Producing Possible Hannahs:
Theory and the Subject of Research
Eileen Honan, Michele Knobel,
Carolyn Baker and Bronwyn Davies
A version of this
paper was published in: Qualitative Inquiry, 2000, 6(1): 9-32. Copyright © 2000 by Sage
Publications, Inc. All rights reserved.
Abstract
This paper presents and
compares three analyses of qualitative data drawn from an
ethnographic case study, using distinctive theoretical approaches.
The paper shows the power of theoretical approaches to constitute the
'subject' of a study and to constitute the character of the social
world in which such a subject is situated. The three readings of the
data produce different possible 'subjects' located in differently
constituted, possible worlds. By putting theory at the centre of
analysis, the paper shows how theoretical approaches radically
influence what can be found in the data, and how it can be found
there.
Introduction
This paper contributes to a growing
dialogue about multiple and divergent analytical approaches used by
qualitative researchers (cf. Green & Harker, 1988; Reid, Kamler,
Simpson, & Maclean, 1996, Creswell, 1998). Cresswell (1998) has
compared five different traditions in qualitative research, showing
how they vary in terms of theoretical and philosophical frameworks,
data collection, data analysis , reporting and standards of quality
and verification. Our purpose is different, and more specific: to
show in high relief the constitutive force of theory within the
analysis of qualitative materials. Accordingly, we examine a set of
data, bringing to it three different readings from three different
theoretical framings. In this way, '[w]e seek ways of telling good
stories that draw attention to themselves as stories' (Reid et al.,
1996, p.102). We reveal the different work that we do to make
studenthood visible and analysable by focusing on a 12 year old girl
whom we have called "Hannah".
Our respective theories and
methodologies are: D/discourse theory, feminist poststructuralism and
ethnomethodology and conversation analysis. All three approaches are
intensely interested in language. We do not propose that these
approaches are commensurate. Rather, we want to show the different
work that can be done with each of them, what each framing enables us
to see in the data. We have taken the concept of 'studenthood' as a
leit motif for each of our readings in order to construct points of
common reference in our respective sections of the paper.
The corpus of data drawn on for this
study was itself made up of myriad texts. It was collected by Michele
as part of her doctoral research; a multiple ethnographic case study
of four adolescents and their literacy practices at home and at
school (Knobel, 1997, 1999). For the purposes of this paper Michele
provided us with both primary and secondary data from her case study:
audiotapes; transcripts of interviews and lessons; and the chapter on
Hannah from the book that grew out of the doctoral thesis. We each
read and discussed part of this data, and then separated to write our
different sections. Each section of the paper produces a different
understanding of either Hannah or the research process.
Our different ways of 'seeing' through
and by means of our respective theories are made manifest in the
kinds of research questions we pose in response to what we see as
'problem areas' or dimensions of classroom activity that warrant
scrutiny and analysis. Michele's use of D/discourse theory generates
questions like: "What Discourses constitute and coordinate Hannah's
'studenthood' and the ways she enacts being a student?" Eileen and
Bronwyn's feminist poststructuralist framing enables them to
construct questions such as: "How do we see the dual processes of
being subjected and of becoming an agentic subject playing themselves
out in the episodes of Hannah's life that Michele has made available
to us?" Carolyn's use of ethnomethodology and conversation analysis
enables her to ask questions like: "How is Hannah found to be a 'good
student' through people's witnessing of classroom scenes in which she
is present?" Each of these sets of questions is grounded in different
assumptions about discourse, about individual subjects, and about how
these are identified and analysed.
We aim to speak across and through our
differences by showing how diverse frameworks can produce quite
different "clicks of recognition" (Lather, 1991, p. 69). Each
framework generates a different way of reading the data, a sense of
what can be found in it.
D/discourse coordinations and 'being a student'
(Michele's reading)
Introducing
Hannah
Hannah's slight build and brown,
shoulder length hair, worn mostly in two neat plaits, tend to make
her look younger than she is (12 years). Hannah has an open face, an
impish smile and a quirky sense of humour. Hannah lives at home with
her mother and father, her older brother, Craig (15 years), and
younger sister, Laura (7 years). Hannah's family seems a close and
loving one.
Hannah's school has a large student
population drawn from predominantly working class and underclass
families. Hannah is in a 'double' class comprising 54 students and
two teachers, Mrs. Evans (known as Mrs. E.) and Mr. Brunner. Like the
school, it is culturally and linguistically diverse, and has a high
rate of transience, and the bulk of the students in this class seem
to be very worldly wise and street smart. Hannah has a small group of
close friends at school, which includes her best friend since Year 1,
Virginia. This group is completed by another two girls, Phaney and
Tran, from Cambodia and Vietnam respectively. Virginia, however,
appears to be the only friend with whom Hannah socialises regularly
outside school.
D/discourse
Theory
In analysing the data collected during
time spent with Hannah, her teachers and classmates, and with her
mother and sister, I looked for - among other things - patterns of
what Gee calls 'Discourse memberships'; that is, particular patterns
of 'ways of talking [i.e., discourses], acting, valuing, and
believing, as well as the spaces and material "props" [a] group uses
to carry out its social practices' and that are recognised as
constructing opportunities for people to 'be', and to display being,
a particular kind of person (Gee, 1992, p. 107). For everyone, these
displays of social identity and Discourse membership are multiple and
always under negotiation in the contexts, practices, and politics of
everyday life. In addition, membership in a Discourse may come 'free'
by being born in/to it (what Gee calls one's 'primary Discourse'; for
example, being born Catholic), or it may come by default by means of
one's dealings in and with certain social institutions (being a
student, and the many social forms - i.e., sub-Discourses - this can
take, is a case in point). Moreover, it is possible for a person to
be a member of what might be seen as socially conflicting or
seemingly contradictory Discourses; that is,
[p]eople can be members of
many, even conflicting Discourses, can give relatively pure
or mixed performances within their own Discourses in
different contexts, can borrow from one another, can confuse
them, can give them up, actively resist them, or take overt
pride in them (Gee, 1993, p. 34).
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The jostlings and flows of Discourses,
our memberships in, or not in, them along with the choices we make
constitute and coordinate our selves and our everyday lives. It is
Hannah's identities as a student and the Discourses and discourses
(the language bits of Discourses; Gee 1993, p. 14) that both
coordinate her displays of self and enable her to display them in
which I am most interested here. What I present does Hannah an
injustice as her everyday life is far more complex than it will
appear in what follows.
The Construction of
Studenthood in Hannah's Classroom
The teachers in Hannah's classroom
worked to establish students as independent, self-motivated learners
who would be able to 'survive' in terms of language abilities and
social skills outside school. Most students within this class, apart
from Hannah, did not seem to enact or aim for these values and goals.
Hannah, however, certainly appeared to embody her teachers'
aspirations for their students. Indeed, in startling contrast to most
of her classmates, Hannah was what could be called a 'model' student.
She was rated as an 'above average' student, and her teachers
repeatedly commented on her ability to apply herself to her school
work.
Hannah's 'ways of being a student',
which necessarily includes a number of other identities, is explored
below via a 'snapshot' of a classroom event.
SNAPSHOT 1: GETTING
DOWN TO THE TASK AT HAND
(Monday 28
November, 11:10 a.m. Day 6 of observations)
EVENT: LANGUAGE
LESSON (IMMEDIATELY AFTER MORNING TEA)
SUBEVENT 1: Silent
reading
The students move
into the classroom and find their seats, or mill about
talking to each other. Hannah sits at her desk without
speaking to anyone and takes out her book, The Door in the
Wall (Ashton Scholastic). Mrs. E. and Mr. Brunner wait for
everyone to be seated, then set about identifying which
students are yet to hand in their Novel assignment. Hannah
seems engrossed in her book while this is
happening.
Jethro, who sits
beside Hannah, leans over and takes a pair of scissors from
Hannah's desk. She appears to ignore him. Jethro sits and
trims the green fuzz from a tennis ball with the scissors,
then gently jabs Hannah in the arm with them before putting
the scissors back on her desk.
Hannah continues to
read.
(11:15 a.m.) Mrs.
E. informs the class that they have five minutes of silent
reading left before moving into their reading groups.
Students around Hannah are variously engaged in reading
novels, magazines, novelty books, chatting, or simply
sitting with their heads on their desks. Jethro shifts
around in his seat, bounces the tennis ball on his desk a
few times, and yawns loudly. Two students from another class
come to the door and ask who would like to play softball for
Friday sport. Hannah looks up briefly, then returns to her
reading.
SUBEVENT 2:
Introducing the next section of the lesson
(11:22 a.m.) Mr.
Brunner tells his student group to come and sit in the large
space in the center of the room. Hannah puts her book away
and sits on the floor, somewhat on her own. Virginia sits
with another girl. Mr. Brunner explains that the task he is
about to give them is part of their final assessment for
their current unit on Greek mythology. Hannah appears to
listen carefully, regularly raises her hand in response to
Mr. Brunner's questions, and is called on to provide
answers. The students are sent back to their desks with a
worksheet each, and Hannah begins working immediately.
(11:31 a.m.) After
some time, Hannah raises her hand, but Mr. Brunner is
engaged in redirecting a student who is in the wrong group.
Hannah lowers her hand, then fetches a dictionary from the
bookshelves and appears to look up a word. A group of
students discuss with Mr. Brunner where the Achilles tendon
is located. One student loudly suggests that it's "in my
bum." Hannah continues working.
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Classroom events and practices like
the ones above were repeated over and over again during the two weeks
I spent in this classroom. Indeed, I found that most of my fieldnotes
were more about other students than about Hannah. Once I had
described the task she was involved in, there was often very little
else to write about her for long periods of time. Hannah was never
reprimanded by her teachers, but neither did she seem to be teased by
her classmates for behaving in ways that some may have regarded in
others as being a "goody-goody" or "teacher's pet" (and therefore
generally unacceptable).
Being a (model)
student and a 'nice girl'
To begin with, I found myself somewhat
at a loss in trying to interpret the Discourses that may have been
constituting and coordinating Hannah as a model student. It would
have been easy to claim that Hannah was fully and unquestioningly
complying with the student sub-Discourse championed by her teachers.
Or, equally, it would be possible to say that Hannah was coordinated
by Discourses that require young girls to act in nice, respectful,
and dutiful ways. In one sense, these kinds of interpretations are
confirmed by Hannah herself. During the familiarisation visit, for
example, Hannah described how in class she sits next to Jethro, who,
despite his reputation with her teachers, she finds very funny. In
her words, "I try not to talk to him, but sometimes I just have to
risk it" (my emphasis). Jethro is 12 years old, but is approximately
175cm (5' 9") tall and weighs about 70kg (154lbs). He has a volatile
temper and few students deliberately cross him. Remarkably, however,
he appears to get on well with Hannah. Numerous times, too, I
overheard Hannah telling someone not to talk to her during class work
times. Thus, it seems that examples such as these signal Hannah's
membership in, use of, and coordination by a particular student
sub-Discourse and/or, for want of a better term, what could be called
a 'nice girl' Discourse.
I was convinced, however, that these
Discourses were not the only ones coordinating Hannah's identities
and subjectivities as a particular kind of student. To begin with,
Hannah demonstrated a remarkable self-sufficiency both at school and
at home. Hannah worked independently in class, and often solved any
difficulties she encountered in her schoolwork on her own (see, for
example, snapshot 1 above). This is confirmed in her semester school
reports. For example, her report for the first semester of that year
described Hannah as 'a friendly, courteous class member who works
quietly on tasks with minimal supervision.'
At home, Hannah also appeared to be
encouraged to be self-sufficient by her parents, and particularly by
her mother, Julia. For example, during the afternoon of the second
day of school-based observations, Hannah asked whether I would mind
not sitting with her group of friends at lunchtime any more because
her friends 'can't be themselves when you're around.' Later, Julia
explained to me that this had been a dilemma for Hannah, and that
Hannah had wanted her mother to approach me about not conducting
lunchtime observations. Hannah, however, was told it was her
responsibility to ask me.
At the risk of over-interpreting these
and other similar observations, I propose that the self-sufficiency
enacted by Hannah is not explored satisfyingly by means of nice girl
Discourses alone, which in the main tend to emphasise dependency and
acquiescence (cf. Gilbert & Taylor, 1991). In addition, however,
and as indicated above, I propose that Hannah was being coordinated
as well by the sets of values, beliefs, and practices that
characterised her primary Discourse and thus, in particular, her
relationship with her mother.
Julia, Hannah's mother, often included
the word 'cope' in her talk about her everyday life and, for a number
of reasons has had to find ways of dealing with the everyday demands
of raising a family successfully in an area in which she felt she
didn't belong. At times, I had the distinct impression that Hannah
was trying to protect or help her mother by, among other things,
behaving impeccably at home and at school (unlike her brother,
Craig). Once again, this is only a hunch and cannot be substantiated
with material evidence from fieldnotes or interviews. Nevertheless, I
am convinced that Julia's values, beliefs, actions, practices, and so
forth, directly coordinated much of Hannah's primary Discourse, and
hence, the ways in which Hannah claimed and acted out certain
identities in class and at home.
Acting
up
In stark contrast with her in-class
identity, Hannah usually spent her lunch hours devising elaborate and
humorous skits and dance routines with the help of her three friends;
Virginia, Phaney, and Tran. These skits were mostly spoofs on popular
culture and often included messages about class differences. These
skits were developed largely by Hannah and Virginia, and spoke to
their vivid imaginations and keen senses of humour. This love of
performing constitutes the subject matter of a second
snapshot.
SNAPSHOT 2: ACTING
UP
(Thursday, 1
December, 1:00 p.m. Day 9 of observations)
EVENT: HANNAH AND
HER FRIENDS PERFORMING SKITS
SUBEVENT: The
second skit
The entire class is
seated in one half of their large classroom, with the
dividing curtains pulled across to form the wings of a
makeshift stage. Hannah primes the audience as to what lies
ahead, explaining that Virginia is a model who is trying to
draw attention to herself. Virginia's hair is tied into
myriad small pigtails, held in place with strips of brightly
coloured cloth. Each girl has a long strip of cloth and uses
it as a feather boa.
They strut down the
'catwalk,' swinging their hips, pouting, shimmying their
shoulders, and singing "We're models, on the catwalk. I wave
my tush on the catwalk" in a direct and hilarious parody of
the popular song, I'm Too Sexy. Hannah and Virginia make a
second run down the catwalk and when they reach a certain
point Virginia breaks into a frenzy, pushing Hannah out of
the way, and singing at the top of her voice, "I'm too sexy
for my socks, too sexy for my undies," and so forth.
Their classmates
and teachers are shrieking with laughter by now. Hannah
grabs Virginia, gives her a good shake and asks her what
she's doing. Virginia explains that she does indeed want
more attention than Hannah. Hannah stamps her foot, and says
that they'll have to do it all over again. They try two more
times, threading their way out into the audience,
seductively dragging and draping their strips of cloth over
everybody as they sing. Twice more, Virginia reaches a
certain point and explodes into unrestrained singing about
how sexy she is. Eventually, Virginia agrees to behave, and
they finally manage to complete their song about models on
the catwalk. Just as they are about to leave the 'stage'
however, Virginia runs close to the audience and sings her
own version of the song at double-speed, before being chased
off by Hannah. Their classmates and teachers cheer and
clap.
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It's Easier
Without the Script
For Hannah, it seems that devising and
practicing dance routines and humorous skits is an important part of
her life. When asked how they went about devising each skit, Hannah
explained 'We just do, it's too hard to explain.' I also asked
whether they wrote scripts or plot descriptions for each skit, and
Hannah explained, 'No, we just remember the words. It's easier
without the scripts.' Another time, Hannah explained that the main
aim of each play was to make other people laugh, therefore the
principal criterion for initially judging the quality of a skit was
whether or not it made them all laugh while they were devising it.
Hannah later declared that if people didn't laugh at their plays,
then she felt silly. Perhaps, too, this may help explain why she
presents a synopsis of each skit to her audience just prior to it
being performed.
I was startled by the apparent
incongruity between these girls' identities and practices during
class, and the practices and identities explored during lunch hours
and occasionally performed for their peers and teachers. All of the
skits I saw dramatised by this group were unrestrained in nature, and
often sexually or socially daring, engaging Hannah and her three
friends in a range of usually extroverted roles. Hannah and her
friends' skits and self-devised dances constituted contexts for
exploring and experimenting with a range of identities and subject
positions other than those offered by their schooling, or by their
primary Discourses (cf., Neilsen, 1998). Although this group drew on
television, magazines, and personal experiences in devising skits,
this did not appear to be a simple matter of 'writing themselves as
girls' and perpetuating a patriarchal Discourse that very often
scripts particular social identities and subject positions for girls
at school (Gilbert ,1989, p. 263).
Even though their skits featured
symbols, artefacts, and practices often associated with 'being (a
particular kind of) female' these things were not always presented in
terms of enacting 'positions that rely upon a hierarchical
construction of male/female relationships' (Gilbert, 1992, p. 3). The
theme recurring most in Hannah's short plays was class difference
rather than male/female relationships or nice girl identities.
Accordingly, these plays were performed in ways that showed 'poor'
(or working class) people to be resourceful and strong, and 'posh'
(or middle upper to upper class) people as ineffectual and weak. This
did not necessarily reflect the socioeconomic status of Hannah and
her friends' families, but it certainly captured themes familiar
within this school and its encompassing community.
To pick up on an event described
earlier, Hannah's claim that her friends 'couldn't be themselves'
while I was watching them during their lunchtime rehearsals was
intriguing to say the least. It left me wondering which 'self' they
were enacting during their lunch hour; obviously it was not the usual
'self' of the classroom. These young women may have been constructing
ways, no matter how seemingly inconsequential, of resisting
identities and subjectivities that have been mapped for them by
others, and grounded in the community in which they find themselves
growing up (e.g., identities such as: being mothers, being
disadvantaged, being powerless).
Negotiating
Discourse Memberships
The preceding discussion of Hannah is,
of course, far from complete, and focuses primarily on an examination
of some of Hannah's identities enacted in school contexts.
Nevertheless, it usefully demonstrates my thesis that notions of
D/discourse enable engaging insights into some of the complexities
characterising Hannah's 'studenthood' at a given moment in time and
space. I found in the course of the original study that interpreting
Discourses requires both knowledge of and professional distance from
a range of Discourses. In Hannah's case, I have to admit to
difficulties encountered with respect to identifying-and knowing
about-possible Discourses constituting and coordinating her social
identities, due in large part to my limited experiences in and
knowledge of the kind of community in which Hannah lives.
Her model student behaviour in class
initially made interpretations about her possible Discourse
memberships almost impossible. However, as indicated earlier, it
seemed too easy to simply assert that Hannah thoroughly complied with
nice girl and model student Discourses.
Thus, Hannah's Discourse memberships
appeared to be complex. At least to me, her identity as a 'model'
student in class contrasted sharply with the images she projected and
the identities she enacted in performing the skits she scripted with
Virginia and the others. I may also have been party to a period in
Hannah's life when she was shifting from being a full member of
Discourses that valued childhood innocence and pursuits (e.g.,
Cabbage Patch Dolls, fairies, letters from Santa, Enid Blyton
books)-coordinated by her primary Discourse-towards Discourses that
value, among other things, modern music, contemporary dancing,
authors such as R. L. Stine, and fashionable clothes (e.g.,
particular teen gal Discourses, professional theatre Discourses).
This was not to suggest that her primary Discourse would be
abandoned, but that it may have become more open to questions and
negotiations by means of having access to other Discourses.
To me, Hannah herself seemed to be
signalling a change when she talked about becoming 'more interested'
in certain things (e.g., music and dancing), than she had been in
others (now identified as 'silly things'). Perhaps, too, her skits
were ways of commenting on differences between her primary Discourse
and her coordination by other Discourses that are conceivably more
adult-seeming to her. Indeed, Gee's distinction between primary and
secondary Discourses proved invaluable in interpreting Hannah's
possible Discourse memberships, coordinations, and social identities.
Taking up Positions: A Poststructuralist reading of
the data (Eileen's and Bronwyn's reading)
In contrast to Michele's initial
reading of Hannah's activities as apparently anomalous, we begin with
the assumption that subjects are contradictory, since they are
constituted through contradictory discourses. We don't find it
surprising that a young girls can be a model student and also someone
who produces brilliant bawdy scripts. We see Hannah as successfully
drawing on different discursive practices to position herself in ways
that others recognise as legitimate, even laudable. From a
poststructuralist perspective, subjects can only take up positions
available to them. Hannah has drawn on the available positions of
'model' female student, 'model' daughter, and bawdy teen performer,
and worked them to her own advantage.
Discursive
Possibilities
The materials present Hannah in a
number of situations: in class interacting with friends and with
teacher, or quietly working and at the same time being recorded by
and interacting with Michele; interacting with her mother and with
Michele; practicing and performing in a number of 'skits' which
parody aspects of modern life. We read these moments not as signals
which reveal the 'real Hannah' but as excerpts from Hannah's
life-in-process, Hannah's multi-layered life unfolding. This reading
of a life-in-process is fundamental to poststructural
theory:
The subject of
poststructuralism, unlike the humanist subject, then, is
constantly in process; it only exists as process; it is
revised and (re)presented through images, metaphors,
storylines and other features of language, such as pronoun
grammar; it is spoken and re-spoken, each speaking existing
in a palimpsest with the others. ... Poststructuralist
discourse entails a move from the self as a noun (and thus
stable and relatively fixed) to the self as a verb, always
in process, taking its shape in and through the discursive
possibilities through which selves are made. (Davies, 1997,
pp. 274- 275)
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Our interest, then, is in the
discursive possibilities made available to Hannah, and how she works
with them. The recognition by others of Hannah as legitimately and
successfully taking up the position of bawdy teen performer is
probably facilitated by the teacher's perception of her as 'a good
girl':
Mr. Brunner :
((transcript of
interview))
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I don't believe Hannah
will have a problem wherever she goes. She's got
that type of attitude and doesn't let things around
her bother her
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Hannah visibly works at this
positioning. This work is part of the work that she and other
students do to collaborate and cooperate with teachers to construct
the order of the classroom (Davies, 1983). In the following excerpt,
Hannah has gone to another classroom to consult a book to be found
there which will give her the spelling of the word she wishes to
write. She comes back and begins to write it down only to find she is
not absolutely sure whether her memory is serving her correctly. She
seeks an intimate moment with Mr. Brunner where they work out
together a strategy for Hannah to achieve something which Mr. Brunner
will read as perfect. She achieves at the same time a participation
on the part of Mr. Brunner in the construction of Hannah as wanting
perfection. If she had silently written what she had found, Mr.
Brunner might have missed the pleasurable moment of reading Hannah as
working with him in his classroom to achieve perfection. She
apparently thus gains pleasure for herself and provides pleasure for
Mr. Brunner at the same time as she achieves a clear reading of
herself as model student. She disrupts her invisibility in a way that
is acceptable to Mr. Brunner and so can ensure that her virtue does
not go unnoticed.
Hannah
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Mr. Brunner, can I just ask
you something quickly?
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Mr. Brunner
|
Yes, Hannah
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Hannah
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Is this how you spell
'Poseedan'- 'Poseidon'? P-O-S-E-I-D-O-N?
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Mr. Brunner
|
Can I have a look at it? I
need to look at it to see
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[( )
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Hannah
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[Yeah, I don't know if the E
and the I are the right thing
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Mr. Brunner
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((Looks at the spelling in
her book)) You just write it down the other way, that's the
- that's the best way I do it (3.0). It wasn't in the
mythology book?
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Hannah
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Yeah it was
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Mr. Brunner
|
Which way was it spelled in
the mythology book?
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Hannah
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That's the way that I
remember it (spelt) in there
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Mr. Brunner
|
That looks - I think that
looks right, E-I, D
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Hannah
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Okay ((returns to her desk))
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((Transcript of taped lesson
1))
Recognisability
Mr. Brunner can also call on Hannah to
demonstrate to others in the class how to be a model student. In the
following excerpt Hannah is positioned as one who knows, in contrast
to students in the class who are struggling to answer questions in an
assessment of their work during the term. Hannah needs to do no more
than nod her head to affirm to Mr. Brunner that she knows, and that
the knowledge Mr. Brunner wants the others to have is reasonable -
that his teaching is both successful, in the case of Hannah, and
reasonable. Hannah could not achieve so much with a simple nod if she
did not also engage in the kind of work she undertook in the prior
transcript which establishes 'who she is' in Mr. Brunner's eyes. She
has made herself recognisable as competent student, and Mr. Brunner
in the following excerpt signals to her that he recognises her as
competent student. Being able to occupy the positioning of competent
student requires both of these. It is not enough to have the
appropriate repertoire of skills, nor even to perform them, one must
perform them in a way that makes them recognisable as such, and be
recognised in doing so. Hannah's performance, along with that of Dean
and Bradley, is in contrast to the students whose answers suggest
that they have not been listening.
Mr Brunner
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This is your work, not
anybody else's. If you don't know what Achilles is, or where
it is, don't ask anyone else (2.0) Because I'm sure there
are probably a half a dozen or more people in here that
do.... know where it is. Would I be right,
Daniel?
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Daniel
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Yep
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Mr. Brunner
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Would I be right, Ali? Would
I be right, Brett?
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Brett
|
Sir?
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Mr. Brunner
|
Do you know where it
is?
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Student
|
I do
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Mr. Brunner
|
Where your Achilles is... you
don't know. You know, Kevin? You know Ben
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Ben
|
Yes, sir
|
Mr. Brunner
|
You know, Peter?
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Peter
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Yeah. I think so
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Mr. Brunner
|
You know?
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Student
|
Yes
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Mr. Brunner
|
You know Hannah? ((she
nods)). Kurt?
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Kurt
|
Do I know what,
sir?
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Mr. Brunner
|
You know where your Achilles
is?
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Kurt
|
Yeah
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Student
|
I do
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Student
|
They're down about here,
aren't they sir?
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((Transcript from taped lesson
1))
As Valerie Walkerdine (1990) has
shown, one of the dominant discourses surrounding the position of
female primary school teacher is that of teacher as nurturer, as
carer, as surrogate mother. Hannah is recognised by Mr Brunner and
the other students as a pseudo teacher, as a person who is caring,
helpful, and attentive to others. There are numerous examples of
Hannah working with other students in the classroom, especially in
the ongoing dialogue between Virginia and Hannah.
Virginia
|
((moving over to Hannah's
desk)) Look Hannah, I am finished my
second....thing
|
|
[( )
|
Hannah
|
[Ve:ry go:od.
|
Virginia
|
And, a:nd (when I've done
this work, then )
|
Hannah
|
Just put our thing there, and
that- (and you can write that way)
|
((Transcript Taped Lesson
1))
Here Hannah actively takes up the
position of teacher/tutor assisting in school work. But she also
actively collaborates with students such as Jethro in ways that
facilitate their non-conforming behaviour, without disrupting Mr.
Brunner's agenda. In Snapshot One Michele refers to the interplay
between Jethro and Hannah as Hannah quietly reads and Jethro gently
jabs her and plays with a pair of scissors and a tennis ball. Here we
see the competency with which Hannah moves fluidly between seemingly
contradictory positions. While she enacts the model student position,
she also enjoys being a part of the unruly class of which she is a
member. Consider her comments earlier to Michele about risking
talking to Jethro, and this excerpt:
When asked to respond in
writing to a question I [Michele] asked: "At the moment, the
people I like to be with the most are…," Hannah first wrote
"friends", then crossed it out and wrote "my class, because
we muck around and have lots of fun." (Knobel, 1999, p.
183)
|
At home, Hannah also appears to be a
'model': a good dutiful daughter to her mother, for example in her
assistance in the construction of her mother, Julia, as a
storyteller. This assistance itself forms part of the construction of
the model student-daughter position that Hannah takes up. Hannah
'encourages' her mother, 'elaborates' on her mother's storytelling;
not only taking up the dutiful daughter position, but also using her
knowledge of teaching and classroom life and of how good students
facilitate the performances of their teachers (Davies, 1983). Michele
writes:
Narratives about Julia's childhood
appear to be an important part of Hannah's interactions with her
mother. As mentioned earlier, Hannah liked nothing more than to hear
her mother and aunts swapping tales about growing up in northern New
South Wales. Indeed, Hannah encouraged her mother to include me in
these patterns of talk by telling Julia to recount to me particular
events that Hannah obviously knew by heart, but which still
entertained her. For example, Hannah begged Julia to tell me the
story 'about the thistles and the cart and the electric fence' while
we were sitting having a cup of tea at the kitchen table. Julia told
the tale, with elaborations and asides from Hannah (Knobel, 1999, p.
176).
Extending
Possibilities
What is fascinating to us is not so
much how Hannah is subjected to the discourses surrounding the
construction of the model female student and daughter, but how she
actively takes up these positions to her own advantage. In other
words, Hannah takes the power through which she is shaped (and shapes
herself) as good student and good daughter and uses that power to
extend the possibilities available to her. This feature of power is
elaborated by Butler:
Power acts on the subject in
at least two ways: first, as what makes the subject
possible, the condition of its possibility and its formative
occasion, and second, as what is taken up and reiterated in
the subject's own acting. As a subject of power (where 'of'
connotes both 'belonging to' and 'wielding'), the subject
eclipses the conditions of its own emergence; it eclipses
power with power... the subject emerges both as the effect
of a prior power and as the condition of possibility for a
radically conditioned form of agency (Butler, 1997, p.
14).
|
In this analysis the conditions which
make possible Hannah's power, or agency, are precisely the willing
take up of being subjected to the available discourses. One cannot
become a subject without being subjected. The important insight
Butler offers is that submitting to the power of others in order to
achieve recognisability, does not mean that you cannot take up the
power so achieved in gaining that recognisability to exceed, to go
beyond what those who afforded you recognition had imagined
possible:
Agency exceeds the power by
which it is enabled. One might say that the purposes of
power are not always the purposes of agency. ... agency is
the assumption of a purpose unintended by power, one that
could not have been derived logically or historically, that
operates in relation of contingency and reversal to the
power that makes it possible, to which it nevertheless
belongs (Butler, 1997, p. 15).
|
Our reading of Hannah as agentic is
based on her take up of 'model student' and her use of that position
(with all of its constraints) to generate possibilities for herself
and others which move beyond what powerful others could have
imagined. Because of Hannah's recognisability as model student she
can afford to take up with a great deal of energy the production of
bawdy skits which Michele first found incongruous with her conception
of 'good girl'. 'Poststructuralism opens up the possibility of
encompassing the apparently contradictory with ease - even, on
occasion, with pleasure' (Davies, 1992, p. 59). Such multiplicity can
be achieved by Hannah in her school without anybody noticing that she
has "transgressed" any boundaries: having achieved recognisability as
competent, the boundaries lying around what she can 'successfully' do
are interestingly broad. At the same time, Michele notes that Hannah
is a severe critic of her own performances: they are only successful
from her point of view if they produce the desired reaction from her
audiences. Mr. Brunner, as teacher, talks of her performances in
terms of 'outlets' (presumably for creative energy), the extension of
'genres' that she is able to achieve through this work, in terms of
her 'talent', and in terms of her engagement in 'fantasy'. He and
Michele muse over the complexity of Hannah: she loves fantasy, she's
very dramatic, she produces hilarious shows, she looks so quiet (and
yet) she has a fertile imagination. At the same time she is a clever
lady, a real little lady.
Mr. Brunner
|
It gives her another outlet.
It gives her a different outlet, whereas before she may have
only been able to write, like she's very- she's quite a
talented writer. She can write in a number of genres very
successfully. But this just enhanced her outlook in another
way she could write if she wanted to. A bit of fant- it's
almost like a bit of fantasy, I guess.
|
Michele
|
Yes, well she loves
fantasy
|
|
[she told me
|
Mr. Brunner
|
[Yeah, she does. She loves
it. She does love fantasy. She's very dramatic, and that-
fantasy really appeals to her. You can just see it when she,
'Ooh' ((pulls an excited face)) that- that- facial
expression. They're funny, aren't they?
|
Michele
|
Oh that was
hila:rious
|
Mr. Brunner
|
Did you see the water skiing
one? Ohh, it's a real belly laugh, I tell you, you just
can't ((laughter))..
|
Michele
|
Tears in your eyes and
things. Yeah. It's very, yeah, and who was I talking to? Was
doing ...was it you? Yeah, it was you, about how she's so-
looks so quiet,
|
|
[and then =
|
Mr. Brunner
|
[Yeah, and then she's all of
a sudden, yeah
|
Michele
|
= Comes out with these
things. Yeah, she must have a fertile imagination, I
supp-
|
Mr. Brunner
|
Clever lady
|
Michele
|
Yeah, yeah
|
Mr. Brunner
|
She's a little
lady
|
((Transcript of interview with Mr
Brunner))
Hannah is undoubtedly able to be read
as being subservient, as a good girl who is 'quiet, well behaved'.
She can be read at the same time as one who is not restricted to the
power through which she is shaped. She extends her agency beyond what
the adults in her world could have intended for her. The repertoires
of what it is possible to be in her world are extended by her in ways
that adult onlookers find surprising, even puzzling, at the same time
as they assent without demur to her status as 'clever' and as a
'little lady'.
Accomplishing Hannah as a Research Subject
Carolyn's reading)
In this section of the paper I draw on
the resources of ethnomethodology and conversation analysis to study
some of the texts that were generated in the study of Hannah. I
describe how Hannah is accomplished as a research subject by looking
at the ethnographic materials for evidence of "Hannah-producing"
activity.
Hannah-in-the-Classroom
A different approach that can be taken
to the question of Hannah's accomplishment of studenthood is to
situate Hannah within and against the classroom as a social and moral
space. The point is how Hannah is found to be a good student through
anyone's witnessing of classroom scenes in which she is present.
Hannah is reflexively constituted
through her and others' actions within and against the backdrop of
the classroom as an arena of social practice. As analysts, we do the
same work as anyone else, using the same resources, to find Hannah as
a particular kind of character; in this instance, a good student.
Hannah emerges for the analyst/witness as a kind of character only
against an array of multiple other types of characters. These types
of characters are themselves produced from within the scene itself,
by the participating members. Analysing members' work makes visible
how the social and moral order of the classroom - in which we look
for and find Hannah - is assembled.
Documentary
Subjects
In order to proceed with this
analysis, it is necessary to begin with the circumstances of the
production of the available documentary evidence of
Hannah-in-the-classroom. The audiotapes are the primary evidence in
this instance and the transcript is an aid to analysis. There are two
points to be made in particular regarding these materials.
First, the classroom was wired for
sound in a very particular way for the recording of the events. Both
the teacher and Hannah, and only the teacher and Hannah, are wearing
microphones, identifying them to everyone as central characters in
the scenes to be enacted and recorded. (Two other microphones were
set on stands and placed around/in the classroom). Hannah is
presumably meant to be 'representing herself' as a student during the
period of the study. However the teacher is organised as a research
subject as much as is Hannah and can therefore be understood also to
practice some form of self-representation as a teacher and for the
record. Thus both are 'documentary' subjects: they document who they
are as they speak and interact. However as I will show, Hannah is
produced as a good student in large part through what the teacher
says, which for the most part is not about Hannah at all. The
teacher's self-representation as teacher of Hannah's class is
intricately part of the recording of the classroom scenes.
Second, the transcript is itself a
theorisation of the classroom events to be studied through it. It is
an interpretive description of some of what is seen and heard. It is
a textual representation of lived actuality, and not the actuality
itself (Smith, 1990, p. 151). It is also a particular depiction of
the classroom and the characters in it: 'transcription assigns a
social, political, or moral order to the scene being transcribed'
(Baker, 1997a, p. 112). In the transcripts we are using in this
article, the transcriber has already partialled out some of Hannah's
microphone talk into 'asides' as distinct from the 'main' lesson or
action. The double columns work perfectly and powerfully for my
argument that Hannah is produced only within and against the backdrop
of the classroom. The textual device of two columns strongly invites
us to read Hannah against this prior (left hand column) background,
which is organised largely by the teacher's talk. In this sense
Hannah is a good student that the recording, transcribing and reading
help to make happen.
These circumstances of production
therefore have implications for analysis. Reading Hannah as a
character in the classroom scene means reading the scene as well.
What is undertaken, then, is a version of the 'documentary method of
interpretation' (Garfinkel, 1967) in which 'particulars' are
interpreted with reference to an 'underlying pattern', and in which
both the particulars and the underlying pattern are open to revision
in light of each other. In this case we look for and interpret
Hannah's 'particulars' within and against the simultaneously
transcribed 'adjacent pattern' of the general classroom interaction.
Further, both the teacher and Hannah, wearing microphones, are
'documentary subjects' in the sense that they speak and interact 'as
Hannah' and 'as the teacher' in the classroom. They document for the
researchers just who they are.
The
teacher's talk
The beginning of the transcribed
lesson shows Mr. Brunner organising the class into his desired
configuration, while 'to the side' Hannah and her friend are talking
quietly to each other. Mr. Brunner's voice is meant to carry across
the classroom, while Hannah's is not. It seems that Hannah and her
friend are already seated where they should be. This observation
comes from noticing the teacher's talk. In his talk Mr. Brunner not
only commands the class to sit on the carpet, but adds a description
of a potential problem of some people not getting there fast enough.
This description begins his identification of categories of students:
those who don't move fast enough (and by implication, those who do).
This talk appears to be directed at the 'guys,' but everyone can hear
it.
Main lesson
|
Asides
|
001 Mr. B: Can I have the
people working on mythology sitting on the carpet area
please
002 Mrs. E: ((To her language
group))Can I have two lines at the door please. We're going
outside today.
((General preparation
noise))
|
|
005 Mr. B. Uhm, I'd like you
on the floor now thank you, not in ten minutes. Denny C
where should you be?
006 Denny ( )
007 Mr. B. Well, move your
butt!
((General noise))
|
003 Student 1: How come
you're wearing a microphone?
004 Hannah: 'Cause she's
doin' it on me. You don't have to whisper. You can talk to
me ((with reference to the taping))
|
|
008 Virginia: ( )
009 Hannah: Mr. Brunner has
got it
|
010 Mr. B. All the chairs can
be pushed in thankyou
|
|
|
011 Hannah: Sallie, you can
talk to me, OK. You-
012 Sallie: Why?
013 Hannah: 'Cause you talk
to Virginia like you talk to me
014 Sallie: O:K ((smiles))
Okay
|
015 Mr. B. You guys, I
wouldn't even finish that- moving that stuff, please.( )
Wayne and Matt.... I do not want you two to sit near each
other... for obvious reasons
|
|
|
016 Sallie: (They can't sit
together, ever)
|
In line 015 the teacher makes a very
public announcement about two boys who should not sit together, and
intimates a known-in-common reason why they should not. Another
category, students who mess around with each other, is implied in
this talk. These announcements that carry with them indications of
what might occur but should not (taking ten minutes, messing around)
begin to describe the moral order of the classroom. Those who are not
singled out as recipients of this talk can hear themselves as
behaving properly for the moment at least. The singling out of people
and associated wrong behaviours supplies a kind of moral map against
which anyone can assess themselves. The production of instructions
plus elaborating detail (here, through 'don't' statements) produces a
moral landscape.
Imagine the teacher, then, not only as
organiser of the students' activities, but also as a tour guide
taking us, the overhearing audience, through the moral landscape of
the classroom. Microphone in hand, he tells us to beware the valley
of sloth over there, and to avoid the rapids of rebellion over here.
He may on occasion point out the island of peace (Hannah). Such a
travelogue might also be produced under non-research conditions, but
it is clearly produced here. The teacher documents his own intimate
knowledge of the landscape by making these announcements.
The talk in the left-hand column is
analysable as the teacher's talk about himself as much as about the
students and their practices. It can be heard as a running
documentation of how alert, observant, and 'on patrol' the teacher
is, producing the teacher that ideally matches this class, the one
who knows its landscape even in the dark (what could happen in the
shadows, as well as what is happening in the daylight).
It is in contrast with the other
students who are not working properly as announced by Mr. Brunner,
that we find Hannah to be available to the teacher, to herself, and
to the researcher as a good student. Mr. Brunner's travelogue, while
never mentioning Hannah, provides the backdrop against which Hannah,
the other students, and the researchers can locate Hannah this way.
Thus it is not just that Hannah accomplishes being a 'good student'
through what she does, but that the teacher, the transcriber and the
readers of the transcript accomplish her that way.
The classroom transcript works to
organise our reading of the scene. By giving Hannah a whole column to
herself, and leaving it empty for the most part, the text makes us
'see' Hannah as other than, apart from, the rest of the class as well
as quiet and industrious when she does appear. Without the research
interest in Hannah, and the methods used to make her visible, casual
observers of the classroom might not have noticed such a quiet,
studious student since in the classroom transcripts there is so much
other action surrounding the teacher and the boys.
Accomplishing Hannah-in-Interview
Interview talk can be seen as one of
many interactive events in which people accomplish a sense of being a
particular kind of person. In the study from which these materials
are drawn, the interviews can be seen as additional sites where
Hannah, her teacher, and/or her mother accomplish versions of Hannah
and, in doing so, versions of themselves speaking as teacher or
mother. These, like most research interviews, are category-based and
the talk that goes on within them may be viewed as work using the
resources of membership categorisation (see Baker, 1997b; Antaki
& Widdicombe, 1998). The interviewer is inevitably intimately
engaged in the construction of these versions through the questions
that are asked and through how she hears what is said (Baker, 1982,
1984).
To revisit the metaphor introduced
earlier, Hannah and others here are also 'documenting themselves' as
subjects of the research. In interviews, they provide 'particulars'
about themselves that serve as clues to the researcher's interest in
the 'underlying pattern' to which these particulars might point.
This can be shown using a segment of
an interview conducted on the first day of observations:
111 Michele
|
Right OK OK. uhm, and what
about your friends, Phaney and Tran, did they come here as
refugees, or they just moved over?
|
112 Hannah
|
N:o, I think they were
actually born here. I'm not too sure. I think Phaney might
have actually moved over here, and so did Tran. But I don't
know- I don't know much, I just know that they- Tran's come
from Vietnam. Phaney's come from Cambodia. That's all I
know.
|
113 Michele
|
Right. That's all they've
ever told you. Yeah yeah. And sometimes it's hard to ask
people more
|
114 Hannah
|
Well I've never even really
thought about it ((smiles))
|
115 Michele
|
Oh ((laughs)) No, no, I was
just interested. Okay, and if you had three wishes in the
whole world, what would you wish?
|
((Transcript of Interview
4)).
What we see in turns 111-115 is a
brief, fleeting interaction in which Hannah expresses her lack of
knowledge of her friends' histories and in which the interviewer
acknowledges that finding.
In asking the question in turn 111,
the interviewer has offered a description of Hannah by implying that
she could know this information; possibly, that she should know it.
It is in this sense that no question is neutral in respect of the way
it characterises the person being interviewed, it is
identity-implicative social activity. Hence, the identity work that
emerges in the interview is a product of the questioning as much as
of the answering.
Hannah's 'lack of knowledge' just
discovered, is entirely a product of the question having been asked
in the first place. Otherwise it would never surface as a
'particular' about Hannah. What is most compelling about the identity
work in this fleeting segment, however, is the way in which the
interviewer works with Hannah to account for her lack of knowledge
and thus to recover her as a person who, on further reflection, might
not be expected to know this information. The sequence involved in
this 'repair' work is quite elegant (turns 113-115).
To extend these observations on the
interactive 'documentation' of Hannah, I will discuss a segment that
follows closely the segment just presented. (In the intervening
turns, 116-118, Hannah offered a wish that pollution would go away.
The interviewer accepts this in 119 but continues as
shown).
119 Michele
|
Right. Uh-huh, what if you
had three wishes just for yourself?
|
120 Hannah
|
U:hmm..... u:hmm... that my
scho:ol- that all my friends and all the people in my class
and friends and stuff, that- and that my school was like in
out in the country- we lived out in the country. So we're
like based out in the country, and I still have all my
friends and the teachers
|
121 Michele
|
Why's that?
|
122 Hannah
|
'Cause I'd like to live out
there. Don't like living here
|
123 Michele
|
Why- How come you
[do-
|
124 Hannah
|
[Oh I like- I like living
here but, I like country better
|
125 Michele
|
Why's that?
|
126 Hannah
|
Well, I haven't actually
lived there, and I like- I like to like, have fun and (
)
|
127 Michele
|
Oh is that right? What did
you want to be when you leave school?
|
128 Hannah
|
I have different ideas.
Teacher, marinologist... stuff like that
|
129 Michele
|
Okay, why a
marinologist?
|
130 Hannah
|
'Cause I like sea
animals
|
131 Michele
|
Yeah, OK. Do you get to the
beach much?
|
132 Hannah
|
No
|
133 Michele
|
And did-... have you always
visited your grandma in Casino, or when she was on the farm
as well?
|
134 Hannah
|
Uhm, n:o. They moved from the
farm before I was born
|
135 Michele
|
Oh I see. Right. Yeah... I
was going to ask you something else.. all right, so that's
one wish that- for yourself, do you have any
more?
|
((Transcript of Interview
4)).
In turn 120, Hannah shows some
difficulty with finding candidate 'wishes' to fill this category, but
settling on the idea that she would like it if her school and all of
her friends and teachers could move to the country. This may or may
not be an order of 'wish' intended by the interviewer as a wish 'just
for herself'.
The interviewer's follow-up turns
which seek explanations produce answers by Hannah in which she offers
more particulars about herself: 122, she does not like living in the
city; 124, she does like living in the city, but prefers the country;
126 she has not 'actually' lived in the country. Hannah produces two
self-corrections in this segment, each prompted by the interviewer's
'why' question (124, 126). It seems the interviewer is after some
kind of accounting for Hannah's wish. Hannah deflects the accounting
in each case, once by withdrawing her prior assertion that she
doesn't like living "here"(124) and once by correcting a claim
inferrable by the interviewer that she has lived in the country
(126). She is revising the particulars of herself as a documentary
subject in these turns.
In turn 126, Hannah calls on another
membership category as part of the production of herself at this
moment in the interview. First she offers the confession or
concession that she has not 'actually' lived in the country (which
may be hearable as a weakening of the rationality of her wish). She
follows this with an appeal to herself as someone who 'likes to have
fun'. This dramatically shifts who she is speaking as, from the 'wish
+ reason producer' organised by the interviewer, to something like
'just a kid'. This effectively stops the prior line of questioning,
and with a new topic introduced by the interviewer in turn 127, and
the identity work goes on.
The interviewer and Hannah could both
take it that the point of having the interviews is to gain a sense of
who Hannah is. I have suggested that it might be differently
described as work that produces, for Michele and Hannah, a sense of
who Hannah could be. I have shown the interactive work that has gone
into the proposing and the management of 'particulars' about Hannah,
some of which are proposed and withdrawn, that is, deleted from the
record. Others are let stand.
This analysis of interview talk shows
how Hannah hears and deals with the identity implications in
Michele's line of questioning. Previously I showed the identity
implications in the transcription of classroom interaction. In both
sets of materials, the researcher is deeply implicated in
accomplishing Hannah as a documentary subject. What Hannah does in
interview, and possibly also in class, is to participate in that
accomplishment.
Conclusion
We have produced three very different
readings of the materials, and consequently three different versions
of "Hannah". These are three "possible Hannahs". They might be
summarised, reading backwards from the third to the first section of
the paper, as follows. 1) Hannah as a participating member of
interactive research scenes (transcriptions of classroom events and
interviews) who engages in the production of who she could possibly
be taken to be; (2) Hannah as a subject of power who through her
positioning and recognisability is able to surpass the limits of
power assigned to her; (3) Hannah as a practitioner of and negotiator
of Discourses which also coordinate her activities and her identities
and subjectivities in and out of school. Our interest is definitely
not in which is right or better, but when could each one be useful
and for what purpose?
This paper is a demonstration of the
idea that different analytic approaches radically influence what can
be found in the materials. Many more readings could be produced from
them. Each analytic approach works with a different vocabulary, and
each vocabulary signals the different ways that individuals and
social practice are characterised within that approach. Each of the
readings that we have produced calls on different orders of evidence
for its claims to adequacy. Each presents a different proposal for
how to read the materials and for making sense of them.
Further, each reading has assigned to
Hannah different "powers" as a participant/subject in social
activity. The powers she is given in the first reading are the
taken-for-granted powers anyone would have within the terms of each
particular Discourse once they had been co-ordinated by that
Discourse. In the second reading she is seen to be a subject of
power/discourse, as someone who cannot have power unless she is
subjected, but who, in being subjected, opens up the possibility of
going beyond the terms of her subjection. Hannah's powers as a
research subject are made explicit in the third reading and are
implicit in the first two. "In theory" and "in analysis" we have
given Hannah these attributions - of powers and of discursive
resources. This may well reflect some of our feminist projects and
imaginations. There is probably no kind of social science that does
not either give or withhold such attributions.
It seems a useful question to ask of
any qualitative or quantitative work, what kind of subject is being
produced through theory and/or analysis? The descriptive and analytic
texts that we produce are themselves documents revealing the
constitutive effects of discourse. Equally, we need to look at what
kind of social world it is that the subject of research is inserted
into, and how she fits it or does not fit. There are also very
different versions of the social world proposed heuristically in our
three readings: put very simply, one a world full of D/discourses,
another full of positionings and a third full of talk-in-interaction.
The 'subject of theory' has to be understood as much more than, say,
"Hannah" in this case. These are possible Hannahs located in possible
worlds.
A corresponding question that arises
also is whether any reading is as much about Hannah as it is about
the reader/analyst herself. Clearly in this article we have exploited
the research materials about and relating to Hannah in order to show
the work we can do from different analytical positions. In this sense
we have written a paper that is, in effect, not about Hannah at all.
Our respective sections of the paper have become the subjects of each
other's reading. The 'subjects' of research are likely always wider
than an individual, a case study, a setting, or a problem, and
probably always include writers and readers of analytic papers. The
positive endpoint of this chain of reasoning is that studies of
methods of inquiry are at least as informative as studies of
documentary materials for showing the constitutive force of theory in
qualitative data analysis..
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Biographical
sketches
Carolyn Baker is an Associate
Professor in the Graduate School of Education at the University of
Queensland. She specialises in qualitative methodologies,
particularly in the use of ethnomethodological and conversation
analytic approaches to analysing data.
Bronwyn Davies is a Professor of
Education at James Cook University and specialises in poststructural
theory and research on gender with a particular interest in classroom
practice.
Eileen Honan is undertaking a PhD at
James Cook University, investigating female teachers' interpretations
of the Queensland English Syllabus. She is currently working at the
Papua New Guinea Education Institute as Head of Language.
Michele Knobel is an Adjunct Associate
Professor at the Central Queensland University. Her research
interests lie chiefly in the areas of young people's language
practices, new technologies and new literacies. She lives in Mexico
City.
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