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Vital Signs: Paper Session 2a
Wednesday 10 September, 9.30-11am, Cordingley Theatre
2a. Being/existence/vitality
‘The limits of the world’ – Dr Andrew Irving (University of Manchester)
This paper explores the thinking and being of persons close to death and considers the possibilities and constraints of phylogeny as the basis upon which epistemologies and methodologies of social science are constructed. It uses painting, sculpture and photography to both critique and investigate the presuppositions of phylogeny and examine the necessary conditions that make possible an imagined ‘mutuality of the world’ (the sense of dwelling with other persons who are imagined to experience and understand the world in a similar fashion). Merleau-Ponty suggests that ‘in the experience of dialogue, there is constituted between the other person and myself a common ground; [where] my thought and his are interwoven into a single fabric’ (1992:354). As such inter-subjective and inter-corporeal interaction is both the practical means and theoretical basis for obtaining knowledge and understanding the experiences of others and underpins much of the current research and discourse on the body, environment and embodiment. This presupposes a set of cognitive and bodily capacities that human beings share and which are realised in dialogic interaction but such dialogues can also reveal incommensurable and radical differences, as argued by Levinas and Sartre, that place certain limits upon the shared, phylogenetic basis of consciousness and shared, inter-subjective bodily understandings. By focussing on artworks made by persons confronting their own mortality drawn from my own fieldwork it explores the relationship between the exterior materiality of art and the interior experiences of pain and imagination, as mediated through the processes of artistic production while living with a sick body. Accordingly this paper argues that painting, sculpture andphotography offer a material basis from which to critique social scientific approaches to knowledge as well as to begin speaking about issues of perception, knowledge and embodiment in ways that recognise how people always contains hidden shades that are wrapped up within personal biography and existential circumstances that exist beyond phylogeny and context.
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‘Reflections on methods: Contemporary challenges for sociological approaches’ –Professor Carol Smart (Real Life Methods, University of Manchester)
Sociology has long been a fruitful disciplinary field for feminist work and, in turn, feminism has contributed a great deal to Sociology both substantively and methodologically. Feminisms’ early challenges to positivistic and male-oriented methods were crucial in positioning qualitative methods and particularly the in-depth interview as central to the discipline. In this paper I shall acknowledge this heritage, but will suggest that there are new challenges to the methodological strategies and codes that have been established over the last couple of decades. In particular qualitative research in sociology has begun to recognise the limitation of the typical in-depth interview and also to some extent the limits involved in a strategy of merely giving ‘voice’ to experience. The emphasis on linear narrative is increasingly recognised as limiting and as flattening out the range of things that matter to people in their everyday life. There is a greater understanding of the importance of the intangible. This might mean the invisible connections between people revealed in looks or particular expressions more than in words. Or the intangible might exist in the significance of memory or even in aspirations for the future. It is, in part, the realm of the imaginary, but it is more than this because it is personal and not solely cultural, and it exists ‘in between’ people and not simply within the person. Of course amongst these facets of everyday life that research has not really grasped and/or reflected have been emotions and feelings. While the latter may have featured much in feminist work elsewhere, within sociology feminist work still struggles to deal with emotions.
In this paper I shall explore a number of these issues and will draw on research projects in which I have been closely involved. (These will include interviews with lesbians in long-term/ committed relationships and interviews with children.) Through these I shall discuss the value of different emergent methods such as visual elicitation, the focus on relationships and relationality through interviews and other devices, and also the renewed attention to both listening and writing. I shall argue that although it is possible to benefit from incorporating new devices and strategies in the research process, what we hear people say is still influenced by theoretical frameworks which may induce forms of deafness. In addition, how we write what we hear/understand may still be constrained by disciplinary protocols which cannot (yet?) accommodate more innovative forms of expression.
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‘Queer orientations: Researching vital sexualities’ – Dr Brian Heaphy (Morgan Centre, University of Manchester)
Modern sexualities have been studied in various ways as 'orientations', 'identities', 'forms of existence' and ways of living. The paper explores the implications of diverse conceptualisation of contemporary sexualities for how we might research them. In particular, it interrogates what 'queer' orientations to the study of sexualities involve, and how these could be devloped to more fully comprehend their vitality.
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