Birdsong and footprints: tangibility and intangibility in a mindfulness research project

Abstract

In this paper we attempt to describe and reflexively consider our journey through a particular qualitative health research project as experienced within a practitioner–researcher partnership. Our particular partnership was between a clinical psychologist and a conversation analyst who came together to explore participants’ experiences of a mindfulness‐based self‐help group. Using extracts from participant interviews and actual self‐help group discussion we tell our story, in order to practically demonstrate the challenges that arose. We consider the impact of mindfulness on the research process itself, in particular notions of tangibility and intangibility that were made increasingly relevant within our partnership.

Keywords:

• mindfulness
• practitioner‐researcher partnership
• reflection on research process
• reflexivity
• footprints
• tangibility
• intangibility

Notes

1. Excerpt from a longer poem compiled by Toyo Eicho (1429–1504), found at: http://viewoftheblue.com/frankspage/zenquo.html.

2. While we use the image of ‘eyes open’ metaphorically here, we do also explore in practice forms of mindfulness that involve sitting with eyes open, which can often be surprising to people used to the image of the closed eyed meditator. Both kinds of practice have a long history in traditional meditation traditions.

3. No participant names were used to label the recordings. Once the transcripts were received, any names mentioned in the interviews were changed to protect the confidentiality of the participants.

4. Talk‐in‐interaction is the object of study in conversation analysis, a well‐established cross‐disciplinary research programme with its foundations in the sociological tradition of ethnomethodology. For a recent overview of its methods and style, see Drew (2004).

5. This more detailed transcription work was done according to the system pioneered by Gail Jefferson (see Jefferson, 2004) and used by conversation analysts. For a key to the symbols seen in the extracts presented in this paper see the appendix. For a review of the importance of retaining interactional detail in research studies reporting interviews see Potter and Hepburn (2005).