Distressing ResearchReflections on the secondary analysis of

children and young people’s narratives of abuse

Sharon Jackson

Emotions and Child Abuse ResearchChild abuse

researchers are caught in ‘emotionally laden research’ in which they are vulnerable to forms of harm.

We are witness to the traumas of others, repeatedly, over and over again

The emotions of researching emotionally difficult topics are often over-looked in academic discourse. Yet, the emotionally engaged researcher bears witness to the pain, humiliation and indignity of others over and over again.’ (Campbell, 2002:15).

Working with ChildLine DataWitness to the distress of

children through reading their accounts of abuse

Intensively working with detailed narratives

Working often in isolation within ChildLine premises for prolonged periods

Descriptions were vivid, violent, explicit

We were unprepared for much of this

We felt shock, horror, deep sadness, confusion, anger, guilt, revulsion

This was disruptive, challenging, disabling. Disempowering

We cried, shouted, felt we couldn’t go on, at times felt unable to do our jobs or do them well

We experienced sleep disturbances, visual and auditory disturbances and at times we want to stop

What Informed Our PaperResearching child abuse creates the grounds for reflection on

the role of emotions in researchChildLine data was emotionally challengingDuring our ‘analytical meetings’ we had begun to discuss our

emotional experiences A slow process of gradually ‘opening up to each other’ As a ‘novice’ researcher I struggled to admit I was struggling

emotionally This was also Elinor’s experience

Kathryn, an experienced and respected Professor shared that this had been the most emotionally challenging dataset she had worked with This gave us permission to disclose without feeling us feeling ‘professional

inadequate’ We began to keep reflective diaries and journal our emotional

experiences during our analytical work

A Lack of Focus on Secondary Analysis Our engagements with academic accounts of these issues revealed:

Discussions of reflexivity position emotions as peripheral Reflective accounts of the emotional dynamics of secondary analysis were rare

We felt we had something important to share We could only identify a small body of directly connected work for

example: Suicide notes work Transcriber experiences

• Deborah Warr (2004) discusses the emotional distress experienced by those who transcribe interviews.

• In a study of the transcriber experiences of a study of people living with AIDS Miriam Cameron (1993) quotes a transcriber:

‘When you are plunged into the dictation equipment, you are living somebody else’s experience. You hear if they hurt or don’t hurt and they’re happy or sad….I felt I got to know them as persons because they really opened up.’

Secondary Analysis and Relationships with ParticipantsAssumption that no relationship exists between researcher and

researched in secondary analysis In our paper we wanted to challenge this

We felt deeply connected to every child (re)presented in the narratives we analysed we could ‘feel’, ‘see’, ‘hear them speak’

These children were not absent in our analytical task but rather present - constructs of our imagination but present nevertheless

We had a range of unpleasant sensory experiencesElinor had profound visual disturbances where she imagined the

abuse acts describedMy experiences were more auditory and connected to hearing

voices that stuck in my head almost like sound recordings stuck in a loop Some of these voices remain stuck

Taking a Reflexive ApproachIn our paper we talk about ‘emotional reflexivity’Our published account drew on the work of Arlie

Hochschild’s and her Goffmanian informed cultural analysis of emotions

We used her thinking around ‘emotional labour’ as conceptual device to give analytical meaning and understanding to our experiences

In particular we drew on her performative or dramaturgical concepts of ‘deep acting’ and ‘surface acting’ to explore how we both performed and managed our emotionsSurface acting: regulation of public expression of emotionDeep acting: manipulating feelings or internal states to

perform appropriate outward expressions of emotion

Secondary Analysts as ‘Backstage Performers’The analytical task of secondary analysts

takes place ‘backstage’It is a mostly private performance

‘Deep acting’ is required to perform the analytical task to ‘perform as a good actor’We were engaged in altering our emotional

states through regulation and control to reduce and displace emotional distress or emotional reactions and experiences

Tensions with Deep ActingIn invoking various strategies we were

attempting to avoid distorting our analysis through attending to emotion

But did this distort our analysis in other ways?

When we felt emotionally disconnected we were concerned that this also distorted our analysisIf we did not ‘feel’ the pain of our participants

did we do them a disservice

The Important of Emotional ReflexivityEmotional reflexivity allows you to interrogate

your analysis and the interpretations you attribute to phenomena within your data

It can shift your interpretations and reveal things within the data that were previously hidden

In our analysis this was important to understanding the context in which abuse happened and to understanding perpetrators

Whether this results in a ‘better’ analysis I cannot be sure but it certainly result in a less alienated one.

Surface Acting: Dissemination and PerformanceManaging emotions during public

dissemination of findingsI broke down and cried in front of an

audience when I had to read an extract of a child’s experiences

My ‘emotional display’ could not be regulatedI felt incompetent, professional embarrassed

– a ‘failed academic’I struggled to recoverI struggled to understand what had happened

The Impotency of the Secondary AnalystAs an adult, your primary moral response to

another in distress is to act in someway.Working with this kind of data strips you of

agency. It positions you as helpless and unable to act even if only to respond empathetically to someone.

Dissemination allowed us to feel as we were doing something. Making a small difference by rendering visible

the hidden stories of these children

The Performance of Emotion in PublicationReflexivity is often see to be about personal

exposures of different kinds This kind of writing is not comfortableWe tend to write cleansed accountsOur own account is heavily edited for public

consumption

A More Experienced View: Some ThoughtsResearchers are vulnerable where the topic of research is

distressingSupportive teams are critical and often this is absent for

researchersWe are often left alone to get on with things

Myself and Elinor were unprepared for what we experiencedNovice researchers need support

More of what I do now involves fieldwork with participantsCareful decisions need to be made as to the skills and

experience of researchersSome are more emotionally robust that othersDebriefing needs to be built in

I have remained in many ways a ‘backstage researcher’ I work with others who are more professionally equipped than I to

collect primary data on distressing topics I prefer to work with artefacts – the texts and transcriptionsWorking in teams with a division amongst the tasks of data

collection and the tasks of data analysis provides opportunities to work with emotion in different ways

I usually work with qualified social workers who have therapeutic training and supervisory / case management experience

Other colleagues usually conduct the fieldwork and I usually do the bulk of the desk based analysis

This is safer for participants and safer for researchers in many ways This of course raises issues around training

Summing UpI think all emotionally laden research leaves its mark

upon researchers whether fieldworkers who perform emotion during interactions with participants or ‘backstage’ researchers who work with transcripts or secondary sources

Abuse research changes your perspectiveIt heightens your fear of riskCan make you feel deeply saddened and cynical

All projects result in emotional tensions, ethical tensions and dilemmas

As researchers we need to share these experiences in honest and open ways

ReferencesCameron, M. (1993). Living with AIDS: Experiencing Ethical Problems. Newbury Park, CA: Sage Publications.Campbell, R. (2002). Emotionally Involved: The Impact of Researching Rape. New York: RoutledgeWarr, D., J. (2004). Stories in the Flesh and Voices in the Head: Reflections of the Context and Impact of Research with Disadvantaged Populations, Qualitative Health Research 14(4): 578-87.