Grounded theory and citizen narratives

1. Grounded theory and citizen narratives Arcidiacono C. & Procentese F. University of Naples Federico II Department of relational sciences “G. Iacono” caterina.arcidiacono@unina.it

2. Theoretical Approach Community psychology is the discipline that provides the base assumptions for the study of social phenomena in relation to the living contexts of individuals. Attention on the different interactions between individuals and their life contexts. Aim is to give a voice to the experience of inhabitants and to favour acts of communication between the different social and political actors to promote interventions of social transformation in light of requests and expectations by those actors.

3. Ecological approach (Prilleltensky, 2008; Christens & Perkins, 2008). Macro (community-society-Country) Meso (Groups-Organizations) Micro (Individual psichological aspects ) Politico Socioculturale power Economico Fisico Oppression Empowerment Well-Being

4. With its intention to create a dialogue between reality and the different subjectivities that interact within it, theecological approach allows us to identify the intersection between the individual and the collective, objectivity and subjectivity, articulating these interactions (Prilleltensky, 2008; Christens & Perkins, 2008).

5. Situate researchesin the city Belonging Trasformative action Promotingwell-being Localdevelopment To this end will be analysed: contact strategies; the definition and analysis of context; building the research team; sample building; the choice of investigative tools used, and their construction; data analysis; the restitution and the definition of future interventions.

6. Methodological approach • The approach we used refers to Grounded Theory (GT), an inductive research method aimed at identifying a theoretical model emerging from the data. GT actually allows us to discover concepts and relationships in the data, and to subsequently organise them into an explanatory theoretical schema.

7. Citizen narratives by Narrative interview (Legewie, 2006) An instrument that combines together the maximum openness for individual and spontaneous expression of the interviewee, with the advantages of a grid that sets out the comparison between the expressions of different individuals. It is a very open form of interview, which is at the same time rigorous due to the originating theoretical reference to the research of Labov (1981). In that research, the narrator was invited to explicitly reconstruct the situation and the experience as they saw them in the moment.

8. The procedure and the method The entire research journey follows a cyclical structure and therefore accords with the redefinition and revision of what occurs during its course. The phases that follow each other consist of: • Sampling • Coding procedure and data analysis (Trustworthiness criteria )

9. The preliminary framework The method we have followed requires the establishment of a research context that belongs at the same time to the researchers, to the participants, and to the final target people. Therefore, the researcher must first define: the construction of the relationship with the context: the contact the analysis of the needs; the composition of the research group; the composition of the steering committee; the research design; the tools.

10. Assessment, communication and dissemination • Restitution • Discussion and building of interventions and future actions • Data assessment and final evaluation

11. Conclusions The linear research course, in which there is some initial knowledge prior to the intervention, also seems to get lost!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Therefore, the research course illustrated above, although identifying the work phases, contemplates the coexistence of the knowledge process and the intervention process. Under a constructivist perspective, knowledge of the research is not neutral, but that knowledge takes part in the construction of meanings that contribute to triggering processes of social transformation. Thus in that sense the research language is fundamental, as it is a potential instrument of reductive labeling and can be a powerful bias for all the research process. Hence our attention to the narrations in discussions through which the interactions and the processes are built.