Professor Elizabeth Ettorre School of Sociology & Social Policy

INTRODUCTION 1. AUTOETHNOGRAPHY IS A PART OF THE POST MODERN TURN. 2. METHODS AND DATA: DOING RELEXIVITY AS A FEMINIST DRUGS RESEARCHER 3. DOING DRUGS RESEARCH WITH DRUG USING WOMEN 4. DOING AUTOETHNOGRAPHY IN THE FIELD OF DRUGS RESEARCH 5. WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE? 2

AUTOETHNOGRAPHY AS A POST MODERN TURN A/E... a study of culture that involves the self. Strength... locates research experience in the changing ebb of emotional life... transform into narrative representations of political responsibility. Two genres: 'modernist observers' and 'postmodernist witnesses'. PM moves away from universalistic conceptions of respondents and embraces multiple, embodied forms of narrative representations, replete with uncertainties. 3

AUTOETHNOGRAPHY AS A POST MODERN TURN PM witnesses... voice to the structured silence of embodied experiences A/E... focuses outward on social and cultural aspects of personal experience... look inward, exposing a vulnerable self moved by cultural interpretations. A/E evaluated through two lenses, science and art A/E a substantive contribution to an understanding of social life… aesthetic merit … author's reflexivity and accountability … impact on the reader and express a reality. 4

METHODS AND DATA: DOING RELEXIVITY AS A FEMINIST DRUGS RESEARCHER Transcriptions of narratives and research notes To write from the heart, bring the first person in my work and merge art and science'. I remember the melancholy … … Processing data through me as the now sitting on my own feminist drugs researcher. Evoke in your readers a feeling that your experience is described as lifelike, believable and possible 5

METHODS AND DATA: DOING RELEXIVITY AS A FEMINIST DRUGS RESEARCHER I do emotional recall Sociological introspection … I found sadness within each story Dialogical exchanges in relationship and display how our research conversations are always already a give and take – a pull of emotions and a sharing of realities altered in these research exchanges... 6

DOING DRUGS RESEARCH WITH DRUG USING WOMEN – THE STORIES 9 September 2005 Mary 7

DOING DRUGS RESEARCH WITH DRUG USING WOMEN - THE STORIES 28 September 2005 Cheryl 8

DOING DRUGS RESEARCH WITH DRUG USING WOMEN - THE STORIES 10 October 2005 Hilary 9

DOING DRUGS RESEARCH WITH DRUG USING WOMEN - THE STORIES 12 October 2005 Jean 10

DOING AUTOETHNOGRAPHY IN THE FIELD OF DRUGS RESEARCH Alvesson & Sköldberg (2000) - 4 elements in reflective research 1) techniques in research procedures with well- reasoned logic in interacting with ones data; 2) an understanding of the primacy of interpretation; 3) awareness of the political-ideological character of ones research and 4) recognition of the problem of representation of the text and authority of the researcher. 11

CONCLUSION: WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE? A/E is a helpful method of telling research stories Clarify and authenticate their self-images and feelings through writing reflexive stories. Parallel narratives Research process is always a giving and receiving, an ebbing and flowing of information; a closing off and opening up of emotions and different realities. Going from understanding to empathy in our work Think and feel with their research stories. 12

CONCLUSION: WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE? Being reflexive through A/E is one way of mounting this challenge and creating steps towards opening that door in the drugs field and learning to sensitize the I in research. 13

Thank you for Listening 14