seen in different lights. In the absence of voice and vision, the ability to render differences fades into the stark alternatives of a universal standpoint—the presumption of a God’s eye position—or the abandonment to riotous relativism—the claims to have no perspective or terms. We propose to solve our conundrum—to embed psyche and to speak about difference—by recovering voice and vision as concepts that link psyche with body, with relationship, and with culture.40
Psychological theory, and developmental theory in particular, has privileged only certain types of metaphors; namely, the metaphors of stages, steps, positions, and levels. These types of metaphors, found in many developmental metanarratives referred to earlier, have missed the polyphonic nature of human experience.41 Gilligan and her colleagues call for a change in the language of psychology from one of stages, sequences, and linear development to one of musical metaphors such as “point/counterpoint” or “fugue.” The metaphor of a fugue suggests a way to listen to many voices “as themes, and variations on themes” heard in the narratives of people speaking about their lives. These musical metaphors, they assert, better capture the varied nature of human interaction and experiences.
Gilligan and her colleagues have taken the beliefs that characterize the interpretive turn and created a method of listening called “The Listening Guide” (described in the next chapter). Their method of listening underscores the relational nature of research, the possibilities for both understanding and misunderstanding within this relationship, and the abilities of people to speak about their worlds in more than one way.
They warn their readers about the dangers of “striving for safety [or] clarity … at the expense of voice or vision and thus of oversimplifying or reducing the experience of conflict.”42 My own study was motivated by the wish to recognize and retain the potential for complex self-awareness that is usually sacrificed in accounts of urban adolescents for the sake of clarity. Gilligan and her colleagues’ approach treats the research participants as authorities in their own experiences by revealing their voices in the text rather than replacing them with summaries of their stories or interpretations that cannot be questioned by the reader. They are also wary of psychological theories that attempt to explain development before they have “listened to” development. Through “The Listening Guide,” Gilligan and her colleagues encourage the listener to hear the ambiguities, the subtleties, and—in order to avoid the “riotous relativism” of nihilistic indeterminacy—the patterns in each person’s interview.
Questions about Power
This relational, voice-centered research approach compelled me to raise questions about what it means to be a white, middle-class female researcher studying poor and working-class adolescents who are primarily of color. Was I perpetuating a historical inequity that places the white researcher in charge of conveying the words of those with less power? Gilligan raises similar questions: “Who is observing whom and from what vantage point? Who is speaking about whom and in whose terms?”43
In relationship with the adolescents I interviewed, I find myself in a different position from researchers who come into their respective environments intending to stand outside of the research relationship in the name of objectivity, to study their “subjects,” and to depart with “truths” to disseminate to their colleagues, the interested public, and eventually the policymakers who shape their subjects’ lives. I understand the process of the interview to be a process of jointly constructed meaning. I listened to the adolescents knowing that I listen to how they respond to my questions and to my interests concerning their experiences of their worlds. I am not objective and the adolescents do not respond objectively or neutrally about their experiences. Each of my questions and each of their responses was filled with our own assumptions, expectations, and desires. Although I had the power to choose the questions and to interpret their responses, the adolescents in turn had the power of knowing their own experiences and deciding what to tell me and what not to tell me or the other interviewers. Even if we are socially constructed beings largely shaped by the cultures in which we exist, we are engaged in a relationship in which each of us has power over what we say and how we say it.44
I do, however, have power in these research relationships: power to decide what to include in my analysis and what to exclude; power to take the words of the adolescents and create meanings to which they cannot respond because I did not ask for their responses. But I assume this power with great care and trepidation, realizing throughout my analysis that I can misunderstand or misrepresent what they are saying. This knowledge makes me especially careful to “stick close” to the interview texts.45 I quote from their interview transcripts, often at length, so that their voices can be heard throughout my interpretation. A common criticism of qualitative research has been that researchers paraphrase the narratives too much and, consequently, do not provide enough textual evidence for the themes being discussed. Broad strokes are made about human experience, and little detail is provided concerning the narrative(s) that provoked these assertions. I was mindful of such criticism as I analyzed and presented my findings. I paid particular attention to ensuring that my reader could see the narrative to which I was responding. I made interpretations only after I had reread each section of each interview repeatedly and believed that I could provide evidence in the interviews of a particular interpretation. I was wary of my own leaps of inference that take me away from the adolescents’ actual stories and into the tunnel of my own expectations. As I interpreted their interviews, I was continuously engaged in self-reflection: How have I found this theme? Where does this theme come from?
The critical question of what it means to study a population different from my own racial/ethnic and social class background becomes less problematic when I acknowledge that my research is about relationships—relationships between me, as reader, interviewer, and a former counselor in the school, and the adolescents in the study. My power is limited by these relationships. This research project is about what the adolescents were willing to tell me and the team of interviewers (who will be introduced in the next chapter) in response to our questions. My analysis is not about what the adolescents said, but what they said to us.
But Were They Honest?
Since I am not able to stand outside of the research relationship, I cannot claim that what the adolescents told us is what they truly feel. However, three of the four interviewers (including myself) had worked as counselors in the school chosen for this study and were thus a familiar, and perhaps more trustworthy, presence to a number of adolescents. A consistent presence and extended relationship with many of the students in the school—although not with those who were interviewed—made it easier for my colleagues and me to engage with the adolescents we interviewed and most likely made it easier for them to relate to us. Our status as both outsiders and insiders, I believe, enhanced the students’ candor and forthrightness. Had we been fully integrated members of this community, we might have been perceived as too risky since we could have spread their stories to others in their community. On the other hand, had we been complete strangers we might have been perceived as untrustworthy. Over several years of interviewing, I came to believe that the adolescents were sincere with us since most of them appeared to speak candidly about many sensitive issues, including their frustrations at home, with their romantic partners, with their teachers, and even with our questions at times. It is also significant, I believe, that we spoke with the adolescents over a period of three years and thus created continuing relationships within which it may have become safer to speak.
The tenets of the interpretive turn have significantly influenced the ways in which I conceive of and conduct this study. They have led me to raise questions about power; challenge, reflect upon, and engage with my own biases, expectations, and prejudices; and reframe the research endeavor as a relational process. These beliefs are firmly integrated into the specifics of my research project to which I will now turn.
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