1.2. Negotiating Co Research

Empowering Stories: A theory and a method

Highlights

• International case studies of new social movements
• Research devoted to finding a way to make co research work
• Grounded theory research to find theory and a method
• Integrated narrative theory of data collection, analysis, interpretation and theory
• Case based or idiographic theory and theory of new social movements

This chapter was first Published as partnership research in ‘Doing Health Promotion’ (RESOURCE: Thurston, Sieppert, Wiebe, 1998). It is adapted here with the permission of the editors. It is based on my PhD research, completed in 1996. The impetus for the research arose from work with the Calgary Association for Independent Living that used peers to support self-assessment and goal planning. I was moved to do research to understand peer support as a potential model for peer research. In spite of much skepticism from my supervisor and committee, I decided to explore co-research where I was a peer in a study with equal partners, researching shared expertise in social innovation.

This research began in the 1980s during a paradigm shift in research that proposed what we know is created in communication with others, called social construction. During this time, my home discipline of Psychology became interested in narrative approaches in theory, research and therapy. Because I had been involved in early emancipatory movements in deinstitutionalization, feminism, civil rights and the disability movement, I, like many others within psychology, had become increasingly frustrated with my training and work as a quantitative researcher and was looking to find a new research home that included a focus on social change and active participation. These ideas seemed to pose serious threats to the dominant research approaches within psychology. Nevertheless, in sociology, education and community development the shift to using holistic/social action orientations to study entrenched power imbalances was underway.

Gergen (Gergen, K.J., 1999. An invitation to social construction. Sage). the most active promoter of social construction in psychology, was setting the stage with three motivations in psychology: the search for stable laws, the study of change as part of the chaotic interactions of contextual factors, and the evaluation of developmental change processes in order to improve practice.

The search for stable laws and theory, characterizes most empirical and qualitative research. Large groups are used to minimize the natural variation in responses that occur because of individual differences. Subjects are reassured that their individual presence will not be detected. This approach is not only counterproductive in health promotion, it reinforces the power imbalances within a society. Researchers define meaning, while the voice of subjects is carefully camouflaged. There is no role for partnership, although increasingly reaction panels were invited to confirm research findings.

The second motivation, emancipatory and critical research, has its roots in Marxist social theory. It exhorts the researcher to use his / her skills to challenge the existing power bases within society, in order to achieve social empowerment for disenfranchised groups (Fay, 1987: Parker, 1992, Wexler, 1983). The researcher uses science to reduce the power of the elite, in order to allow more democratic forms of public and personal power to emerge. Citizens become critics in this approach by naming systemic discrimination of the health system. This has been the approach in cultural studies, such as disability studies in contrast with their medical rehabilitation sister programs.

Participatory action research (PAR) is the other branch of emancipatory research. The role of the academic researcher is subsumed within the will of the group, and all members of the group are considered equal. In the process of enlightenment there can only be participants (Habermas, 1971). This is a grassroots approach to the solution of community problems which empowers by promoting group belonging, fostering creativity and critical thinking, promoting change and growth, and serving as a means of resolving social conflict. However the results of PAR seldom become part of scientific health culture, partly because the impact of this approach is not measured by contribution to theoretical debates but by the ability to promote growth and change within the group (Fals-Borda and Rahman,1991).

The third approach is the domain of improved practice. In practice related research, there are three types of partnerships: individuals and consumers; groups such as poverty coalitions, cancer survivors, those with health related lifestyle habits: and expert patients.

When the partners are professionals in charge of the intervention there is also a rich history of research partnerships. Teachers, therapists, nurses and support workers in the community have all the established research partnerships. In England, the field of action research in education has a rich and extensive history of academic researchers and teacher researchers, working together to explore and extend teaching practice. Jennifer Gore (1993) is an example of two approaches, combining the tradition of action research, and American critical theory using a feminist framework.

Nurses have taken a lead role in the development of grounded theory research related to professional practice (Strauss and Corbin Corbin 1990). Hutchinson (1987) tackles the important features of personal and emotional self-care for nurses in high-stress positions, thereby providing a model for understanding the practice of nursing from the perspective of both the recipient of care and the caregiver.

Research partnership in Co Research

After 20 years of research with marginalized groups, I believed that research partnerships might add new dimensions to current practice because much of my work reflected the above partnerships, including my experience with social action research in the Independent Living (IL) Movement. IL is a partnership of disabled people, their friends, and the professionals who support them, all working together in partnership, to ensure citizenship and quality of life. IL is distinctly different from traditional methods of rehabilitation where the professional is the expert, and the disabled person a thankful recipient of service. IL is also a very different form of social advocacy, wherein disabled persons assert their rights to speak for themselves. Just as IL created new challenges and options for professionals and people who live with disabilities, so I believed that a partnership in research might create new options for researchers and participants.

The co research topic of the following study adds social innovation to the study of peer research and empowerment. Empowerment, the action of gaining power, speaks to the processes whereby people, individually or collectively, achieve greater control over their lives. A social intervention is a new and imaginative way of tackling a social problem or improving quality of life (Albery, 1986). Social innovations may be “laws, organizations or procedures that change the ways in which people relate to themselves or to each other” (Conger, 1974, p.1). Thus, the study addresses a subset of social change – innovations that influence people’s ability to realize personal and group emancipation

I set out to explore the empowering impact of social innovation, in ways that would inform traditional power imbalances in research. While conducting the research I had the opportunity to visit a number of universities to present seminars on my work. I spoke to sociologists, educators, psychologists, and discourse analysts. While most were intrigued by the research, they had strong reactions to the idea of working partnerships with participants that extend beyond data collection. Some reacted as if partnership was a threat to academic freedom, or an abdication of academic responsibility. The feminist researchers I spoke to considered full partnership a fond but elusive dream.

study took place in a number of settings in Britain, Canada, and the United States where groups of people experienced a social change that had an impact on their personal lives. The founders of these movements included;

• Gerry Kinsella, founder of a series of training co-operatives called Greenbank, in Liverpool, the UK;
• Dorothy Birtles, founder of the Quaker Prisoner Befriending Scheme, connecting Quakers with prisoners in repressive regimes
• Dame Cicely Saunders, the founder of the modern hospice movement, as exemplified by St. Christopher’s in London;
• David Brandon, an outspoken consumer and critic of health and social systems who worked with homeless people, people with chronic psychiatric concerns and cognitive disabilities as the director of MIND, UK;
• Henry Enns, a founder of Disabled Peoples’ International, with headquarters in Winnipeg, Manitoba;
• Henry Three Sons, the founder of tribal changes in native child welfare policy of the Siksika Nation, Alberta, Canada.
• The partners also included those affected by the changes, their families and me, a serial innovator and researcher.

Most co researchers were involved over a period of three to four years. They and the people involved with the innovations became the living laboratories of the study. Through hours of interviews, site visits, and sessions with their families, staff, and clients, they became researchers of their own expertise. We were able to document how they, as equal partners, found ways to collect, analyze, and interpret data. In the process, we uncovered knowledge that was meaningful both for an academic audience and the groups studied. In a way, we lived a social invention about research as we explored new partnership roles.

I chose to use grounded theory as the general framework for the study because I anticipated that the methods would have to evolve and expand as the study progressed. After an extensive recruitment and preparation process, we started with a fairly traditional qualitative interviewing approach using feminist principles along with ethnographic processes, to record my involvement within the new social organizations (social innovations). I employed methods that encouraged an open sharing of ideas and reciprocity but soon encountered serious difficulties. The transcripts and the forms of analysis posed barriers to partnership. The founders of the new social movements that were part of the study felt increasingly alienated. Although we spent time together, most of the work was my work trying to figure out how to do co research. The process of conceptual abstractions also distanced the subject from his/her own material because many of the codes were, in fact, codes that arose from my background and reading.

When I sat back to analyze what was happening, it seemed that we kept talking because neither I nor the others knew when we had finished. I began to imagine that we were trapped in a force field defined by collecting, analyzing and interpreting data even though it continued to feel like data collection. My feelings about the search for the meaning were coming close to those expressed by Rommetveit (1978) in discussing the plight of the enlightened layperson struggling to improve his/her own capacity to understand and make him/herself understood within the games of research: “…his [the subject’s] initial pride turning to despair and alienation while I as the scholar of human communication pursued the trade with scientific rigour, formal elegance and academic success within the convenient fiction of joint construction of meaning” (p. 17). In this case, we at least shared our frustration.

Working together was becoming a chore and I had come face to face with reality as stated by Gluck and Patai (1991): “Narrators typically are not true partners in the process. Whatever control they exercise during the interview, when they are able to negotiate the terrain, usually ends once the session is completed” (p. 2). Gluck and Patai go on to assert that, although narrators are occasionally consulted prior to publication, the interviewer/scholar maintains “the work of framing, presenting, interpreting, analyzing and making the work public” (p. 3). They conclude that feminist scholars contribute to the collectivity of women, but their actual practice has maintained the real separation between narrator and interviewer.

As we discussed the difficulties we were experiencing, it became apparent that the participants had particular strengths related to understanding the nature of partnership research. They had agreed to participate in the study after understanding the scope of the research, their role in negotiating topics, and their role in the use of the material. The participants were high profile people with much to lose and the topics covered could be potentially damaging – both personally and professionally. They needed assurances that their information would be treated with respect and their ideas not squandered. The first change was to move away from conceptual abstractions and psychology language, and agree to base our work within a shared language of everyday experience. We also needed a process whereby we could capitalize on the implicit expectations of our partnership. It seemed logical and natural in this circumstance to investigate a social contract that could help us clarify the steps to be taken.

The parties (founders as experts in social innovation and the researcher) in most research experiences assume roles even if the roles are seldom defined. The subject has information that the researcher needs and the researcher’s task is to convince the subject to share that information. The subject, if he/she is willing to contribute to the advancement of knowledge, still has to weigh the potential risks of commitment and disclosure (Brenner, 1978; Ginsberg, 1978; Miller, 1972; Mixon, 1971). The social contract that was created for this particular study consisted of an informal negotiation process that clarified what each of the parties brought to the research enterprise and what each hoped to achieve. This is represented in Figure 1. a social contract framework.

Figure 1.  A general social contract framework for Peer Research:  General roles and Products

The contracting process was adapted from a training contract (Marlett & Hughson, 1978) and it created the opportunity to openly discuss activities and interaction, quality standards, and products. The expert/founder and the researcher became active participants in creating new options instead of being limited to one prescribed research approach. Rather than trying to negotiate a global contract for the research, we negotiated our roles throughout the tasks of the research. These tasks occurred within four general and interconnected stages in the research process: data collection, analyzing data, interpretation, and generating or disseminating theory. The negotiation at each stage began by defining and agreeing to the tasks at hand. We could then define our respective roles in relation to the task, the anticipated product of each task and how each of us would know when the process was finished. From this we could also judge the quality of our work in completing the task and the product that resulted. This was a verbal process, captured on tape and this available in the transcripts for reference.

1. Data Collection

Data collection was an easily identified process because most of the co researchers had been interviewed in the past and were familiar with evaluation research. They were comfortable with the different methods used to collect data in the study – interviews, observations, use of documents – and thus the data collection contract held no surprises. The purpose of the contract, as illustrated in Figure 3, was to secure relevant and accurate information. In this, the researcher provided the opportunity and means for the content experts to explore, discover, and learn about themselves and the topic. The subjects committed to explore and share their experiences and ideas within their limits of trust and safety. I, as a co researcher with experience in social innovation, contributed when it facilitated and expanded the scope of the experiences. Any agreements to disclose information were governed by the balance between the benefits and the inherent risks to the subjects. In this study the risks were increased because we could not rely on the protection of anonymity.

Figure 2 :  Social Contract for Data Collection: A construct for Honest and Compete Data.

Every effort was made to establish and maintain an informality in collecting data. Co researchers set the pace and were free to expand on topics or issues that they felt were important. It was common for the co researchers to ask questions and for me to share material from other cases. The founders were asked to comment on the process, and whether they felt safe and comfortable with the information disclosed. If a topic was too sensitive, it was removed, deferred, or approached in alternative ways. In all instances, subjects were invited to include others in data collection in order to explore alternative perspectives. For some co researchers, this meant the casual involvement of a spouse or family members; for others, formal group interviews with coworkers and the people directly involved in the social invention were arranged. Interviews took place in a location chosen by each subject, usually at the site of the organization. Interviews were taped throughout the entire research process to provide a record of the evolving methods. The final product of the data collection stage was the transcript.

Transcribing our first co research interviews from taped interviews, field notes and documents almost derailed the co research and my thesis. The first transcripts were formal texts that left participants alienated and reluctant to engage in analyzing the transcripts. Similar concerns have been raised by feminist researchers (Reinhardt,1992). The words in text didn't look like their words and this was embarrassing to them. I had taken their words and ideas and made them mine as I attempted to impose written structures. The written record seemed barren and alien. All founders felt that I had appropriated their experience and they were relegated to confirming my record of their lives.

Using Glazers (1967) call to experimentation in grounded theory, I spent eight months trying various transcription methods with the co researchers. I wrote in various styles of texts, prepared short summaries of key points, used various linguistic formulae that translated the spoken word to speech acts, I drew annotated pictures of constructs and, in desperation I even resorted to writing free verse.

Then, late one night, I plugged in my transcription machine and slowed the speed. I just began typing and lost myself in the unfolding stories. As I listened, I typed and hit the return button each time I heard a pause, for no other reason that it seemed a sensible way to avoid run-on lines. I typed naturally often keeping time with the tape recorder and after a few hours I looked at what I had created and smiled. Rather than listening for content and sentences, I listened to the rhythm of the speech and the intonation of the speaker. When I read it back, I suddenly realized that I was listening to the person talking in the text - the breath, the pause, the hesitation had created speech on paper. The following is a short example of the method for transcribing in which Gerry was talking about bus transport at Greenbank.

It took 10 minutes to load a trainee

not particularly good on her feet

He (the bus driver) had to use the lift

and I said

are we talking about the same person

she could go up the steps at the side of the bus

(driver) said no she can't

and her mother is adamant that she can't

I said okay, I'll go with you

and I went out

and the parent came out and was about to say my daughter can't do it

and I said

alright mrs. Jones we don't need you here

in a tone that means I don't want you here

it's not a school

this is an exercise that management needs to do

and the kid is bemused as anybody

it could have been one of those tearful experiences

the upshot was that the exercise was completed

she got on the bus

I've had dozens of these where people assume they can't do things because people tell them they're disabled (GK, interivew)

This transcript maintains its conversational character and the integrity of ideas as separate but connected. Without punctuation or a constructed sentence structure, it reads with the rhythm of speech. One of the co researchers called it research poetry. When the speaker is talking about familiar concepts, long, run-on sentences appear because the speaker doesn't need to think, but when the speaker is concerned or searching for answers short lines appear (Etter-Lewis, 1991). In our transcripts, the visual appearance and the rhythm reflected individual characteristics. When more than one person was included, each person could be identified by the visual footprint of words on the page.

In essence, the story tells itself in the person’s own voice. The reader gains what the person is saying in a direct way that doesn’t need interpretation or presentation. This maintains respect, and in doing so, enhances the overall outcome. The connection between memory and the rhythmic patterns seemed to draw in the co researchers, they could easily locate ideas in text. We could recall the conversations, and most importantly each person commented that they could hear themselves in their story. They heard their own rhythm rather than the rhythm imposed by the transcriber who had produced the transcripts.

The problems of written representation had been associated with the power of ownership in research. Written text becomes owned by the researcher instead of belonging to the speaker. This shifts powers away from the co researcher.

The speech transcription method is included here because it provided an important breakthrough in the extension of partnership beyond the interview. Transcripts were produced using a technique designed specifically for the study. Words were typed directly as heard from the tape and a new line was started at each breath or pause in the conversation. This created a written representation of oral conversation. It looks and reads more like a conversation than traditional text.

This speech based procedure for creating transcripts enabled the co researchers to own their transcripts as part of an ongoing oral interaction. We effectively postponed the formalization of our interaction as formal, written text and this enabled us to “play” with the data longer. The social contract of data collection was considered complete when subjects saw and felt comfortable with their Transcripts.

NOTE Not even this simplified speech process was enough to engage seniors from Grey Matters in data collection. They used the story template introduced as part of the following analysis section. They listened to the tape and inserted what was happening in the stories into a story template that was in effect the bridge between data collection and the first stage of analysis of taking data apart into pieces or incidents that can be studied for meaning. The story template has since become the basic data form for collecting incidents and various stages of analysis and interpretation.

2. Analysis

The definition of, and contract for, analysis proved to be the turning point of the study. After much study and discussion, analysis was defined as examining and breaking data into small pieces or incidents, in order to constantly compare incidents in order to find similarities to sort the data into categories. The purpose of the contract was to ensure reliability of the information that had been gathered and sorted. This was to be accomplished by breaking down the data in order to ensure that the elements or units were complete and correct. Figure 4 represents the framework for the analysis contract.

Figure 3.  A contract to sort data units into categories

After working with the transcripts in the form of word phrases and trying to identify concepts it became clear that the time required was not feasible if we were to continue working together. We agreed that I would take the responsibility to prepare the data into units, so that we sort them into categories. The potential benefits for each party were sizable. We agreed that the subject was involved in choosing how the data would be broken into units and I felt secure because everything possible had been done to ensure reliable data before proceeding to interpretation. In order to achieve the contract we had to find processes to break down the data and sort the elements into categories. This involved the tasks of identifying types of elements or units to be used, its form and content. The end product was a collection of elements sorted into categories with preliminary names.

The search for methods of analysis was a six month quest to find a collaborative way to work with the transcripts that respected the co researchers and enabled the analysis to reflect an authentic negotiation of meaning. Conceptual analysis, life course analysis, controversial analysis, structure analysis, movement analysis, and antecedent/consequent analysis were all tried but none fostered the ability to co research. Each felt like I was retelling their experience in a foreign conceptual language. They felt alienated, abandoned and frustrated. Stories were eventually chosen as units of analysis because subjects could relate to stories and work with them. In the end we were able to convert the data into stories.

The negotiated contract for analysis was complete when all the relevant information (transcripts, observations from the site visits, interviews with collaborators, and documents) were presented in story units. The stories were summarized by title, page reference, a summary and a brief list of story themes. Story chains or sets of cards were constructed enabling the subjects and those they chose to be involved, to see and work with the elements of their data more easily. Subjects were invited to add stories that had been missed, combine or separate stories, or delete stories that were not relevant to the topic.

The processes were open, concrete, and transparent and led to productive and comfortable working relationships. Both parties knew what was expected and when the task was complete. Co researchers had come to feel a certain security in the handling of their stories because they could see and understand each of the steps in the process. Subjects came to believe that their information was respected, that there was a deliberate search for truth and that their stories would not be distorted.

The following is a summary of some of the later methods used with co researchers in the first stage of analyzing their data. The process of sorting and comparing incidents to create categories is considered under interpretation.

Options for analysis

Short story summary and initial codes of categories

After exploring coding in a variety of ways—word and constructs, the co researchers were ready to quit. With transcripts of interviews, process notes of observations, documents and media we were just overwhelmed. We began creating notes about data that seemed to be organized as stories in the margins. We named each story (a title) and included a summary of potential themes. We used this process for all data. These stories grew to become chains that created a chronology of stories. Stories from different data sources could be added into the story chain. The innovators maintained their ownership of these short stories and story chains. The following is an example of several stories from a story chain of the Greenbank training centre.

• Debbie comes to Greenbank; (field note) from a chat with Debbie while writing a European Union report, professionals had convinced Debbie that she would never work anywhere but at Green Bank. However, she came to see herself as a competent and creative worker.
  • Themes: stigma, labelling, external control, New Hope
• Bus and Mrs. Jones (Gerry transcript, p16) interview with Jerry and Mike. Gerry sidelines a mother who is limiting options for her daughter, and Gerry asserts that she will be able to get on the bus.
  • Themes: control of external power, risk power, power balancing, staff training for expectations, belief and confidence.
• Crooked eyed joiner (article in newspaper and field note 17) General chat in the lunch room with a group of staff. Gerry notes that a trainee jerks when cutting, not because of physical disability but because he is blind in one eye. The trainee adjusts the angle of the work so he can see and performs well.
  • Themes: a peer notices problem missed by a professional assessment, native cleverness of peers, staff training, belief and confidence

Over 90% of the data was included in this type of chronology of stories which we defined as ‘any temporally and thematically connected series of ideas or incidents’. We entered the short story notes onto small cards, to compare each story to sort into categories of like stories. We worked with the story chains to fill in the gaps, find duplicate or related stories, look for patterns and create analysis for common stories. This process was in keeping with classical grounded theory and necessary for the social contract.

Antecedent Consequence Analysis

We experimented with different ways to express the short stories in a more expanded fashion that captured action, direction and change. The most extensive of these was antecedent/ consequence (Strauss, 1967) analysis of events to flush out the stories. The following is an example of the analysis of antecedent and consequences in the Bus and Mrs. Jones transcript noted above in data collection.

• Implied actors: Gerry, Mrs. Jones, bus driver and daughter
• Condition: dispute over time taken to load trainee on the bus triggers Gerry to set up a session to witness the loading process
• Activity: Assessment of the loading process to identify parts where difficulty was noticed
• Tactic: Interrupt Mrs. Jones before she has a chance to contribute—change focus to transportation difficulties not the daughter
• Consequence:
  • Daughter is bemused and vulnerable
  • Parent is sidelined
  • Staff is chastised
  • Daughter gets on the bus and is proud of herself

The final form of working with Stories as units or incidents of analysis emerged in the later stages of the study. It included creating a story template that consisted of the beginning, middle and end from the above analysis form. The shift to a more simplified format made it easier for novice researchers to understand and use.

Figure 4: Story Template records stories in a quick, visible format from audio tapes or flip charts or observations.

3. Interpreting Stories: the search for meaning

During data collection and analysis we worked to capture historical truth. Historical truth lies in a story that can be recognized by those who have lived it because of its integrity. Historical truth is truth as seen, experienced, and recalled. We had done this through the honest and complete documentation of actions, events, ideas, and feelings. Now we had to deal with “narrative truth” wherein the story is true regardless of its historical veracity because of the meaning the story conveys to people (Spense, 1982). In the search for narrative truth, the stories were no longer products in and of themselves, but were tools in an ongoing interpretive process that used the stories to uncover topic related information. We defined interpretation as the process of finding relationships between the stories that added to our understanding of the intention, purpose, or impact of the topic.

This following section addresses constant comparison and coding using incidents which includes stories (small action statements of what’s happening) and descriptions of experience (what was it like)

In my experience with evaluative research and social action research, the scope of the interpretation was predetermined by the method being used. None of these experiences seemed relevant to the work we now faced. While our roles had been different and discrete in the search of historical truth, we were now fellow observers and interpreters as we moved beyond documenting stories to understanding the topic through stories. We had to evolve and improve our respective roles and rules of conduct as we went along, as represented below:

Fig 5  Social contract for Interpretation: A contract for social and contextual validity

In this contract we move from stories to categories of stories through a sorting process. There are two goals related to negotiating roles: social validity and contextual validity. Social validity was enhanced because the process and the product were personally meaningful to the founders because of their ongoing involvement. The contract also framed the tasks of interpretation within the contextual boundaries created by our respective experiences. Contextual validity was a term which I coined to recognize the underlying meaning inherent in context (historical, social, personal, and cultural). For example, the results of a study of mother/infant interaction would take on particular meaning if the study was conducted in an intensive care nursery, and a very different meaning if the study was conducted within the home. When the context is identified, readers have important reference points that ground their understanding.

The tasks involved developing methods that capitalized on the strength and breadth of our combined experience and our complementary perspectives. The benefits of partnership during interpretation were great. The subjects had an opportunity to reframe their experiences according to a number of perspectives, including their past and their culture. The researcher, through sharing interpretation with informed expert co researchers, can broaden the interpretive base and thereby ensure that alternate meanings are recognized and integrated into the final products.

We began by discussing what each of us brought to the process of interpretation. Brown and Sime’s (1981) work on the expertise of explainers provided a framework to discuss the degree, amount, and type of involvement each of us had with the topic. We also discussed how our shared experience extended the boundaries of possible interpretation to include our combined personal, social, cultural and historical perspectives. This process also helped me to define the potential for generalizing our interpretations. My role included the development of methods and procedures that would engage both of us in a shared search for meaning. The co researchers role was to approach each exercise with openness to different perspectives and to identify as many interpretations as possible.

As we started to work with stories, I was unprepared for the openness, the mutuality, and the reciprocity that ensued. It was as if the stories had created a familiarity and trust that made it possible to understand our research roles at a new level. The following transcript, taken directly from a tape of the interpretation session, and therefore not presented in the usual transcript format. It is included to identify the partnership that enabled the case study to proceed.

G: At the beginning I must confess that you were asking questions and I was wondering if my rabbiting on would give you any information that would be of any use to you at all and then I stopped doing that very early on. I was constantly thinking about what I’m saying and what meaning it may have to your research. It might have been a botched up job.

N: You know, I don’t think researchers realize just how much people do just that – that people are trying to give us what we want. I think that may be the reason why so much research is shit. We never sit down and say this is the area I’m interested in and be honest with you. You end up spending your time guessing what my agenda is.

G: It’s almost like a bedpan syndrome. You’ve been interviewed by so many professionals who are wanting to prove a theory. Not really searching for new stuff by wanting to prove a theory and you see that when somebody’s eyes start glittering or their voice changes – it says yeah tell me a little more about that and you think oh shit I’ve got it right haven’t I and then you get the disappointment in their eyes and you think oh now I’ve done it. That wasn’t happening ‘cause I quite enjoyed telling you my stories to be quite honest.

N: There were times when I thought I should be directing it more. I finally thought it’s time to just watch where this goes. There were pages where all I got to say was an “uum”

N: One of the stories that I wanted to interpret with you is a story that happened a long time ago and it will be a challenge to get back into it. I’d like to talk about what roles we might take in this. I’ll need to be guided by you.

G: OK lead us into it. There’s so much in my mind, let's start with the story and see what comes out.

(Gerry, interpretation tape, 1991)

Experience based research invites the search for meaning in stories. The short story chronology and the story template identify story based categories for more detailed analysis and interpretation. The following describes the elements of the story template as used in interpretation

Title: The title represents an aspect of the story that sets it apart from other stories, the naming of the story is akin to its birth. Story becomes an entity when it has a name which acts as a story specific code for the entire story that can be used in locating specific information about the story. The title becomes how the story is recalled, shared and changed. It in effect bridges from story to narrative because of the shared meaning. We learned that the person or persons who label the story owns the story. Even when I chose words from the transcript that I felt honoured the narrator, my act of naming presented a difficult situation, they either capitulated and gave the story to me or we engaged in a struggle for power in naming the story. Once we realized the power of ownership the ensuing naming ceremony developed a kinship between us.

Context: This is generally the beginning but can be scattered throughout an interview. It combines the who, when and where of the story. It follows from the much-loved phrase ‘once upon a time’. The context sets the stage, outlining what was happening when the story began and the triggers that initiated the story. The context collects the properties and characteristics of the story that is used to understand categories by looking at the common properties. The following is a summary of the properties that are used in interpretation

• Who is the teller of the story? A young indigenous woman...
• Where does it happen? A young indigenous woman in the emergency department
• When does it happen? A young indigenous woman in the emergency department in the early morning
• What's happening? A young indigenous woman in the emergency department in the early morning having difficulty breathing

The following example from Greenbank led to an important breakthrough in understanding the importance of place as a context in understanding stories. Over 100 stories from Greenbank were sorted into piles according to where the story took place. Four locations were identified.

• Greenbank, the former special school that was taken over by persons with disabilities to start a training Co-op.
• Smithdown, the downtown commercial Enterprise that houses shops, a wheelchair factory, and a whole food restaurant.
• Past places such as special schools, hospitals, and in foster care.
• Westfield, the proposed and contested site of expansion and direct competition with professional services. While Westfield failed to materialize a recreation centre was built instead.

Place is just one of the features of story analysis that can lead to categorizing stories and incidents. Categorizing by place was the key in the development of understanding how the environment created consistent psychological spaces reinforced by common stories or narratives. It also provided an overall theoretical framework for the social enterprise that was called Greenbank but in reality included all of the properties captured in the related spaces.

The questions related to who, what, where, when, how, why are not just context, they are a powerful tool in interpreting stories as part of analysis and interpretation. In grounded theory, which is not narrative, similar tools are called properties - qualities or characteristics. From a narrative analysis perspective this would relate to the question, what is happening here? This might be a quality like ignoring or the search for justice or shame.

Plot analysis: the plot consists of actions or incidents, listed in order, from the context to the outcome or consequence. By analyzing the plots of similar stories it is relatively easy to study what is happening in the story. There are common plots in literary analysis, such as tragedy and comedy. There are also specific tools such as movement analysis (Labov, 19xx) that capture the overall movement past themes. In peer research the plot analysis is used to detect strategies for handling the social problem in action research. These strategies often become categories in the final explanation of the problem.

Consequence: The consequence demonstrates how the flow of the overall story had altered by the end. It identifies what the person learned (the moral of the story); how relationships, roles and even organizations seemed changed because of the events of the story. The consequence also includes the ‘what next’ question to identify sequence and related stories.

Underlying Scripts: The following interpretive tool was developed in the student research of autobiographies and is added here as a powerful summary to define a theory. Stories are captured in what became known as script analysis or using scripts as storied categories or theory.

The context, plot and consequences can be used to sort stories into underlying scripts. Scripts are in effect, another way of identifying constructs and they represent the narrative themes or categories of the research. For example, constructs in grounded theory research are often written as gerunds, or action phrases. If the researcher is using narrative methods to complement grounded theory, the following action script can be extracted from the context, plot and consequence. The movement of the overall story can then be tracked through these script titles

• he context begins the script with the phrase When I…..
• The plot describes the action or generalized plot through the steps outlined in the story. This begins with pronoun ‘I’
• The consequence, the expected outcome of the script begins with this phrase ‘and then I’

The following is an example of a common script used by trainees at Greenbank. Trainees labelled this the ‘give it a go’ script.

Script title: Give it a Go.

When I am afraid because I don’t know if I can do what is expected of me

I remember that Gerry and other trainees felt the same way but tried

And then, I just give it a go and try again and again just to see what happens.

This was a significant script for Greenbank because it removed the role of reward or failure in learning. It introduced a script that allowed trainees to experiment without the overlay of more traditional approaches which carry the fear of failure.

The Interpretation that emerged from the above transcript about the Bus and Ms. Jones demonstrates a story template approach to analysis. The Bus and Ms Jones and similar stories became narratives or collective stories of the group that set expectations of what might happen and in the process explained how to respond to new situations.

For example, a young disabled woman approaches a ramp and a door is met by a visitor, who offers to help by pushing the chair up the ramp and opening the door. She uses the common tactic of Greenbank and says clearly ‘thank you but no, I am quite capable to try this on my own’. In this case she is proud of herself, the visitor is sidelined and bemused.

4. Theory

The definition of theory is simply a set of ideas that explain practice or experience. Theory includes the tasks of making theory for sharing and comparing results with other theories. There would appear to be three main audiences for theory depending on the purpose of the research.

1. The community of academic peers who judge and reward the researcher by academic standards. I was concerned about this audience because the final product had to speak to an interdisciplinary academic community that represented often conflicting standards. This paper is an example of an interdisciplinary and multisite academic product that challenged the rights of people with ordinary lives and experiences to make decisions.
2. Practitioners who seek knowledge to improve their practice and who will judge the theory by its applicability and usefulness. The concepts of empowerment and change are particularly relevant to human service professionals who seek new ideas to keep abreast of changes in technology and policy changes.
3. The target population who judge the quality of the theory according to its relevance to their personal, social, and economical lives. This audience was represented by people who were impacted by systemic discrimination of the systems they encountered prior to the new social movements that sought to redress the power imbalances. The stories of each of the new social movements were prepared for use by them to use to recognize both systemic oppression and empowerment now possible.

The social contract for the research however, only addresses the target group for each of the case studies. In keeping with this, each case study received a report of the research with a theory of what was learned about the new social movement and its founder. As such it is ideographic or restricted to a specific situation. There is no expectation that the findings apply to other similar situations.

Fig 7  Social contract for Case based theory: A contract for explaining, dissemination, impact and implementation

The social contract for theory for the PhD was designed for all three audiences: usefulness of the theory to those who live the experience being explored; implementation and impact for those interested in improving practice; and theoretical sensitivity and integrity for academic audiences

The introduction of the Theory social contract freed us to interact and explore ideas in an open partnership. Most subjects felt they were part of the process; they were not being studied but had embarked upon a joint journey of discovery. The relationship was time limited and governed by the task at hand but dependent upon us as people, ready to risk and experiment. It seemed natural to see the relationship as a partnership that recognized the sophistication and willingness of subjects to be part of social science research. Partnership research provided an opportunity for role empowerment by making role expectations explicit within a process that authenticated the contribution of each of the parties. The improved clarity in the relationship increased the rigour of the research, opened new options for shared knowledge, and hopefully improved the quality of the research product.

The thesis had two goals: To create an integrated narrative strategy and to understand the role of founders of emancipatory social movements. Examples of the theories are presented below.

An Integrated narrative strategy that is both emancipatory and rigorous.

The following narrative process evolved over the extended case studies of co research. This research was an example of peer to peer research where each peer shared a common experience of the topic of social innovation. One was an expert of the case and the other a researcher searching to understand the role of the expert in social innovation. The following is a short summary of the narrative strategy or theory of method

The overall interpretative process, once incidents and stories have been identified might be condensed as follows:

• Build basic trust in the process through negotiating each step to understand roles, expectations and when the goal of each step was completed
• Choose a method for collecting stories (observing, interviewing, documents and media) that allows the co researcher to tell stories about their involvement in the topic (in this case the social innovation). Take short notes of incidents - what happened, and, or audio tape the session.
• Produce a story chain of incidents to ensure that all relevant stories are included, in order and are accurate.
• Compare each incident/ story in turn to similar incidents of problems, actions, emotions, thoughts.
• As you do this put similar incidents and stories together, sorting into rough categories
• Give emerging categories a name or code that captures the emerging meaning. This code remains an abstracted action, thought, strategy, metaphor until new comparisons challenge the category and force it to divide or take over other the meaning of categories
• Continue to find new data sources to test emerging categories until one emerges as the best overall description or explanation of the topic or social problem. This might be a common story that becomes the core category or a concept.
• Test each category against the topic / problem and the core category using the properties of the stories in each category to arrange all categories into a focused description of the experience or explanation of the problem.
• Find a way to tell the resulting story of the main concern or topic and how each category enriches the story. Note, at this point there is a distinct difference between general qualitative research and action based research. Qualitative research which may focus on themes that describe experience and create a hierarchy of themes instead of one focused theme that organizes all other themes.
• The best explanation of the core story can be presented in many forms: a set of scripts, strategies, concepts, the title of the core story or combination of these. The resulting story is discussed as it relates to other findings.
• This core category, theme or story also becomes the foundation for explaining or resolving the topic or main concern and organizes the other elements into a single organization.
• The continuity of story or story based concepts and themes throughout also enables the inclusion of the small incidents, metaphors, properties and characteristics that are all embedded in a narrative approach. As the main feature of peer or co research, narrative builds on the power of story to build and support equal relationships, sharing, refining meaning and sharing the results of research.

An idiographic theory of the role of founders of new social movements.

Grounded theory is situational and since this was a case study of very diverse situations, the first approach to theory rests within the context of the study as idiographic theory. This consisted of an explanation of the social innovation that was created by the founder. Each is organized within the context of the situation and the root metaphor or way of thinking of the founder. The following are several examples.

• Greenbank theory is based on the metaphor of place. Recruits who were disabled came from medical and social institutions that defined both their deficits and needs for care. They came to Greenbank, a place of peer support and mainstreet training with the expectation that they would learn new skills and graduate. Graduates either became trainers or moved to mainstreet businesses run by Greenbank or other competitive options. There was always a new idea to chase and program to build. He is the quintessential social entrepreneur.

Gerry Kinsella, the founder was a hero in disability sport who challenged the existing systems that stigmatized disabled people, his root metaphor was the playing coach, he coached staff and trainees alike to take risks, support each other and aim high. He did this while inspiring trainees through building new facilities and programs, political and business successes and sports. His way of thinking could be summarized as ‘give it a go’.

• The Quaker Prisoner Befriending Scheme: This theory is grounded in the teachings of the Quaker movement. The Quaker Central Committee provides the context for innovation in large organizations, specifically, the importance of gaining trust of organizations and professional advocates by quiet advocacy and passion for a cause. We also learned about the importance of grassroots supporters to champion credibility in large organizations

The nature of her personal mission is the life sustaining connections and contributions among volunteer befrienders who commit to share daily experiences with those who have been disappeared (imprisoned without trial) for their beliefs. The theory outlines the power of everyday connection through letter writing when there is no power and almost no hope for liberation. It is here that the power of stories is clear; to connect, inspire, and bring joy in the absence of hope.

Dorothy is the epitome of an elderly English gentlewoman, responding to the letters for help that come through her door. She is clear and persistent about the horror of torture in all societies that must be faced, studied and countered. Her challenge is simple: when we do nothing we too share the guilt, brutality about the secrecy of hidden, invalidated people and contribute to the potential success of terror.

• Siksika Nation traditional child welfare, based on the metaphor of The People. The context of Henry Three Son’s history and the development of a traditional approach to child welfare provided a chance to learn about what has been called the 60’s scoop. This innovative combination of indigenous and white ways provided an opportunity to track the journey from the 1950’s to the 1990’s that told the story of rapid destruction of traditional values and the eventual reclamation of two eyed seeing. The stories resonate with colour, sound, symbols and images. The following theory is presented as a summary marked by decades
  • 1950s: The Sundance, an annual gathering of the clans to celebrate the harvest through dancing and rituals while gathering to govern and plan. The colours were yellow and blue for the autumn sun under blue skies, the sounds were the drums and singing.
  • 1960s: Bad Medicine The change is the introduction of alcohol, bars and loss of ritual and governance. This leads to family breakdown and child isolation. The ‘white’ government places neglected children in White families. The colors are red and black, the sounds are of loud country music and the metaphor is the local smoke filled bar. He is isolated because he is not part of change and turns to elders for guidance.
  • 1970s: Silent Funerals, a cold time of dying and the death of tradition, the family and community. The colour is cold white of winter, the sound is silence and the metaphor is the internment of the coffin. This was also Henry’s work to support tribal members to become indigenous social workers to reverse the trend to ‘scooping children’. These social workers activate the natural supports within clans to refocus on family capacity.
  • 1980s: Briefcases Blackfoot negotiators took on the ways of White power brokers to defend and reclaim the rights of Indigenous peoples. Henry speaks about how they studied policy and worked to identify gaps and obstacles to equitable policy and funding. Trusted insiders were also supported to contrast provincial and federal policy. The colours are brown briefcases, western business colours with colourful indigenous emblems, the sounds are of the board room.
  • 1990s The Siksika radio station, the use of western technology to reclaim traditional communications. This is used not only for sharing stories but community input into planning and governance.

Combining Cases: a theory of the role of innovators in new social movements.

After the cases were completed, I eventually was able to create a combined theory of the role of innovators in new social organizations by conducting a separate analysis of the data of all of the new social movements. It combines the initial role of the founder as storyteller and activist.

This activist was part of the target population or a trusted ally who challenged the status quo of the dominant system and was able to make an impact. These emancipatory stories were shared within the target population and inspired members to imagine they might have done or might do in the future. This leads to more emancipatory narratives that buttress the organization's reputation. Not only does it buttress the reputation, it creates a shield against the continued force of dominant discourses. These include discourses of vulnerability, difference, deficit, unproductive, deviance etc.

Over time a meta narrative emerges that is able to effectively challenge the dominant discourse in the general population. For example, dying with dignity, businesses run by persons with disability, indigenous support of families, international disability rights, each with impact not only at the local but national levels. This narrative calls forth both community support and professional attempts to take over or absorb the innovative features. Many new social movements are taken over but the ones that grow and survive share some common features that were apparent in the founders who took part in the study

• The persistence and energy of the founder to continue to challenge the system and represent the population
• Organizational skills to enable the new social movement to grow and formalize
• Continuing ability to respond, adapt and innovate
• The ability secure champions who speak for the movement
• Remaining alert to sources within the system that are committed to challenge, take over or compete with the movement
• Use of media, publicity or publications.

The data from this study continue to inform the development of peer research and social innovation. In particular is the concept of a shield. The majority of the founders were subsequently honoured in their country for their innovation.

Summary

This has been a short summary of case studies chosen to explore the breadth of social innovation and innovators. This was a grounded theory study with two goals: find ways to engage as equals in data collection and analysis, interpretation and theory building and; understand the role of founders in new social organizations. Story emerged as the framework to enable a variety of methods to engage as equals. The role of founders in nurturing emancipatory changes was also based on stories. This understanding is the consistent feature of peer research through student narrative analysis of autobiographies, peer support programs in the disability community and health systems and peer research as it emerged through research with seniors and finally with PaCER.

This narrative turn has enabled work with indigenous communities and marginalized populations who have strong histories with story and the power of story to bring people together and to find meaning in everyday experience to challenge systemic discrimination.