What, in your own words, does it mean to be a twin? Have these meanings changed or remained constant over your lives?
6. Tell us some of your favorite twin stories.
7. Is there anything missing that we should cover or is there another topic that, as twins, you would like to bring up for discussion?
Responses to our queries certainly illustrate what Luttrell (1997, 8) describes as a “narrative urgency” on the part of informants to define and defend their selves and their identities. The Twinsburg twins were well primed for conversation. That is what festival twins do. They talk, as sets of twins, to other set of twins about being twins. The twins who talked with us were quite positive about the project and certainly engaged in the Twins Talk Study. As an anthropologist who has conducted research in Newfoundland, North Norwegian fishing communities, and South Dakota’s Indian reservations, I have never experienced easier interview situations. Newfoundlanders, in particular, I found to be outgoing, witty, and articulate. They can tell great stories, but I feel strongly that the Twinsburg study was enriched by my being “one of them”: an identical twin.
During the interview, Tom, one of our talking partners, kept asking us, “How are we doing?” Tom declared that he had only “been rehearsing for this [interview] for forty-nine years.” We did not need to establish rapport. It was instantaneous. Our conversation with Tim and Tom started with high fives all around. Conversations were extremely informal. Judy and Janet began their talking session with Judy’s announcement that the length of the interview would be determined by the size of her bladder. The conversations were fun and regarded as a positive experience by both researchers and subjects. Our transcriber, Angie, commented that there was often so much laughter that she could not hear what we were saying. She wrote “Ha Ha” to indicate laughter. The manuscripts are peppered with “Ha Has.” I have left these out because there was so much laughing and giggling that transcriptions would have been littered with too many Ha Has.
Despite the casual informality and humor of the conversations, the partners also took the occasion to talk seriously. In what follows, Tom assertively takes on the singleton world:
Tom: From what I said earlier, I just think that when people try to figure out twins, and they’re not twins, I’m almost thinking they’ve got their own bias. You know what I mean? I think it’s reasonable for twins to study twins because you have a better understanding of the relationship, OK? Whereas it would be like a man interviewing a woman trying to find out what it is like being a woman. Or the other way around. . . . Because the sexes are so different, a man would never truly understand a woman, and a woman would never really understand a man. All we know is that we [twins] are different. Even though everyone has their own opinion about it, like males and females, single births don’t understand the dynamics of multiple births. Obviously!
At several junctures in the interview process, a twin would say something like, “Well, you guys know what we mean, because you’re twins too.” Usually Dorothy or I would ask for an explanation, but sometimes we were so caught up in the conversation that we would just let some of these loaded statements pass. Toward the end of Pat and Phyllis’s interview, Pat told us, “The best thing is you guys are twins, so you understand. As researchers, it’s really nice that you are doing this as twins. It’s a good idea.” Many of the talking partners are interested in the outcome of this project. I have sent them copies of papers I have presented. Response to the papers has been positive, and I remain in touch with a number of the Twinsburg twins. Those who continue to keep in touch are enthusiastic and interested in how the study progresses.
The Talking Partners
The talking partners came from an opportunistic sampling format. Although the sample includes women and men and shows some variation in terms of age and educational, socioeconomic, regional, and ethnic background, it is in no sense a representative sample. Rosambeau (1987) notes that volunteer twin samples almost always end up with a preponderance of identical girls or women. The twins talk sample is overwhelmingly female. We have no way of knowing whether those twins who refused to participate in the study, or those who do not attend twins festivals, would have had significantly different discussions on being twins. Certainly Dorothy and I had never been festival twins and continue to resist the overweening emphasis festivals place on looking alike. Nevertheless, the commonalities of our own experiences of being twins with those of our talking partners, regardless of age, gender, and class, amaze us. The sample, although small, is commensurate with other twin studies that feature twins’ narratives (Klein 2003; Rosambeau 1987; Schave and Ciriello 1983; Segal 2005).
Our talking partners could either use their own names or invent ones for the interview. Unfortunately for the reader, a number of twins had the same names. For example, there were four Ginas and two Karens. I have provided alternate spellings, not necessarily for clarity, but so that the twins can recognize themselves in the text. All conversations were two on two, except in one instance when we interviewed two sets of twins (Karan and Kim, and Cindy and Sandy) from the same family. The sample includes 6 men and 38 women who range in age from 22 to 77. Regarding education, the sample included 7 with a high school education, 3 with some technical or college education, 9 with college degrees, and 4 with graduate school degrees. The majority worked in business or sales (21), followed by teaching (8) and nursing (3). There were 2 social workers, 2 housewives, and 2 military personnel. The remaining interviewees were either still in school or retired.
In terms of life cycle stages, the sample seemed to break into 4 age categories. Those twins ages 22 to 26 were just starting out in careers and were not married. The 36- to 46-year-olds were fairly established in their careers, and at least one of the twin pairs had children still at home. The 54- to 58-year-olds had grown children and had begun to enjoy more indulgences, like vacationing and dining out. Those in the 61 to 77 age group were retired or approaching retirement, enjoyed their grandchildren, and spent more time together than they had since they were children. Chapter 7, “Kin,” gives the most detailed account of how the Twinsburg twins depicted themselves and what key experiences and challenges they have faced during their lives. The reader may want to read chapter 7 next to become more familiar with the Twinsburg twins.
Although this study features the narratives of the Twinsburg sample of twins, Dorothy and I were interviewed at Twinsburg by our research assistant Kristi Cody. Because we are the twenty-third interview, and there is a marked autobiographic or reflexive component woven into the text. Actually, Dorothy and I, with our different-colored shirts and different hairstyles, felt that our talking partners might doubt our identical twin status. We even brought pictures of us looking very alike at various junctures of our lives as proof of our twinship. Although eager to look at pictures and show their own, our talking partners never questioned our being twins. Instead, they said, “When we talk to you we know you are twins.” Our conversations with other sets of twins of all ages have led us to reflect on our own twinship. Initially, the Twinsburg study was to be the beginning and end of the Twins Talk Study. Like many ethnographic studies, however, it would develop unforeseen and much longer-term avenues for further research and reflection. These include autoethnography, performance, and twin research conferences, as discussed below.
Autoethnographic Perspectives: A View from the Pod
Early in her career as a twin researcher, Nancy Segal (1999), who has a fraternal twin sister, was advised never to mention that she was a twin because it would compromise her objectivity in the eyes of her colleagues. Fortunately, I, in contrast to Segal (1999), come from the intellectual tradition of participant observation anthropology, which not only gives legitimacy to multiple voices and perspectives but sees our best methodology as our experience of ourselves (Cohen 1992, 225). Twins Talk, as person-centered (Hollan 2001; LeVine 1982), experience-near (Wikan 1991), or a kind of interpersonal, minimalist ethnography (Jackson 1998; Rosaldo 1986), is certainly up close and personal. As written by a twin studying
