Bracketing as analytic approach and tool

The process perspective resonates with the method for analysis that I have applied as part of the method to make sense of my data in this project. As Fairhurst and Grant (2010) and Holstein and Gubrium (2011) have indicated, within the social constructionist tradition there exist various contributions that can best be defined as a mosaic of approaches. I see the positioning of this project in particular pertaining to what Holstein and Gubrium identified as a ‘constructionist analytics of interpretative practice’ (p. 341). The interpretative practice draws on various sources and can best be summed as an eclectic selection of analytical approaches within the constructionist school. The main aim of interpretative practice is to capture both the whats and hows ‘by which social reality is constructed, managed and sustained’ (p. 342). Advocating eclectic flexibility based on a reflective consciousness concerning the researcher’s ontological stance, the interpretative practice as investigative approach is a remedy replacing rigid models and mechanical schemes that force us to choose between either what or how. Interpretative practice is thus to be understood as ‘more like a skilled juggling act, alternately concentrating on the hows and whats of everyday life’ (Holstein & Gubrium, 2011, p. 347).

While analytic bracketing in particular is first and foremost associated with the constructionist analytics of interpretative practice (Holstein & Gubrium, 2011), the idea of bracketing in general in regard to interpretative practice was first pronounced by Husserl in an attempt to provide phenomenology with a methodological approach that could allow the researcher to define

foreground and background for the many whats and hows in the myriad of everyday realities (Holstein &Gubrium, 2011; Smith, Flowers and Larkin, 2012; Van Manen, 2014).

In spite of some differences concerning philosophical ideas, in research the term bracketing is often used interchangeable with the concepts of reduction and epoque (Gearing, 2004). While recognising that there exist nuances in the philosophical underpinnings of these terms (Gearing, 2004), for all practical reasons I will in the following use the term bracketing.

The idea about the researcher always being influenced by his fore-conceptions, meaning his prior experiences, assumptions and preconceptions, led Husserl to suggest that bracketing as method would help the researcher to set aside the taken-for granted-world, in order to be able to concentrate on the perception of that world (p. 13). Husserl’s idea about bracketing relates to the placing of mathematical formulas in brackets, implying that the researcher should set his own pre-suppositions about the world aside by placing his pre-suppositions in brackets and leaving his objects of investigation outside, when doing interpretivist work. Wengraf’s notion (as cited on p. 61) that no researcher leaves behind his own perceptions of and experiences with the world when he enters the research field, points to the idea that the researcher can never operate as a

‘tabula rasa’ (Glaser & Strauss, 1967), and illustrates the intention behind the concept of bracketing; to help the researcher to distinguish between his own pre-suppositions and the lifeworld of the other. The researcher’s fore-conceptions must thus always be an object for the reflexivity implied when doing qualitative research, and to engage with bracketing as method can be understood as a tool for that.

Likewise, the researcher needs to understand how fore-concepts could influence the

interpretative lens and hinder interpretation, because as Heidegger (1996; p. 141) stated, viewing phenomenology as an explicitly interpretative pursuit, interpretation can never be a

pre-suppositionless act. From a phenomenological perspective, bracketing can thus be understood as part of the reflexive process that the researcher engages in to secure validity when doing

interpretivist mystery work. However, as homogenously stressed by qualitative researchers (Denzin & Lincoln, 2011), it would be naïve to think that the researcher can completely isolate his preconceptions about the world when engaging with interpretation of data.

In qualitative research, bracketing as concept in general has been object for much critique and discussion for adding to ‘confusion, inconsistency, and misunderstanding’ due to superficial use and lack of both theoretical and methodological accuracy (Gearing, 2004; p. 1429). While I recognise the debate, I will not dwell further with the particularities of bracketing as concept or

method here, but concentrate more specifically on the concept of analytic bracketing as it was introduced by Holstein and Gubrium (Gearing 2004; Holstein & Gubrium, 2011). I will do that with an intent to provide transparency regarding how I have worked with the data for this project from start to end, so that the reader can decide for himself whether my findings and the following discussion of the findings appear to be justified.Method-wise, the interpretative posture bears clear implications for how I approached the original raw data in this project, and not the least how one should read the analytical interpretations I now set forth. Postulating ongoing, constant meaning-making as the core of social life and human interactions, social constructionism as an ontological frame for this project implies that the layers and levels of interpretative efforts are numerous, complex, and in constant fluctuation.

Hence, analytic bracketing can be understood as a flexible approach that allows for an elastic analytical stretch, encompassing the multitudes of the whats and hows in social life, taking into account the interchange between the larger systems and structures of institutionalised beliefs and values that influence the perception of social reality (what Holstein and Gubrium identified as a Foucauldian discourses-in-practice), as well as the play of social interactions in everyday life (what Holstein and Gubrium identified as ethnomethodology’s discursive practice).

What makes analytic bracketing appear as particularly opted for this current research is its’

engagement with precisely the language aspect in the lifeworld construct, paying attention to contextually constitutions in everyday language that emerge in the interplay between Discourse and the discursive (Gearing, 2004; Holstein & Gubrium, 2011). Through language in discursive practices, reality is ‘talked into being’, drawing upon Discourse as a discursive resource (Broad

& Joos, 2004). Hence, analytic bracketing makes it possible to approach the leaders’ stories with a focus on how they relate to and how they could be informed by the constant and mutual

interplay between Discourse and discursive practices. Analytic bracketing as a tool implies that while the researcher may focus on one aspect of a phenomenon – a resource, a restraint or a concern - in one moment, the other aspects of potential interest are not forgotten, and can in turn be the next object for investigation. This is how the researcher by applying analytic bracketing is able to ‘move back and forth between discursive practices and discourses-in-practice’ and

“making informative references to the other in the process” (Holstein & Gubrium, 2011, p. 347).

As ‘discursive practices and discourses-in-practice are mutually constitutive’ (Holstein &

Gubrium, 2011, p. 348), it is difficult to argue that ‘analysis should begin or end with either one’

(p.348). Instead, the researcher moves between the two dimensions, implying a continuous

‘stepping in and out of the bracketing process while comparing the developing data to the larger institutional and cultural context’ (Gearing, 2044; p. 1442).

Analytic bracketing is a procedure that allows the researcher to move between and zoom in and out of the various whats and hows of interpretative practice, in order to make sense of social phenomena investigated and put together a more integrated picture of them. Analytic bracketing thus resides with the ontological outlook of this project, viewing knowledge about the world and lifeworlds as a socially situated, co-constructed phenomenon. Furthermore, there are two

obvious reasons for why I have chosen analytic bracketing as a main tool for analysis of the present data: One reason is that analytic bracketing specifically addresses the interplay of Discourse and discursive practices (Holstein & Gubrium, 2011) which is a central topic for the present discussion. Consequently, analytic bracketing seems to be a relevant approach for my investigation of the leader’s stories and what leaders are talking about when they talk about their experiences as leaders. The other reason is related to how analytic bracketing as method is applied through the entire research process, not only at the beginning, something that also matches how the investigative journey of this project took shape, starting out from an abductive departure point where leadership both as a social institution and as an individual undertaking ignited my research interest.

Hence, drawing on the concept of interpretative practice and analytical bracketing appears to be a good fit with my research question, because the findings and the discussion of this project correspond in my view to both the hows and whats concerning leadership identity constructions.

The way I understand the core of this project’s contribution is that it addresses both the concept of discourses-in-practice and of discursive practice in leadership and leadership identity

constructions (Fairhurst, 2009), which I examine more closely in the following chapters.

As I understand it, the crucial element of attending to the interaction between the researched phenomenon and institutional and cultural conditions in analytic bracketing aligns with Ladkins notion about the lifeworld perspective which requires that we investigate leadership ‘in the particular worlds in which it operates’ (p. 36). Hence, for this particular project I recognise analytic bracketing as a corresponding method to approach my data with an investigative lens, applicable with both the phenomenological and the social constructionist stance, and allowing me to approach my data with an analytical flexibility that encompasses an investigation of both the discursive practices and discourses-in-practice and the interplay of the two, and how this interplay possibly inform narrative leadership identity constructions.

Concerning bracketing as method for analysis in general and the use of analytic bracketing in this project in particular, it should be stressed that I don’t see analytic bracketing as opposed to

acknowledging the interview situation as a co-created instant or as indifferent to the narrative encounter. Even if qualitative researchers argue that instead of talking about ‘bracketing out’

one’s own understanding of the world, the researcher should strive to be ‘bracketing in’ to the inquiry, because engaging with narrative research is to engage with an inquiry into the life of the other (Clandinin & Connelly, 2006, p. 480). This also points to the three dimensions of narrative inquiry space; temporality, sociality, and place that will always influence any narrative setting, and which the researcher cannot detach himself from but must engage with (Clandinin

&Connelly, 2006) Hence, in this context, I understand analytic bracketing namely as a means for the researcher to be able to ‘bracket in’ to inquire about aspects of relevance for the research question on both a discourses-in-practice and on a discursive level.

3. 4 Research design and procedures

To show how I have framed my study methodologically, I will now unfold the research design and explain the methodological adaption in detail. First, I present how I decided the methodological framing of the project and how the interviewees were identified in the first place.

Next, I account for the procedure of selecting them and contacting them, and go on to provide a description of the interviewees as individuals and the criteria I used for inclusion. I follow up with a description of the process I used to design the interview guide.

In addition, in this section, I clarify how I went about conducting the interviews and how the interview guide was used as a necessary and complementary (but not solely ruling) data-gathering tool in the interview setting. I proceed to showing how the data (the recorded interviews) were subsequently managed and processed. The procedure for the data analysis is outlined.

Furthermore, I reflect upon the participant role of the researcher as part of the process converting data from raw material, to analyse empirical substance and the process of distilling the empirical essence, thereby extracting meaning from my findings.

For this particular research project, the choice of a qualitative research approach seems to fit the addressed research question well. To gain access to the leaders’ lifeworlds and delve under the apparent surface of my research subjects, I chose the qualitative interview as a tool to provide the required closeness. Through collecting leaders’ life stories, a richness of data articulated from the leaders’ points of view has developed. Still, no matter the richness and numerous layers of interpretative work that were embedded, what is examined here represents a limited dimension of the construction of leadership identity because it is based on the leader as an exclusive source. In this specific encapsulated universe, the follower and the larger organisation is presented only through the stories of the leaders.