Reflecting on the unconscious: Encounters with the ghosts of the past, the present, and the future
Beer, S., and Beer, P. (Bournemouth University)
In his 2007 book The wounded researcher Romanyshyn examined the relationship between the soul and the processes of academic re-search. I was intrigued by the way that he described a method that allowed the researcher to engage in a psychological dialogue with their work.
At that point I was starting my doctoral research; an investigation into perceptions of the authenticity of food. I had been trained as a positivist scientist, though for my doctoral thesis I wanted to undertake an interpretivist study. There had been discussion of subjectivity and the need for reflexivity and Romanyshyn’s work seemed to approach this in a new way.
In this paper I discuss and reflect on this process. I start off by reviewing some of the philosophical underpinning to the approach, before moving onto method. I outline my experience of engaging in the ‘process’ and how this led me to encounter ghosts of my past and then ghosts of the present as I analysed the data. Part of this involved trying to reconcile components of my work, when my analysis of the data strongly reflected a key element of my reflection that I had dismissed. Had I created some form of self-fulfilling prophecy?
I then go on to discuss some possible links to hypnotherapy, that resulted from discussions with my daughter who had explored it as part of her medical degree. Finally I will bring together these various strands, in terms of looking at the ghosts of the future and the complex intertwining of past, present and future which seems to render ideas of sequential time irrelevant.
In his 2007 book The wounded researcher Romanyshyn examined the relationship between the soul and the processes of academic re-search. I was intrigued by the way that he described a method that allowed the researcher to engage in a psychological dialogue with their work.
At that point I was starting my doctoral research; an investigation into perceptions of the authenticity of food. I had been trained as a positivist scientist, though for my doctoral thesis I wanted to undertake an interpretivist study. There had been discussion of subjectivity and the need for reflexivity and Romanyshyn’s work seemed to approach this in a new way.
In this paper I discuss and reflect on this process. I start off by reviewing some of the philosophical underpinning to the approach, before moving onto method. I outline my experience of engaging in the ‘process’ and how this led me to encounter ghosts of my past and then ghosts of the present as I analysed the data. Part of this involved trying to reconcile components of my work, when my analysis of the data strongly reflected a key element of my reflection that I had dismissed. Had I created some form of self-fulfilling prophecy?
I then go on to discuss some possible links to hypnotherapy, that resulted from discussions with my daughter who had explored it as part of her medical degree. Finally I will bring together these various strands, in terms of looking at the ghosts of the future and the complex intertwining of past, present and future which seems to render ideas of sequential time irrelevant.
Data collection in the open: Using a blog for dissertation research
Hogue, R. (University of Ottawa)
The purpose of this paper is to outline the ethical considerations when doing research in the open. Specifically, the author is doing her PhD data collection using a publicly viewable blog. A blog is a special type of website that allows the author to post specific interview questions and readers of the blog are able to leave comments, which are typically publicly viewable and searchable. The author, a blogger herself, is studying the educational benefits of illness blogs. In some fields of study, blog information is considered to be in the public domain – not requiring informed consent nor explicit permission for inclusion in research studies. However, as Kozinets (2016) highlights, the participants are not knowingly participating in research. When the researcher seeks to use a blog for data collection, this is not the case. The blog itself is the tool for collecting informed consent and for data collection. Informed consent is solicited at multiple points in the study. Another question that arises when using publicly viewable blogs as data collection is who are the research participants? Anyone on the internet is able to respond to the research blog, and therefore, participate in the study. A third question arises relating to the safety of research participants, especially when the topic being studied could involve sensitive health information. In this paper the author will outline the ethical issues associated with doing research using publicly accessible blogs and provide recommendation for anyone wishing to use blogs to support their data collection efforts.
The purpose of this paper is to outline the ethical considerations when doing research in the open. Specifically, the author is doing her PhD data collection using a publicly viewable blog. A blog is a special type of website that allows the author to post specific interview questions and readers of the blog are able to leave comments, which are typically publicly viewable and searchable. The author, a blogger herself, is studying the educational benefits of illness blogs. In some fields of study, blog information is considered to be in the public domain – not requiring informed consent nor explicit permission for inclusion in research studies. However, as Kozinets (2016) highlights, the participants are not knowingly participating in research. When the researcher seeks to use a blog for data collection, this is not the case. The blog itself is the tool for collecting informed consent and for data collection. Informed consent is solicited at multiple points in the study. Another question that arises when using publicly viewable blogs as data collection is who are the research participants? Anyone on the internet is able to respond to the research blog, and therefore, participate in the study. A third question arises relating to the safety of research participants, especially when the topic being studied could involve sensitive health information. In this paper the author will outline the ethical issues associated with doing research using publicly accessible blogs and provide recommendation for anyone wishing to use blogs to support their data collection efforts.