Interviews and Stories as Descriptive Events

1. Interviews and Stories as Descriptive Events Jaber F. Gubrium University of Missouri European Conference for Social Work Research Aalborg University, Denmark April 19, 2017

2. Challenges from Research on Descriptive Events • Constructionist Insights from the Ethnography of Description • Leading Question: How is description organized in everyday practice? • Interviews & Stories as Descriptive Events • Significance for Social Work Research

3. The Logic of Eventfulness • Events as Performative • “Presentness” • Scenes, Scripts, and Audiences • Descriptive Purpose • Improvisation and Novelty • Local Enactment • Making Enactment Visible

4. Case Illustrations from Human Service Research • Micro-analytic Documentation • General Patterns of Practice • Interactional and Institutional Enactment

5. Interactional Enactment:Don Hughes’ Life Story • Studying the Descriptive Contexts of the Quality of Life • Speaking of Life: Horizons of Meaning for Nursing Home Residents • Event: Recounting a Life Story • The Scene • Story’s Interactional Traces • From “His Own” Story to Their Story

6. Sue and Don HughesNursing Home Residents • Sue Hughes • 81 years old • Chronic back pain • Severe arthritis; wheelchair bound • Don Hughes • 88 years old • Prostate cancer • Congestive heart failure • Legally blind

7. Westside Care Center: Sue and Don Hughes -- Extract 1 Preliminary chatting. Sue is wheeling back. I: [To Don] I was hoping you’d tell me about your life. Don: I was a hobo! I: You were a hobo. [Elaborates] Sue: [To Don] Why don’t you tell her where you were born? Don: I was born in Minnesota and I left Minnesota when I was 16 years old. [Pause. Looks at Sue.] Sue: Go on. So why did you leave? Don: Just to bum, see the country. So we went, another boy and myself. We went out west on the Northern Pacific Railroad. We was supposed to help put in signal posts. We worked there for a while and then went to Sheridan, Wyoming, and went from there up into the mountains. After that, we came home riding the rails. I stayed home for a couple of years and then a buddy of mine says, “Let’s go to Florida.” At that time, I says, “No.” I knew a girl and her father was moving to California and he asked me if I’d drive his Ford there and I said, “Sure.” So a buddy and me drove out to California, but when we got to the desert, the car broke down. We fixed it [continued a]

8. Westside House: Sue and Don Hughes -- Extract 1 cont a and drove to Sacramento. [Elaborates on his life in California and, later, his life “going East,” and finally going to Florida] He [Don’s buddy] had been in the army and the government was allocating homestead exemptions in Florida at the time. He thought he might want one. We looked all over and there was nothing but swampland where we looked. So I came to this part of Florida here and we both were working. That’s where I met my wife and that’s the end of my life story. Sue: [Sarcastically] Why don’t you tell her that we got married in the meantime? I’m part of it, too, you know.

9. Westside Care Center: Sue and Don Hughes – Extract 2 Don is describing life “up north.” I: Was this after the Depression? Don: The Depression was . . . Sue: It was just over. Don: I walked ten miles to work for ten cents an hour. But you know I had a family and I wasn’t lazy. But, anyway, after I worked for this fella, we had a big snow storm. [Elaborates] So we decided to come back to Florida. [Elaborates] We enjoyed life. She [Sue] had penicillin poisoning a couple of times. When I retired, I thought we had money to last. Sue: You forgot to tell her one thing, that we built our own home stick by stick and every nail. Don: Yeah. Anyway, our money didn’t last. I got so’s I couldn’t work too much anymore and she got sick two or three more times. Sue: [Chuckling] Just listen to him. In the meantime we had three more children. [Sarcastically] Remember that? Don: Yeah, in the meantime we had three more children. That’s all. That’s it. Sue: [Laughing] That’s it? You’re joking.

10. Westside Care Center: Sue and Don Hughes – Extract 3 Later in the interview. Don: [Chuckling] This much I can tell ya. We’ve been married 63 years and enjoyed every bit of it. We worked together and never left. For instance, she had a bunch of girlfriends and she never went out at night. And I had boyfriends and I wouldn’t go out at night. If we went to any place, we went together. Sue: We traveled together. We went all over the country together. We didn’t have such a bad life. We loved to camp. We loved to fish. We loved to do all kinds of outdoor sports. We like baseball, football. Name it. And we did all the things together. We never went to one place and let the other fella go another place.

11. Westside Care Center: Sue and Don Hughes – Extract 4 Talking about themselves and theirlife now. Don: [Chuckling] I was a no-good bum. Sue: He’s no bum. We’re just as close as we were before and I love him. He’s the only thing that makes this place tolerable. But he gets sassy sometimes and I have to knock him down a peg or two, but other than that, we still have fun together. He plays cribbage and cheats, but we still manage to get by. We gab and blab, about the old days, you know. That keeps us goin’. Don: But this isn’t the place for us. That’s all I can say. It’s too much like prison. If I didn’t have her, I’d go crazy and so would she. [Elaborates] At least we have each other. Sue: I know dear. We’ve had a good life, but now we’re bitching like the devil. [Chuckling] I hope that isn’t on the tape. I: Well, it is. Don: [To Sue, sarcastically] You mean to say you’re not “itching” now? Sue: [Chuckling] I didn’t say “itching,” I said “bitching.” We still manage to giggle.

12. Institutional Enactment: Dee’s and Sally’s Stories • Studying the Home Care Experience • Oldtimers and Alzheimer’s: The Descriptive Organization of Senility • Event: Recounting the Burdens of Caregiving • The Scenes • Stories’ Institutional Traces • Descriptive Codes

13. Alzheimer’s Disease Caregiver Adaptation Stages • Orienting to recovery • Denial • Loneliness and depression • Acceptance • Institutionalization

14. Dee’s Support Group 1 – Extract 1 Facilitators: Anne, Ruth Other Participants: Dee, Belle, Dora DEE: I don’t know Belle. Sure, I can see what happened . . . why you decided to start looking for a place [nursing home] for Harold [Belle’s demented husband]. I guess if I was in your shoes, I wouldn’t fight it anymore either. You do have to start thinking about how you feel inside and what’s happening to your family. God knows, the kids would have been ignored. DORA: [To Dee] Well then, dear, what’s your problem? We’re all in this together. You’re no different. You just think you are. I was like you once. [Elaborates] I did everything. I had no time to think. It was get this, do that, and take care of Ben [her husband] 24 hours a day. I learned the hard way and nearly put myself in the hospital. Ben’s on a waiting list [for nursing home placement] at Pine Crest. God help me, it won’t come too soon. BELLE: I don’t think I’m ready for that yet, but I know I’ll have to pretty soon. I know it’s coming. It’s only a matter of time. DEE: I don’t think it’s that simple, Belle. [continued a]

15. Dee’s Support Group – Extract 1 cont a ANNE: Oh, come on, Dee. That’s what it is in a nutshell. You have to start thinking about yourself. [Elaborates] Look at you. You’re all worn down and I’ll bet you’re feeling lonely and depressed. DEE: No, that’s what I was trying to explain last time. I’m really not lonely. I’m . . . [Pause] RUTH: You’re denying, Dee. We all try to deny it. DEE: I don’t think so. Seriously, if I was in the same situation as most people, maybe I’d be denying, but basically I’m here to learn how to cope with his [dementia] . . . you know, how to dress him and what’s going to happen to him in the months ahead. [Elaborates] ANNE: Dee, you’re forgetting that we know all about this. DEE: I know. I know that’s the way it works. I understand that. But you’re forgetting one thing, too. He’s all I have. He’s a friend, a companion, even if he forgets who I am sometimes. It doesn’t matter that much anyway because I know he knows in his heart that it’s me. [Elaborates] If we had had kids, maybe it’d be different. I’d probably be going through all the phases of this thing. [Elaborates] [continued b]

16. Dee’s Support Group – Extract 1 cont b But I don’t have kids and his family’s not around and I don’t know who mine are. We’ve pretty much been on our own and with each other all our lives. If I give him up, it’d be, well, giving up on life. It’s not like I’m going to get back to my life after he’s gone. What life are we talking about? Life with Gordon is all I’ve every really had. Gordon’s my family.

17. Sally’s Support Group – Extract 1 Sally is responding to participants’ comments about how it feels when the care receiver does not recognize the caregiver. I can’t say that it’s been the same for me as Violet [another participant]. Of course, you do think about what all this means sometimes. Like this last week, Al [her husband] turned around . . . just like that . . . and asked me, “Who are you? What are you doing in here?” It was like I was a stranger in the house or something. God, did that set me back. It wakes you up and makes you realize what it’s all about. I got scared. I remember how Cora [a participant] reacted when her mother yelled at her about not wanting a stranger running around in the bedroom. I felt like that. How could Al think I was someone else? It was real hard to take. I remembered what Cora said and it snapped me back a bit. [Didactically] They [Alzheimer’s sufferers] get confused sometimes. They don’t know how to express things and so it comes out all twisted around, like they don’t know who they are, even. It’s not their fault. I remembered that and that calmed me down a bit . . . and I thanked Cora for having shared that. [continued a]

18. Sally’s Support Group – Extract 1 cont a I think what a person has to do is keep in mind what you’ve heard from everyone here tonight. Down the road, well, I know if I stand back and think back to myself and what happened, I’ll say to myself, “Hold on there, Sal. Remember what happened last week or last month and how it made you feel and tell yourself how you should feel right now.” You learn from experience, all the experiences, and that helps to answer things that keep coming up in your mind, like what’s happening to your marriage or if you even have one to speak of . . . you know . . . what you owe to each other after all those years.

19. The Logic of Rationalization • Rationalization as Erasure • Removing Traces of Enactment • Individualization and Codes • Limits of Rationalization • Burdens of Rationalization