12.0 Active interviewing

The theme of this exploration is the concept and phenomenon of shame. I am
concerned with how the concept is used and understood and how it manifests
itself as a phenomenon. Shame can be investigated in many other ways, which I
have not included in my exploration. A few of these possible research
alternatives are; the functional anatomy of shame in the human brain through
neuroscience (Franks 2006), the relationship between shame and evolution as
described in evolutionary biology and social evolution (Darwin 1872/2007;
Wilson 1975/2000; Hammond 2006), shame as a biological affect (Buck 1999), the
role of shame in psychological disorders (Freud and Breuer 1895/2004; Tompkins
1963/2008; Lewis 1971), the relationship between shame and sex, gender, power
and status (Kaufman and Raphael 1996; Shields, Garner, Leone and Hadley 2006),
the relationship between shame and other self-conscious affects like guilt and
pride (Tangney and Dearing 2002), the connection between shame and violence in
destructive conflicts (Scheff and Retzinger 1991), shame and racial
discrimination (Harvey and Oswald 2000), shame and culture (Lutwak, Razziono
and Ferrari 1998; Bedford 2004; Ho, Fu and Ng 2004; Thonney, Kanachi, Sasaki
and Hatayama 2006), shame and socialization (Cole, Tamang and Shrestha 2006),
and shame as a political, existential and emotional state (Seu 2006).
These examples illustrate the large
variation in the field of shame research. Guba and Lincoln (1989) have
characterized the different forms of scientific research by using four methods
of evaluation; measurement (first generation evaluation), description (second
generation evaluation) and judgement (third generation evaluation). The above
mentioned examples are all objectively oriented descriptive approaches. I
intend to focus on an alternative approach which Guba and Lincoln (1989) call a
responsive constructivist evaluation (fourth generation evaluation). It is
responsive because the approach is an interactive and negotiated process
between the researcher and the respondents, and constructivist because it is
concerned with interpretation and hermeneutics (Guba and Lincoln 1989: 38-39).
The responsive constructivist paradigm is therefore rather different from the
scientific mode which is characterized by measurement, description and
judgement. This alternative approach is also called a naturalistic perspective
and the method used in the interactive and negotiated process is often called a
naturalistic inquiry (Lincoln and Guba 1985).
Took me time to read all the comments, but I really enjoyed the article. It proved to be Very helpful to me and I am sure to all the commenters here! It’s always nice when you can not only be informed, but also entertained!
ReplyDeletegroom suits