Following My Traces: Exploring the Emotional Engagement with the Research Subject through the Researcher’s Artwork

Abstract

This article explores the researcher’s emotional engagement in fieldwork through the researcher’s artwork. Revisiting emotional engagement is important in order to make sense of the research subject of the study in complex research sites. The care of 26 patients was followed during a change project that involved relationships between various clinics and providers. The organizational complexity became obvious when each patient case created its own field of study in the healthcare organization. In the study, it is suggested that we can gain access to emotional engagement through art and aesthetics in organizational ethnographies. Emotional engagement with the research subject is an important part of constituting the research subject in complex organizations. In future projects, it will be important to discuss with participants the aesthetic experiences raised by the fieldwork. Discussing such experiences is part of the co‐constitution of the sense and meaning of the activity that is under change.

Key words:

• Emotional Engagement
• Fieldwork
• Art
• Change Project
• Activity Theory
• Healthcare Organization

Acknowledgements

I owe my sincerest thanks to all the patients that participated in the research project. They offered me a unique opportunity to understand the experience of disease and illness. The members of the research group, Yrjö Engeström and Ritva Engeström, have guided my research process. I thank them for their good advice, support and enthusiasm. Marja Mali has been a valuable teacher for my artwork. Her advice is acknowledged with gratitude. As a paper representing an interdisciplinary work in science, this work has been discussed in various forums. I wish to acknowledge the contributions of the working group ‘Dealing with Marginalization’ at the ISCRAT conference in Amsterdam, 2002, the 19th EGOS Colloquium at Copenhagen Business School in Denmark, 3–5 July 2003, and the workshop on ‘Ethnography and Gender’ in Tampere, Finland, 2003. In particular, I wish to thank Vera John‐Steiner, Mervi Hasu, Merja Helle, Reijo Miettinen, Davide Nicolini, Amanda Coffey, and Tuula Gordon. Merja Helle, Ville Ruusutie, and Olli Pietiläinen have helped with the pictures of my paintings. I also thank Professor Silvia Gheraldi, and Associate Professor Cathrine Hasse for their encouragement and advice. Without the valuable feedback from the anonymous referees in Culture and Organization, this paper would have remained a conference paper. I will also express my gratitude to Julie Uusinarkaus for revising the paper. Furthermore, I have received a grant, fund number 101436, from the Finnish Work Environment Fund. It is also gratefully acknowledged.

Notes

1. The project was carried out through the joint effort of patients, professionals, and researchers. The members of the research group were Professor Yrjö Engeström, Senior Researcher Ritva Engeström, and the author.

2. Drawing from activity theoretical studies on work and organizations (Engeström, 2001, 2000), the Change Laboratory constitutes an instructional work‐based learning environment. The participants use the learning instrument of the laboratory setting as resources while working on work‐related problems.

3. Yanow (2004) theorizes about the kinds of knowing that represent ‘local knowledge’ emerging at organizational peripheries which is often considered marginal in comparison to ‘objectified’ universal knowledge.