Writing a blog

The activity of documenting my learning by writing down ideas and insights, questions and recording the ‘aha’ moments in this blog seemed daunting at first, but I am really glad I did it.It is a testimony of my personal learning journey; going back to my written ideas and understandings at various times is very helpful. There is a Latin saying- 'vorba volent, scribum manent'- which translates as 'the spoken word flies, but the written one remains'- what best way to summarize how I feel about this blog! It is in a way a reflective professional journaling that I should get in the habit of keeping. Although the information on this blog was public only for the participants in the Advanced Qualitative class, I often wondered at what point I would feel ‘safe’ enough to open up and become vulnerable to the criticism, feedback and input from a wider audience. As it stands today, I received feedback and entered a cyber-dialogue only with two people that I trust professionally and personally: one is my professor from whom I did expect input, and one is a classmate (Sandra) with whom I am developing a strong friendship and camaraderie in scholarship. In a way this could be a taste of what it means to be published (in a journal, in an edited book, an article); if I am to be political within my scholarship and continuous learning, I need to build the courage of standing behind what I say and opening myself up for a public dialogue and criticism. More than often critical discussions are conducive to more learning and positive growth. I wonder how other people feel about publicly blogging on their learning journey...

I like the format of this blog because it keeps a nice timeline of my entries and reflections (somehow it resembles the format of an online class with everybody’s input nicely and timely recorded).

Interpreting and Presenting Data


Interpreting data (especially in qualitative research) is influenced by the researcher’s positionality within theory, practice, ethics, biases, epistemological and ontological views, and the study itself(research questions, methodology, data gathering, etc). In addition to the researcher’s positionality (just mentioned) influencing interpretation, presenting data is influenced by audience to which the results are presented. For example, if data is presented within a research journal, a researcher will most likely follow the style of presentation upheld by the journal and its editors (e.g. abstract, introduction, literature review, etc) Likewise, presentation of data for a professional conference may take on a different display style, maybe focusing more on audio, visual, or dramatic styles.(Grbich, 2007).

I really enjoyed reading “Writing and Retelling Multiple Ethnographic Tales of a Soup Kitchen for the Homeless” (Miller et al., 1998). Aside from the fact that this article brought to the forefront issues related to homelessness and the social/civic response or non response to this situation, I appreciated the researchers’ transparency and testimony in describing their journey of retelling and writing the story of homelessness as they studied/encountered it. The retelling of the story through realist tale, confessional tale and critical tale created space for deep reflections on research such as ‘The retelling of an ethnography may be as important as the initial writing of it..., [we] learned that research is dynamic rather than static, causing ethnographers to reflect on how they write and present their studies to different audiences..., when we were challenged to interrogate our own text, the critical tale took shape, and the issues of access, equity, positionality, investment, accuracy, and truth surfaced”(p.489).

Grbich, C. (2007). Qualitative data analysis: An introduction. London: SAGE Publications.
Miller, D. L., Creswell, J. W., & Olander, L. S. (1998). Writing and Retelling Multiple Ethnographic Tales of a Soup Kitchen for the Homeless. Qualitative Inquiry, (4), 469-491. doi:10.1177/107780049800400404

‘Post’ Coding and post methodologies

The coding and the after coding processes seemed to be pretty straightforward once the researcher’s biases, subjectivity are taken into open account and once the theoretical frameworks are established; now it seems that there is much more to add to what I have known thus far, which complicates matters; I thought it has recently become clear that qualitative research is as reliable and valid as quantitative research and I thought that the ‘battle’ for validity and reliability territory was a matter of the past.
It appears to me that there is still a ‘battle ‘ going on between “scientism” of methods and various qualitative approaches to analyzing data to reflect on or produce knowledge. I found interesting the idea of “othering” of qualitative data analysis/processes/theory framing as expressed in Lather’s article (2014) and how this research has been “disciplined” to follow scientific based research guidelines- the “quantitative template, the quantitative imperialism” (Lather, 2014, p. 636).
St. Pierre and Jackson(2014) bring forth valid questions related to what counts as good /appropriate data, what is the best way to gather data, what is coding and how coding is done in an ‘appropriate’ way. The answers or research approaches are to be directed by theoretical frameworks and the researcher’s positionality, and of course the research questions because “the ontologies and epistemologies that enable one to code data (scientifically)…are …unthinkable on the ‘posts’ that use different ontologies…[and epistemologies](p.716)… that describe the world as unstable or becoming…unable to be contained in language, that don’t separate being and knowing” (p. 717).

Foucault’s methods

Wow! This is very difficult information to process. I would have to supplement (in the future) the assigned readings for this week with reading Foucault’s The Archaeology of Knowledge, Madness and Civilization, The Birth of the Clinic for I am far away from understanding Foucault’s methods. I have a very vague general idea about his archaeology, genealogy and practices of the self.

The archaeological method (which is not o be understood as the discipline of archaeology) includes a set of complex concepts; for example the concepts of “savoir” and “connaissance” as they relate to knowledge refer to implicit knowledge-the “savoir” (the practices, the activities, institutional praxis), while “connaissance” refers to bodies of knowledge as provided in science books and philosophical and religious theories. Linguistically speaking, the French term of savoir is connected to action and the knowing how to (applied knowledge), while connaitre/connaissance refers to knowing about, (theoretical bodies and disciplines). As noted in Scheurich and McKenzie (in), “archaeology [as in Foucault method] is the study of savoir as the conditions of possibility of connaissance...[in other words] formal knowledges emerge more ‘irrationally’ from savoir, which includes not only the formal and rational but also the much broader ‘irrationality’ of politics, institutional practices, popular opinions, and so on”(p. 321).

The genealogical method study the relations and tactics of power, and include the “four general rules” for analysis: 1. usage of power to punish, repress, exclude, but also to produce, 2. usage of punitive methods as tactic of power to control souls not just behavior, 3. technologies of power, 4. leniency or humanization of power techniques (Denzin and Lincoln, 2008, pp330-335).


I was wondering if there are some good studies out there using Foucault’s methods. I would have to search.

Denzin, N. K., & Lincoln, Y. S. (2008). Collecting and interpreting qualitative materials. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.

Analyzing visuals and visual images of any kind, whether photos, videos, sketches, graffiti, artwork, engravings, newspaper images, and so on, is an attractive and daunting task at the same time. All depends on the research question, the intended audience, the researcher’s positionality, the historical and cultural context, the researcher/participants’ ability to deconstruct / reconstruct, present/represent, and define/ redefine. This kind of data could provide tremendous information, especially if coupled with other data (narratives, biographies, histories, etc).

I am hoping to take a class that will focus on visuals and documentaries as a way to do research or document contexts, realities, truths, and questions/issues. Particularly since, nowadays our growing audience is more and more into strong visuals...(thinking of young generations that document their fleeting lived moments through ‘selfies’, instagram, and so on).

Visual interpretation research is so connected to film/documentary criticism, art criticism, archaeology/iconography symbolism , that I don’t even dare to think that I could ever produce a powerful vibrant piece to speak for generations.

Qualitative Content Analysis

As a novice researcher it is daunting to figure out the differences between research methods (data collection and data analysis)-even though those differences may be crystal clear for more experienced researchers. Such is the example of grounded theory and qualitative content analysis. I particularly liked the article discussing similarities and differences between these two methodologies (Cho & Lee, 2014).
While they are similar in their inquiry approach (identifying themes, patterns, and rigorous coding) they differ in method of collecting data and analyzing data.

In content analysis, data analysis can be driven by both deductive and inductive approaches, where deductive “starts with preconceived codes or categories derived from prior relevant theory, research, , or literature”(Cho &Lee, 2014, p. 4) if the objective of research is to test existing data in a new given context, while the inductive approach is used when prior knowledge is limited, therefore codes, themes and patterns come straight from data.

I liked the point of manifest and latent meaning of text, and the freedom of interpretation that content analysis method offers. I understand now that in ground theory , theory is driven from the relationship between categories of data, while content analysis is focused on finding themes emerging from categories of data.

I absolutely recommend reading Cho and Lee article- it has opened new doors to better understanding.

Cho, J. Y., & Lee, E. H. (2014). Reducing Confusion about Grounded Theory and Qualitative Content Analysis: Similarities and Differences. The Qualitative Report, 19, 1-20. Retrieved from http://www.nova.edu/ssss/QR/QR19/cho64.pdf

exploring conversations

I am a bit disappointed with the readings for this section, for I see the direction of the discussion and research conclusions do not take into account anything related to culture or culture within culture. For example, even within native speakers of English, there are differences in communication cues and how people take turns or present delays, mitigations and delays based on what region they are from or even educational background they belong to. It is even more important so when the conversation takes place between native speakers of English and non native speakers of English. Some cultures are characterized by “high power distance” while others are not. Even to this day, I am not able to accept a compliment without cringing. I cringe when I have to say (according to the American cultural rules) “thank you” to an innocent compliment. In my culture, one does not readily accept a compliment... there is always some sort of mitigation on the meaning of the compliment, and a readily acceptance of a compliment is in the least extremely rude and selfish. Even the simple question of “how are you” is answered or taken differently based on the cultural background (and/or level of connection between participants).

In other words, I think conversation analysis is very interesting; however the researcher must consider the cultural (educational) background of each participant to the conversation before venturing to make any assumptions or draw conclusions. It is a slippery slide...