Pushing back the margins: power, identity and marginalia in survey research with young people

Abstract

The study of marginalia has not been widely discussed in social sciences research and occupies a marginal space in terms of methodological legitimacy. We highlight the value of paying attention to the ways in which participants speak back to the researcher. This paper draws on marginalia found in surveys written or drawn by young people in classrooms across South Wales, demonstrating how various notes and marks made spontaneously by participants can tell us something important and worthwhile about how young people engage with research. We position marginalia as a manifestation of complex power dynamics in the research process that illuminate participants' negotiation of complex and multiple subjectivities in the literal margins and between the lines of the survey pages. Whilst the sensitive and rigorous analysis of marginalia is fraught with ethical and methodological challenges, we argue that paying closer attention to marginalia presents an opportunity for deeper engagement with participants when undertaking survey research.

Co-production for or against the university: student loneliness and the commodification of impact in COVID-19

“…Within and around the rich seam of artistic and thoughtful texts on loneliness, public health, and Covid-19 that our co-researchers created, the supportive practices that characterised the early in-person workshops became a digital marginalia of care ( Muddiman et al 2018 ). In demonstrating the phenomenon we are referring to, we have chosen not to focus on the supportive comments themselves, although these were plentiful.…”

Marginal material or key data? Understanding community attitudes to a survey about domestic and family violence

“…Alternatively, Muddiman et al. cite McClelland's description and state that marginalia “consists of spontaneous notes or comments offered by participants that are not directly sought by the research or that sit outside the boundaries of the designed data collection methods” (McClelland 2016, cited in Muddiman, Lyttleton‐Smith, and Moles 2018, p. 1). This is in contrast again to Stoudt's position that includes open‐text survey question responses as enacted by Powel and Clark (2005) in their analysis of marginalia from men who have undergone prostate cancer surgery.…”

“…It is not possible to determine how much survey research, or what proportion of survey responses, contain marginalia given the limited academic work on this topic. However, the extant literature canvassed for this article does report a significant proportion of survey responses that include marginalia, ranging from 10 percent (Muddiman, Lyttleton‐Smith, and Moles 2018) to 68 percent (Powel and Clark 2005). Variations in definition and measurement account for some of this difference in prevalence, as, for example, Powel and Clark include open‐ended questions in their count of marginalia, whereas others tend not to.…”

“…For research on sensitive, difficult, or personally affecting topics, marginalia may represent an important mode of communication from the participant to the researcher, especially when concepts, perceptions, or experiences, such as that of pain, are challenging to measure or difficult to articulate in short‐form response options (Smith 2008). In this regard, marginalia might sometimes be viewed as contesting researchers’ assumptions about the topic or the participants (Muddiman, Lyttleton‐Smith, and Moles 2018; Stoudt 2016). McClelland (2016) specifically emphasizes that marginalia represent a transfer of the assumptions of who is the expert in research from the researcher to the participant through their extended engagement with research tools.…”

“…Smith (2008) notes an ethical obligation to use marginalia to reflexively consider future survey question design rather than to report the comments as additional project data, in other words, to view the marginalia as “an indicator of trouble” (Smith 2008). In this sense, marginalia may not necessarily be a usable form of, or addition to, project “data” but rather could be viewed as feedback on the research instrument for the benefit of the researcher's learning only (Muddiman, Lyttleton‐Smith, and Moles 2018). Moreover, participants might rationally and reasonably assume that casual and spontaneous words and illustrations will not be of interest to the researcher and will not be used (Muddiman, Lyttleton‐Smith, and Moles 2018).…”