Contextualising sociologists' claims of change in food andfamily

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Contextualising sociologists' claims of change
in food and family

• Studying Lifestyles Resources Past, Present and
  Future
• British Library, 9 March 2009

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Families remembering food project

• PI Graham Smith and Peter Jackson
• RA Sarah Olive
• Aim
• To contextualise sociologists' claims of change
  in the recent history of food and family Reusing
  oral histories from Qualidata and the BL Sound
  Archive

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Part of Changing Families, Changing Food
multi-disciplinary research programme
http//www.shef.ac.uk/familiesandfood/index.html
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Data sets we looked at (1)

• Paul Thompsons Family Life and Work Experience
  Before 1918 (The Edwardians)
• 444 life-story interviews
• Interviews up to six hours long
• Collected across Britain, 1970-1973
• See Barker and Corti (2002) http//iassistdata.org
  /publications/iq/iq26/iqvol264corti.pdf
• http//www.esds.ac.uk/qualidata/online/data/edward
  ians/introduction.asp
• Recordings British Library Sound Archive
  C707/01-518

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Data sets we looked at (2)

• Paul Thompsons Families, Social Mobility and
  Ageing a multi-generational approach (100
  Families)
• http//www.esds.ac.uk/qualidata/online/data/100fam
  s/introduction.asp
• Approx 240 interviews
• Collected across Britain, 1985-1988
• Recordings British Library Sound Archive
  C685/01-198

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Selection procedures 100 families

• We familiarized ourselves by listening to sample
  of the Scottish interviews each selecting
  themes/interests
• We then selected 32 English respondents in 12
  different localities recalling family life from
  1945-1985, through food narratives
• Geographic spread (rural/city/semi-rural)
• Range across social class
• Noted lack of non-white British and non-British
• This sample included three intergenerational case
  study pairs mother son mother daughter and
  father daughter

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Selection procedures Edwardians

• Sarah read 120 interview transcripts (including
  field notes of 444 interviews)
• Then sub-sampled (n30) along the same lines of
  100 families made detailed notes and listened
  to recordings
• We then individually (independently) analysed 10
  of the 30 interviews and discussed
• Then we studied 3 interviews in greater depth
• 3 interviewees, living and working in the textile
  industry in the North Yorkshire region in the
  early 1900s (upper/middle/working class)

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Opportunities

• Bring new questions to existing oral history data
  sets
• Large and increasing number of available data
  sets
• Increasing understanding of how we can re-use
  qualitative data more generally

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Challenges

• Advocates of reuse (e.g. Corti et al. 2005
  Fielding and Fielding 2000 Savage, 2005)
• Contextualisation epistemological issues
  (Mauthner et al. 1998) and of doing reflexive
  research (Mauthner and Doucet, 2003)
• Context is critical (Bishop, 2005) and/or need to
  recontextualise data (Bishop 2006 Moore 2007)
  but problems overblown
• Original context of collection
• Current context of reuse

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Sifting and sorting

• What is the place of food in peoples memories of
  family life?
• How have social constructions of the family and
  memories of family life changed over time?
• How do gender, ethnicity and social class impact
  on the different inter-connections between family
  and food?
• What methodological considerations do researchers
  face when reusing oral history archives?

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Analysis 100 Familes (Food and Family)

• Shift in meaning of key terms
• E.g. choice and convenience (even
  lifestyle)
• Lack of brand awareness in 100 families data
• Past(s) seen through the lens of the present(s)
• Answers shaped by life story being told
  (trajectory)
• Complex interplay between interviewer,
  interviewee and future researchers

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Conclusions on method

• Opportunities to extend Masons (2007) call to
  extend investigative epistemology
• The dialogical nature of reusing qualitative data
• Interplay of temporalities
• Reflexive nature of interviews (especially 100
  Families compared to The Edwardians
• Dialogic of memory
• Tinned food in Scotland 1980s food poisoning
  1964 outbreak

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Findings on family food practices

• The recent demise of the family meal is
  overstated
• The continuity of the family meal as an
  important, iconic, symbol of doing/performing
  family
• Family practices have been and are located in
  accepting or rejecting family and community
  biographies and trajectories
• Food has often been construed as a medium of
  emotional involvement within families (and
  continues to be so). More than taste?

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Some References

• Bishop, L. (2005) Beyond the Dualism of Primary
  vs. Secondary Qualitative Data Analysis a case
  study. Reusing Qualitative Data workshop, CRESC,
  Manchester.
• Bishop, L. (2006) Oot o the Groun and Intae a
  Pot convenience food and choice in the 20th
  century. Unpublished paper, ESDS Qualidata,
  University of Essex.
• Bishop, L. (2007) A Reflexive Account of Reusing
  Qualitative Data beyond primary/secondary
  dualism. Sociological Research Online 12,
  3http//www.socresonline.org.uk/12/3/2.html).
• Corti, L., Witzel, A. and Bishop, L. (2005) On
  the Potentials and Problems of Secondary
  Analysis an introduction to the FQS Special
  Issue on Secondary Analysis of Qualitative Data.
  Forum Qualitative Sozialforschung (on-line
  journal, available at www.qualitative-research.ne
  t/fqs-texte/1-05/05-1-49-3.htm).
• Fielding, N. and Fielding, J. (2000) Resistance
  and Adaptation to Criminal Identity using
  secondary analysis to evaluate classic studies of
  crime and deviance, Sociology 34 671-89.
• Mauthner, N.S. and Doucet, A. (2003) Reflexive
  Accounts and Accounts of Reflexivity in
  Qualitative Data Analysis, Sociology 37 413-31.
• Mauthner, N.S., Parry, O. and Backett-Milburn, K.
  (1998) The Data Are Out There, or Are They?
  Implications for archiving and revisiting
  qualitative data, Sociology 32 733-45.
• Moore, N. (2007) (Re)Using Qualitative Data?
  Sociological Research Online 12, 3
  (http//www.socresonline.org.uk/12/3/1.html).

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Contact details

• Dr Graham Smith
• Department of Health and Social Care (to Sept
  2009)
• Department of History (after Sept 2009)
• Royal Holloway
• University of London
• Surrey, England TW20 0EX
• 44 1784 414 962
• http//personal.rhul.ac.uk/usjd/135/