“Then You Know How I Feel”: Empathy, Identification, and Reflexivity in Fieldwork

1. “Then You Know How I Feel”: Empathy, Identification, and Reflexivity in Fieldwork By: Laura L. Ellingson University of South Florida Adele Sullivan CMC 200

2. Laura L. Ellingson • Academic/professional background: Dr. Ellingson earned her Ph.D. in Communication and a Graduate Certificate in Women's Studies at the University of South Florida in May 2001. Prior to that, she earned a B.A. in English at the University of Vermont (May 1991), an M.A. in Nonfiction Writing at the University of New Hampshire (December 1992); and an M.A. in Communication at Northern Illinois University (May 1997).Teaching areas/responsibilities: Dr. Ellingson teaches Qualitative Research Methods, Public Speaking, Communication and Gender, and Health at Santa Clara University.

3. Teaching areas/responsibilities: Dr. Ellingson teaches Qualitative Research Methods, Public Speaking, Communication and Gender, and Health Communication. • Research interests: Dr. Ellingson conducts research on interpersonal communication within extended family networks and within health care organizations. Her primary interests are in communication between aunts, nieces, and nephews and in communication among interdisciplinary healthcare team members. Her research uses feminist interviewing and feminist ethnographic methods.

4. Laura’s Personal Life • Personal Life: Grew up in New England but now lives with her partner Glenn in the San Francisco Bay area; ardent Red Sox fan; adores her cats Westley and Buttercup; takes joy in being an aunt; enjoys water aerobics and scrapbooking; believes that chocolate is a major food group (amazon.com) • A survivor of bone cancer

5. Other Publications

6. Topic: Subjective and positioned nature of the researcher in ethnography • Focus: Ethics; When is right? How do we talk to people? How do we make them feel their voices are heard? • Method: Introspection by examining how a cancer survivor conducting fieldwork in an oncology clinic shapes and is shaped by the experience. (Auto ethnographic) • Target: Cancer patient and survivor; oncology clinic • Goals: Understanding the clinic from multiple viewpoints

7. Key Terms • Oncology Clinic: a health facility that specializes in treating tumors, specifically cancer. The clinic deals with the diagnosis of the type of cancer, the therapy (surgery, physical therapy, chemotherapy), following up with cancer patients who have been successful in treatment and screening efforts. • Osteochondromas (Bone Cancer): a cancer of the bone which can start initially as a tumor but can also be derived from other cancers that have spread to the bones from the lungs, kidneys and thyroid. • Participant observation: a widely used methodology in many disciplines, particularly cultural anthropology, sociology, communication studies, and social psychology. Its aim is to gain a close and intimate familiarity with a given group of individuals and their practices through an intensive involvement with people in their cultural environment, usually over an extended period of time

8. Discussion • “ Then I Know How You Feel” is an insight into the subjective nature of an ethnographical researcher that is examined through a cancer survivor conducting fieldwork in an oncology clinic. The text works to show how experience shapes and can be shaped through empathy, identification, and reflexivity.

9. Research Methods • Ethnography: a qualitative study that involves conducting fieldwork through observation with previous research done on subject at hand. • “Participant-as-observer” (495): gaining a close familiarity with a chosen, specific group of individuals and their practices through intensive involvement with the group in their natural environment, held over an extended period of time. • Ellingson spent “3 to 5 hours 1 day a week in the clinic and 1 hour per week in a staff meeting...I observed interactions and occasionally helped out with minor tasks.” (495)

10. Interpretive approach: aiming to understand how individuals make sense of - and make meaning from - their lives and experiences and emphasizing the individual’s own experience. • Ellingson is reporting on how her own experience as a cancer survivor helped to mold her positional nature in her fieldwork. •  In the text she consistently discusses why this empathy and identification is occurring in order to make sense of her experience. • Her viewpoint from this piece is macro, individual and personal. 

11. Organization of Study: • Four Parts: • Background of the Study • Understanding the Patient • Multiple Viewpoints • Reflections

12. Background of the Study: • Discussion about the setting and the method for the project where she [Ellingson] describes where she worked and with whom as well as her approach to fieldwork. 

13. Understanding the Patients: • Ellingson switches between three components that make up this part of the text • Analyzing what past researchers have commented on about empathy in ethnography and how it applies to her own ethnographic study: “Jackson (1989) argues that for researchers ‘our understanding of others can only proceed from within our own experience’....From this acknowledgement, I move to recognition of the values I hold that shape my research.” (Ellingson, 499) • Her fieldwork notes describing the interactions between the nurses and doctors and the cancer patients:“This is Laura, she is a Ph.D student in the communication school, and she’s going to listen to how we communicate, if that’s all right.’ Sandra pulls her low stool close to the Davises who sit stiffly in chairs against the wall. I lean on the counter that runs along the wall opposite the patient and his wife.” (Ellingson, 497) • Her own experience as it relates to the patients’ experiences during her observations:“I wear an aqua-blue cap that my mother knitted to help me keep warm through the cold Vermont nights after I lost my hair to chemotherapy.” (Ellingson,498) 

14. Multiple Viewpoints: • Ellingson comments on how her multiple viewpoints (“cancer survivor, researcher, and pseudo-staff member” [500]) contribute to her understanding of the clinic and her overall study of interaction. • Intersperses anecdotes about her time in the clinic where her viewpoints shifted from an outsider to a former patient to a researcher.

15. Reflections: • Ellingson uses a personal story about a visit to a doctor’s office to give insight to the reader on how past experiences concerning cancer have shaped her overall ethnography. •  In “My Story - Their Story” Ellingson reflects on how she was able to write so closely about the clinic and have a complete understanding of it, both physically, emotionally and mentally as she was a cancer survivor herself. • She addresses the notion of “Othering” and writes though the steps taken in order to disassociate herself from it.

16. Key Quotes: • “Shivering uncontrollably under the weight of the covers, I tossed all night. I know the dorm room is overheated, but I can’t feel any of the warmth that spills out of our radiator. I weep softly, desperate to sleep, frustrated by the endless side effects of my treatment.” (Ellingson, 499) • “I respected the patients’ individuality; they were people who had work and families and favorite colors before they got cancer. The interplay between my experiences and those of the patients provided interesting insights and points of comparison...it was in the gut wrenching, tear inducing empathy with the pain of cancer that I felt I understood these people.” (Ellingson, 499) • “I try to explain through my sobs that I have struggled with my weight since I can remember, that I have lost 20-30 pounds four times in my life, and that I always gain it back and more. Philips doesn’t know what to say about that; it doesn’t fit in his simple plan. He looks at me; I look at the floor. Philips sighs and says quietly, “I’m sorry. We talked about your graft and the cancer and you seemed like you really had your life together. I didn’t know you would get so upset about something like this.” (Ellingson, 509)

17. Irene: A Cancer Survivor’s Story • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vwojXIf-wmY

18. Stupid Cancer Short Documentary • http://stupidcancer.org/ • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fmIc4x0hAJE&playnext=1&list=PL8D3A783C60898C7E • The documentary follows the story of young adults who have survived cancer and their coping mechanisms  relates to Ellingson because she was diagnosed with bone cancer as a young adult; offers a different perspective

19. Discussion Questions: • Some ethnography accounts construct an “Other” as a means in which to define a certain culture or community. In what ways has Ellingson broken this barrier through her research? • “Society is often reluctant to hear illness stories, preferring to ignore tales of suffering, or to embrace only restitution narratives in which the author triumphed over his or her illness” (Ellingson, 510). Do you think this is true when it comes to the media? • How do you think this piece would be different if Ellingson had not been a cancer survivor and instead had simply had a relative who was or had a friend who survived cancer? • Comparison to Ellis reading, “Emotional and Ethical Quagmires in Returning to the Field” How do these compare? What makes one right and one wrong? Are they both wrong? Differences and similarities?

20. Bibliography • http://www.scu.edu/cas/comm/faculty/ellingson/index/cfm • http:// www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmedhealth/PMH0002210/