Discombobulations and Transitions: Using Blogs to Make Meaning of and From Within Liminal Experiences

MacLaren, Jessica; Georgiadou, Lorena; Bradford, Jan; Taylor, Liz

Abstract

We live in a digitalized world, where social media have become an integral part of scholarly life. Digital tools like blogs can facilitate various research-related activities, from recruitment, to data collection, to communication of research findings. In this article, we analyze our experience of blogging to suggest that they provide a useful resource for qualitative researchers working with reflexive accounts of personal experience. Through our personal story of engaging with blogging while traveling abroad to participate in a conference, we explore how we used the blog in different ways to concretize transitional processes, to engage in public storytelling, and to form a network of relationships (self, others, and blog). We argue that the technology of blogging is particularly suited to creating sense-making narratives from liminal or discombobulating experiences, and highlight the usefulness of understanding the production of data through blogging as culturally located within networks of relationships and normative discourses.

Citation

MacLaren, J., Georgiadou, L., Bradford, J., & Taylor, L. (2017). Discombobulations and Transitions: Using Blogs to Make Meaning of and From Within Liminal Experiences. Qualitative Inquiry, 23(10), 808-817. https://doi.org/10.1177/1077800417731088

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Sep 22, 2017
• Online Publication Date: Sep 22, 2017
• Publication Date: Dec 1, 2017
• Deposit Date: Jun 14, 2018
• Journal: Qualitative Inquiry
• Print ISSN: 1077-8004
• Electronic ISSN: 1552-7565
• Publisher: SAGE Publications
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 23
• Issue: 10
• Pages: 808-817
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/1077800417731088
• Keywords: Blogging, narrative, reflexive methods, digital tools,
• Public URL: http://researchrepository.napier.ac.uk/Output/1205424