‘Insiderness’, ‘involvement’ and emotions; impacts for methods, ‘knowledge’ and social research

Dobson, Rachael

doi:10.3351/ppp.0003.0003.0005

Cited by 12 publications

(22 citation statements)

References 29 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…For example, recollections could be read as individualisingly universalistic (my experiences are all workers' experiences) or subjectively particular (my experiences are only my experiences), victimized (I had no control), persecuted (I am not that bad), oppressive (I am bad) or reparative (I did something bad but now I know better). A starting point for working against these more reductive analyses, and towards a more social and relational critique, is to revisit my "insider" status (Dobson, 2009). …”

Section: Recollection-as-method: Key Principlesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…It regards researcher and researched as human actors who are subsumed only by singular identifications (the organisation/the professional identity), and as exposed and always-already knowable to each other, rather than understanding that researchers will encounter multiple and variable points of infinite and interchangeable connectiondisconnection or "transitory spaces" (Mullings, 1999, p. 340) because of institutional actors' complex and non-unitary self-and subject-hood (Hoggett, 2006). I have previously contended that insider experiences result in refusals to see and hear certain voices and perspectives on the bases of their specific engagements and investments with whatever the "inside" represents to them (Dobson, 2009). However, in the present paper I argue that "being there" worked as an ontologising orientation to the world, supporting reflexive post hoc engagement and "sense-making" (Bondi, 2005) with questions of reality/ unreality in social welfare institutions outlined at the start of this paper.…”

Section: Recollection-as-method: Key Principlesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Aside from that push from my lecturer, the work felt consistent with an extended maternal family history of working for the state as social workers, teachers and nationalised utility companies. I later studied the homelessness department as part of my doctorate and thereby became an "insider" researcher (Dobson, 2009). Recollections were first written in 2014, rather than drawn from at-the-time journals and did not form any part of my doctoral research.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Recollection-as-method in social welfare practice: dirty work, shame and resistance

Dobson

2017

QRJ

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Purpose -The purpose of this paper is to introduce a methodology for critical welfare practice research, "recollection-as-method", and to use this to demonstrate the social relations of social welfare institutions.Design/methodology/approach -The paper analyses a series of personal recollections from the author's experiences of academic life and welfare work to establish a methodology for critical welfare practice research. This uses concepts memory, dirty work, shame and complicity, and is grounded in critical feminist and critical race work, and psychosocial and socio-cultural approaches to governance.Findings -The paper establishes a methodology for critical welfare practice research by demonstrating the significance of using an ontologically driven approach to governance, to achieve a realistic and complex understanding of statutory welfare work.Research limitations/implications -Recollections are post hoc narrations, written in the present day. The ethics and robustness of this approach are deliberated in the paper.Practical implications -The focus of the paper is on statutory welfare practice that involves the assessment and regulation of homeless people. Principles and arguments developed in this paper contribute to reflective and reflexive debates across "front-line" social welfare practice fields in and beyond homelessness. Examples include assessment of social groups such as unemployed people, refugees and asylum seekers. Arguments also have application for criminal justice settings such as for prison work.Social implications -This foregrounds practitioner ambivalence and resistance in order to theorise the social relations of social welfare institutions.Originality/value -The recollection-as-method approach provides a methodology for critical practice research by demonstrating an alternative way to understand the realities of welfare work. It argues that understanding how resistance and complicity operate in less conscious and more structural ways is important for understanding the social relations of social welfare institutions and the role of good/bad feeling for these processes. This is important for understanding interventions required for anti-oppressive social change across the social worlds of policy-practice life.

show abstract

Section: Recollection-as-method: Key Principlesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Recollection-as-method: Key Principlesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Recollection-as-method in social welfare practice: dirty work, shame and resistance

Dobson

2017

QRJ

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Participants included organisation directors and managers, as well as ‘front-line’ workers, and two volunteers. Beyond the study, data analysis has been supported by additional independent empirical research with three Australian homelessness organisations (in 2009 and 2011), and the author's experiences as a practitioner in the participating statutory homelessness unit (Dobson, 2009).…”

Section: Social Regulation and Housing And Homelessness Practicementioning

confidence: 99%

“…Returning to the data, housing and homelessness practitioners' performative enactments and actions are, in large part, identifiable through the study of workers' ‘practice languages’, which highlight what practitioners claim to understand, recognise, see, name and know within a particular and temporal cultural, social and historical frame. Languages can also be conceptualised as ‘sector speaks’ (Dobson, 2009) to claim the institutional nature of patterns, continuities, intensifications and repetitions in worker narratives, and to think about these as the ‘process flows’ or the ‘connective tissue’ (Hunter, 2015) through which the local state materialises as the effects of performative enactments.…”

Section: Relational Principlesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Power, Agency, Relationality and Welfare Practice

Dobson

2015

J. Soc. Pol.

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This article argues that constructions of social phenomena in social policy and welfare scholarship think about the subjects and objects of welfare practice in essentialising ways, with negativistic effects for practitioners working in 'regulatory' contexts like housing and homelessness practice. It builds into debates about power, agency, social policy and welfare by bringing psychosocial and feminist theorisations of relationality to practice research. It claims that relational approaches provide a starting point for the analysis of empirical practice data, by working through the relationship between the individual and the social via an ontological unpicking and revisioning of practitioners' social worlds.

show abstract

Reframing fundraising research: The challenges and opportunities of interpretivist research practices and practitioner researchers in fundraising studies

Alborough

Hansen

2022

Journal of Philanthropy and Marketing

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This paper examines interpretivism as an approach for researching fundraising practice as context and practice specific. In doing so, it highlights the agency of fundraisers and extends critical analysis of fundraising practice and its broader implications in ways that the dominant positivistic, functionalist literature does not. Building on previous comparisons of positivist and interpretivist approaches, we consider two fundraising studies, and benefits and challenges of using an interpretivist approach.These observations highlight both the complexity and messiness of interpretivist studies, and of the fundraising process. The paper concludes by discussing how these challenges can be managed through analytical iteration, adjustment, and pragmatism throughout the research process; while advocating for including more critical and dialectic approaches to research fundraising and fundraisers' broader practice.

show abstract

‘Insiderness’, ‘involvement’ and emotions; impacts for methods, ‘knowledge’ and social research

Cited by 12 publications

References 29 publications

Recollection-as-method in social welfare practice: dirty work, shame and resistance

Recollection-as-method in social welfare practice: dirty work, shame and resistance

Power, Agency, Relationality and Welfare Practice

Reframing fundraising research: The challenges and opportunities of interpretivist research practices and practitioner researchers in fundraising studies

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About