StudentShare
Contact Us
Sign In / Sign Up for FREE
Search
Go to advanced search...
Free

Life Story Method of Writing - Essay Example

Cite this document
Summary
The author of the paper "Life Story Method of Writing" will begin with the statement that the life story/history research approach is a methodological and theoretical research framework or a pedagogical approach designed to draw qualitative data from an individual’s life (Harrison 2008)…
Download full paper File format: .doc, available for editing
GRAB THE BEST PAPER91% of users find it useful

Extract of sample "Life Story Method of Writing"

Garden Story: Case Analysis Name Course unit Course Code Instructor Date Introduction Life story/history research approach is a methodological and theoretical research framework or a pedagogical approach designed to draw qualitative data from an individual’s life (Harrison 2008). In social science research, life writing is considered as a traditional research framework for analysis of people to establish what they are or are not. This facilitates an understanding of individuals based on their narratives to which a research is privy. According to Wicks and Whiteford (2006), in a particular scenario where life history research method is used, a researcher collects life histories of individuals by going beyond what they do. An investigator listens, reads, or seeks interpretations of social phenomenon beyond their speech or actions. This paper examines how life writing is used in a form of single garden story to review how gardening is a significant theme in gendered leisure. An underlying argument is that in Bhatti's (2014) analysis of Joy's garden story, the life story method is an appropriate and effective social research methodology as it helps collects rich qualitative data through the research participant’s personal interpretations of their life events, as well as the social circumstances surrounding their basis of their life events. Life story provides a useful methodology that sociologists can use to construct social reality rather than discover social reality. One reason for this is because a research investigator and participant are not easily separable, as the process of constructing sociological knowledge tends to be situational, contextual, and specific, as well as depends on social locations (Bhatti 2014). For instance, in Joy's story, the location is gendered, as the society expects women to say at home. Here, life story has been used to show how a home garden is a significant component of women's gendered leisure and everyday life. Therefore, life writing is used to show how leisure activities at home are a source of constructing identity for women. Life writing also reveals the nature of leisure at homes in addition to the emotions and meanings that women attach to it from their own perspective. For instance, while Joy's story on gardening may not necessarily be representative of the social relations at a broad structure level within the positivistic sense, it provides a deeper insight into the gender identity attached to leisure activities at home. Life stories assist sociologists in gaining a deeper insight into the day to day practices of life of certain segments of the population. Life writing provides a means for narrating the life stories of ordinary people. It also provides a means for narrating the day to day activities and routines of people's everyday lives (Dhunpath & Samuel 2009). Life story methodology has helped research into Joy’s personal experiences. As Bhatti (2014) illustrates, Joy wrote about the events of her life, her inspiration into gardening, how she challenged her husband to allow her to engage in gardening and the amount if work she encountered while gardening. The role and significance of life story was earlier discussed by Harrison (2008). He argued that it helps explore into people’s personal experiences as the participants in the study have to narrate their own experiences, or events of their lives. Sozulki et al. (2010) also explain that by enabling people to understand themselves through the narrative, such an understanding makes it possible to sieve out the truth regarding certain social phenomenon, including the gendered perspectives on gardening. Life story method also assists the sociologists to make sense of theories, such as how leisure can be empowering or construct social identities. This made it easy for Bhatti (2014) to rewrite Joy's story within the context of academic discourse by exploring the themes that are of interest to sociologists. For instance, Joy's story could be interpreted in academic sense as it is designed to show her changing identity. It shows how she remade herself from having a negative attitude towards gardening to actually practising gardening. In away, life story is, therefore, a means to constructing meanings and social identities. In particular, Joy narrates the story of life to show how gardening provides an opportunity to empower women in a world where leisure has proved to be a problem for women, as they find it difficult to spare some tome from their domestic duties and obligations in engage in leisure. Hence, Joy’s garden story is in away intrinsically linked to her identity, as it provides a symbol of her life story as well as demonstrates how the garden is entrenched in the life of her family (Bhatti 2014). The life story approach also provides a framework for exploring into sensitive research questions with issues affecting seemingly gendered populations, including the life experiences of women (Dhunpath & Samuel 2009). The experiences of gardening are unique in many women’s life events. Exploring the experiences from their own points of view becomes easier through life story method, as it captures certain elements that is unique, as well as varies and which cannot be captured through interviews because of their sensitive nature (Gubrium & Hosltein 2002). However, the life history method provides a flexible method for examining women’s participation in gardening as a flexible concept that can be effectively understood as situated within the context of the broader life experiences of women. Life histories also permit a range of life events to come out, whether positive or negative, within the context of the participants’ life that can be used to inform social research. Sozulki et al. (2010) explains that the results may not be merely simply expressive successes of stories of participants that provide inspirational stories of how to overcome adversities in the society. Rather, they comprise a complex set of stories that come out to change the nature of the research by transforming gaps and misunderstandings found in the mainstream research that has been done without involving the personal viewpoints of the marginalised people, including women who decide to undertake gardening in a field seemingly dominated by men. By providing a means to examine the significant life events over an individual’s lifespan assist in uncovering resiliency at varied developmental stages in human life, such as macro-history like societal-level events like life changes and attitudinal change after traumas society, and micro-history levels, such as an individual’s personal development (Hagemaster 1992). The basis of this argument is derived from the idea that Joy had negative attitude towards gardening after she stuck a fork in her toe during childhood, yet later changed her attitude after considering the leisurely benefits of gardening. According to Sozulki et al. (2010), the lived experiences of the research participants, particularly after a tragedy, based on their narratives take a centre stage in social research where strategies for recovery need to be applied in future. Such an assumption is consistent with Sozulki’s et al (2010) view of recovery process as means that enables one to be within or a part of a world that can only be understood subjectively. Simply put, recoveries are existential phenomena in social research. Life experiences help in the understanding of people’s diverse social experiences, which could be derived to inform future research. Gaining an understanding of people’s diverse experiences in a group may assist in preventing overgeneralizations regarding people’s diverse needs. Sozulki et al. (2010) assert that at this stage, the main cultural, individual, and structural elements may be taken into account based on the life history research frame, as it allows the reclamation and ownership of personal and group experiences. For instance, a developed awareness of the effect of certain societal issues on the lives of women who undertake gardening can promote culture-oriented services to address the needs of a given population that may be disadvantaged due to stigmatisation of their occupations (Bhatti 2014). On the other hand, the life story also has a limitation. One of this is that the respondent is fully in control of the direction of the research. Indeed, compared to interview, Joy is said to have written about the events of her life, her inspiration into gardening, how she challenged her husband to allow her to engage in gardening and the amount if work she encountered while gardening. However, the research investigator cannot ask her anything that happened a t the time or change the direction of the research (Bhatti 2014). Conclusion Life story method presents an opportunity for collection of rich data through the research participant’s personal interpretations of their life events as well as the social circumstances surrounding their basis of their life events. Base on the analysis of Joy’s garden story, it is firmly established that the life story approach provides a useful methodology that sociologists can use to construct social reality rather than discover social reality. It also assists sociologists to gain a deeper insight into the day to day practices of life of certain segments of the population. Life story method also assists the sociologists to make sense of theories, such as how leisure can be empowering or construct social identities. The life story approach makes social imagination feasible. Additionally, it provides a framework for exploring into sensitive research questions with issues affecting seemingly gendered populations, including the life experiences of women. Reference List Bhatti, M 2014, "Garden stories: Auto/biography, gender and gardening. Sociological Research Online, vol 19 no 3, pp.1-7 Brannen, J 2012, Life story research: Reflections on biographical and narrative approaches, viewed 17 May 2016, Dhunpath, R & Samuel, M 2009, Life history research epistemology, Methodology and Representation, Sense Publishers Gubrium, J & Hosltein, J 2002, Handbook of interview research: Context & method, Sage Publications, London Hagemaster, J 1992, "Life history: a qualitative method of research,” Journal of Advanced Nursing, vol 17 no 9, pp.1122-8 Harrison, B 2008, Life story research, Sage, London Hasebe-Ludt, E & Jordan, N 2010, "May we get us a heart of wisdom”: Life writing across knowledge traditions," Transnational Curriculum Inquiry, vol 7 no 2, pp.1-4 Jolly, M 2013, Encyclopedia of life writing: Autobiographical and biographical forms, Routledge, New York Kouritzin, S 2000, "Bringing Life to Research: Life History Research and ESL," TESL Canada Journal, vol 17 no 2, pp.1-35 Metta, M 2010, Writing against, alongside and beyond memory: Lifewriting as reflexive, poststructuralist feminist research practice, Peter Lang AG, Bern Sozulki, M, Buchanan, N & Donnell, C 2010, "Life history and narrative analysis: Feminist methodologies contextualising black women's experiences with severe mental illness," Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare, vol 37 no 3, pp.29-57 Wicks, A and Whiteford, G 2006, “Conceptual and practical issues in qualitative research: Reflections on a life history study,” Scandinavian Journal of Occupational Therapy, vol 13 no 2, pp94-100 Read More
Cite this document
  • APA
  • MLA
  • CHICAGO
(1800 Word Review Of A Social Research Case Study, n.d.)
1800 Word Review Of A Social Research Case Study. https://studentshare.org/religion-and-theology/2054936-1800-word-review-of-a-social-research-case-study
(1800 Word Review Of A Social Research Case Study)
1800 Word Review Of A Social Research Case Study. https://studentshare.org/religion-and-theology/2054936-1800-word-review-of-a-social-research-case-study.
“1800 Word Review Of A Social Research Case Study”. https://studentshare.org/religion-and-theology/2054936-1800-word-review-of-a-social-research-case-study.
  • Cited: 0 times

CHECK THESE SAMPLES OF Life Story Method of Writing

Zeitoun: A Review

The problem with the method is that it is profoundly subjective, a fictionalized point of view of the writer reflecting a third person account of the events as told to him by intermediates between himself and the subject of the work.... The story of Zeitoun was written as part of a new form of pseudo-fiction in which eye-witness accounts of events are chronicled in order to provide a discourse about human rights issues.... The words are not those of Zeitoun, but they are created from interviews that associates of Eggers made with Zeitoun in order to include his story in writings that Zeitoun was putting together for a review of the experiences of survivors of Hurricane Katrina....
5 Pages (1250 words) Essay

Challenges in Writing

My experience is that trying to squeeze things out of your brain desperately will only kill the joy of writing and damage the work irreparably.... Challenges in writing Words, and the ideas dressed up in them, have a life of their own and also an organic way of happening.... Challenges in writing Words, and the ideas dressed up in them, have a life of their own and also an organic way of happening.... For example, after writing about the ‘moment of truth' in my protagonist's life (in a short story I wrote), I pondered for a long time for an alternative word but had to be satisfied with ‘the yes moment' and then still unhappily replaced it with ‘the cool moment'....
2 Pages (500 words) Essay

Instruction and Assessmrnt plan

This paper puts forth some writing and reading learning activities to enhance the same in 5th graders.... Day/Date Lesson Objective Instructional Method Materials Needed writing Activity 1 Monday Narrative Prompt The objective of this activity is to help students put in words what they feel about a certain aspect of their life/life in general.... (Hurley, 2001) Day/Dates Lesson Objective Instructional methods Material Needed Reading Activity 1 Monday Start Reading the story “Because of Winn Dixie” It will be a read-aloud method in class for the first day followed by some home-reading To get the students geared up for what is to follow ; develop their reading habit and ability to appreciate good literature A brief introduction on the story to be given by the teacher followed by READ-ALOUD sessions of the story and prospect discussions....
5 Pages (1250 words) Essay

Jamie Oliver Chocolate Cake, H&M Drops Kate Moss

This informational piece of writing has been written to help readers learn making the chocolate cake at home just by reading this piece of writing.... The purpose of writing this news by the online newspaper, Mirror, has been to to bring to the notice of its readers who would like to know about the responses of High Street brands over Moss's cocaine use in the public.... It details the method of preparing the cake by first mentioning the ingredients required to be put in a bowl....
8 Pages (2000 words) Essay

Comparison of A Room of Ones Own, The Prince, and Stranger in the Village Literary Works

Baldwin uses this method to portray Leo's early years in Harlem.... The first story under analysis 'A room of one's own' by Virginia Woolf was published in October of 1929.... The story "Stranger in the Village" was written by James Baldwin in 1953.... In his story, Baldwin tells about Leo, who lives in Greenwich Village with a white, unmarried couple, Barbara and Jerry.... The third story under analysis differs greatly from the previous stories....
5 Pages (1250 words) Essay

Reading, Writing and Childrens Literature

Though, throughout history there was limited technology, the concept of ‘writing' is different from that which it was in the 21st century.... Through an objective A, ‘communicate through speaking, listening, reading, writing, viewing and representing' the outcomes in the classrooms do indicate the use of technology.... However, while in the classroom, the learner may use the classroom computer to write a story or even analyse literary texts found online....
8 Pages (2000 words) Essay

The Principle Objective of Modernist Writing

Therefore, to bring up something new the writers adopted entirely new forms of writing.... As a result of this, the dawn of the twentieth-century witness a cascade of writers with new styles of writing, i.... The following paper under the title 'The Principle Objective of Modernist writing' gives detailed information about modernist literature which includes a broad genre of literature that dominated most parts of the late nineteenth century and the early twentieth century....
8 Pages (2000 words) Case Study

Analyzing a Fictional Story Called Storm

This essay "Analyzing a Fictional Story Called Storm" describes the author's own methods of writing fictional stories.... The analysis is transformed into the argumentative style of essay writing.... Generally, the five-paragraph method is being used to write an argumentative essay.... But here I am using my own effective method to write this fictional essay.... It's a romantic story.... This essay is written with a focus on the main or lead character of the story 'The Storm' which was written by famous classical author Kate Chopin....
7 Pages (1750 words) Essay
sponsored ads
We use cookies to create the best experience for you. Keep on browsing if you are OK with that, or find out how to manage cookies.
Contact Us