Real Life Methods ran from October 2005 to January 2009. This website is archived and no longer maintained. For up to date information, please see www.manchester.ac.uk/realities
How are we doing the research?
We are interested in what resemblances mean to people in their everyday lives so we tried to do the research in a way that would help us understand this.
We wanted to collect data about people’s thoughts, feelings and experiences of resemblances. It would be difficult to collect this kind of information by asking people to fill in a questionnaire because complex information like this does not fit neatly into little boxes!
Techniques we used to collect our data
Having in-depth conversations about family resemblances with people in their own houses. We record these interviews and get them typed out so we can analyse them afterwards.
As part of the interviews, we often drew out family tree diagrams and looked through family photograph albums. The family album can contain lots of clues about family resemblances through the generations - you can look out for this later on in our photo competition winners and the family album pictures. The photo below is of a family tree diagram from an interview in somebody's home. The real names have been covered up. We use pseudonyms so that what people tell us is kept private.
We asked people to give their opinions on a number of scenarios about family resemblances. We were interested in the different ways that people handle dilemmas related to family resemblances and whether people have strong opinions about things like this. There are some examples of these dilemmas on boards around the exhibition - have a go and tell us what you think.
We asked people to see whether they could recognise resemblances between people in photographs. This helped us to understand the sorts of things that people look for when spotting resemblances. Here is an example: two of the people in these photos are related. Can you spot them? (Answers at bottom of page)
| A | B | C | D |
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We are also talking to some 'experts' on family resemblances, including a genetic counsellor, an adoption specialist, a genealogist (a family historian who helps people research their own family histories), and a disability activist. All of these people work in areas where ideas about family resemblance and what it means are important.
Using these techniques means that the data we collect are mainly in words, photographs and audio or video recordings rather than numbers. By the time we finish collecting our data we will have around 2,400 pages of typed-up interviews.
Answers to photo quiz above: B is D’s son.
