perceptions and experiences of social positionings and power relations in and outside community groupings. Using participatory theatre as a research tool, therefore, can be considered as one form of action research.


Author(s):  
Li Jin

This book review provides a summary of the content of the book "Mobile Work, Mobile Lives: Cultural Accounts of Lived Experiences" and a critical review of the methodological strengths of the articles included in the book. It also points out one structural weakness of the book. The appropriate readership is recommended as well.


2021 ◽  
Vol 10 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dane H. Isaacs

Background: The last decade has seen researchers and speech–language pathologists employ and advocate for a disability studies approach in the study of the lived experiences of people who stutter and in the design of interventions and treatment approaches for such individuals. Joshua St. Pierre, one of the few theorists to explore stuttering as a disability, mentions as a key issue the liminal nature of people who stutter when describing their disabling experiences.Objectives: This article aimed to build on the work of St. Pierre, exploring the liminal nature of people who stutter.Method: Drawing on my personal experiences of stuttering as a coloured South African man, I illuminated the liminal nature of stuttering.Results: This analytic autoethnography demonstrates how the interpretation of stuttering as the outcome of moral failure leads to the discrimination and oppression of people who stutter by able-bodied individuals as well as individuals who stutter.Conclusion: As long as stuttering is interpreted as the outcome of moral failure, the stigma and oppression, as well as the disablism experience by people who stutter, will continue to be concealed and left unaddressed.


Author(s):  
Verilda Speridião Kluth

ResumoEste artigo tem o propósito de esclarecer os vínculos da corrente filosófica Fenomenologia com a metodologia de pesquisa fenomenológica - a Rede de Significação, que perpassa princípios fenomenológicos e a elaboração de um pensar sobre a ciência da linguagem, apresentando um modo de compreendê-la ao inspirar-se em pensamentos merleau-pontyanos e na aplicação destes em contextos de pesquisa que tomam depoimentos como sua matéria-prima, ou seja, como o pré-reflexivo da pesquisa. Com os exemplos de pesquisa já concluídas na região de inquérito da Educação Matemática que utilizaram a metodologia apresentada, pretende-se mostrar o alcance e abrangência do método para essa área. O texto trata ainda de alguns aspectos do relacionamento do fazer do pesquisador com o método em questão. E consagra o método como uma hermenêutica fenomenológica de vivências, via linguagem, ao buscar compreensões que põem à mostra o sentido do fenômeno pesquisado.Palavras-chave: Fenomenologia; Linguagem, Rede de Significação, Pesquisa em Educação Matemática.AbstractThis article aims to clarify the bonds between the philosophical current, Phenomenology, and the phenomenological research methodology - the Network of Meanings, which crisscrosses the phenomenological principles, the elaboration of a thinking about the science of language, presenting a way of assuming it inspired by Merleau-Pontyan thoughts and applying them in research contexts that take testimonies as their raw material, i.e., as a pre-reflective action of the research. With the research examples already completed in the mathematics education inquiry region that used the methodology presented, we intend to show the scope of the method for this area. The text also deals with some aspects of the relationship between the researcher's doing and the method at stake, which is recognised as a phenomenological hermeneutic of lived experiences through language when searching for understandings that show the meaning of the phenomenon researched.Keywords: Phenomenology; Language, Network of Meanings, Research in Mathematics EducationResumenEste artículo tiene como objetivo esclarecer los vínculos de la corriente filosófica Fenomenología con la metodología de investigación fenomenológica - la Red de Significación, que recorre principios fenomenológicos, la elaboración de un pensamiento sobre la ciencia del lenguaje, presentando una forma de comprenderla inspirándose en los pensamientos de Merleau-Ponty y aplicándolos en contextos de investigación que toman los testimonios como materia prima, es decir, como prerreflexión de la investigación. Con los ejemplos de investigación ya concluidos en la región de estudios de la Educación Matemática que utilizó la metodología presentada, se pretende mostrar el alcance del método para esta área. El texto también trata algunos aspectos de la relación del quehacer del investigador con el método en cuestión. Y consagra el método como hermenéutica fenomenológica de vivencias a través del lenguaje, al buscar entendimientos que muestren el sentido del fenómeno investigado.Palabras clave: Fenomenología; Lenguaje, Red de Significación, Investigación en Educación Matemática


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document