The Textual Disembodiment of Knowledge in Research Account Writing

Abstract

Recent writers on autobiography and biography have questioned the extent to which the text represents a set of `facts' about `a life'. The following arguments question the extent to which the research account can be seen to represent a set of facts about the research process, in a simple and straightforward manner. Concepts problematized by writers on autobiography and biography, including authorship, self, time and memory, are used here to re-embody what will be argued is the textually disembodied knowledge contained in most research account writing. How simplistic invocations of these concepts can be seen as hinging on actually very complex textual constructions will be explored. The arguments have their source in two pieces of research writing; the first is a survey research account of some research undertaken for a master's thesis; the second was produced as a re-appraisal of that thesis, the purpose of which was to explore the more personal, autobiographical aspects of that same research process.

Keywords

autobiography biography survey research research accounts authorship self time memory textual analysis

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

ADAM, BARBARA . 1990. Time and Social Theory. Oxford: Polity Press.

ALDRIDGE, JUDITH. 1990. Feminism, Epistemological Orientation, and Personal Experience: A Theoretical Formulation and Empirical Investigation. Unpublished Master's Thesis: University of Western Ontario, Canada.

ALDRIDGE, JUDITH . 1991. "Research Accounts, Methqd in Sociology and "Social Reality": Some Reflections on the Production of a Thesis.' Feminist Praxis, Monograph 33, Manchester.

ATKINSON, PAUL . 1990. The Ethnographic Imagination: Textual Constructions of Reality. London: Routledge.

BENSTOCK, SHARI (ed.) 1988. The Private Self: Theory and Practice of Women's Autobiographical Writing. London: Routledge.

BRODZKI, BELLA and SCHENCK, CELESTE (eds.) 1988. Life/Lines: Theorizing Women's Autobiography. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.

CONWAY, MARTIN A. 1990. Autobiographical Memory: An Introduction. Milton Keynes: Open University Press.

DENZIN, NORMAN . 1989. Interpretive Biography. London: Sage.

DERRIDA, JACQUES . 1976. Of Grammatology. London: Johns Hopkins University Press.

10.

DERRIDA, JACQUES . 1987. The Post Card: From Socrates to Freud and Beyond. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

11.

FARRAN, DENISE . 1990. ` "'Seeking Susan": Producing Statistical Information on Young People's Leisure' in L. Stanley (ed.) Feminist Praxis: Research, Theory and Epistemology in Feminist Sociology. London: Routledge.

12.

GRAHAM, ELSPETH , HINDS, HILARY , HOBBY, ELAINE and WILCOX, HELEN . 1989. Her Own Life: Autobiographical Writings by Seventeenth Century Englishwomen. London: Routledge.

13.

HAGE, JERALD and MEEKER, BARBARA FOLEY . 1988. Social Causality. Boston: Unwin Hyman.

14.

HANKISS, AGNES . 1981. `Ontologies of the Self: On the Mythodological Rearranging of One's Life-History' in D. Bertaux (ed.) Biography and Society: The Life History Approach in the Social Sciences. Beverley Hills: Sage.

15.

JELINEK, ESTELLE (ed.) 1980. Women's Autobiography: Essays in Criticism. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.

16.

KOHLI, MARTIN . 1981. `Biography: Account, Text, Method' in D. Bertaux . (ed.) Biography and Society: The Life History Approach in the Social Sciences. Beverley Hills: Sage.

17.

LURIE, CELIA . 1982. `An Ethnography of an Ethnography: Reading Sociology'. Occasional Paper 9, Department of Sociology, University of Manchester.

18.

MCHOUL, A. W. 1982. Telling How Texts Talk. London: Routledge.

19.

MIDDLETON, DAVID and EDWARDS, DEREK (eds.) 1990. Collective Remembering. London: Sage.

20.

MILLER, NANCY K. 1991. Getting Personal: Feminist Occasions and Other Autobiographical Acts. London: Routledge.

21.

MOSER, CLAUS and KALTON, G. 1971. Survey Methods in Social Investigation. London: Heinemann.

22.

OLNEY, JAMES . 1980. `Some Versions of Memory/Some Versions of Bios: The Ontology of Autobiography' in J. Olney (ed.) Autobiography: Essays Theoretical and Critical. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

23.

PUGH, ANNE . 1990. `My Statistics and Feminism—A True Story' in L. Stanley (ed.) Feminist Praxis: Research, Theory and Epistemology in Feminist Sociology. London: Routledge.

24.

STANLEY, LIZ . 1990. "'A Referral Was Made": Behind the Scenes During the Creation of a Social Services Department "Elderly" Statistic' in L. Stanley (ed.) Feminist Praxis: Research, Theory and Epistemology in Feminist Sociology. London: Routledge.

25.

STANLEY, Liz and WISE, SUE . 1990. `Method, Methodology and Epistemology in Feminist Research Processes' in L. Stanley (ed.) Feminist Praxis: Research, Theory and Epistemology in Feminist Sociology. London: Routledge.

26.

STANLEY, Liz . 1992. The Auto/Biographical I: Theory and Practice in Auto/Biography. Manchester: Manchester University Press.

27.

STANTON, DOMNA (ed.) 1987. The Female Autograph: Theory and Practice of Auto-biography from the Tenth to the Twentieth Century. London: University of Chicago Press.

28.

STEIN, GERTRUDE . 1988. Lectures in America. London: Virago.

29.

WISE, SUE . 1990. `From Butch God to Teddy Bear? Some Thoughts on My Relationship with Elvis Presley' in L. Stanley (ed.) Feminist Praxis: Research, Theory and Epistemology in Feminist Sociology. London: Routledge.