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How to construct ”the new normal” scienfically ?. On the construction of personally meaningful yet scienfic comprehensive group definition when researching women attracted to women and aspects of consumption of alcohol and drugs By Merete Poulsen, PhD fellow ,
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How to construct ”the new normal” scienfically? On the construction of personallymeaningfulyetscienficcomprehensivegroup definition whenresearchingwomenattracted to women and aspects of consumption of alcohol and drugs By Merete Poulsen, PhDfellow, Centre for Alcohol and Drug Research, AU Presented at the Nordic Alcohol and Drug Researchers’ Assembly 2012
? Inclusiveness
Turning to AgentialRealism to understand processes of demarcation • Awareness of research practices and reflection upon how different intra-actions come to play a part in the way we end up describing our research population
AgentialRealism (Barad) • Matter and discourse have real effects and agency • Observedobject~ agencies of observation • (participant, recruiting, interviewer, interviewguide, setting, etc.) • “Apparatuses are material-discursive practices – […] intra-actions through which matter is iteratively and differentially articulated, reconfiguring the material-discursive field of possibilities and impossibilities in the ongoing dynamics of intra-activity that is agency. Apparatuses are not bound objects of structures; they are open-ended practices” (Barad, 2007:170).
My apparatus so far • My intra-action as researcher - “Any causal intra-action is implicit a measurement in Barad’s sense” (Rouse, 2004, p. 158) • Two Danish national databases asking for sex of former/current partner • Danmarks Statistik and regulationsaboutquestionsaboutsexuality • Preconceptionsaboutsexuality/science • Presentation of study to participants - wording • Intra-actionon the phone and in letters • Interview-guide, -setting, communication, recording of interview, trust/chemistry, etc.
Practically, materially, discursively and ethicallyinformedgroup definition? • Whatabout (not) talkingaboutsexuality? • Demarcations and agentialcuts in the literature: behavior, attraction, selfidentification, partnership • Inclusiveness: An intitiallyloosegroupconceptthatwilllead to a tighterone? • Co-researchers • The universe kicks back – hopefully!
Implementing an agentialrealismperspective - does it matter? • Barad on ethics: • “We are responsible for the cuts that we help enact not because we do the choosing (neither do we escape responsibility because “we” are “chosen” by them), but because we are an agential part of the material becoming of the universe. Cuts are agentially enacted not by willful individuals but by the larger material arrangement of which “we” are a “part”” (Barad, 2007, pp.178-179). • - concerning abstract categories perhaps choosing is more central?
Understandingcomplicatedmatters • - not complicatingunderstandablematters… • Simplifying & complexifying • Agentialrealism nopossibility for simplification?
Thankyou for your attention • References: • Barad, K. M. (1998). "Getting Real: Technoscientific Practices and the Materialization of Reality." Differences: A Journal of Feminist Cultural Studies 10(2): 87. • Barad, K. (2003). "PosthumanistPerformativity: Toward an Understanding of How Matter Comes to Matter." Signs 28(3): 801. • Barad, K. M. (2007). Meeting the universe halfway : quantum physics and the entanglement of matter and meaning. Durham, Duke University Press. • Bloomfield, K., M. Wicki, et al. (2011). "International differences in alcohol use according to sexual orientation." Substance abuse : official publication of the Association for Medical Education and Research in Substance Abuse 32(4): 210-219. • Diamond, L. M. (2008). Sexual fluidity : understanding women's love and desire. Cambridge, Mass., Harvard UniversityPress. • Hansen, H., f., L. Gransell, et al. (2009). Lige og ulige? : homoseksuelle, biseksuelle og transkønnedes levevilkår. Kbh., CASA. • Hegna, K. and I. Rossow (2007). "WHAT'S LOVE GOT TO DO WITH IT? SUBSTANCE USE AND SOCIAL INTEGRATION FOR YOUNG PEOPLE CATEGORIZED BY SAME-SEX EXPERIENCE AND ATTRACTIONS." Journal of Drug Issues 37(2): 229-255. • Marshal, M. P., M. S. Friedman, et al. (2008). "Sexual orientation and adolescent substance use: a meta-analysis and methodological review." Addiction103(4): 546-556. • Moseng, B. U. (2002): ”Lesbiskes psykiske helse. NOVA rapport 04/02”. Norsk institutt for forskning i oppvekst, velferd og aldring. • Ohnstad, A. (2010). "Signs, interpretation and recognition among women attracted to other women in Norway." Nordic Psychology 62(4): 4-24. • Rouse, J. (2004). "Barad's Feminist Naturalism." Hypatia19(1): 142-161. • Savin-Williams, R. C. (2006). "Who's Gay? Does It Matter?" Current Directions in Psychological Science 15(1): 40-44.