'Being there': multidimensionality, reflexivity and the study of emotional lives

Emotional lives tend to be untidy. Yet despite a growing recognition of this, sociological research designs rarely mirror the multidimensionality they are striving to represent. This article takes as its starting point a recent study of beliefs and practices about emotional support and emotions talk...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inThe British journal of sociology Vol. 62; no. 3; pp. 462 - 481
Main Author Brownlie, Julie
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Oxford, UK Blackwell Publishing Ltd 01.09.2011
Blackwell
Wiley Subscription Services, Inc
Subjects
Activities of Daily Living - psychology
Aspiration
Beliefs
Conceptualization
Cultures and civilizations
Data Collection - methods
Emotions
emotions talk
England
Humans
Interviews as Topic
Lifestyles. Everyday life
Memory
Methodology
mixed methods
multidimensionality
rationalization
reflexivities
Reflexivity
Researcher-Subject Relations - psychology
Social behaviour
Social psychology
Social research
Social support
Sociological Research
Sociology
Sociology - methods
Studies
United Kingdom
Great Britain
United Kingdom > UK
Multidimensional Scale
mixed methods
Everyday Life
multidimensionality
emotions talk
rationalization
reflexivities
Emotions
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Summary:Emotional lives tend to be untidy. Yet despite a growing recognition of this, sociological research designs rarely mirror the multidimensionality they are striving to represent. This article takes as its starting point a recent study of beliefs and practices about emotional support and emotions talk in Britain, to illustrate how a methodologically mixed approach offers particular purchase on what passes between us in our everyday emotional lives and in research about these lives. The notion of 'being there' is drawn on to help make this argument. Moving between 'being there' as topic, a form of emotional support, and 'being there' as a methodological resource, the article concludes that the analytical claims we make about our emotional lives are strengthened through a methodologically mixed - and by necessity, reflexive - approach which explores, rather than smooths out, the ragged, sometimes indeterminate, edges between methods.
Bibliography:istex:FE9D4D868F2B154990E19C45025D6FD5C35F4325
ArticleID:BJOS1374
This study was made possible by a grant from the Economic and Social Research Council (Res 062-23-0468). Thank you to the BJS reviewers for their patience and generous help. Thank you also to Bill Munro, Irene Anderson and especially to the members of the research team - Simon Anderson, Susan Reid, Lisa Given, Chris Creegan and Nicola Cleghorn of the National Centre for Social Research - and those people who took part in interviews.
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ISSN:0007-1315
1468-4446
1468-4446
DOI:10.1111/j.1468-4446.2011.01374.x