In a previous discussion I boldly claimed that I am now ready to move my dissertation proposal work to the stage where I begin writing about how I will actually operationalize constructs and analyze data. Well, let me now take a step back, back to the concept ideas I began developing in previous posts (especially here, here, and here.)
Jus my luck (either in truth or in sarcasm, I'm not sure which yet) that the one piece of my planned proposal that I am most excited about, the piece that has the greatest potential to be a truly "unique scholarly contribution" that we PhD students are supposed to be aiming for--that piece is the one I'm least sure of when it comes to concept development, methodology, and potential results.
Can I even answer the question:
"Why look for so-called 'genetic narratives' in the stories adoptive parents tell about their relatedness to their children in the first place?"
My first reaction to answering this question (which is part of articulating a purpose and rationale for the study) is to start big, with some highfalutin' justifications linked to the very survival of the family form in the genetics age.
Much more helpful, I think, would be to start smaller.
First, putting aside the "genetics" part for a minute, what am I getting at when I talk about adoptive parents' narratives?
1) Well, for one thing I'm getting at something that is kind of like a scientific theory--some kind of story that attempts to make sense of phenomena, that aims to relate some "truth" (though perhaps a tentative truth), and that is based on some combination of experience, observation, and received wisdom.
2) But these narratives are more like what are variously called naive theories, implicit theories, folk theories, or lay theories. One family researcher uses a phrase "theories families live by" to distinguish those stories family social scientists decide are interesting and research-worthy from those stories that real live families must construct in order to live their daily mundane lives (Daly, K. [2003]. Family theory versus the theories families live by. Journal of Marriage and Family, 65, pp. 771-784).
3) The word narrative is used a lot in academic contexts in all sorts of fields, and there are all sorts of methods of analyses that have been developed to analyze narratives as data--methods ranging from the extremely qualitative to the extremely quantitative. For my purposes, it might be useful to discuss a bit in my proposal some of these applications, especially in other fields. Narrative analyses have also been undertaken in at least three other MTARP projects, and of course I will definitely need to discuss these.
4) As I've already noted, one scholar has used "talk" to describe a concept related to a certain kind of narrative (Keller: "gene talk"). In one sense what I am after is much closer to "talk" than "narrative," as the latter seems to imply a lengthy story with a clear beginning, middle, and end. While I do believe that whole genetic narratives exist, I think with this data set what I'm likely to find is more like "genetic talk"--scattered throughout the interview, in response to a variety of questions (most having to do in one way or another with the general topic of difference), and in smaller chunks of conversation instead of longer stories. Now, taken together, these "talks" may constitute the start of a group-level "narrative"... But anyway, this is something that is not just important for conceptual reasons: The ways in which you should validly and reliably measure shorter chunks of text differ from the ways you should measure longer, more coherent pieces of text.
5) I've also fooled around with some other thoughts about what I am getting at: narratives as "frames" (see this post), "thought experiments" as a precursor to research (see my "Adoption, ART and the Social Contract" posts, like this one). The point is that a major part of my task in concept development will be to be clear about what informed me in my definition, what I see the concept as being like, and what I see it as being unlike.
6) One of the things most of these various permutations of narratives have in common is the centrality of metaphor. (I have a whole series of posts on metaphors, this one, for example.) That, then, is my first clue of one definite thing my eventual method involving genetic narratives will entail: attending to the metaphors used by adoptive parents in their genetic talk.
This helps me clarify the "what" of genetic narratives (or talk). But remember, my challenge was to articulate the "why."
I've started taking that step by step. I'll share this walk next time.
Posted by perry032 at January 25, 2005 11:37 AM | TrackBack