Doing Qualitative Research Differently: A Psychosocial Approach

Research Interests I have researched and published on questions to do with identity, gender relations, parenting, the capacity to care, qualitative methodology and epistemology, history of psychology. A uniting theme is the development of a 'psycho-social' approach, that is one that does not reduce to exclusively sociological or psychological accounts of identity, experience and relationships. I make use of psychoanalytic ontology and epistemology to inform my psycho-social research, substantively and methodologically. My recent Fellowship "Maternal Identities, Care and Intersubjectivity" develops an earlier ESRC-funded study (with Ann Phoenix) under the Identities and Social Action programme about the identity transition involved when women become mothers for the first time. It is based on the unique data set derived from psychoanalytically-informed interview and observation methods. It takes further my work on theorising identity processes and new methodological approaches for researching identities. These constitute the themes for my current book, working title 'Knowing Mothers'.