Reference: Rogers, C. (forthcoming), ‘Missing data: the sociological imagination beyond the crime’, in J. Parsons and A. Chappell [eds.] The Palgrave MacMillan Handbook of Auto/Biography Houndmills, Palgrave Missing data and socio-political death: the sociological imagination beyond the crime Chrissie Rogers: Professor of Sociology, University of Bradford Introduction This chapter is about missing data and at its core socio-political death, as outlined in the section introduction. For example, socio-political death is where disabled people are not heard or listened to because of partial story-telling, exclusion from mainstream society and stigmatising systems that leave them affectively missing from socio-political participation and narratives. Missing data are partial stories that equate to the socio-political death of marginalised and oppressed people (e.g. prisoners and their families, intellectually and physically disabled people, those on the autism spectrum, and people with mental health conditions). Marginalised and oppressed people are silenced due to researchers having limited access to them, a disabling condition, participant scepticism about ‘powerful’ others, personal trauma and governing and punitive institutional practicesi. This chapter is also about my auto/biographical research narrative. Auto/biographies from the position of the researcher and/or research participants are too often missing in the post project sanitised data analysis. Subsequently this leads to the socio-political death of certain communities, people and research practices. Linking missing data and socio-political death to auto/biographical narrative, I reflect upon a story I have told about nothingness and trauma – a twin miscarriage (Rogers 2017a). In that story I paint a pen picture of something that is missing, but also silenced within the context of women’s leaky bodies. Scott (2018: 15) has more recently discussed nothingness and suggests two categories that are, social nothingness: doing/being a non-something (through acts of commission) and not-doing/not-being something (through acts of omission). In the first case, nothing is demonstrably performed through non-participation, eschewal and repudiation, leading to the constitution of symbolic objects such as non- and never-identities, conspicuous absence and rejected options. In the second case, nothing is more passively arrived at by default, through failures to act, inertia and unrealised potential. Both these aspects of nothingness can result in missing data that lead to socio-political death. Yet telling and hearing the personal stories of marginalised and oppressed others and then embedding them within a broader sociological landscape will undoubtedly aid resistance and socio-political living (see also Frank 1995, 2001, Plummer 2013). Below I introduce a sociological imagination (Mills, 1959) and discuss fieldnotes, the blurring of boundaries and the importance of situating the self within sociological research. I go on to map from scholars and my own study, how social science research practices can lead to socio-political death and injustice. I then outline the research project this chapter is grounded upon. The following sections chart my auto/biographical narratives and fieldnotes with a view to identify the challenges faced when carrying out deeply qualitative research Reference: Rogers, C. (forthcoming), ‘Missing data: the sociological imagination beyond the crime’, in J. Parsons and A. Chappell [eds.] The Palgrave MacMillan Handbook of Auto/Biography Houndmills, Palgrave with marginalised others. I conclude by returning to Mills’ (1959) sociological imagination and suffering as auto/biographical storytelling can play a part in resistance to injustice and socio-political death. A sociological imagination – looking back, moving forward Sociology and criminological sociology have long since had a tradition where fieldnotes, interviews and auto/biography play an integral part in the research process and the documentation of life. They have also sought to uncover and bring to the social and political table the lives of people who are marginalised, stigmatised, excluded, oppressed and poor. Furthermore, the blurring of boundaries between a fieldworker’s personal and researcher life is evident (Goffman 2014, Worley et al. 2016). For example, from early 20th century Anderson ([1923] 2014), Becker, ([1963] 1991), and Whyte, ([1943] 1993) carried out deeply qualitative research in areas of homelessness, deviance and criminality. They drew upon interview data, fieldnotes and auto/biography to construct narratives that were culturally, politically and historically challenging. More recently, Goffman (2014) in her ethnography On the Run has received significant critique from both inside and outside the academy as to how she wrote about her findings as highlighted by Lewis-Kraus, (2016 n.p.). Talking about Goffman, he said, another young professor told me, with the air of reverent exasperation that people use to talk about her, ‘‘Alice used a writing style that today you can’t really use in the social sciences.’’ He sighed and began to trail off. ‘‘In the past,’’ he said with some astonishment, ‘‘they really did write that way.’’ The book smacked, some sociologists argued, of a kind of swaggering adventurism that the discipline had long gotten over. Putting aside any ethical discussion that one might have, this comment alone regarding the style of writing that is expected within social research is deeply problematic as it assumes there is a right way of writing - perhaps objective - and that any deviation from such a style lacks rigour and academic credibility. Arguably social research still has much to learn from deeply qualitative and auto/biographical narratives as Reisman and Becker ([1984] 2017) commenting on the work of Hughes’ (a key figure in Chicago School sociology) reveals he (Hughes), would get students to reflect upon their personal history. He said small events help to highlight larger matters and proffered that looking from the inside out aided a sociological understanding (ibid, viii-ix). And whilst perhaps not considered the best teacher of his time, his views on the discipline were convincing, particularly as he was ‘dismayed by the boundaries between the humanities and social sciences, between history and sociology’ (Reisman and Becker [1984] 2017: xii). It is therefore significant that Hughes regarded the interview as an important tool in sociological research because it was ‘able to surmount barriers of class, occupation, status, gender, race, even nation’ (ibid: xii). Also, during this period Robert E Park played a defining role in the Chicago School, where sociology students were encouraged to go and get the seats of their pants dirty while carrying out qualitative research (Worley et al. 2016). Both Park and Hughes had influence on the nature of ‘doing’ sociological research, recording the micro Reference: Rogers, C. (forthcoming), ‘Missing data: the sociological imagination beyond the crime’, in J. Parsons and A. Chappell [eds.] The Palgrave MacMillan Handbook of Auto/Biography Houndmills, Palgrave politics of everyday life, and the blurring of boundaries between the auto/biographical self and other during the 20th century. Although there was much notable qualitative inquiry throughout the 20th century, by the late 1950s, Mills (1959) had written ‘The Sociological Imagination’ as he was frustrated with the direction of sociological research. Namely, that there was a glut of atheoretical empirical studies where statistics or narrative had little or no theoretical base, and abstract theory, where philosophical and theoretical writing was not grounded in the micro-politics of everyday life.ii Mills (1959) proposed that sociological research include history, biography and social structure to interrogate the ‘personal troubles’ and ‘public issues’ of society. That is, private experiences can open a window into the auto/biographical micro-politics of society, but that these experiences are embedded within much broader political, structural and historical contexts. For example, experiencing continual stigmatisation and exclusion during school and then breaking the law as an adult is a personal trouble (Gillies, 2016). Experiencing violent attacks from a son and then caring about him while he is incarcerated is a personal trouble (Condry and Miles 2014, 2016, Holt, 2013). Yet crime and violence are public issues, as the law is rooted in legal and moral mores of the social structure at any given time. So how the criminal justice system (CJS) processes a criminal act, what punishment is recommended for that crime and how others perceive and treat the lawbreaker is publicly and sociologically significant. So significant, the following sub-section draws on lengthy narratives from auto/biographic/ethnographic research and fieldnotes (Williams 2006, Johns 2018, Fish 2018), and my auto/biographical research fieldnotes as a way into storying missing data, auto/biography and social justice methodologically. Resisting socio-political death I’m not worthy of being loved, am I? I devastated my family. I am too skeptical. Sometimes I drink alcohol. I left Church. I divorced. I’ve made too many wrong decisions. I hurt everyone; except one little person, the person who matters most to me. I can’t hurt her. Tears roll down my cheeks and my crying won’t stop. My eyes burn and there is a pounding inside my head. I notice that my fist hurts now and my knuckles are bleeding. Most of all, my heart hurts. I need help – professional help (Williams, 2006: 33) Most days, he carries a box cutter and an ice pick on him, just in case, just like you do in jail, except in jail you make them yourself. His preferred weapon inside was a modified toothbrush: you shave off all the bristles with a razor, then melt razor blades into the head, in different directions, so it doesn’t matter which way you cut someone, it’ll cut them. […] During the hour and a half I spend with Scott, we become ‘sort of friends’, as he puts it: ‘I might be a thief but mate because I know you, you could leave your purse there with five grand in it and I wouldn’t touch a cent because I know you. And we’re sort of friends now, you know?’ […] Driving home, I am aware of the clinging sense of wretchedness. I feel heavy with the weight of Scott’s story and with what it means to be his ‘friend’ (Johns, 2018: 2-3). Building friendships was difficult to avoid. There were a few instances where one of the clients ‘took me under her wing’ and I spent more time with some of the women Reference: Rogers, C. (forthcoming), ‘Missing data: the sociological imagination beyond the crime’, in J. Parsons and A. Chappell [eds.] The Palgrave MacMillan Handbook of Auto/Biography Houndmills, Palgrave rather than others. […] Spending time on the wards was enjoyable, but also distressing, intense and sometimes daunting. I had some fun with the clients and staff, but seeing people feeling angry, spending time with weeping women who had just self-harmed and listening to some stories from people’s pasts was extremely distressing (Fish, 2018: 10-11). I started the interview with Mum and her son wandered into the lounge and said, ‘where’s the axe?!’ Apparently, he wanted to chop some wood in the garden. Who knew? Then after being in the garden, and having cut his finger, he walked past with a knife; not a kitchen knife, but one in a sheath. I mean he’s 22, been in ‘special’ schools, got mental health problems, not been out of prison that long, and he now wanted to be interviewed. I had said ‘okay’, but I hadn’t planned for it at this time. I also didn’t know if the axe and knife business were for effect, to provoke a reaction. Perhaps if a social worker or probation officer, someone else, perhaps they might have said something? But I didn’t. I didn’t bat an eyelid, I mean what am I going to say? ‘What are you going to do with that knife?’ To be perfectly honest, I didn’t feel in any danger (personal fieldnotes, Autumn 2016). One of the things so far about all of this is the enormity of the relational ground work that you have to do, or that is appropriate to do in order to access and importantly maintain connections with participants. And then get, let’s say, some kind of interview. Because ultimately the people I’m talking to have chaotic lives, mental health problems, learning difficulties/disabilities, medical problems, incarcerated or offending sons. One mother I interviewed hasn’t, as yet, agreed to a second interview. She said she wanted one. We’ve had some communications, and since all the prison riots stuff - that has been an issue. I have also had contact with another mother, and it was touch and go if she was going to have another interview, and then weeks and weeks of no communication and then I’ll get a contact. Then there’s this negotiation of whether we are going to meet. She lives a long way from me, and she said in an email that she and her son were suicidal. I’d interviewed both her and her son, previously. But was I going to get to see here again? Another participant ex-prisoner told me about her stage 4 throat cancer and during the interview had to take her morphine and was awaiting treatment. Then she corresponded telling me she’d had her voice box removed! But then no contact, and sometimes you just wonder what has happened and even if people are still alive! (personal fieldnotes, February 2017). The first excerpt here from Williams (2006) is drawn from his autoethnographic research around prisoner rehabilitation. It is not clear whether the voice narrated is that of his own or of a research participant. It could be either, but it is his. The second two excerpts are from Johns’ (2018) and Fish’s (2018) ethnographies. Johns and Fish are evidently talking about their research participants and how their own voice and indeed their own feelings are affected by the research process. The final excerpts are fieldnotes from my current research (outlined below) that highlight both the ‘risky’ and emotive elements, and the auto/biographical features that ground this chapter. What these narratives underline quite explicitly, is that carrying out qualitative research, whether the researcher is auto/biographically part of the substantive subject, or auto/biographically integrated into the research process is challenging; practically and Reference: Rogers, C. (forthcoming), ‘Missing data: the sociological imagination beyond the crime’, in J. Parsons and A. Chappell [eds.] The Palgrave MacMillan Handbook of Auto/Biography Houndmills, Palgrave emotionally. Such sociological research can leak into everyday life for the researcher, as s/he makes connections between his or her participants and his or her own biography. For example, Fassin (2017) remarks on subjectivity and objectivity within his prison ethnography, while reflecting upon the comments of an elderly inmate who said, ‘to understand something you have to live it’ (ibid: 296). Fassin (ibid) continued, Speaking within benevolent certainty, he [the elderly inmate] sought to alert me to the pointlessness of my enterprise: “you can’t do an objective study of a prison. You’re going to write on the basis of what we say. But to be able to analyze something, you have to experience it.” A striking paradox, in which he seemed to be asserting that subjectivity as the necessary condition for objectivity. In many ways this paradox is critical within auto/biographic sociology and when considering the sociological (or criminological) imagination (Frauley 2015, Mills 1959, Young 2011). I am not suggesting that sociological research ought to be objective, but like Mills (1959), and scholars since (e.g. Frauley 2015, Stanley 1992, 2013), the micro world of personal storytelling, whether auto/biographically or via others’ life stories, the macro world of culture and politics, and historical context is significant within sociological and criminological research. Yet notably, as Carrabine commenting on Mills states, ‘the more radical implications of his [Mills] argument over how the sociological imagination can offer liberation from oppressive conditions are largely forgotten’ (2015: 73). Perhaps this could be interpreted as missing data and socio-political death, as research processes and outputs are sanitised: cleaned up omitting the dirty and messy parts of social life, including that of the researcher’s own embodied auto/biography, as highlighted above, for example, by Lewis-Kraus (2016) on Alice Goffman. But missing data and therefore socio-political death is two-fold, for as we ‘clean up’ the research, perhaps via overly bureaucratic ethics procedures, or research excellence governance, we survey: 1. Whose story is important and 2. How we hear these stories. Moreover, are we unable to hear these stories because they are simply too emotionally traumatic to tell, especially if we sanitise the process? Conceivably, if due to restrictive ethics procedures we are unable to access what might be considered high risk research, we will never hear the stories of those people, groups and communities who are most oppressed. If we fear reprisal for over commitment or connection to our research participants (Goffman 2014, Worley et al. 2016), we could ask, how will the sociological imagination even continue to exist? We therefore need to revisit how biography, history and social structure merge. As I consider auto/biography, I reflect upon feminist philosophy, as matters that emerge in connection with closeness to a subject matter or story are evident. For example, Carlson (2010: 3) suggests issues connected to learning disability, not only are worthy of scholarly interest but speak to the deepest problems of exclusion, oppression, and dehumanization; [...] one’s proximity to persons with intellectual disabilities should be neither assumed as a basis for participation in this conversation nor grounds for disqualification when speaking philosophically about this topic. What Carlson (2010) notably alludes to, is that there are people who are actually silenced, whether that is because of a relationship to those judged as marked, or those who are indeed considered inferior to more powerful others (see also Goffman, 1963). Reference: Rogers, C. (forthcoming), ‘Missing data: the sociological imagination beyond the crime’, in J. Parsons and A. Chappell [eds.] The Palgrave MacMillan Handbook of Auto/Biography Houndmills, Palgrave There are many who ‘experience’ socio-political death, for example, prisoners and their families, disabled people, those with mental health problems (e.g. Codd 2008, Condry 2007, Gormley 2017), and all those who are considered different from the cultural and historical norm of that time. Furthermore, as Ahmed, (2010: xvi) suggests silencing is a tool of oppression, as ‘when you are silenced, whether by explicit force or by persuasion, it is not simply that you do not speak but that you are barred from participation in a conversation which nevertheless involves you’. Yet, if we cannot trust ‘powerful others’ to perform and embody ethical and moral research practices, can we ever really hear the stories of those most at risk of oppression? Being silenced whether through restrictive research practices or through socio-political death (exclusion from policy, and process) is unacceptable. The project - Care-less spaces: prisoners with learning difficulties and their families Funded by The Leverhulme Trust, in 2016-2017, I carried out in-depth life-story interviews with 13 men and 2 women who had been through the CJS and who self-identified as having learning difficulties (LD) and/or mental health problems, 5 mothers to sons with LD and/or mental health problems and 10 professionals who have worked in the LD/mental health forensic or education settings. In total, 43 interviews were completed as I re-visited several participants over 18 months (Rogers, 2018). The purpose of the research was to, 1. Explore the life-story experiences of people with LD and/or mental health problems who have been through the CJS. 2. Explore the life-story experiences of mothers who have a family member as above. 3. Examine how those who break the law make sense of, and cope with prison culture, routines, rules, and practices, and how this pathway impacts upon all their lives on release. As part of the life-story method, for those who wanted to contribute further, I asked participants to take photographs between the first and second interview. I chose photographs because for some, articulating feelings was not easy, and the process of doing, seeing, imagining, is often how we make a connection to something, someone, or our feelings (Booth and Booth 2003). Therefore, I gave participants who wanted to be involved, a disposable camera and encouraged them to use it to record ‘feelings photographs’ (Rogers, 2019). 10 of those who had offended, and 4 mothers participated in taking photographs with 8 having at least one follow-up interview. The photographs were an aid to our subsequent interviews and gave an additional account of ‘feelings’, as well as facilitated discussion in a more in-depth way (Aldridge 2007, Rogers 2019). All interviews were recorded. Ethical Considerations In the UK, social science research requires ethical approval when involving human participants (BSA 2017). I cannot make ‘truth’ claims about my participants and their lives, as they are not a homogenous group. Yet, it is important to understand from the very beginning of an investigation into such areas of injustice, inequalities and social life, that doing, or at least attempting to do ethical and meaningful research, is vital. As I have asked with Geeta Ludhra, (Rogers and Ludhra, 2012: 43) before (although adapted for this research), • • Whose voice is narrated throughout the research? Who consents to the research? o The gatekeeper or person with learning difficulties or mental health problems? Reference: Rogers, C. (forthcoming), ‘Missing data: the sociological imagination beyond the crime’, in J. Parsons and A. Chappell [eds.] The Palgrave MacMillan Handbook of Auto/Biography Houndmills, Palgrave • How included in the whole research process (from design to analysis) is the participant? • What role do you as the researcher play in the life of the participant, and how does a relationship develop? o Are you a friend, a counsellor, or an ‘objective’ observer? There is never one easy answer to these questions, as negotiation is often key. In my current research therefore, I needed to be flexible, empathetic, caring and responsive as I gained access and listened to people’s life-stories. As it is many ‘disabled’ others are excluded from being heard or are represented in different and sometimes negative ways, and in my research these offenders and families are amongst those most marginalised others. I did gain university ethical approval to carry out the research and all participants had the capacity to consent, but it is a negotiated process. No real names are used in any work I present. Below I weave my auto/biography with the criminal justice research journey thus far. Auto/biographical beginnings Sociologically speaking My sociological imagination was roused as an undergraduate in the 1990s, but it was in 2004 I submitted my PhD for examination. The research, “A sociology of parenting children identified with ‘special educational needs’: The private and public spaces parents inhabit” (Rogers, 2005), was driven by my desire to make a difference and a personal connection to the subject matter, just like many of the feminist scholars I had been reading. I certainly recognised women writers played a significant role in bringing the private sphere into the public arena. Over two centuries ago Wollstonecraft (1792) discussed the socialisation of girls, as women were ‘hidden’ from the public sphere. But it was not until the 20th century that feminist sociology really took shape for me, as influences of women such as Harding (1986, 1991, 1993) and Oakley (1981) questioned social research processes, for example, who to access, how to interpret and analyse data, and then how to theorise. Standpoint feminists, Smith (1988) and Hartsock (1998), and those commenting, such as Smart (1990) argued feminist sociology is not simply the experience of women, but that their experience comes from struggle with oppression. Hertz (1997) moreover, discusses in some depth the need for reflexivity to shift our understanding of data collection and therefore suggests it is ‘important to admit that we study things that trouble us or intrigue us, beginning from our own standpoints’ (xvi), and asks, ‘[h]ow do we find the parallels in our experiences to make sociological sense of our own routines, or chaos for that matter?’ (ibid). This is a significant point, as some feminist sociology and indeed, sociologically informed personal storytelling (e.g. auto/biography, autoethnography) has been critiqued for mere navel-gazing (Sparkes 2002, Plummer 2009). Such works and critique inspired me to make public the experiences of parenting a disabled child, largely because I was a mother to a disabled daughter, and because Plummer (2013: 209) asserts, we humans tell our stories, listen to the stories of others and the story of our own lives, our tales come to haunt, shape and transform our social worlds. […] These stories have significance and we need always be mindful of the tales we tell and the Reference: Rogers, C. (forthcoming), ‘Missing data: the sociological imagination beyond the crime’, in J. Parsons and A. Chappell [eds.] The Palgrave MacMillan Handbook of Auto/Biography Houndmills, Palgrave tales we hear: stories have their consequences, for stories and their documents are our futures. We should ask just how stories work their ways in human social life. My PhD was a story of parenting and difficult differences. It was not auto/biographical although it did include auto/biography (Rogers 2005). However, the mothers and fathers I interviewed shared deeply emotive tales about their experiences of childrearing, education, surveillance and exclusion. At that time as a mother to a disabled daughter, a sociology graduate and a learning disability support worker, I was catapulted into reflecting upon the broader sociological landscape. Policy processes around inclusion and ‘special educational needs’, and ‘good enough’ mothering discourses led me back to those auto/biographical challenges faced by many parents to disabled children. It might therefore come as no surprise the opening quotation to my PhD thesis was one from Mills (1959: 8) where he suggests, Perhaps the most fruitful distinction with which the sociological imagination works is between ‘the personal troubles of milieu’ and ‘the public issues of social structure’. This distinction is an essential tool of the sociological imagination and a feature of all classic work in social science. Significantly for my auto/biography the influences that brought attention to the personal as political, for example, the feminists highlighted above, and then Mills’ (1959) sociological imagination, whereby history, biography and social structure all have a part to play and have shaped much of my work. For the purposes here, missing data and socio-political death have been implicit themes in my research process. For example, as I worked on my first monograph, I was asked to omit the methods chapter. I explained that methods were a significant part of my research (Rogers 2007), but to no avail – it was excluded from the final manuscript. Furthermore, in my research, some participants, past and current, have felt unable to revisit their stories in a follow-up interview as reflecting upon trauma was emotionally too draining, resulting in untold or partial stories. Below, my auto/biography merges more explicitly with my current criminal justice research. Auto/biographically speaking My husband jumped in and we screeched off like something from a movie. ‘I don’t think I can drive, I feel sick,’ I screamed, my heart pounding. Still I didn’t want to stop. This lad was not someone you would want to upset, as rationale in this sort of a mood was not part of his personality once provoked. […] ‘It’s all such a mess.’ I broke down and cried. Sarah, my daughter, then 20 years old was taken to her Nan and Granddad’s in an inconsolable state and wanting to leave home, this was before we went to the police station. She is moderately learning disabled. […] ‘I’m coming to your house and I’m going to kill you. I will be with Sarah till we die,’ he had hollered as we speedily left the rough road. I was scared. We fled, and for that summer if she was not palmed off on accommodating family members, she remained a prisoner in her own home. Not least of all because of the danger this violent young man posed, who himself was learning disabled and had other emotional and behavioural difficulties (Rogers, 2009: 270-271). My daughter, a 27-year-old intellectually disabled adult was yesterday morning apprehended at her learning disability club by two police officers. She was arrested, Reference: Rogers, C. (forthcoming), ‘Missing data: the sociological imagination beyond the crime’, in J. Parsons and A. Chappell [eds.] The Palgrave MacMillan Handbook of Auto/Biography Houndmills, Palgrave taken in a police car to the station, searched, and relieved of all her belongings and jewellery, finger printed, put in a cell, interviewed, charged and bailed. Luckily, her step father was at home, went to the station, and stayed in the cell with her and attended the interview. They said she was caught on CCTV shoplifting (the two times I can corroborate she was actually with me or in bed). This footage was not shown to either my daughter or hubby. TWO big officers! They then called for another (a female). So policing the town and ridding the centre of – who? People like my daughter? She is traumatised, and scared. What concerns me? Yes, my daughter’s physical and mental health. But also, is this how it is? What if she were guilty of robbing £18 of stuff over two days? But is this how the CJS deals with vulnerable adults? It is such easy pickings for arrest figures, but had she not been in the family she is – what then? Maybe in care, or with parents who have difficulties themselves, this would likely be processed, and she would end up with a criminal record? (Personal reflections 2014). These two quotations identify a personal relationship with learning disability, violence and the criminal justice system (CJS). In response to the narratives; the first one, my daughter returned to residential college in the autumn and she never saw this young man again, despite the experience having a frightening and disruptive impact upon all our lives. The second narrative was a reflection on the beginning of a 6-month process in dealing with the aftermath of one significant event – the arrest of my daughter. Because of this experience, my daughter wanted to be accompanied to and from her day services due to fear of being arrested for some time. It took months for her criminal record to be quashed, via the then independent police complaints commission (IPCC), even though there was no evidence of her involvement in any crime committed. These deeply personal experiences cannot give a broad insight into the criminal justice terrain, violence and mothering alone, but they can provoke our sociological imagination (Mills, 1959) and open our sociological eyes (Hughes [1984] 2009). For example, based on the excerpts above, if, as in the case of the first, a young woman was not collected after her date by a carer or parent then perhaps no one would know of the violent and abusive relationship. Concerning the second, if a young woman had no one to take the wrongful arrest to the IPCC, she would have a criminal record: impactful for future life chances. Founded on my sociological beginnings and personal troubles identified above, my sociological imagination was provoked to explore the wider cultural and political structures of criminal justice for disabled people and their families (see also, Rogers 2018, Gormley 2017, Peay 2016, Talbot et al. 2015). Arguably because aspects of social life are missing from the formal research produced based on the sanitisation of social science and the ‘silencing’ of stories different or too harrowing to tell, many groups, people and communities experience sociopolitical death. Auto/biography and research reflections on gaining and maintaining access in the field In the Leverhume project outlined above, I did not anticipate the enormity of time it would take to gain access, nurture relationships and then maintain access. Perhaps I was naïve? It was certainly not so simple as setting a date, meeting participants and gathering stories. Arguably it ought not to be simple, clean or easy. After all, I was going to speak to people Reference: Rogers, C. (forthcoming), ‘Missing data: the sociological imagination beyond the crime’, in J. Parsons and A. Chappell [eds.] The Palgrave MacMillan Handbook of Auto/Biography Houndmills, Palgrave about their criminal pathways, including their childhood and post-prison experiences. People I had contact with did not necessarily want to use email and so I had to use my phone and social media, as a form of enabling access. Blurred boundaries for me as a researcher, between my private and professional life (Rogers, 2003), became evident, and although I was carrying out life-story research, it had elements of ethnographic methods (Goffman 2014, Worley 2016), largely because I spent a year or so managing people, fielding phone calls, and living with the research process continuously. In addition to blurred boundaries, I made assumptions about how people might respond to my calls for participants. I realised, quite quickly that even if I made contact, it did not mean an interview was imminent or even happening at all. In that moment the respondent to the call wanted to talk about their life, but in a different moment, they would not have responded, and then some potential participants simply changed their mind. I rapidly began to learn, if someone contacted me, I was not to leave them. I had to be in response mode. This level of engagement was only possible because I was carrying out this research full time. Universities or research funders who limit full ‘buy out’ of academic time due to lack of full economic costing, over teaching/administrative responsibilities, or who lack, reduce or over-regulate sabbatical time, effectively restrict such qualitative inquiry, and therefore silence those who are oppressed, leading to missing data and socio-political death (see also Rogers, 2017b). It was a challenge to gain access to, and then maintain access with participants (McClimens 2007). For example, 4 mothers contacted me because of my posts on social media, and 1 was accessed via snowballing (from an ex-offender participant). The (ex)offenders were obtained via a range of charity/supporting gatekeepers who enabled access and vouched for my credibility (Girling 2017). It was not a straightforward process, as cancelled appointments, communication difficulties and the time spent nurturing relationships were factors that added to the reality of maintaining contact. Therefore, assumptions about access for the purposes of research with groups considered ‘hard to reach’ are imprudent. For example, I thought perhaps my personal links with educators who knew young men and their families who went on to offend, was a gate-keeping coup. I also assumed that my previous research would enable access to specific families (Rogers 2007, 2016). These potential access pathways did not prove fruitful (Rogers 2018). As an auto/biographical note in my research diary said, ‘I will get people, but perhaps not the actual brief I originally focused on, that of learning disability. Getting hold of families seems to be quite tricky too’ (fieldnotes, September 2016). Clearly, I was frustrated, but what could I do? My notes indicate this further, In the early stages I made lots of phone calls, trying to source participants and make relevant links to the charities and individuals and so on. This was a hard start in terms of finding gatekeepers. So I began to look for professionals who worked in the forensic setting, or in education that deals with challenging young people. I was struggling to get any ex-offenders and was worried I would fall, at the first hurdle. So, for example, those I wanted, those with learning difficulties were incredibly difficult to find, due to all sorts of reasons, not least, how do I find them? (fieldnotes September 2016). What these excerpts express, is that the struggles of gaining access to one group, and therefore people’s stories, meant shifting the focus at that time. But accessing professionals Reference: Rogers, C. (forthcoming), ‘Missing data: the sociological imagination beyond the crime’, in J. Parsons and A. Chappell [eds.] The Palgrave MacMillan Handbook of Auto/Biography Houndmills, Palgrave who work with the group I wanted to talk to then compound the silencing. Albeit relevant, their stories were second hand, so to speak. Yet talking to professionals showed me further, how difficult accessing ‘disabled’ offenders would be, as evidenced in this fieldnote below. One professional said, I have asked some of our clients about this type of research, and being involved (those ex-offenders now in the community) and they said about their criminal past, ‘that was then, why the fuck would I want to talk to anyone now, dredging it all up? Anyway, who wants to know?’ He tried to explain to this guy that it was for the ‘greater good, and that we could all learn from it’. That didn’t work. I am beginning to realise that getting hold of these participants is going to be tricky. I’m worried! (fieldnotes September 2016). This passage not only highlights the challenges in gaining access to participants, but that potential participants, as this professional indicated, would not want to talk to me. This supports a two-tier element to missing data at an institutional level and at an auto/biographic level. Furthermore, optimistic expectations around maintaining access with participants once contact was established, was rash. Largely because a small number of offenders and/or their families who heard about my call for participants via prison charity adverts, social media and word of mouth made contact to say they wanted to be a part of the research, but then withdrew before the interview could be carried out. This was despite numerous convincing and upbeat email exchanges and phone calls about their desire to participate. For example, the passages from my fieldnotes below clearly show how I was thinking and feeling about this process. I was going to see an ex-offender, a woman, and we had email communication, several. We set a date, she seemed genuinely interested and enthusiastic. We had emailed the day before said date, and then on the date nothing. I had a date, but she had not responded with a where to meet. I emailed several times on the day, but nothing. The next day I emailed saying I hoped she was okay, and not to worry. We can re-schedule, or if you’ve changed your mind don’t worry. Still nothing. I emailed once more and thought I better leave her alone. She never got back to me. […] I had another cancellation! We had already re-scheduled once. I drove all the way from Glasgow to Yorkshire and sat outside her house. I had spoken to her the night before and she was still okay with me coming. I rang her while sitting outside. Nothing. I waited for a bit, but it seemed quite a deprived area, and didn’t want to hang around for too long as I might look out of place sitting there in my car and knocking on the door (fieldnotes, September 2016). I discovered from the beginning the unpredictability and chaotic nature of my research participants’ lives. This was mirrored in my chaotic and unpredictable research process (Rogers 2018). Therefore reflections upon how we connect with our participants (especially those who are marginalised and oppressed and have challenges that impact upon their comprehension, concentration or interaction with others) can fracture and complicate access to their stories and consequently their lives. Sometimes it can block access altogether, and result in a dearth of stories that are crucial for our understanding of injustice – socio-political death – but how can we then bring them back to life or resurrect the stories, the lives?iii How Reference: Rogers, C. (forthcoming), ‘Missing data: the sociological imagination beyond the crime’, in J. Parsons and A. Chappell [eds.] The Palgrave MacMillan Handbook of Auto/Biography Houndmills, Palgrave can we resist social injustice and suffering? Perhaps the answer is via storytelling (see also Frank, 1995, 2001, Plummer 2013). Reflecting further upon access and how making connections with participants is critical especially for people who might face challenges that impede their story-telling. For example, during an interview with Kip (a professional who works in the community with offenders who have learning difficulties and/or autism),iv he told me how police officers wanted to speak to one of his service-users about historical sexual abuse. His storying underlines the fact that a researcher, an unknown other, cannot simply walk into someone’s life and expect a person to open up and ‘spill their guts’, to meet a research agenda because asked. Kip made this point in our interview as he revealed, ‘that is quite often how research is experienced’ (due to lack of time and critically, understanding). He recalled, So, they arrived together [the police officers], and he said [the service user], ‘I didn’t know I was going to talk to lesbians’, and they said, ‘we’re not lesbians’, ‘but you said you travelled together’? And I said [to the officers] ‘you need to be careful of your choice of language when you’re dealing with someone with autism. This is going to be really difficult for him’. And in the end, they wanted to get this story out of him, and they couldn’t do it. And I tried to say, ‘it’s your first day, and you won’t do it’. I told them ‘you need to have a cup of coffee with him, then you need to come and have a sarnie with him, then you need to come and spend just a little bit of time with him. How can you expect this guy to tell you, unless you are prepared to invest?’ So, in the end, he [the service user] told me what had happened, and he named a person, after the officers had left. They said, ‘if this name comes up again, we can do something but if it doesn’t we can’t’. So, people open up people, and then leave them vulnerable, even now, and people don’t seem to get it. They just don’t seem to get that you have to invest just a little bit more sometimes. This example about walking into the life of a person who is autistic and then potentially opening them up emotionally is clear in how not to make a connection: investment is key. This understanding of autism is critical, (see also Simmons this volume). It also explicitly demonstrates how life-story data can go missing altogether if the person carrying out the research does not understand the research context, for example, every-day living conditions/impairment, or does not have the time to invest due to institutional restrictions, or limited funding. Therefore, carrying out sociological or criminological research warrants personal skills too. Qualitative research, moreover, needs the recognition that ‘the interview’ is not quantifiable or predictable. For example, I spent a minimum of 11 hours with one of my mother participants (Elaine) spanning three interviews. This is because, when I carried out the two follow-up interviews, Elaine’s son had been recalled to prison and it seemed unethical to leave immediately, given the emotional content of our discussion. Furthermore, she was alone. Consequently, on both follow-up occasions we went out to lunch after the interview. The last time I visited, on my return I received a positive email, saying, Lovely to spend time with you today - even though it can be painful it seems also to be cathartic - which is good. It really helps talking stuff over with someone who can Reference: Rogers, C. (forthcoming), ‘Missing data: the sociological imagination beyond the crime’, in J. Parsons and A. Chappell [eds.] The Palgrave MacMillan Handbook of Auto/Biography Houndmills, Palgrave understand the situation and does not judge. […] Thank you’ (Elaine, email excerpt, December 2017). Elaine went on to say that the time after the interview ‘helps me to ‘normalise’’, which is an important aspect of carrying out such emotive data collection (Rogers, 2018). Critically, some of my participants have said telling their life-story brings painful memories of suffering and feelings to the fore which brings us back to reflecting upon the fine line between hearing their story, and them not telling it. It is socio-political life and death in the balance. Nevertheless, some time spent with participants is perhaps more mundane, yet necessary. Nothing can prepare you, so blocking out two hours out of a busy schedule is not helpful or appropriate. You as the researcher might become a taxi service or a temporary ‘carer’. For example, below one man I interviewed said he did not want to stay in his house. His partner was in her dressing gown, and so he said, ‘can we go to the café’. And from my fieldnotes, I was reflecting upon these issues as it is clear such research requires more than skills in interviewing. It requires sensitivity, time and flexibility as evidenced in this excerpt. A guy, an ex-offender with learning difficulties, after the interview in his lounge wanted to be dropped off in his town. It’s the little additional things that go on, that are perhaps unanticipated, or outside of any formal research design process. We certainly don’t often write them into our research. It’s the unknowable things, that you can’t plan. So when asking about ethics, it’s not easy, you can’t pre-empt it. When discussing ethics. Important but unknowable. I mean one interviewee turned up for an interview in a coffee shop, having done a night shift, he has learning difficulties/autism and he’s in a massive panic. He’s lost his wallet. And because I know about autism, I know that we need to sort this out. He’s certainly not going to be in any fit state to do an interview, so we went through his bag, where he’s been, and he said he’d been to Wetherspoon’s for breakfast, so I got on my phone, and googled the pub, and he said, ‘have you got the number? Will you ring them?’ I said ‘yeah, okay’, so I rung Wetherspoon’s and spoke to the lady there, and he knew what table he’d been sitting at, and the lady said, ‘yes, we’ve got his wallet’. So I said to him, ‘she’s waiting for you, with your wallet’, and so off he went, while I sat there with our coffees, and then he came back with his wallet and everything was fine. But that was a major thing as it had his travel card and a bank card. So that threw the timings, and so you cannot bank on the timings. (fieldnotes, February 2017) All this groundwork is crucial for enabling socio-political life, resisting injustice and resurrecting the socio-politically dead - sociologically and auto/biographically. Conclusion I have dreamed about participants and one was about Harry’s (offender/prisoner) older self, but he’s only 22! These stories seep into our essence, and our identity as a sociologist. Elaine, (Harry’s Mum and a mother participant), really wanted to go out so we had ‘done some normality’. I think that lunch out, after the formal interview, was good for me too. I need to stop now and smell the coffee! Anyway, I am going to stop now, and possibly take a couple of days out (fieldnotes, February 2017). ‘No social study that does not come back to the problems of biography, of history and of their intersections within a society has completed its intellectual journey’ (Mills 1959: 6), and is arguably, nothing (Scott 2018). Part of the sociological imagination is the ability to shift Reference: Rogers, C. (forthcoming), ‘Missing data: the sociological imagination beyond the crime’, in J. Parsons and A. Chappell [eds.] The Palgrave MacMillan Handbook of Auto/Biography Houndmills, Palgrave between thinking politically and reflecting upon the personal biography (that of the people or communities being researched and the researcher’s auto/biographical self). Notably, considering Mills’ work, Frauley (2016: 33) says, within criminology and criminal justice studies, we ‘must reject scientism and its bureaucratic ethos and embrace intellectual craftmanship’. He continues that no one story is in a silo, without the weight of history or culture behind it. Like Mills’ imagination, craftwork is required as a ‘creative, imaginative and speculative criminology is one that we must build’ (Frauley 2016: 25). The point is to reveal that the problems suffered by the individuals are hardly ever only individual in nature or solvable at that level (Frauley 2016: 30). Reflecting upon problems suffered, Wilkinson (2005: 3) says that sociological research often ignores what the actual ‘experience of suffering does to people’ [emphasis in original] and what is more, the lived experience is rarely the direct focus. In addition to Wilkinson’s (2005) work, Frank (2001: 355) explains that loss and suffering (whether present or anticipated) is an ‘instance of no thing, an absence of what was missed and now is no longer recoverable and the absence of what we fear will never be’. I wonder too, if this form of suffering and resistance (to socio-political death) can be linked back to Scott’s (2018) social nothingness? Currently, bureaucratic processes, in for example the criminal justice system, legal procedures, prisons, universities and schools, cannot manage this suffering, therefore enabling socio-political death. Without revealing the broader picture, people go missing, ‘communities’ and groups die a slow socio-political death and institutions such as legal structures and procedures, schools and universities stay alive, albeit like machines all producing ‘cheerful’ robots (Mills 1959, Frauley 2016). But if we ask the imaginative questions, if we enable ‘speaking’ auto/biographically (e.g. Bochner and Ellis 2016, Williams 2006), draw out creativity and visual methods, (e.g. Rogers 2019), and utilise literature, the Arts and comedy (e.g. Piamonte 2016, Potter 1998, Stanley 2013, Wilde 2018), then perhaps we might rouse resistance and socio-political living for oppressed and marginalised people and sociologists and criminologists committed to social justice. References Anderson, N ([1923] 2014) The Hobo: the sociology of a homeless man England, Martino Fine Books Becker, H. S. ([1963] 1991) Outsiders: Studies in the sociology of deviance New York, NY: The Free Press. Bochner, A. and Ellis, C. 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(2016) ‘There were ethical dilemmas all day long!’: harrowing tales of ethnographic researchers in criminology and criminal justice’ Criminal Justice Studies, 29 (4) 289-308 Reference: Rogers, C. (forthcoming), ‘Missing data: the sociological imagination beyond the crime’, in J. Parsons and A. Chappell [eds.] The Palgrave MacMillan Handbook of Auto/Biography Houndmills, Palgrave i For example, restrictive ethical procedures, the research and excellence framework (REF) in the UK, and a disdain for creative methods. ii I could discuss Wootton’s (1959) work, as a woman scholar who, for all intents and purposes, discredited ‘value-free’ social science, and was a contemporary of Mills (1959) as she has been largely airbrushed out of sociological storytelling, and has therefore gone ‘missing’, but this would take us in a slightly different direction. iii Socio-political death in these examples can also illustrate ‘social nothingness’ (Scott 2018: 15), as identified in the opening of this chapter. iv I note here, learning difficulties and/or autism, and whilst I accept there are significant differences between those who have autism and those who have intellectual impairments, in the case of this instance here, and generally in my research, it was that some had learning difficulties, while some had autism too. Not that participants had autism only.