Open Access“Listen to Your Gut”: A Reflexive Approach to Data Analysis
Author(s) -
Nicole Brown
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
the qualitative report
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.335
H-Index - 35
ISSN - 2160-3715
DOI - 10.46743/2160-3715/2019.4119
Subject(s) - reflexivity , active listening , sociology , data collection , qualitative research , data science , narrative , epistemology , process (computing) , qualitative property , computer science , engineering ethics , management science , social science , engineering , linguistics , philosophy , communication , machine learning , operating system
Over the last two decades qualitative research has seen significant shifts towards the narrative, reflexive and creative. And yet, analytical frameworks do not seem to have stayed abreast of these developments. Using research into the construction of identity under the influence of fibromyalgia as an example, this paper seeks to exemplify a reflexive approach to data analysis that accounts for the researcher’s positionality as well as the increasingly untraditional, unconventional data stemming from creative data collection methods. The paper provides insight into data analysis and reflexivity and offers two practical examples of reflexive data analysis—an illustrated poem and an installation. After an outline of the processes and practical steps involved in the creation of these analytical outcomes, the paper concludes with thoughts relating to challenges, potential areas of application and a look to the future of this innovative approach to data analysis. In this approach, data analysis is in itself a form of knowledge generation through the process of assemblage and “listening to gut feelings.” This approach may be seen as unscientific, but given its advantages in relation to new insights, dissemination and communication of ideas, this approach is more fruitful than detrimental to developing qualitative research further.