The observee’s paradox

Ego-documents are at the heart of historical sociolinguistics. Contrary to what a label such as ego-document may suggest, Early and Late Modern ego-documents constitute a heterogenous group of genres comprising, among others, private letters, diaries and travel journals. Empirical studies have shown that there are important linguistic differences between private letters on the one hand, and diaries/journals on the other. The latter often seem surprisingly standard-like or formal. Theoretical models of register variation and conceptual orality can partially explain the differences, without however offering a full explanation of the surprising formality of diaries/journals. We argue that it is crucial to take into account recent work by social historians concerning diaries/journals in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Diary-writing was an inherently reflexive practice allowing authors to reflect on their lives, and to create a textually fixed point of reference. Authors of diaries had a variable and multilayered audience in mind of known and unknown readers. We introduce the observee’s paradox: while creating private texts for themselves in which they were their own observers and observees, authors of diaries also reckoned with unknown readers in a possibly distant future, which prompted them to shift into a more formal or standard-like register.

Language as an Object of Empirical Study in the Dutch Republic

This article takes a dictionary by Joos Lambrecht, dating from 1546, as its point of departure. It argues that this dictionary, as well as other dictionaries and treatises produced in the wake of Lambrecht’s, did more than teach their young audience in the Dutch Republic the meaning of existing words and thus transfer cultural and linguistic knowledge as was already understood. They also taught youngsters how to obtain (new) knowledge from their own empirical observations. The Dutch books on morphology, orthography, phonology, and grammar – produced in large numbers – offered their readers the opportunity to use their own language as an object for empirical study. By charting the dynamics of language, knowledge, and empirical training, it is argued that the Dutch language was, for a short time, treated by writers not merely as a means to express and share knowledge, but also as an object of study in itself. What might have formed an accessible training ground for the development of skills in empirical observation and especially self-reflexive practice, was, however, soon snuffed out by a second wave of tutorial books which emphasised the prescriptive over the explorative.

“Tell mom I said hi”: Confronting Positionality in Fieldwork

This chapter reflectively engages with the challenge of confronting positionality in qualitative fieldwork with vulnerable participants. Drawing on a set of encounters during fieldwork in a provincial prison in Canada, it unpacks the problem of having personal ties to a research population in action. In this vein, the chapter considers the ethical and privacy implications of reflexivity in these complicated and delicate situations and settings. It demonstrates how confronting positionality in fieldwork can influence the research process, including data collection and dissemination, in ways that can be both conducive and discouraging to scholarly engagement. Additionally, it raises issues that may challenge dominant and taken for granted assumptions about the value of the reflexive practice that is encouraged in qualitative research more generally.

Enhancing the inclusion of gender and sexually diverse populations in evaluation: Reflections grounded in practice

Evaluators are committed to practice that is high quality and conducted ethically. Despite this, gender and sexually diverse populations are not always adequately considered in evaluation practice. Ensuring fuller inclusion of gender and sexually diverse people is required to give effect to human rights obligations and to enable comparatively poorer wellbeing outcomes for these groups to be addressed. Based on our experience conducting evaluation (and research) with both general populations and gender and sexually diverse populations, we suggest a need to build inclusive practice among evaluators. To guide inclusive evaluation practice, we outline three domains for consideration – terminology and language, processes of research inclusion and implications of inclusion. These are not offered as a checklist but as a way to encourage reflexive practice among evaluators. Given evaluators are often concerned with promoting equity and social justice, we are hopeful that actions taken by evaluators can enhance the inclusion of gender and sexually diverse people in evaluation activities and contribute to better wellbeing outcomes for them.

Reflective Practice: Helping Coaches Improve their Coaching

ABSTRACT Reflective practice has recently been advocated as approach for sports and strength and conditioning coaches to question, learn from, and understand their own experiences to adapt and/or change their subsequent behaviors and decision-making processes. This article discusses the importance of reflexive practice for coaches and provides examples of how reflective practice can be implemented at each step of the coaching process.

Moving toward an integrated prevention approach for mental health at work: Promoting workers’ involvement through concrete actions

BACKGROUND: Work-related mental health problems are a primary cause of disability and lead to the absence of 500,000 workers each week in Canada. There is a growing body of literature suggesting integrated approaches of prevention are necessary to improve mental health at work. The involvement of numerous stakeholders inclusive of government agents, employers, and workers is recommended. However, only minimal information is available to suggest actions workers may adopt toward an integrated approach of prevention to improve mental health at work. OBJECTIVE: The aim of the study was to identify behaviors workers may adopt to foster mental health at work. METHODS: Following a descriptive qualitative research design, semi-structured interviews were conducted with researchers, professionals, and workers. Data were analyzed using a template analysis strategy. RESULTS: A total of 49 concrete behaviors were identified, grouped into ten sub-themes, and three broad themes. These main themes identify those behaviors that appear to be useful throughout the prevention continuum: 1) adopting a reflexive practice, 2) acting for one’s own mental health, and 3) acting for mental health of others. CONCLUSIONS: In harmony with the integrated prevention approach, this study offers a framework to organize workers’ concrete actions contributing to mental health.

What does it Mean to be a Man? Trans Masculinities, Bodily Practices, and Reflexive Embodiment

Confronted with the centrality of the body for trans-masculine individuals interviewed in the United Kingdom and Portugal, we explore how bodily-reflexive practices are central for doing masculinity. Following Connell’s early insight that bodies needed to come back to the political and sociological agendas, we propose that bodily-reflexive practice is a concept suited to account for the production of trans-masculinities. Although multiple, the journeys of trans-masculine individuals demonstrate how bodily experiences shape and redefine masculinities in ways that illuminate the nexus between bodies, embodiments, and discursive enactments of masculinity. Rather than oppositions between bodily conformity to and transgression of the norms of hegemonic masculinity, often encountered in idealizations of the medicalized transsexual against the genderqueer rebel, lived bodily experiences shape masculinities beyond linear oppositions. Tensions between natural and technological, material and discursive, or feminine and masculine were keys for understanding trans-masculine narratives about the body, embodiment, and identity.