Search

Articulating the complexities of relational wellbeing can be challenging at the best of times, and even more complex during periods of heightened stress and uncertainty. Taking inspiration from feminist materialisms and recent writings on material methods, we explore the potential of object interviews to reveal the material-discursive dimensions of women's experiences of wellbeing during the pandemic. In this paper we describe our research process conducting object interviews with 38 women living in Aotearoa New Zealand from a range of socio-economic, cultural, and ethnic backgrounds. We explore the potential and challenges of object interviews for surfacing new ways of knowing (theoretically, methodologically, and cross-culturally) wellbeing beyond human-oriented health, medical and social-constructionist models, and towards more multidimensional and relational understandings. This paper offers our reflections and learnings about the process of re-turning object interviews and the potential of such approaches for evoking complex ways of knowing wellbeing during and beyond pandemic times. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Side comments and conversations in focus groups can pose challenges for facilitators. Rather than seeing side comments as problematic behavior or "failed" data, we argue that they can add to and deepen analyses. Drawing on focus group data with grade nine students from a study on early work, in this methodological paper we discuss three patterns. First, side comments have highlighted where participants required clarification, and illustrated their views and questions about the research process. Second, side comments added new data to our analysis, including personal reflections, connections to others' comments, and information about participants' uncertainties about the research topics. Third, these comments offered insight into peer relations and dynamics, including participants' reflections on age, and how they deployed gender relations in their discussions. Provided that their use fits within established ethical protocols, we argue that there is a place for attention to side comments, especially in focus group research with young people where adult-teen hierarchies and peer dynamics might lead young people to engage more with peers than directly respond to researchers' questions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Researchers are increasingly interested in why people want to participate in qualitative interview studies, particularly what they hope to gain from participating. The present paper contributes to this research agenda by analysing the motivations of victims of interpersonal violence: a group that is considered ethically challenging to involve in research, given their history of being intruded upon. The analysis is based on 174 qualitative interviews from three separate studies: two on intimate partner violence and one on sexual assault. A key finding is that many victims welcome the opportunity to participate and often use the interviews for their own purposes. We identified three different 'participant orientations', or ways victims relate to the interview and the research, including 'telling for oneself', 'telling for others' and 'telling for the researcher'. We discuss how these orientations imply different ethical contracts between the participant and researcher and their links to recruitment methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]