This article explores the benefits, drawbacks, and potential applications of an interviewing technique based on the use of cards printed with key research concepts related to the body. Informed by a feminist approach and a sociological interest in human embodiment, this method offered a playful way to elicit women’s embodied experiences in Argentina. The ‘concept cards’ were tangible objects that helped focus the interviewees’ attention, without being intimidating. They were also useful to address painful or sensitive topics without having to ask directly about them. They helped elucidate linkages between key topics, revealing patterns, order of relevance, contradictions, and the simultaneity of themes that are experienced in concert with each other. This method also revealed words filled with political or metaphorical significance, pointing to thorny, silenced, or contested issues. Initially conceived as an icebreaker, this simple, yet effective, technique yielded rich and complex narratives about women’s diverse bodily worlds.
Adair VC ( 2002) Branded with infamy: inscriptions of poverty and class in the United States. Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society27(2): 451-471.
2.
Atkinson P. and Delamont S. ( 2006) Rescuing narrative from qualitative research. Narrative Inquiry16(1): 164-172.
3.
Atkinson P. and Silverman D. ( 1997) Kundera’s immortality: the interview society and the invention of the self. Qualitative Inquiry3(3): 304-325.
4.
Balán J. ( 1991) Cuéntame Tu Vida: Una Biografía Colectiva del Psicoanálisis Argentino. Buenos Aires: Planeta.
5.
Ballantyne T and Burton A (eds) (2005) Bodies in Contact: Rethinking Colonial Encounters in World History. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
6.
Blake CE, Bisogni CA, Sobal J., Devine CM and Jastran M. ( 2007) Classifying foods in contexts: how adults categorize foods for different eating settings. Appetite49(2): 500-510.
7.
Bloom LR ( 1997) Locked in uneasy sisterhood: reflections on feminist methodology and research relations. Anthropology & Education Quarterly28(1): 111-122.
8.
Borgatti SP ( 1999) Elicitation techniques for cultural domain analysis. In: Schensul JJ, LeCompte MD, Nastasi BK and Borgatti SP, Enhanced Ethnographic Methods: Audiovisual Techniques, Focused Group Interviews, and Elicitation Techniques . Lanham, MD: AltaMira, 115-151.
9.
Borland K. ( 1991) ‘That’s not what I said’: interpretative conflict in oral narrative research. In: Gluck SB and Patai D (eds) Women’s Words: The Feminist Practice of Oral History. New York: Routledge, 63-75.
10.
Chang JC, Cluss PA, Ranieri L., Hawker L., Buranosky R., Dado D., McNeil M. and Scholle SH ( 2005) Health care interventions for intimate partner violence: what women want. Women’s Health Issues15(1): 21-30.
11.
Coffey A. and Atkinson P. ( 1996) Making Sense of Qualitative Data: Complementary Research Strategies. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
12.
Conboy K, Medina N and Stanbury S (eds) (1997) Writing on the Body: Female Embodiment and Feminist Theory. New York: Columbia University Press.
13.
Davis K. ( 1997) Embody-ing theory: beyond modernist and postmodernist readings of the body. In: Davis K (ed.) Embodied Practices: Feminist Perspectives on the Body. London: Sage, 1-23.
14.
Eisenstein Z. ( 2001) Manmade Breast Cancers. Ithaca, NY and London: Cornell University Press.
15.
Fonow MM and Cook JA ( 2005) Feminist methodology: new applications in the academy and public policy. Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society30(4): 2211-2236.
16.
Fraser M and Greco M (eds) (2005) The Body: A Reader. London: Routledge.
17.
Fraser N. and Gordon L. ( 1994) A genealogy of dependency: tracing a keyword of the U.S. welfare state. Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society19(2): 309-336.
18.
Gordon EJ ( 2001) Patients’ decisions for treatment of end-stage renal disease and their implications for access to transplantation. Social Science & Medicine53: 971-987.
19.
Guy DJ ( 1991) Sex and Danger in Buenos Aires: Prostitution, Family and Nation in Argentina. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press.
20.
Harding S. ( 1987) Feminism and Methodology: Social Science Issues. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.
21.
Hesse-Biber SN (ed.) (2007) Handbook of Feminist Research: Theory and Praxis. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
22.
Inckle K.(2010) Telling tales? Using ethnographic fictions to speak embodied ‘truth’ . Qualitative Research10(1): 27-47.
23.
Joseph G. ( 2000) Taking race seriously: whiteness in argentina’s national and transnational imaginary. Identities7(3): 333-371.
24.
Kelly GA ( 1991) The Psychology of Personal Constructs: A Theory of Personality . London: Routledge.
25.
Lal J. ( 1996) Situating locations: the politics of self, identity, and ‘other’ in living and writing the text. In: Wolf DL (ed.) Feminist Dilemmas in Fieldwork . Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 185-214.
26.
Leckenby D. and Hesse-Biber SN ( 2007) Feminist approaches to mixed-methods research. In: Hesse-Biber SN and Leavy PL (eds) Feminist Research Practice: A Primer. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 249-291.
27.
Lugina HI, Nyström L., Christensson K. and Lindmark G. ( 2004) Assessing mothers’ concerns in the postpartum period: methodological issues. Journal of Advanced Nursing48(3): 279-290.
28.
McCracken G. ( 1988) The Long Interview. Newbury Park, CA : Sage.
29.
McIntosh MJ and Morse J. ( 2009) Institutional review boards and the ethics of emotion . In: Denzin NK and Giardina MD (eds) Qualitative Inquiry and Social Justice. Walnut Creek, CA: Left Coast Press, 81-107.
30.
Margulis M and Urresti M et al. (eds) (1998) La Segregación Negada: Cultura y Discriminación Social. Buenos Aires: Biblos.
31.
Neufeld A., Harrison MJ, Rempel GR, Larocque S., Dublin S., Stewart M. and Hughes K. ( 2004) Practical issues in using a card sort in a study of nonsupport and family caregiving. Qualitative Health Research14(10): 1418-1428.
32.
Patai D. ( 1991) U.S. academics and third world women: is ethical research possible? In: Gluck SB and Patai D (eds) Women’s Words: The Feminist Practice of Oral History. New York: Routledge, 137-153.
33.
Plotkin MB ( 2001) Freud in the Pampas: The Emergence and Development of a Psychoanalytic Culture in Argentina. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
34.
Price J and Shildrick M (eds) (1999) Feminist Theory and the Body: A Reader. New York: Routledge.
35.
Roininen K., Arvola A. and Lähteenmäki L. ( 2006) Exploring Consumers’ perceptions of local food with two different qualitative techniques: laddering and word association. Food Quality and Preference17(1-2): 20-30.
36.
Rubin HJ and Rubin IS ( 1995) Qualitative Interviewing: The Art of Hearing Data. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
37.
Scheper-Hughes N and Wacquant L (eds) (2002) Commodifying Bodies. London: Sage.
38.
Shilling C. ( 2003) The Body and Social Theory (2nd Edition). London: Sage.
39.
Sprague J. ( 2005) Feminist Methodologies for Critical Researchers: Bridging Differences. Walnut Creek, CA: AltaMira Press.
40.
Stacey J. ( 1988) Can there be a feminist ethnography?Women’s Studies International Forum11(1): 21-27.
41.
Stake R. and Jegatheesan B. ( 2008) Access, a zone of comprehension, and intrusion. In: Jegatheesan B (ed.) Access, A Zone of Comprehension, and Intrusion. Bingley: Emerald, 1-13.
42.
Staller KM ( 2007) To get her heart in hand: passing words between an abused child and social worker practitioner. Qualitative Inquiry13(6): 766-786.
43.
Sutton B. ( 2008) Contesting racism: democratic citizenship, human rights, and antiracist politics in Argentina. Latin American Perspectives35(6): 106-121.
44.
Sutton B. ( 2010) Bodies in Crisis: Culture, Violence, and Women’s Resistance in Neoliberal Argentina. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.
45.
Swennen A., Jörg T. and Korthagen F. ( 2004) Studying student teachers’ concerns, combining image-based and more traditional research techniques. European Journal of Teacher Education27(3): 265-283.
46.
Taylor D. ( 1997) Disappearing Acts: Spectacles of Gender and Nationalism in Argentina’s ‘Dirty War’. Durham, NC : Duke University Press.
47.
Todres L. and Galvin KT ( 2008) Embodied interpretation: a novel way of evocatively re-presenting meanings in phenomenological research. Qualitative Research8(5): 568-583.
48.
Turner BS ( 1992) Regulating Bodies: Essays in Medical Sociology. London: Routledge.
49.
Witz A. ( 2000) Whose body matters? Feminist sociology and the corporeal turn in sociology and feminism. Body & Society6(2): 1-24.
50.
Young IM ( 1990) Throwing Like a Girl and Other Essays in Feminist Philosophy and Social Theory. Indianapolis, IN: Indiana University Press.
