Paper short abstract:

This paper reports on the methodology used in a study of the enactment of schizophrenia, and argues that the use of a 'diffraction diary' along with qualitative interview data and documentary information allow the study to be considered as a variant of 'analytic' autoethnography.

Paper long abstract:

This paper reports on the methodology used in a study of the enactment of schizophrenia. The study used techniques and theoretical tools derived from science and technology studies (STS) to show how schizophrenia was enacted as a multiple object.

The study used qualitative interview data, information from documentary sources and and extracts from what the author termed his 'diffraction diary'. The diffraction diary was conceived as encompassing but going beyond the reflexive diary often kept by qualitative researchers, taking account of the criticisms of 'reflexivity' made by Haraway (1997) and Barad (2007). The metaphor of diffraction is concerned with making differences in the world. In physics, diffraction results in interference patterns. As a psychiatrist the author was being paid to 'interfere' and as a researcher he could not help but interfere in many ways, most obviously 'skewing' responses from people he interviewed simply because of the nature of the relationships he already had with them.

Anderson (2006) distinguished 'analytic' from 'evocative' autoethnography, and this paper demonstrates how the study met four of Anderson's 'five key features' for analytic autoethnography: complete member researcher status, narrative visibility of the researcher's self, dialogue with informants beyond the self, and a commitment to theoretical analysis. The paper claims that extracts from the diffraction diary, deployed as data, in part constituted the fifth key feature, 'analytic reflexivity' such that that the conjunction of interview data, documentary information and diffraction diary extracts allow the study to legitimately be considered as a variant of analytic autoethnography.