Pleasure, pain and procrastination: reflections on the experience of doing memory-work research

Nollaig A. Frost, Virginia Eatough, Rachel Shaw, Katie L. Weille, Effy Tzemou, Lisa Baraitser

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

The focus of this article is the process of doing memory-work research. We tell the story of our experience of what it was like to use this approach. We were enthused to work collectively on a "discovery" project to explore a method with which we were unfamiliar. We hoped to build working relationships based on mutual respect and the desire to focus on methodology and its place in our psychological understanding. The empirical activities highlighted methodological and experiential challenges, which tested our adherence to the social constructionist premise of Haug's original description of memory work. Combined with practical difficulties of living across Europe, writing and analyzing the memories became contentious. We found ourselves having to address a number of tensions emanating from the work and our approach to it. We discuss some of these tensions alongside examples that illustrate the research process and the ways we negotiated the collective nature of the memory-work approach.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)231-248
Number of pages18
JournalQualitative Research in Psychology
Volume9
Issue number3
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 14 May 2012

Bibliographical note

This is an Author's Accepted Manuscript of an article published in Frost, N. A., Eatough, V., Shaw, R., Weille, K. L., Tzemou, E., & Baraitser, L. (2012). Pleasure, pain and procrastination: reflections on the experience of doing memory-work research. Qualitative research in psychology, 9(3), 231-248. Qualitative research in psychology 2012 © 2012 Crown Copyright. Taylor & Francis, available online at: http://www.tandfonline.com/10.1080/14780887.2010.500355

Keywords

  • faith
  • feminism
  • memory
  • memory work
  • qualitative research
  • reflection

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