The Power of Things

The Power of Things

JOANNA SHERIDAN AND KERRY CHAMBERLAIN

School of Psychology, Massey University, North Shore City, New Zealand

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Tulisan dengan judul "The Power of Things" yang ditulis oleh JOANNA SHERIDAN dan KERRY CHAMBERLAIN berisikan tentang penelitian kualitatif mereka dimana untuk memperdalam, menguatkan narasi dilakukan dengan memanfaatkan sesuatu yang terkait dengan masa lalu seperti foto dll. Bahwa 'sesuatu' itu memiliki kekuatan tersendiri akan masa tertentu.

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Qualitative research extensively utilises interviews to gain insight into the intricacy and texture of lived experience. However, there is growing recognition of the limitations of interviewing as a data-gathering method. Popular alternatives include a move to visual methods, such as photo-production, to enhance the interviewing process. In this article, we argue for the power of materiality in this process. We propose that material objects, such as photographs, items of clothing, and personal journals, have power to simultaneously provide proof of the past, produce increased narrative depth, force change in narratives, and change the interview process and the relationships caught up within it. We illustrate these issues by drawing on data from a research project about weight loss. We conclude by considering the implications and value of using material things in research.

Keywords: materiality; objects; photographs; visual methods; memory; narrative; talk

Introduction

A good deal of qualitative research utilises talk, interpreted by the researcher, to gain insight into the intricacy and texture of participants’ experiences. However, the collection of talk as data is guided by context since talk is frequently constructed dialectically to deliver what is sought by the researcher. Viewing a participant in a particular light, for instance as a model mother, dedicated doctor, or successful slimmer, encourages the performative nature of the multifaceted negotiation of talk. These performative aspects and the creation and renegotiation attributes recognised in talk are widely acknowledged, as researchers continue to be interested in narrative forms of inquiry in qualitative research (Smith &; Sparkes 2006).

When participants are asked to talk about themselves and to explore aspects of their everyday lives, they provide accounts which often fall into a narrative mode of discourse and structure (Frank 1995). We live in a storied world, and the stories that we tell and hear shape the very fabric of who we are and what we do (Bruner 1990; Polkinghorne 1988; Sarbin 2005). Stories are an interchange between talker and audience which shape our identities and guide our actions. We understand ourselves through talk, and through narrative we are constantly engaged in a process of creating and recreating ourselves.

Discussions and conversations, and particularly semi-structured and unstructured interviews, are a good way to draw out participants’ stories, their understandings of reality, and their place in that reality (Hiles & Cermak 2008). Talk can be general and abstract or more specific and focused, and it can also be observed at a distance or from near and close in time. For instance, general or abstract talk about being fat and losing weight might be ‘what I think about dieting’ whereas more specific and focused talk could be ‘how I feel about depriving and punishing myself in order to stay slim’. Talk at a distance in time could be ‘what was it like to be a fat teenager’ as compared to near and close ‘how do I feel about myself now that I am slim’. However, whether talk is abstract or specific, it is certainly clumsy when compared to the subtle distinctions evoked through smell, touch, taste, and especially sight (Miller 2002). This is obvious when, say, verbally trying to describe a change in body shape or size over time as opposed to seeing the difference in shape or size realised in photographs, or even more starkly in trying to describe the difference in smell between roses and carnations. Nevertheless, no matter how clumsy talk may be, it can convey the differences and subtleties of experience which other senses are unable to do. For example, it would be difficult to convey the romance of a sunset through a particular fragrance whereas a verbal description of the scene and the romantic feelings it arouses will grant some insight into the experience. And if the verbal description is augmented with a visual image of the scene, such as provided by a photograph, an extra dimension is added. While we do not dispute that talk is capable of conveying the subtleties of experience, we suggest that with the assistance of material objects talk can become part of a multi-dimensional, multi-sensorial mode of representation and expression (Pink 2004).

Material objects surround us. They can be made, bought and sold, collected and disposed of, acquired through inheritance, and given and received as gifts. They are able to provide pleasure and security, can reflect personal tastes, and manifest moral principles and social ideals (Miller 1987). Some objects gain extraordinary status and value, such as photographs which encode memories, commemorate personal histories and have implications

for identity (Morgan & Pritchard 2005).

Visual studies, a large and diverse field of study where material objects are often used to aid the production of talk, is not new (Collier 1957). Anthropology and human geography have used photographs, diagrams, maps, and films for many years, and more recently sociology, nursing, psychology, and tourism have used visual methods as research tools (Bell 2002; Collier & Collier 1986; Harper 2002; Hodgetts, Radley, Chamberlain & Hodgetts 2007a; Hurdley 2007; Keller et al. 2008; Morgan & Pritchard 2005; Pink 2001; Radley & Taylor 2003; Rose 2007). Researchers have recently also involved a range of new activities around the interview to deepen talk, such as the use of multiple texts (Keats 2009), the ‘go-along interview’ (Brown & Durrheim 2009; Carpiano 2008; Pink 2008), participatory mapping (Emmel & Clark 2009), and the use of drawing and arts-based methods (Bagnoli 2009). The majority of this research has focused on the use of photographic elicitation, with photos created specifically for the research. Photographic images, when combined with an interview, not only act as aide-memoires by sharpening the talker’s focus and prodding latent memories but also add richness beyond the possibilities of talk alone (Harper 2002). Objects other than photographs which have been used to elicit and enrich narratives have included such things as paintings and letters (Tamboukou 2008), cherished objects in homes (Csikszentmihalyi & Rochberg-Halton 1981), possessions in homes (Noble 2004), and even Lego (Gauntlett 2007). As Appadurai (1986, p. 5) has claimed, ‘Things are the stuff of material culture and the meanings things have are inscribed in their form, their use and their trajectory’. Focussing on things, and especially on those that hold relevance for the talker, encourages narratives to be extended and elaborated, thus offering greater leverage for interpretation and insight.

We focus here on these processes and discuss how they operate; illustrating their function with data from a study exploring women’s experiences and meanings of substantial weight loss maintained over a considerable period of time. This specific weight loss project will not be discussed in this paper. Rather, we show how incidents involving material objects that occurred during this project provided access to data that goes well beyond recollected talk and afforded more nuanced, reconsidered, and elaborated stories for analysis.

We consider that too much qualitative research relies on interviews alone for data generation and argue that material objects can be used to enhance the research in a variety of ways. Thus, in this article we illustrate the power of things to illuminate research.

We show how they can enrich data, deepen researcher insight and interpretation, and alter participants’ perceptions of themselves and their experiences as they talk.

Back grounding: The Weight Loss Project

This analysis of the power of things arose out a project currently in progress on the narrative analysis of stories told by women who have lost significant amounts of weight (more than 20 kg) and kept the weight off over a long period (more than five years). As an integral part of this research, we request participants to plot a graphical timeline of heir weight over the course of their lives. Participants had no trouble doing this and provided indications of what they weighed at different times in their lives, based on such things as doctors’ records, maternity measurements and health checks, weight-loss and fitness organization records, and recollections of self-measurement.

Yep. You always know how much you weigh on your wedding day! So it’s just one of those things you do. You hop on the scales and it’s committed to memory forever. [Alice]

As this graph is created, the timeline is punctuated with various life events such as the death of a parent, getting married, becoming pregnant, or activities such as needing to find an outfit to wear to a fancy dress party, all of which can be used as a basis for discussion.

These life events and periods of weight change were significant for drawing out stories of weight loss and gain.

As part of the interview process, participants were asked to produce material objects (e.g., photographs, clothing, mementos) to facilitate the discussion. These objects functioned to accent their life events and activities and consequently prod and aid memories of being fat, losing weight, and maintaining a reduced weight. During our research planning, we were given several anecdotal accounts about items of clothing kept in the hope that the now-fat person would one day be slim enough to wear them again. Talk of desires to fit into a wedding gown worn 20 years previously or to one day wear a prized pair of ‘skinny jeans’ led us to expect that participants would produce articles of clothing that aid talk about body-shape-change. However, few such items were produced, probably because our participants have managed to remain slim for at least five years by which time it might be expected that unfashionable, oversized, no longer worn items of clothing would have disappeared from wardrobes. Also, a wedding gown or pair of ‘skinny jeans’ may be associated with good memories and a past which someone may wish to recapture and not forget whereas ‘fat clothes’ may not.

I’ve moved house a couple of times in that time. In doing so you get rid of a lot of things and I just had no use for it [fat clothes] any more. I’m just not going back there. And to be honest I was really embarrassed I didn’t want to see that clothing anymore. It was just [the] throwing out of it [which] actually made me feel good. No it did, oh honestly did. Just picking it up and just tossing it in the bin was fantastic. [Alice]

The predominant form of material object produced by far was photographs, although some clothing, diaries, journals, and other objects were produced. Photographs were predominant perhaps because, as Sontag (1977, p. 3) has said, ‘To collect photographs is to collect the world . . . with photographs the image is also an object, light-weight, cheap to produce, easy to carry about, accumulate, store’. We suggest that photographs may be a very ordinary, everyday way to effortlessly show how things were and are. They are perhaps kept longer than other items might be. Photographs, although fragile and easily damaged, are often kept for generations in frames, albums and boxes.

Four interviews were held at weekly or fortnightly intervals so that participants were afforded sufficient time to reflect on their talk and to seek out any material objects that they wished to talk about in the interviews. Interview sessions were recorded, with participants’ permission, and transcribed. The material objects produced were also recorded as part of the data set: scanned copies were made of photographs, excerpts from diaries, and written material, and photographs taken of objects such as clothing. Participants consented to allow excerpts from interviews and images to be used in publications. Names used are pseudonyms.

For the purposes of this article we are interested in the power of material objects to enrich and enhance the research process. This includes revealing taken-for-granted states of being, mundane realities, and misremembered or misinterpreted aspects of past lives.

We use illustrative data from the weight loss project to show how participants reflexively use material things to (re)create experiences of what it was to be fat, to lose weight, and now to stay slim. However, the utility of materiality in research has wide application, and the weight loss project merely serves as illustration. As the following discussion will show, touching materiality changes what we as researchers see and are given, and how we interpret and understand talk. We structure our discussion around four issues: how things provide ‘proof’ of the past; how things produce more narrative depth; how things force change in the narrative; and finally, how things change the interview process and the relationships caught up in it.

Documenting the Narrative: Things Prove the Story

Material objects are produced during an interview to illustrate, document, and support participants’ talk about aspects of their past experience. For instance, ‘fat clothes’ or ‘fat and slim photos’ are shown to illustrate that the weight loss talked about has indeed occurred.

A participant, Alice, produced a favorite, polka-dot outfit that had been refashioned by her and made smaller; interestingly, she had still kept the original large size clothing identification tag inside the garment. Although the reworked garment is now a size 10 the size tag is for a size 20, testifying to the largeness of the body it once clothed. For weight loss, photographic images are a good way to show a physical difference in body shape and size.

They [these photographs] really show you the full amount of what you’ve done

[Becky]

The extent of the physical, bodily transformation is now visually as well as verbally evidenced and documented. The things shown become ‘points of reference’ for time passing and are the product of doing something (Morgan & Pritchard 2005, p. 5). As Sontag (2003, p. 6) has argued for photographs, objects vivify, they are a way of making life and experience ‘real or more real’. Things are a (re)presentation of past experience and provide a glimpse, a visual (in)sight, to those who have not witnessed the experience firsthand, but they also serve as a memento for those who have.

The experience of losing a great deal of weight can take many months and in some cases years to achieve. So a photograph, which seemingly brings this experience to life, misleads and unjustly condenses it into an instant. This instant can misrepresent a journey that perhaps has been convoluted and protracted. However, this glimpsed instance of the past combined with the present can startle and surprise and is powerful. Because, as photographs bear witness to experience, and even though they may only be of instances of time, they are points of entry into narrative and demand talk and explanation. Some excerpts of talk illustrate how participants use these instantaneous moments. First, they use them to inform themselves, as a reminder of the person they used to be and as a prod to the memory of what they were doing at a particular point in the past.

No, I know you [the researcher] don’t need to see that [photograph] but it’s a case of by looking at them I can remember what was going on in my life at the time. [Fiona]

Photographic images are a resource for remembering (Radley & Taylor 2003). Fiona’s use of the photograph is much like using a magnifying glass to scrutinize a scene. Without the magnifying glass much of the scene remains blurred, small, and skimmed over. With its help, however, she pauses and picks out specific detail, enlarging it, drawing and focusing all attention on it. Second, photos are used to inform others and allow them to bear witness to the participant’s feat.

Yeah, but no one believes me that I used to be that big. I have to have the photos in my locker at work because people come up to me and go . . . “can we see your photos?” [Charlotte]

Besides documenting and illustrating talk about being fat, photographs are also used to verify and validate the slim talker’s authority to talk about losing weight since the visual impact of the change in body shape evidenced by the photographs attest to being a successful slimmer. In other words, the material evidence lends an air of authenticity to a participant’s claim of lived experience. The visual impact of being a successful slimmer afforded by photographs is, however, achieved somewhat serendipitously and perhaps even fraudulently. Visual methods research emphasizes the need to ‘pay particular attention to the context in which images are produced’ (Keller et al. 2007, p. 760). However, in our research this is not the case since the images framed by these photographs are taken out of the context in which they were originally made. The photographs chosen to illustrate body shape change were rarely framed for that purpose but instead tended to commemorate other events in the person’s life such as Christmas, birthdays, holidays, and so on.

Certainly, photos taken in the past, being pre-existing, were out of focus as far as the research is concerned. For instance, rather than being framed for fatness they could be framed around ‘me and my sister’. Now, by requiring participants to talk about fatness, a re-viewing occurs with the focus shifting to a feature within the photograph’s frame which may not have been obvious before. A ‘metamorphosis’ has occurred; things intended for one purpose are used for another (Appadurai, 1986). For example, the focus of a 40-yearold family snapshot of ‘that’s me and my sister’ shifts to ‘look at my legs’ and captures talk not previously caught by the old photograph (see Figure 1).

Figure 1. Metamorphosis—changing the frame/focus of the photograph.

That’s when I got my Queen’s Guide so that’s when I’m 15. That’s me and my sister. See, but look at my legs! (Fiona)

In the context of this research, Fiona searches through dozens of family snapshots intending to find evidence of fatness and finds this one. This photo, taken decades earlier of a particular scene, is brought into the present and is being looked at with a different eye and a different motivation. An ‘image’ of fatness is only produced in the context of the research. The frame of the photograph is fluid; it expands to expose and create narrative previously not told and images not seen of events and feelings now related to body shape.

This research method avails participants of the opportunity to select any photo they wish.

Therefore, encouraged by a need to perform the successful slimmer role, they may well choose an image for its visual impact alone. It would be easy here to enter an argument about the ‘myth of photographic truth’ (Bell 2002, p. 8) and note that a particular choice shapes the storying and interpretation of the photograph. Ultimately, what is valuable here is the richness of talk surrounding the image, not the photograph itself.

This is true of other objects as well. One participant, Diana, presented a 61-year-old baby booklet documenting her development from birth (see Figure 2). She pointed out several entries in the old, fragile book that documented a babyhood of insatiable hunger and appetite. For Diana this was new found evidence; the entry ‘is extremely hungry and having good meals’ at age 40 weeks gives credence to her life-long struggle with weight and her current daily battle with food. For the researcher it evidenced how far back a person could reach to justify the present day-to-day struggle to be slim. The research called the baby book back to the present, but, as with fat and slim photographic images, the book was neither created as an indicator of fatness nor of weight loss, but now becomes the thing through which the thin struggle is validated and proven.

 Figure 2. Extract from Diana’s baby book.

In this research we have seen objects bear witness and illustrate and document narratives.

Once produced, they authoritatively enter into talk. Their presence provides a talker with a route of evidence to ‘prove’ past experience as well as justify present life. However, the power of things is not limited solely to documenting and proving; they also function to develop and extend narratives.

Thickening the Narrative: Things Elaborate the Story

The predominant form of material object produced to inflect important events and activities were photographs. However, there were instances where photographs were absent and could not be found. Sontag (2003, p. 116) suggests that it is understandable ‘to turn away from images which simply make us feel bad’, and we certainly had accounts from  participants admitting they had destroyed or avoided keeping ‘fat photos’ which were unflattering.

I’ve got rid of plenty of photographs in which I thought I looked too fat. I’ve even asked friends to get rid of their photos of me. [Ismene]

Besides destroying evidence there were also times when photographs were not taken or not kept (Brookfield, Brown & Reavey 2008; Hodgetts, Chamberlain & Radley 2007b). These lacks of materiality worked to expand the narrative as participants attempted to explain them. One participant, Becky, could not remember thinking negatively about her body shape and size, and attempts to explain her inability to provide photographic evidence of her body when she was fat.

These [photographs] are the only ones I can find. I actually have no other photos. And even with the kids; I went through their photograph albums and there are heaps of the kids and the kids and Tom. I think I would be lucky to find two of me, and that was when I was hiding behind the kids so you’ve just got my face. So yeah, there’s obviously, you know, and that’s quite sad, that I just didn’t get myself involved in the photos and things like that because it must have been in the back of my mind how big I was. But, I actually don’t ever remember saying to myself ‘my God I’m really huge’.

Becky’s inability to find herself in family photographs forces her to talk about whether she actively avoided putting herself into the photographs. The narrative is broadened by an unexpected absence within, as well as an absence of, photographs.

Journals and diaries featured significantly as examples of the power of things to extend and elaborate stories about experience. One participant, Ismene, documented periods of weight fluctuation on her timeline, but these were ignored and glossed over in her talk, with the claim they did not reveal any particular memories. Pressed further, and asked if she had any material objects that might provide insight into these periods, she produced an old box-suitcase containing daily journals that she had kept for many years, including the periods in question. The excerpt below illustrates how returning to these journal entries Ismene’s story extended.

Lots of times I mentioned things about that I’ve started going to the gym or that I worried about what to wear . . . or that I felt guilty for having eaten too much the previous day or during the day . . . like eating whole packets of ginger kisses and stuff like that. I don’t think that was a common occurrence and I actually don’t even remember those, but they are in the journal so can only assume that they happened. The journals don’t lie except when I wanted them to . . . I’ve got that whole suitcase full of them. There are dozens and dozens of them now. Reading through the journals is really quite hard now because I kind of look back and think was I really that kind of person? I seem really immature to me now. I think gosh I was 20, 21, why couldn’t I just grow up?

But yeah, I really did kind of get stuck in just a bad cycle of being unhappy and not going anywhere and feeling like it was out of my control for a few years.

Capable of telling the truth but also of lying, the journals open a window into a part of Ismene’s life which would have been ignored completely in a standard interview, and added considerably to the scope and richness of the data collected. The journals literally opened up and uncovered experiences which had not been exposed by talk alone, attesting to the power of material things to elaborate and extend participants’ stories of themselves and their experiences.

Not unexpectedly for research about dieting and weight control, issues around managing and keeping track of food intake arose. Several participants talked about keeping records of what was eaten. Hence food diaries, records of calorie counting and exercise regimes were not uncommon. Often these records were only kept for short periods of time, usually when dieting was difficult or if weight was not coming off as expected. Some were kept on a weekly chart provided by a weight loss organization and others were in personal diaries or on calendars. One interesting example is provided by Heidi (see Figure 3) to prove and document the story she tells in much the same way as photographs illustrate a change in body shape.

Although each page seems to provide very little detail, Heidi felt completing these entries contributed significantly to her success of losing weight and staying slim. The need to fill out this food diary was not fully realized by us as researchers until she produced eight years of identically stark A5 diaries. Flicking through page after page and year after year of identical diaries reiterated the value of experiencing objects first hand. Had Heidi simply talked about keeping a diary, the insight they provided into ritualistic practices may have completely eluded us. However, the production of these diaries did not elaborate Heidi’s narrative substantially, since their keeping was a mundane and necessary task for her. Rather, they served to open new insights and perspectives in understanding the research

and the story we can tell. These diaries, and the manner in which they were recorded, revealed the ritualistic practices that underlay Heidi’s weight loss, an understanding which

has become central for our interpretation in the project. The deeper meanings gained from this encounter reach beyond the interview to enter the realm of analysis since we begin to draw assumptions from the objects themselves rather than the talk surrounding them.

Figure 3. Two pages from Heidi’s food diary

Material things can document and authenticate as well as deepen and enhance the story a participant tells, and also the story we as researchers tell. However, while things can enrich and enhance narratives they are also capable of disrupting narratives and encouraging a different story to be told.

Unhinging the Narrative: Things Force a Different Story

Some things, particularly unexpected or especially interesting objects, can distract talk and shift the frame and flow of an interview or conversation. An example of this involved a series of epistolary journal entries and letters that Guinevere had written but put away some 10 years previously. During the time-line interview she had difficulty remembering details about a particular time. She did, however, remember writing a letter around that time to

a woman who offered advice on losing weight. The original, rough copy of the letter had been put inside a journal she was keeping at the time. The following is an excerpt from this interview, during which she reads excerpts (italicised) from the journal and the letter she wrote.

J: Do you often keep journals?

G: I go through fits and starts of it. Do you want me to read you some of this?

J: Whatever you would like, whatever you want to do.

G: This goes back to 1998

J: Yeah that’s exactly where we are [indicating on the time-line]

G: Yeah ‘Binged on Irish cream thins last night - ate the whole box couldn’t stop till they were all gone. Felt lonely’ [she starts to cry]

J: Is it too hard? [Pause]

G: It’s a bit fresh mainly because um, of feeling like I’ve been relapsing lately

J: Do you want to leave it?

G: Um, just such mental torture you know when I look at this stuff. Um, and then we’ve jumped to a couple of weeks later after that . . . ’and bought fruit and verge and flowers for myself ’ and I’ve underlined flowers because it would have been something that I wouldn’t normally do. ‘More hopeful had a hair cut on Friday and felt good about that.

Had whole meal roll at Subway instead of Burger King didn’t enjoy it as much though, still felt hungry’.

I don’t even remember ever eating Burger King but obviously I did.

When I really decided to make a change I wrote a letter to Yvonne and it was in here.

I’ll just find it. A lot of this stuff was written in the middle of the night too. So later that year, so this is September 1998:

Dear Yvonne,

I am writing this at 2.30 am another disturbed night for me . . . I’m not a very good role model for her [her daughter] I’m afraid. Not only do I want to help her but I am very aware that unless I get weight off I will die . . . feel pretty desperate Yvonne, and I’ve had thoughts of easier ways out of my misery. Knowing my daughter needs me in her life and is asking me for help, keeps me on track but how can I help her when I need help so badly myself.

Reading the journal entries and letter reconstructs the intensity of Guinevere’s emotional state during a particularly sad and difficult time in her life 10 years previously (but also how she is feeling today). This reconnects her to feelings and thoughts she had forgotten about and demonstrates Morgan and Pritchard’s (2005, p. 46) argument that an ‘object has the power to temporarily detach an individual from the present through memory’. There is a ‘pulling and pushing’ from past to present and present to past; the object pulls Guinevere to the past and pushes memories of sadness into the present. It is questionable whether talking alone could touch as intensely or connect as personally to how she was feeling at that time. The journal ‘opens wounds’ and the ethical concerns raised for us as researchers are palpable. The journal also brought up issues and feelings forgotten and misremembered.

For example, she did not remember having eaten at Burger King, so without the journal a different story may have been told.

Things are not only capable of detaching an individual from the present, they are also capable of detaching narratives and carving through layers of talk which have been told and retold for many years. During her second interview, Becky talked about being ‘a chunkier, chubby child’ when she was young, some 20 years previously. She was asked to bring objects to show this, and she expected her photographs would support her story.

I found some photos cos I thought ‘Oh I’m going to go and see what I was actually like as a kid’ and I haven’t looked at these. I don’t even think my children have ever seen these photos . . . . But then I looked and thought, God

I wasn’t actually that big.

But I, I mean I had these visions that actually, that I was huge, but – well not huge but just thought hmm, in comparison I must have been quite a bit bigger but now that I look at it I think ‘no I don’t think I was’. And yet I always had a vision that I was never a good size, always, always . . . you know I always thought . . . that I was big . . . It’s taken me 20 years to go back and actually look at my photos and think – ‘There was nothing wrong with me’. [Becky]

In another example, Fiona recalled being a fat child but believed that other children of her age were not fat. She believed that fatness and obesity were problems of society today and not a problem in the past. However, while looking at an old school photograph, she begins to tell a different story.

And I was telling everybody that kids weren’t podgy at school.Well I know this one at the back she certainly hid herself there because she was. [This one] she’s quite tubby. And this girl here, we used to have a fight ‘who’s the weightiest?’

So she was chubby too. So actually in our year there actually were quite a few chubby kids. And I was telling everybody cos in those days there weren’t – but there were! . . . So it actually wasn’t so unusual as people would have thought in those days. I didn’t realise that until I saw this photo last week. I thought ‘no, I wasn’t the only one’. [Fiona]

These participants were surprised at how wrong their recollections of the past had been since in both cases the photographs did not support their talk; there is a mismatch between the visual evidence and their stories. When Becky talks about her recollections, she draws on construed visual images from her past. Such images are not constructed entirely from ‘seeing’ and it is likely that material and verbal aspects of the past; for example, name calling, the way clothes fitted, or simply being larger than a sibling also contribute to these visions. This visualizing engages with Barthes’ (1982, p. 6) concept of the ‘photograph itself being invisible; it is not it that we see’; rather the photograph becomes an ‘invisible’ vehicle for carrying an essence or trace of a person, place or thing. Becky herself also carries a trace of the child she used to be but chooses to believe the one the photograph brings, illustrating the power of photographs – seeing believes. Merely being told she was wrong about her perception of being a fat child could not have had the impact that seeing the images for herself did. At the end of her fourth interview, Becky commented on how significant the visual impact of the photographs had been. Our methods had encouraged her to seek out evidence that reached beyond the bounds of her recollected talk. Her reaction

to being visually confronted with her past emphasizes for us the power that material objects have in the construction of talk.

These participants used the things they produced as vehicles for reflection. While these things were viewed outside the context in which they were made, they clearly forced different perspectives and dimensions into the interview. Further, they produced a disconnection or unhinging of the narrative that has been (re)told until now, and instigated a different story for the researcher and a different narrative for the future.

Touching Materiality: Things Change Relationships

When researchers ask participants to produce material things, objects enter the interview and distort the space between participant and researcher. Things are capable of changing the dynamics of an interview, the relationships between participant and researcher, and between the researcher and the research itself. Fingering through objects such as diaries, books, or photographs with another person causes the physical and emotional distance

between people to shrink; they can be ‘communication bridges between strangers’ (Collier & Collier 1986, p. 99).

An excerpt from the baby book conversation with Diana exemplifies how the gap between researcher and participant can shrink:

D: Look what I found.

J: Oh my goodness – it’s your baby record.

D: Yes!

J: What does it say?

D: Oh I was a good eater, it’s wonderful. These books are incredible you know.

J: They are aren’t they?

D: There we are ‘hungry and having good meals. Is extremely hungry and having good meals’ [both laughing]. Now you see.

J: ‘Is extremely hungry’ yes look at that [both laughing].

D: I must have been eating like a little pig!

J: You must have been starving.

D: I’m not even a year old and look at it [both laughing while pointing at what is written].

J: You were hungry then.

D: Hungry all my life! See, some people say weight loss is something because of what you’re eating; I’ve had it all my life! I’ve had an eating problem all my life! I’ve been hungry all my life!

For several minutes, researcher and participant become collaborative surveyors as they sit close to each other sharing what the small book unveils as each page is turned.

In some cases, old objects have not been looked at for many years. So looking, touching, and even smelling as things are taken out of boxes or suitcases in which they have been stored becomes a shared, sensorial experience. The object informs the talk and takes over the participant’s per formative role. By drawing attention onto itself, the object becomes a third party in the interview (Collier & Collier 1986). It can take pressure off participants by becoming the ‘active player’ in the interview. Another example of this was provided by a piece of clothing. As Charlotte stood up and held a pair of old pants in front of her, the amount of weight she had lost (51 kg), was visually obvious:

C: This is a pair of pants that I liked, because purple is my favorite color. And these are my favorite pants. They are a size 20. And I fitted them.

J: And now you can fit into one leg [both laughing]

C: Yeah.

J: Unbelievable, can I just see you stand up . . . [both laughing and wrapping the fabric around Charlotte]. And you’ve kept that.

C: Yeah.

J: Because?

C: Just in case . . . I used to think that maybe if I ever got fat again, they were purple and I wouldn’t find another pair of purple pants that would look good on me [laughing] . . . now they’re just in my wardrobe. I don’t have any reason to hold on to them. It’s just in case I get big. But I don’t think I will. I don’t think I could let myself, or would let myself.

The pair of pants functions in the same way as fat and slim photographs do, that is, to document and support talk and illustrate a narrative about bodily change. However, they do more than prove the narrative. By physically wrapping volumes of fabric from a garment, which barely clothed the fat body but now copiously envelops its smaller slim manifestation, the distance between the two parties is shifted. The atmosphere of the interview also changes, becoming almost intimate as the object beguiles participant and researcher in their combined endea vour to uncover the past. And this can carry throughout the interview process, and influence how comfortable a participant feels about exposing, in some cases, very personal and private information. It is materiality which touches and encourages what otherwise may not have been revealed or shown. We encountered several photographs that also did this.

Many photographs were talked about with participants, but all photographs are not the same. There are certainly no good, bad, or better photographs for eliciting narrative.

However, despite Sontag’s (1977, p. 28) comment that ‘no moment [captured by a photograph] is more important than any other moment’; some photographs can have more power than others. This was particularly evident when a participant presented an unexpectedly revealing photograph and explained the story and motivation behind having it taken (see Figure 4). During her second interview, Alice produced a box containing a beautiful, hand-crafted photograph album displaying a series of professionally taken photographs.

We were surprised at her choice and eagerness to have this particular image represent her victory over fatness. Our reaction, steeped in concern over objectifying women’s bodies, was that this photograph reveals too much and should be kept private. This reveals the duality underlying the research methodology. By encouraging participants to select relevant things we have given them control over what objects to present and what to withhold.

Our purpose in encouraging participants to bring things to the interviews was a belief that these objects would, as Collier (1957) suggests, prod, focus, and enrich talk of lived experience. However, our participants’ purpose may be quite different.

Can words do justice to or represent Alice’s victory over weight with as much impact as this single photograph? Perhaps not for her. But without the story behind it, the photograph lacks meaning for us. There is no depth in an image, it cannot unfold, explain, or elaborate, in contrast to the narrative Alice tells while she is holding the photograph:

Figure 4. Alice, the risqué photograph.

My first husband did eventually leave. He said three things that really hurt. He said he didn’t love me anymore. He said he wasn’t attracted to me anymore, and that he didn’t care about me anymore . . . at the time I was a little over weight um yeah and the comments just sapped all my self confidence . . . my appearance was always important to him. I had to be slim, I had to dress right, I had to look good, um he’s a very um artificial type of person – like I was some kind of possession. He was not attracted to me anymore. That was the most hurtful one of all to be honest. It didn’t matter that he didn’t love me or didn’t care. But that he wasn’t attracted to me, that made me feel ugly, horrible, that hurt. I just, I felt so disappointed for my wedding [to second husband].

I couldn’t do it [lose weight] for my wedding. If only I could’ve done it for my wedding! It was such a gorgeous dress. And honestly I would’ve looked better if I wasn’t carrying the weight. It [having the photograph taken] was what I did once I got to my goal weight. This is sort of my, my reward. But yeah I’ve come a long way to get that. [Alice]

Alice’s story sheds light on the photograph, and the photograph informs the story, but it does more. Because of its nature, this photograph disrupted the interview and distracted both participant and researcher from their purpose; it became an ‘overactive player’ in the interview. The photograph became the focus of an ethical debate both during the interview and for some time afterwards. Although offered as data, the photograph required negotiation to be accepted as such. Alice did not consider the photograph to be as private as we initially did and was adamant that we use it and keen that we publish it without disguise.

The nature of the photograph, therefore, forced a reflexive consideration of these issues, balancing our concerns about objectification against her informed choice and determination to represent her success in this overtly visual way (Harrison 2004).

As researchers we conduct the research and decide how it comes to be represented; we decide which voices to quell and which texts to choose. The ethical consideration of using such images needs careful reflection, as do decisions to exclude them from publication. While excerpts of talk can capture ‘anybody’, images like this capture ‘somebody’. As Sontag (2003, p. 81) notes, ‘photographs objectify and turn a person into something that can be possessed’. Such reflection can change understandings of research boundaries, considerations of what can be data and how interpretations are shaped. These issues demonstrate the power of things to bring the relationship between participants and researchers and between researcher and research to the fore.

Discussion

Our consideration of the power of things has so far been structured around four issues: how things provide proof of the past; how things produce more narrative depth; how things force change in the narrative; and finally, how things change the interview process and the relationships caught up in it. However, it is clear that the power of things does not fall easily into these separate modes; introducing materiality into talk never impacts on narratives in only one way. Rather, things ‘multitask’, and these processes are interwoven and simultaneous. While changing narratives, they change relationships; while illustrating talk, they also uncover previously forgotten experiences.

We live in a material world; we keep diaries, collect souvenirs, keep cards and letters, record events such as weddings and festivals, take holiday snapshots, and keep family memorabilia. Over a lifetime of accumulation, our materiality is replete with stories (Miller 1987; Noble 2004). Yet we often expect our participants to recount their stories separated from the multitude of material things which surround them. But these things can add significantly to the intricacies of the stories told. The work done by material objects demands our attention: they are metonymic, they have a presence that is talked about, they stand in for the past, they represent, they problematical the boundaries between people and their things (Noble 2004). Here, we have focussed on how they enhance and encourage talk, are a vehicle for reflexivity, add colour, richness and depth to accounts of lived experience, and offer researchers greater leverage for interpretation and insight. However, along with others (Frith & Harcourt 2007; Morgan & Pritchard 2005), we make no suggestion that involving materiality uncovers the essential nature of experience or the past; things are not objective representations of reality but are both material and symbolic representations simultaneously. Similarly, narratives themselves can become ‘thing-like’ and objectified, but we should be mindful that, like things, they are always provisional and changing, not singular and ‘truthful’ (Hendry 2007).

As we have shown, when material things appear, they can open up and shift memories and narratives. They carry traces of the past and of the person producing them and can force the renegotiation of identity. Not only is the present changed as the talker reconciles their past, but also their future will be changed as a different story is instituted. By challenging and changing narratives, things have the power to reconstitute the past, alter the present, and change the future. It should be emphasised that meanings are not brought by the objects because, as Radley and Taylor (2003) note, people make sense with objects, not of them.

Yet things have ‘humility’ (Miller 2002, p. 408); they are often out of view, quietly hiding in boxes or wardrobes and avoiding attention. Sometimes they have been lost, destroyed, or discarded and cannot be produced. However, their very absence can demand attention and be effective. This need not result in lost opportunities but can encourage reflection on the absent object and on the research process (Brookfield et al. 2008; Frith & Harcourt 2007; Hodgetts et al. 2007b).

Incorporating material objects into research can function to privilege the visual. However, the visual is not the only sense impacted when material objects are produced; the tactile impact derived from passing photographs from hand to hand or spreading them out on a table, the smell of old boxes or suitcases which house precious things, the feel of fabric, can all affect talk. Talking with and about things becomes a multidimensional, multisensorial experience for both participant and researcher (Mason & Davies 2009; Pink 2008). The process of sensing and touching materiality informs both the aesthetic and narrative-eliciting power of things.

However, we do emphasise that, with a potential plethora of things able to creep into research, care must be taken to keep the objectives of the research in view. As researchers, we need to be disciplined and try to ensure that the material things produced for our research aid rather than hinder our purpose. We should not be tempted to introduce materiality simply because it is novel or fashionable (Mason & Davies 2009; Travers 2009). Things can demand too much attention and distract both participant and researcher. However, this is not the fault of things, with their ‘innately gregarious’ nature, but rather reflects the need for researchers to define and hold to a clear and workable methodology.

We have focussed our attention here on the power of things for the collection of narrative data, but materiality will have value for other methodological approaches. However, things can have a variety of effects, often in combination. As we noted above, they can multitask. Whether and how the involvement of things will be beneficial in any particular research project will depend upon the things produced, their meaning for the producer, and what is made of them in the context of the production. Although things are useful for research, their explicit value for any research project cannot be known in advance.

Material objects enable us to extend the dimensions of talk, and their involvement in research allows us to recognize that the process through which things gain meaning is the same process by which meaning is given to lived experience (Miller 2002). This article adds to the growing argument for the analytical power of things in research, and we consider that it is important to connect with the material world and seek opportunities to use the power of things to grant access to deeper, richer and potentially transforming data.

References

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