21. 8. 2008
:::: Zdeněk Konopásek & Jan Paleček: Debating possession/mental illness with mental health professionals and clerics: Acting with a symmetrical approach in adverse fields
We study how catholic quasi/religious experiences are dealt with in psychiatric care. We ask how it happens that, in particular therapeutic or pastoral settings, phenomena such as hearing the voice of God or having an apparition of Virgin Mary are enacted by participants as, on one hand, a legitimate religious experience or, on the other hand, a symptom of mental illness. To understand this border-work carried out, from time to time, in psychiatric (and also pastoral) practice, we used a symmetrical approach, in which no preference is a priori given to spiritual or medical explanations. That is also why we interviewed, among others, not only psychiatric professionals, but also catholic priests. Our interviewees frequently manifested their genuine interest in our research. Facing their curiosity (but also initial hesitations) we started thinking about the value of symmetrical approach somewhat differently. We appreciated that the “politics of symmetry” has implications far beyond what and how is known and started thinking more of what the symmetrical perspective means for “acting with our scientific knowledge” in the medical and pastoral fields. We decided to set up an experiment. In our early paper on the topic, we discussed a horror/court drama “Exorcism of Emily Rose” (Scott Derrickson, 2005), which tells about a catholic priest accused of negligent homicide of a young woman, Emily Rose, who had been considered by her family and the priest as possessed and did not survive attempted exorcism. Two competing versions of the case were confronted during the trial: while the prosecutor argued that Emily had been sick and exorcism directly led to her death, the defendant – with the help of an anthropologist – tried to take seriously the reality of possession. In this early paper, we show how the movie on Emily Rose carefully develops a balanced view of the phenomena and we also use this analysis to explain the principle of symmetry in our own research design. In the experiment, we have asked some mental health professionals and clerics, to watch the movie and read our early paper to prepare themselves for subsequent focused discussions with us. In the paper proposed for the 4S/EASST conference, we thus want to offer a close analysis of these discussions and shed some light on how the (explained and applied) principle of symmetry might be understood or misunderstood, accepted or rejected as relevant by the concerned professional audiences. We therefore want to contribute to the STS literature on symmetry by a small empirical exercise focused not so much on the “cognitive” relevance of this methodological standpoint, but rather on how symmetrical accounts can be accepted, understood and used by actors in the field(s) under study.
8. 2. 2007
:::: Zdeněk Konopásek: Jak se dělá myšlení - o tzv. kvalitativní analýze trochu jinak
Přednáška v rámci čtvrtečních seminářů CTS (10-12h, seminární místnost, Husova 4, Praha 1)
18. 1. 2005
:::: Zdeněk Konopásek: Co znamená interpretovat text?
Vystoupení na 4. ročníku celostátní konference Kvalitativní přístup ve výzkumu o vědách o člověku, Olomouc; 17.-19. ledna 2005
Umění dělat kvalitativní výzkum se pro mnohé soustřeïuje do otázky: jak analyticky vyložit text sebraných dat? Jakkoli jde o neoprávněné a hrubé zjednodušení, nelze se této otázce vyhnout. Běžně se interpretace chápe jako myšlenkový postup. Snažíme se do něčeho vcítit a porozumět tomu. Nebo to pojmově zpracovat. Nově nahlédnout a uchopit. Takhle uvažují třeba filozofové. Nebo metodologové. Ve svém příspěvku půjdu jinudy. Ukážu interpretaci ne jako kýžené mentální procesy (čtení), ale spíš – docela přízemně – jako pozorovatelné materiální praktiky (psaní). Na modelových příkladech předvedu, že co bereme jako „nové čtení textu“, se ve skutečnosti odehrává jako „čtení nových a nových textů“. Jakých nových textů? Přece těch, které vytváříme analytickou prací s kvalitativními daty. Umění vyložit text vypadá z tohoto opomíjeného pohledu možná méně vznešeně než v metodologických pojednáních, ale o to přístupněji a použitelněji.
26. 9. 2001
:::: Zdeněk Konopásek & Zuzana Kusá: A plea for flexible politics of qualitative data archiving: The users' point of view
Příspěvek na mezinárodní konferenci "Institutions, interrelations, sequences: The Bremen life-course approach", 26.-28. září 2001, Brémy, Německo
Re-use of qualitative data can be seen as a very common practice. Almost every qualitative researcher engages in it, though usually not in a planned, explicit and systematic way. If we want to support more organized and methodical modes of data re-use (e.g., via the institution of data archives) we should try to understand this practice in all its diversity and complexity. In this paper we contribute to such an understanding by discussing some methodological, ethical and technical problems of secondary analysis from the users’ perspective. We do so in three steps. First, using examples from our long-term research work on the problem of communist power we describe some difficulties arising from shifted interpretive contexts of the data we worked with - those data had not originally been collected for our current purposes and by both of us. We show that and how the difficulties, related to secondary analysis in general, can be overcome (or even turned into advantages) by means of research collaboration between data providers and data re-users. Second, we complicate the picture a bit. We discuss diverse sources of possible reluctance, both on the side of the provider and on the side of the re-user, to engage in such collaboration. Third and finally, we make few summary remarks on data archives themselves. On the basis of previous discussions, we argue that if specialised data archives are to attract and make sense for the diverse and growing community of qualitative researchers they should allow, in their politics and designs, for a broad, open and flexible view of the data re-use.
4. 10. 2000
:::: Zdeněk Konopásek & Zuzana Kusá: Relevance and reliability of re-used life stories from ethnomethodological perspective
Příspěvek na mezinárodní konferenci "Social science methodology in the new millennium - 5th international conference on logic and methodology", 3.-6. října 2000, Univerzita v Kolíně nad Rýnem, Německo
In the Czech Republic and Slovakia, there are still no life history archives with wider access for social scientists. Nor the ethical and methodological problems of re-using documents are discussed. However, the authors as well as many other scholars often re-use their collections of life stories. They use the data for studying new topics that are sometimes far from the original research questions and objectives. In this paper we will discuss some methodological problems arising from such practice. We argue that, on the one hand, ethnomethodological perspective is especially demanding on the quality and pinpoint accuracy of the transcripts (insufficiency of transcript can be corrected by the use of archived audiotapes) and descriptions of the interviews by which the narratives were elicited (field memos). On the other hand, however, the ethnomethodological perspective orients the scholars to formulate their research objective according what the materials themselves offer. Therefore the problem of relevance and reliability can be never resolved in advance and on a general level.
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