Leila Dawney is a Cultural Geographer and Senior Lecturer at the University of Brighton. She specialises in geographies of power, affect and experience in late capitalist life, most recently through spaces of debt and deindustrialisation. She is a member of the Authority Research Network. Supervisors: Jo Little and John Wylie
This article extends the debates relating to integration in mixed methods research. We challenge ... more This article extends the debates relating to integration in mixed methods research. We challenge the a priori assumptions on which integration is assumed to be possible in the first place. More specifically, following Haraway and Barad, we argue that methods produce ''cuts'' which may or may not cohere and that ''diffraction,'' as an expanded approach to integration, has much to offer mixed methods research. Diffraction pays attention to the ways in which data produced through different methods can both splinter and interrupt the object of study. As such, it provides an explicit way of empirically capturing the mess and complexity intrinsic to the ontology of the social entity being studied. The merits of mixed methods 1 are now well recognized (Brannen This field has developed rapidly and there is now a proliferation of work that combines quantitative and qualitative methods to explore social phenomena. There is also a general consensus across that body of research that, whichever methods are used, integrating the mixed data is the desirable outcome. Although data integration is a sensible goal, we challenge the presupposition that it is necessarily the optimal outcome of mixed methods research. We do this by presenting an alternative to data integration based on the concept of diffraction, defined as a process of paying attention to the ways in which process produces ''cuts'' that can interrupt and splinter the object of study. This challenge is made in eight methodical steps. Step 1 introduces integration in mixed methods work, highlighting the many different approaches and arguing that, while integration is a desired goal, it is not always successfully achieved in practice. Second, we suggest that
This paper discusses the relationship between authority-production and experience through a consi... more This paper discusses the relationship between authority-production and experience through a consideration of the emergence of certain figures as authorities on particular matters as a result of extraordinary experiences that they have undergone. It argues that analysis of such figures of experiential authority can help us to identify ‘objectivities’: foundational tenets upon which their authority is based and to which it ultimately refers. With reference to Harry Patch, a veteran of the First World War and Doreen Lawrence, the mother of Stephen Lawrence, who was murdered in a racially motivated attack at a bus stop, I contend that the authority carried by these figures testifies to certain socially produced objectivities which elicit an affective response, an embodied demand that they are listened to.
Here, I argue two points related specifically to what Pile refers to as ‘affectual geographies’: ... more Here, I argue two points related specifically to what Pile refers to as ‘affectual geographies’: firstly, to defend ‘what is important about this work’, and secondly to consider the slippage between affect and emotion, its genealogy and potential pitfalls, and what this means in terms of the ‘space in-between’ the affective and the subjective registers. Finally, I suggest an alternative, materialist
approach towards the interplay between these registers, to Pile’s suggestion of a ‘transplanting’ of psychoanalytic concepts.
This paper argues that the imagination and the capacity to imagine is a central aspect of experie... more This paper argues that the imagination and the capacity to imagine is a central aspect of experience. In doing so, the concept of the social imaginary is explored as a means of understanding how bodies and worlds interact in the production of therapeutic spaces. The 'body that imagines' is discussed, through a Spinozist formulation of the social imaginary, which considers imagining as an affective process colouring experience of the world. A focus on the body that imagines allows a consideration of the imaginary as processual, revealing how imaginaries are worked on and through, and invested in affectively by subjects. The case studies consider the employment and negotiation of social imaginaries in constituting a relation to the self through the embodied experience of walking along a coastal footpath. These imaginaries contribute to a therapeutic framing of specific assemblages of bodies and landscapes. The paper concludes with a discussion of how the subject's capacity to work with and through imaginaries is central to both the production of meaningful space and to the production of a politics and ethics of the self.
This article extends the debates relating to integration in mixed methods research. We challenge ... more This article extends the debates relating to integration in mixed methods research. We challenge the a priori assumptions on which integration is assumed to be possible in the first place. More specifically, following Haraway and Barad, we argue that methods produce ''cuts'' which may or may not cohere and that ''diffraction,'' as an expanded approach to integration, has much to offer mixed methods research. Diffraction pays attention to the ways in which data produced through different methods can both splinter and interrupt the object of study. As such, it provides an explicit way of empirically capturing the mess and complexity intrinsic to the ontology of the social entity being studied. The merits of mixed methods 1 are now well recognized (Brannen This field has developed rapidly and there is now a proliferation of work that combines quantitative and qualitative methods to explore social phenomena. There is also a general consensus across that body of research that, whichever methods are used, integrating the mixed data is the desirable outcome. Although data integration is a sensible goal, we challenge the presupposition that it is necessarily the optimal outcome of mixed methods research. We do this by presenting an alternative to data integration based on the concept of diffraction, defined as a process of paying attention to the ways in which process produces ''cuts'' that can interrupt and splinter the object of study. This challenge is made in eight methodical steps. Step 1 introduces integration in mixed methods work, highlighting the many different approaches and arguing that, while integration is a desired goal, it is not always successfully achieved in practice. Second, we suggest that
This paper discusses the relationship between authority-production and experience through a consi... more This paper discusses the relationship between authority-production and experience through a consideration of the emergence of certain figures as authorities on particular matters as a result of extraordinary experiences that they have undergone. It argues that analysis of such figures of experiential authority can help us to identify ‘objectivities’: foundational tenets upon which their authority is based and to which it ultimately refers. With reference to Harry Patch, a veteran of the First World War and Doreen Lawrence, the mother of Stephen Lawrence, who was murdered in a racially motivated attack at a bus stop, I contend that the authority carried by these figures testifies to certain socially produced objectivities which elicit an affective response, an embodied demand that they are listened to.
Here, I argue two points related specifically to what Pile refers to as ‘affectual geographies’: ... more Here, I argue two points related specifically to what Pile refers to as ‘affectual geographies’: firstly, to defend ‘what is important about this work’, and secondly to consider the slippage between affect and emotion, its genealogy and potential pitfalls, and what this means in terms of the ‘space in-between’ the affective and the subjective registers. Finally, I suggest an alternative, materialist
approach towards the interplay between these registers, to Pile’s suggestion of a ‘transplanting’ of psychoanalytic concepts.
This paper argues that the imagination and the capacity to imagine is a central aspect of experie... more This paper argues that the imagination and the capacity to imagine is a central aspect of experience. In doing so, the concept of the social imaginary is explored as a means of understanding how bodies and worlds interact in the production of therapeutic spaces. The 'body that imagines' is discussed, through a Spinozist formulation of the social imaginary, which considers imagining as an affective process colouring experience of the world. A focus on the body that imagines allows a consideration of the imaginary as processual, revealing how imaginaries are worked on and through, and invested in affectively by subjects. The case studies consider the employment and negotiation of social imaginaries in constituting a relation to the self through the embodied experience of walking along a coastal footpath. These imaginaries contribute to a therapeutic framing of specific assemblages of bodies and landscapes. The paper concludes with a discussion of how the subject's capacity to work with and through imaginaries is central to both the production of meaningful space and to the production of a politics and ethics of the self.
Uploads
approach towards the interplay between these registers, to Pile’s suggestion of a ‘transplanting’ of psychoanalytic concepts.
approach towards the interplay between these registers, to Pile’s suggestion of a ‘transplanting’ of psychoanalytic concepts.