engleski

Double jeopardy: Researching femininities and masculinities within the family by doing narrative interviews

Stemming from symbolic interactionism and ethnomethodology, the doing gender theory is prominently used as a lens for studying the gendering of persons in interactions. Its theoretical scope has lately been re-examined to encompass insights about different levels of reality, from identity to structure, while retaining its processual focus. The modifications of theoretical scope are accompanied by the introduction of new methods of research. The aim of this paper is to demonstrate how the doing gender theory was applied for the study of femininities and masculinities within the family. Through literature review of the doing gender theory and its application, two main problem areas were identified during conceptualization with several ramifications for the research process. First, there is the question of how to encompass the processual nature of doing gender, in a post hoc manner, when examining situations that occur over a period of time ; and second, there is the challenge of how to overcome a disaccord between the researcher’s immediate observations of situations and the participants’ interpretations of situations as the main source of data. Some of these challenges were circumvented by the choice of method, namely the narrative interview. Due to its exploratory nature, the method allows for the exploration of femininities and masculinities rather than imposing specific understandings of these categories. This was strengthened with the structure of the interview guide which aimed to elicit an array of both transformative and everyday situations in which gender comes to the fore within familial relationships. Through prolonged accounts on parenthood, family, and household obligations, such structure of narrative interviews facilitated the reconstruction of femininities and masculinities of researched parents, thus avoiding the jeopardy of misunderstanding or misrepresenting the interviewees experiences.

doing gender, narrative interview, conceptualization, femininity, masculinity, family

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