Lynn Jamieson - Researching Families and Relationships: Reflections on Process (Palgrave Macmillan Studies in Family and Intimate Life)

Palgrave Macmillan Studies in Family and Intimate Life

Titles include:

Graham Allan, Graham Crow and Sheila Hawker

STEPFAMILIES

Harriet Becher

FAMILY PRACTICES IN SOUTH ASIAN MUSLIM FAMILIES

Parenting in a Multi-Faith Britain

Elisa Rose Birch, Anh T. Le and Paul W. Miller

HOUSEHOLD DIVISIONS OF LABOUR

Teamwork, Gender and Time

Jacqui Gabb

RESEARCHING INTIMACY IN FAMILIES

Peter Jackson (editor)

CHANGING FAMILIES, CHANGING FOOD

Riitta Jallinoja and Eric Widmer (editors)

FAMILIES AND KINSHIP IN CONTEMPORARY EUROPE

Rules and Practices of Relatedness

Lynn Jamieson, Roona Simpson and Ruth Lewis (editors)

RESEARCHING FAMILIES AND RELATIONSHIPS

Reflections on Process

David Morgan

RETHINKING FAMILY PRACTICES

Eriikka Oinonen

FAMILIES IN CONVERGING EUROPE

A Comparison of Forms, Structures and Ideals

Risn Ryan-Flood

LESBIAN MOTHERHOOD

Gender, Families and Sexual Citizenship

Tam Sanger

TRANS PEOPLES PARTNERSHIPS

Towards an Ethics of Intimacy

Elizabeth B. Silva

TECHNOLOGY, CULTURE, FAMILY

Influences on Home Life

St. Palgrave Macmillan Studies in Family and Intimate Life

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Researching Families and Relationships

Reflections on Process

Edited By

Lynn Jamieson

University of Edinburgh, UK

Roona Simpson

University of Edinburgh, UK

Ruth Lewis

London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, UK

Selection and editorial matter Lynn Jamieson, Roona Simpson and Ruth Lewis 2011

Individual chapters their respective authors 2011

Foreword Sarah Cunningham-Burley 2011

All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission.

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The authors have asserted their rights to be identified as the authors of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

First published 2011 by
PALGRAVE MACMILLAN

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ISBN 978-0-230-25244-8 hardback

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Contents

Lynn Jamieson, Roona Simpson and Ruth Lewis

David H. J. Morgan

Dan Allman

Fran Wasoff

Ingela Naumann

Sarah Wilson

Linda McKie and Andrew Smith

Kay Tisdall

Alice MacLean

Jenny Spratt

Kate Philip

Louise Hill

Sarah Nelson

Angus Bancroft

Andrew Bell

Gill Highet

Jennifer Speirs

Julie Seymour

Sue Milne

Stuart C. Aitken

Emma Davidson

Gina Nowak

Heather Wilkinson

Kathrin Houmller and Sarah Bernays

Susan Elsley

Lynn Jamieson

Allison James

Sharon Jackson, Kathryn Backett-Milburn and Elinor Newall

Sue Kelly

Vanessa May

Katherine Davies

Sarah Morton and Sandra Nutley

Heather Wilkinson

Jennifer Flueckiger

Lesley Kelly

Valeria Skafida

David Porteous

List of Figure and Table

Foreword

The research process is fundamentally about relationships, whether negotiated directly, for example, through face-to-face interaction or indirectly, for example, through mailed questionnaires. All of us engaged in empirical work know and experience this and, over the past few decades, writings have been produced that reveal and unpick the sometimes uncomfortable realities of doing research. And certainly, each new generation of researchers must feel free to do this too, adding to the how to methods texts with thoughtful exposes of what it is really like to be out there, studying other peoples lives and reporting on it. Honesty and integrity demand such reflection, for how otherwise can we judge our knowledge claims and move our understandings and theory-making forward? However, it is certainly a challenging task to produce a book of reflections on the research process without simply replicating what has gone before, albeit with different authors and different research studies. This collection rises to this challenge in a number of ways.

Firstly, the book brings together personal, reflexive pieces from over 40 scholars doing research on intimate, personal and family relationships. This is indicative of an inclusive approach to scholarship and debate. Many contributors are early career researchers and all are helping to move social scientific research on families and relationships forward methodologically and conceptually. Key areas that stand out are the attentions to space, place and time, emotions and the senses, multiple perspectives and the manner of framings. The latter may be influenced by the macro and micro contexts within which research takes place, such as the role of gatekeepers or other stakeholders, but also a researchers own theoretical or personal standpoints and experiences. Such an array of contributions provides extensive reach; many issues can be addressed, reflecting the experiences of individual researchers and also how these link to wider concerns about how we can understand families and relationships. This might lead to lack of coherence but the contributions are not put together in a haphazard way.

Secondly, the book takes seriously all aspects of the research process and this gives it a structure that helps to bring out key themes from the contributions. These are elegantly brought together in insightful introductory pieces to each chapter. These do more than introduce the subsequent researcher narratives; they draw from them to advance our thinking in the field of families and relationships research. So, as a reader, one is able to draw insight both from the raw immediacy of the researcher accounts accounts that at times bring you right there into the field with the researcher, making you too stop and think and reflect and from the carefully crafted think pieces which precede them. The necessity of taking a linear approach to the research trajectory is done with a light touch, and the book moves from initial framings, relationships with research participants and other relevant actors, research spaces and places, analysis and interpretation and, unusually, dissemination and communication. As the editors themselves note in their introduction, the contributions could have been presented in different ways, but cross referencing and a neatly constructed introduction and conclusion, brings out important cross-cutting themes.