Whose view of the brain? - applying Mead's social view of self

Like most part time PhD students, I'm juggling things and wishing I had more time. Recently, I've started data collection - conversations with research participants, which has led to the dreaded transcribing. I'm also reading and loving both de Silva (2007) "G H Mead - a critical introduction", Cambridge: Polity Press and Joas, H. (2001) "The Genesis of Values", Cambridge: Polity Press. All of this is good - the books, especially are 'bringing together' for me strands of thinking and feel like the right territory as someone who has read around a bit now in pragmatism and symbolic interactionsim. 

The down side has been that, what with the academic 'day job' and four children there hasn't been much writing. A few journal notes, of course, but no real work on the draft article I'm supposed to be working on with social work colleagues about social work relationships and constructing meaningful shared action in assessment. People do ask 'how many words have you written', perhaps imagining that my PhD thesis is simply in my head and all I need to do is get it out directly. 

So, the nearest I've got to that this last couple of weeks has been thinking about the radio. When I'm not cycling to work, I have the car - which has just had its radio fixed. Today, I listened to a  part of a programme on BBC Radio 4 - about neuroscience and behaviour change, actually. It proved to be useful food for thought, unexpectedly for thinking about G.H. Mead's (social) view of self and, well, how it wasn't represented at all in a very 'scientific' view of not just the brain but, by inference, wider assumptions about the nature of the 'self'.

A series of very authoritative people were involved in this programme, most quite interesting, with valid things to say - however - what struck me was the overwhelming view of consciousness (and to some extent the inference of 'self') as a purely cerebral (in the literal sense) process, contained in the skull. 

I thought of G H Mead's (radical) alternative to both this view of consciousness as biology or as Cartesian mind / body spilt. Mead proposed a view of consciousness as a fundamentally social process - requiring interaction with others for its genesis and development. His views on the four stages of the act illustrates this well (see the link to Mead in this post:

1. Impulse: a response to novel situations.
2. Perception: definition of a 'problem'.
3. Manipulation: action taken on the basis of the second phase.
4. Consummation: where the act is resolved.

Forgetting the detail, G.H. Mead's theory links the individual mind to the actions of others and so 'thinking' becomes fundamentally social. Listening to this particular programme, however, you would think that anything of significance happens only in the brain, misleadingly 'underselling' the interactive relationships that are actually reflected in brain activity. 

My point? If you don't have lots of time to write - and we need to make time - it's also good to think critically and analytically about material uncritically 'presented' to us in everyday life, seeing it from a particular theorists perspective. This does not mean I don't need to adapt Mead's view, or I buy in to all its ontological basis but I do extend my understanding of the thing by using it. A good pragmatic perspective, perhaps?

breaking out of the 'interview' paradigm

Following on from my last post, I've got some perspective on my frustrations with aspects of the early 'research conversations' I've been doing. These frustrations, I hasten to add, are not to do with the participants, but more about the nature of the narratives generated, including the visual element I plan.

I think, on reflection, I have been anticipating and evaluating research conversations from a rather 'traditional' interview paradigm, in which (amongst other things):

• I focus on the audio 'product' of the session.
• I look for sections of speech that validate my theoretical frame.
• I focus on the 'correct' way to approach an 'interview'.
• I don't recognise how my investment into these interviews changes my behaviour and expectations.

Instead, through chatting with my second supervisor, I want to get back to a view of encounters with participants that is more about:

• Seeing the process as a more open process of discovery and creation, with the possibility of 'things not being as I saw them'.
• The 'product' not so much being an accurate historical record as a text (Ricoeur, 1992) which is something new, perhaps part fictional but all about their meaning making nevertheless.
• Worrying less about 'corrupting' the pure stories presented by participants, but being bold enough to try co-construction, all the time being explicit about respective roles in building narratives.

Practically, my methodology needs a revisit to bring it in line with my original aspirations, and to break out of limiting traditional conventions that won't help me look at meaning making and relationships with reference points.  I'm thinking that in addition to sending participants the traditional transcript of the session (which in turn may change their view of, and approach to their narrative) I want to, in the second session, provide them with a storyboard of key moments or scenes we discussed in relation to their professional identity.

I am hoping that doing this will:

• Be bold enough to work with the concept that 'the text' is becoming something new, that this is not just a historical transcript or factual account.
• Provoke responses of either convergence or divergence between myself and the participants, symbolic 'spaces' if you like within which to discuss their meaning making.
• Begin to place the visual at the centre, rather the periphery of the session (at the moment it is my own rather linear 'place marking' tool, signifying things I think are significant) - building narrative around the storyboard as presented.

What could happen if I and participants annotate these storyboards? Could this provide some critical 'distance' from these narratives? Might it be just what is needed to really own the process of co-construction?

Perhaps this is what the process of discovery is like, it's just that when the pressure is on, the temptation to be 'safe' is huge. I want to resist that, not just so I can be 'creative' or visual for its own sake, but so I can reflect my view of what I think these narratives are and what the process of sensemaking is. Annotated storyboards here we come?

talking, transcribing and reflecting

I started my research conversations this week. I'm calling them conversations because I see them as evolving and 'co-constructed' rather than fixed, formal interviews. It was great to get started, but (as I guessed) this also faced me up to some of the realities of collecting data. The idea of conversations with research participants would of course be different, my imagination could paint a picture just as I wanted (great for the control freak) and both the conversation and the visual 'mapping' out I had planned worked wonderfully from the word go. That's not been how it has been.

Unlike everyday conversations, these had a lot hanging on them. I see now that I may have even been waiting for those 'golden nuggets' of insight into professional identity - the short term 'banking' view of narrative research data - that's one... that's one.. Looking back, frustration (at the time and in transcribing) with sections I thought were less relevant was real. What made this even worse was my 'foreknowledge' - I knew these sorts of stories, or so it's tempting to think having worked and managed the sorts of settings these stories came from. 

What made it seem worse (for a short while) was the experience of transcribing. This is still 'work in progress' and it's painfully slow. Twitter friends using the #phdchat hashtag encouraged me to think of it as getting close to the data, but they also acknowledged that it's like climbing up a mudslide. I have been reminded how impatient I am, perhaps because I try to fit so much into my life and work and I've got high standards for myself. But it better to great, and NOW.

In moments of reflection, I've looked back at that 'banking' view of narrative data, and recognised that I have to see this as the start of a fairly long journey with these participants, and that moments of frustration and boredom (for everyone) as well as excitement are normal. Some of the things that seem irrelevant now may end up being important or even pivotal. It's necessary to knock those imagined conversations on the head and replace them with reality, which is and will be so much better. My participants are the best.

There is a contradiction here - I am totally comitted to these conversations being constructed together, and for them to evolve, but want them to 'work' straight away. This applies to the visual element - the visual 'map making' I've previously blogged about. I found out that the visual 'maps' for the sessions so far look at little less than the marlevous vision in my head. Firstly, it's all my work; and secondly they are depressingly linear. Perhaps the reason for this is because these are 'context setting' sessions and participants (unlike me) have not lived with this for a long time. I'll be putting my mind to how I can make this aspect of the conversation inviting, meaningful and practical. Perhaps it's fine that this 'eases in'. I take heart from the fact that I have worked well with people doing this in my mentoring practice, but to be fair to participants this is hard thinking!

In the meantime I will learn to live with a new rhythm of research now I'm mixing talking, reading, transcribing and note making.