Reflections on Writing

Ken

We have been playing at the edge of possibilities for social science writing for some time now, and I wonder what we might have learned from our efforts. Where have they succeeded or failed, in our eyes; what might we do differently; where are the joys and the discomforts? For example, one of the things I have felt particularly pleased about are those cases in which the form of writing instantiates or expresses its content. We are so accustomed to approaching a piece of writing in terms of its content or message, without realizing that the form of the writing also conveys a message. Sometimes the message embedded in the form can even negate the content. In any case, it is exciting to explore ways of synchronizing content and form in such a way that the former is enriched and strengthened. I am not sure how successful we were in our attempts, but for me the Duography piece was a real breakthrough. That we could challenge the individualism embodied in the concept of the autobiography by launching a duography gave me a lot of pleasure. By the end, when we tried to find a way of blurring the identity of the authors behind the voices—suggesting that there are no truly independent persons—I was in heaven.

Mary

I guess if you were in heaven, so was I … especially if we are considering the blurring of identities as an outcome of the voicing. I also feel that playing with the texts, using various forms, changing fonts, sizes, page lengths, margins, and including photographs, drawings, and other visual things, changes the nature of the writer’s relationship with the reader. These changes suggest you are performing for the reader, anxious to reach him or her. Recently I have been an external examiner for a couple of PhD dissertations, and in each case performance was an integral part of the project. Recall, for example, the “box” dissertation created by Zoë Fitzgerald-Pool, described in chapter 2. I have also read a dissertation that depended heavily on the examiner’s listening to a CD of music, which illustrated the means by which the researcher had interacted with her participants. Both dissertations came from social science programs, not from the humanities or fine arts. And both reached out to me, intrigued me, and invited me into new spaces of appreciation.

Ken

This really speaks to the problem with traditional writing that we described in the early chapters. Where traditional writing generally places a wedge between author and audience, performative writing seems to be more like a “gift” for the reader. At the same time, I don’t think that performative writing necessarily draws author and reader closer. It is clearly the case that some of the writing we have just shared has an academic audience in mind. And even the academic traditionalists might be put off by the wordplay, often at their expense. So, there is no guarantee that in doing performative work you will automatically reach an audience. ¹

Mary

This is also interesting because we often have multiple audiences in mind, and differing hopes for them. I think there are times we want to criticize the more rigid defenders of the faith, that is traditional writers, and at the same time woo those with whom we feel aligned. The various dissertations I’ve read that go in the performative direction seemed to me to be trying to reach out to their readers, but what are the readers hoping for? In the case of the dissertation with the recorded music attached, the singing was designed to convey the emotional tone present in the music workshop in which the songs were created. I, for one, felt both drawn to the work and illuminated by the music, but could imagine others who would find it needlessly stuck onto the writing. One can imagine how much more powerful it would be to hear someone speaking about their experiences than reading a copy of the transcript, especially if scripted by conversation analysts, in which strange symbols must be learned to get a sense of the pauses, repetitions, guttural sounds, etc. that people use when talking. One could even suggest that conversation analysis could be “saved” by a turn to the performative.

Ken

At the same time, I sometimes worry about the patience of social science readers to work through a writerly text. We are trained to search for content, and the more rapidly we find it, the more rapidly we can move on to a production phase. We have learned to read instrumentally. So, a real question for the future of performative work is whether the academic audience will stop to truly engage. I have witnessed a similar resistance in the case of much narrative research, and autoethnography. Readers are interested enough to see that a given piece has been published, but they are less willing to take the time to read it. Since the work is not cumulative in the traditional sense, but rather “expressive,” as one might say, it is not essential that one grasp its content.

Mary

And this raises the whole question of whether performance work has much in the way of cumulative potentials. Does it exhaust its implications in the “performative moment?” But perhaps the whole idea of accumulation in the social sciences—a kind of monetary metaphor in any case—is problematic. Ah, the beginning of another discussion …