Policy Press
2 Touching from a distance: gaining intimacy with research participants during the COVID-19 pandemic
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Abstract
In this chapter, we discuss the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the development of the ‘Biographical echoes’ project. We focus not only on the pandemic challenges faced due to this project’s singularity but also, more particularly, on the sociological response to the disruptive effects of the general lockdown for the research’s design, relationships and essence. After an inevitable break in the data-collection process, instead of proceeding with the original plan of recruiting and interviewing the remaining participants, we decided to focus specifically on the individuals that had been interviewed so far. We maintained contact with them in several ways: some were interviewed by phone about the way they were coping with the lockdown; others accepted our invitation to send us photographs of their daily lives during the lockdown. This was a sociological and humanist need at the time, but also a way of integrating the pandemic experience in the participants’ biographies and in the further development of the project. We argue that, although we could not carry out interviews in co-presence, establishing a more immediate intimacy and empathic interaction, we still managed to touch people’s lives, as they did ours. Even from a distance.
Abstract
In this chapter, we discuss the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the development of the ‘Biographical echoes’ project. We focus not only on the pandemic challenges faced due to this project’s singularity but also, more particularly, on the sociological response to the disruptive effects of the general lockdown for the research’s design, relationships and essence. After an inevitable break in the data-collection process, instead of proceeding with the original plan of recruiting and interviewing the remaining participants, we decided to focus specifically on the individuals that had been interviewed so far. We maintained contact with them in several ways: some were interviewed by phone about the way they were coping with the lockdown; others accepted our invitation to send us photographs of their daily lives during the lockdown. This was a sociological and humanist need at the time, but also a way of integrating the pandemic experience in the participants’ biographies and in the further development of the project. We argue that, although we could not carry out interviews in co-presence, establishing a more immediate intimacy and empathic interaction, we still managed to touch people’s lives, as they did ours. Even from a distance.
Chapters in this book
- Front Matter i
- Contents v
- Series editors’ preface vii
- List of figures x
- Notes on contributors xi
- Acknowledgements xvii
- Overview: Theorising the new social futures through the lens of the past 1
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Facing the new turn in biographical research: methodological adaptations to the new social context
- Creative applications of biographical research: time–space interactions in walking biographical methods 7
- Touching from a distance: gaining intimacy with research participants during the COVID-19 pandemic 30
- Collaborative (auto)ethnography for researching (in) new social contexts: reflections from COVID-19 lockdown times in Europe 49
- Technological mediation of biographical research and its risks 66
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Creative, interdisciplinary and comparative approaches
- Walking new horizons for critically reflexive pedagogy and research 89
- The ‘new normal’ for oral history? Challenge and opportunities of interviewing during the global pandemic and its aftermath 106
- Relations between biographical dispositions and teaching strategies of computer science teachers during lockdown: application of triangulation in biographical research 124
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The multidimensionality of vulnerability and risk in biographical research: ethics, vulnerabilities and trauma
- Reframing focus groups as deep collective and (sometimes) collaborative conversations: biographical vulnerabilities, anti-racist East and Southeast Asian solidarities and protective silences 141
- Revising the researcher’s ‘borders’: the narrator demands expansion of the researcher’s ‘presence’ in storytelling 162
- Research opportunities and challenges during COVID-19: the case of volunteer firefighters 180
- Challenging inequalities with critical biographical research methods 196
- Epilogue: Biographical futures: responding to the new challenges 215
- Index 220
Chapters in this book
- Front Matter i
- Contents v
- Series editors’ preface vii
- List of figures x
- Notes on contributors xi
- Acknowledgements xvii
- Overview: Theorising the new social futures through the lens of the past 1
-
Facing the new turn in biographical research: methodological adaptations to the new social context
- Creative applications of biographical research: time–space interactions in walking biographical methods 7
- Touching from a distance: gaining intimacy with research participants during the COVID-19 pandemic 30
- Collaborative (auto)ethnography for researching (in) new social contexts: reflections from COVID-19 lockdown times in Europe 49
- Technological mediation of biographical research and its risks 66
-
Creative, interdisciplinary and comparative approaches
- Walking new horizons for critically reflexive pedagogy and research 89
- The ‘new normal’ for oral history? Challenge and opportunities of interviewing during the global pandemic and its aftermath 106
- Relations between biographical dispositions and teaching strategies of computer science teachers during lockdown: application of triangulation in biographical research 124
-
The multidimensionality of vulnerability and risk in biographical research: ethics, vulnerabilities and trauma
- Reframing focus groups as deep collective and (sometimes) collaborative conversations: biographical vulnerabilities, anti-racist East and Southeast Asian solidarities and protective silences 141
- Revising the researcher’s ‘borders’: the narrator demands expansion of the researcher’s ‘presence’ in storytelling 162
- Research opportunities and challenges during COVID-19: the case of volunteer firefighters 180
- Challenging inequalities with critical biographical research methods 196
- Epilogue: Biographical futures: responding to the new challenges 215
- Index 220
