Carla Willig

The SAGE handbook of qualitative research in psychology

PART ONE: METHODS Ethnography - Christine Griffin & Andrew Bengry-Howell Action Research - Carolyn Kagan, Mark Burton & Asiya Siddiquee Conversation Analysis - Celia Kitzinger & Sue Wilkinson Discursive Psychology - Sally Wiggins & Jonathan Potter Foucauldian Discourse Analysis - Michael Arribas-Ayllon & Valerie Walkerdine Psychoanalytic Approaches TO Qualitative Psychology - Stephen Frosh & Lisa Saville Young Memory Work - Niamh Stephenson & Susan Kippax Narrative Psychology - David Hiles &Ivo Cermak Phenomenological Psychology - Amedeo Giorgi & Barbro Giorgi Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis - Virginia Eatough & Jonathan A. Smith Social Representations - Uwe Flick & Juliet Foster Q Methodology - Paul Stenner, Simon Watts & Marcia Worrell Grounded Theory - Kathy Charmaz & Karen Henwood PART TWO: PERSPECTIVES & TECHNIQUES Ethics in Qualitative Research - Svend Brinkmann & Steinar Kvale Qualitative Methods in Feminist Psychology - Mary Gergen Visual Approaches - Paula Reavey & Katherine Johnson Using and Interpreting Images Using the Internet for Qualitative Research - Alison Evans, Dick Wiggins & Jonathan Elford Using Computer Packages in Qualitative Research - Christina Silver & Nigel Fielding Mixing Qualitative and Quantitative Methods - Lucy Yardley & Felicity Bishop A Pragmatic Approach PART THREE: APPLICATIONS Social Psychology - Steve Brown & Abigail Locke Health Psychology - Kerry Chamberlain & Michael Murray Developmental Psychology - Erica Burman Clinical Psychology - Dave Harper Counselling and Psychotherapy - Joseph G. Ponterotto, Geena Kuriakose & Yevgeniya Granovskaya Educational Psychology - Andy Miller, Victorial Hobley, Lisa DeSouza & Tom Billington Work and Organizational Psychology - Jo Silvester Forensic Psychology - Peter Banister Community Psychology - Carrie E. Hanlin, Kimberly Bess, Patricia Conway,Scotney D. Evans, Diana McCown, Isaac Prilleltensky & Douglas D. Perkins Cultural Psychology - Leslie Swartz & Poul Rohleder Cognitive Psychology - Thomas C. Ormerod & Linden J. Ball Postcolonialism and Psychology - Catriona McCloud & Sunil Bhatia Review and Prospect - Wendy Stainton Rogers & Carla Willig

Critical Realism in Discourse Analysis A Presentation of a Systematic Method of Analysis Using Women's Talk of Motherhood, Childcare and Female Employment as an Example

In critical realism, language is understood as constructing our social realities. However, these constructions are theorized as being shaped by the possibilities and constraints inherent in the material world. For critical realists, material practices are given an ontological status that is independent of, but in relation with, discursive practices. The advantage in taking a critical realist, rather than relativist, approach is that analysis can include relationships between peoples material conditions and discursive practices. Despite calls to develop a critical realist discourse analysis there has been little empirical critical realist work, possibly because few have addressed the critique that critical realists have no systematic method of distinguishing between discursive and non-discursive. In this article we outline a three-stage procedure that enables a systematic critical realist discourse analysis using womens talk of motherhood, childcare and female employment as an example.

A Phenomenological Investigation of the Experience of Taking Part in `Extreme Sports'

This article is concerned with what it may mean to individuals to engage in practices that are physically challenging and risky. The article questions the assumptions that psychological health is commensurate with maintaining physical safety, and that risking ones health and physical safety is necessarily a sign of psychopathology. The research was based upon semi-structured interviews with eight extreme sport practitioners. The interviews were analysed using Colaizzis version of the phenomenological method. The article explicates the themes identified in the analysis, and discusses their implications for health psychology theory and practice.

Women's collective constructions of embodied practices through memory work: Cartesian dualism in memories of sweating and pain

The research presented in this paper uses memory work as a method to explore six womens collective constructions of two embodied practices, sweating and pain. The paper identifies limitations in the ways in which social constructionist research has theorized the relationship between discourse and materiality, and it proposes an approach to the study of embodiment which enjoins, rather than bridges, the discursive and the non-discursive. The paper presents an analysis of 25 memories of sweating and pain which suggests that Cartesian dualism is central to the womens accounts of their experiences. However, such dualism does not operate as a stable organizing principle. Rather, it offers two strategies for the performance of a split between mind and body. The paper traces the ways in which dualism can be both functional and restrictive, and explores the tensions between these two forms. The paper concludes by identifiying opportunities and limitations associated with memory work as a method for studying embodiment.

Painting pictures of embodied experience: the use of nonverbal data production for the study of embodiment

This paper is based upon the work of an ongoing, collective research project that is concerned with embodiment. The co-researchers have used a variety of methods, including memory work and the analysis of discourse, in order to trace the ways in which meanings are constructed and lived, with and through the body. These methods have relied solely on transcripts of text as data. Growing awareness of the limitations this imposed on the research, particularly for topics that focus on bodily experience, led the group to experiment with nonlinguistic forms of data production. Here, the group produced paintings in response to the trigger ‘ageing’. These, together with tape-recorded discussions of one anothers paintings, constitute our data. The analysis generated a number of themes, focused within the concepts of boundaries, time and transformation. These are discussed in terms of methodological, epistemological and theoretical issues that inform our understanding of subjectivity and embodiment.

Cancer diagnosis as discursive capture: Phenomenological repercussions of being positioned within dominant constructions of cancer

This paper is concerned with the phenomenological repercussions of being positioned within widely available discursive constructions of cancer. One of the many challenges of being diagnosed with cancer is that it requires the person to make sense of the diagnosis and to find meaning in their changed circumstances. From a social constructionist point of view, such meaning is made out of discursive resources which are available within ones culture. This paper critically reviews some of the dominant discourses surrounding cancer which are available within English-speaking Western industrialized cultures. It maps out the discursive positions available to those diagnosed with cancer and it traces some of their implications for how cancer may be experienced and how it may be lived with. As such, this paper is concerned with the social and psychological consequences of being positioned within dominant cancer discourses.

Reflections on the Use of a Phenomenological Method

This paper offers reflections on the use of a phenomenological method in the exploration of the experience of taking part in extreme sport. A phenomenological method was chosen in an attempt to gain some understanding of the meaning and significance of an embodied experience. The paper presents a brief account of the process and outcome of the research. This is followed by a discussion of the researchers experience of conducting phenomenological research and the kind of knowledge that was produced as a result. Reflections revolve around the openness of the method and its ability to reveal a phenomenon, the degree to which it is able to capture uniqueness and specificity, problems around translation and language, recruitment of participants, and, finally, issues around the relationship between description and interpretation. The paper concludes with some recommendations for phenomenological research practice.

“I Don’t feel like melting butter”: An interpretative phenomenological analysis of the experience of ‘inorgasmia’

Inorgasmia is under-studied in the domain of sexual health psychology. This study explores womens experiences of inorgasmia and the meanings giving to this experience. Interviews with six inorgasmic women were analysed using interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA). The analysis showed that the absence of orgasm was experienced as problematic and disturbing. A search for reasons for their condition, and its effects on self-image and self-confidence underpinned the experience of inorgasmia as a problem. The spectrum of meanings surrounding female orgasm demonstrates that, far from being perceived as a merely physical experience, the moment of orgasm takes on relational significance and it has implications for the womens identities. The paper identifies areas for future research and theorising.

‘You get the nicotine and that in your blood’—constructions of addiction and control in women's accounts of cigarette smoking

In this study discourse analysis was used in order to gain a greater understanding of the multiple meanings that women smokers attach to cigarette smoking. The discursive constructions used by women to explain and justify their smoking behaviour were identified by analysing the transcripts of four semi-structured interviews. All respondents framed their accounts of cigarette smoking within a discourse of addiction, reflecting the prevalence of this construction within the disciplines of medicine, psychology and health promotion. The deterministic and disempowering implications of this discourse are discussed in relation to the subsequent identification of constructions of control and self-regulation which were utilized by most of the respondents. This article also discusses the significance and implications of these discursive constructions to health promotion efforts.

`You Punched Him, didn't You?': Versions of Violence in Accusatory Interviews

This paper explores the management in police-suspect interviews of accusations of violent involvement. Eleven officially taperecorded interviews between police and suspects were transcribed and analysed and a basic grammar of violent accusations was identified. Different ways in which accusations are warranted and contested are discussed and instantiated. It is suggested that the interview participants use two discourses of violence: disorderly and justificatory. The paper explores their localized deployment and raises issues concerning their wider ideological implications.