ABSTRACT
I sat on the pitted wooden step of a cottage in the North Georgia mountains, swatting at mosquitos in the humid July air while tears streamed down my cheeks. I was exhausted after a relentless summer of finishing the pilot study for my dissertation, preparing for comprehensive exams, taking classes, and doing odd jobs to make sure the rent got paid. Now I was on a writing retreat with an admired faculty member at my university 1 who was also slated to serve as the methodologist for my dissertation study. These writing retreats are a long-standing tradition for qualitative researchers at my institution and I had big plans for how much I was going to accomplish over the next four days. For months, Corey had encouraged me to consider collective memory work for my dissertation study and I had always nodded dutifully whenever he mentioned it, but I already felt confident I was going to use grounded theory instead. Yet, being the honest and diligent student, I downloaded a few CMW articles to prepare for the retreat. After reading them, I realized that CMW seemed a lot more social and a lot less lonely than the basic interpretive qualitative study I had just completed or the use of grounded theory I was planning. Given this, I became confused and felt the pressure of my own expectations for productivity; I needed to make a decision. Being a type-A student, I made a list of pros and cons and then phoned my best friend, Phil, for advice.
