Particularizing the Past: Persuasion and Value in Oral History Interviews and Design Critiques
University of Alberta
E-mail: Arlene.oak{at}ualberta.ca
 |
Abstract |
|---|
Design historians are accustomed to dealing with ‘the past’ as they locate their work within particular periods and historicized frameworks. Yet, as well as a context for research, the past may be used in specific ways to give structure and to support persuasion within particular genres of social interaction, such as oral history interviews and design critiques. This paper uses discursive social psychology (DSP) as a tool to explore the micro-qualities of talk in twelve design history interviews and two design critiques. Through a DSP focus on ‘particularization’, the issues considered here are how, in the interviews, specific terms concerning the past are used to help categorize its relevance for the interviewees and how, in the critiques, specific terms related to the past are used to support arguments about current design work. The approach taken here, wherein details of talk are examined, demonstrates how historians who conduct interviews may ascribe particular status to their interviewees and how contemporary design practitioners may actively use references they have garnered from the history of design. Thus, rather than considering oral history interviews in terms of what they tell us about the designers' pasts and rather than considering critique interactions in terms of what they tell us about ‘good’ design, the data are analysed here with regard to how particular references to the past help give meaning and persuasive power to the present activities of oral history and design practice.
Key Words: design • design critique • design history • discursive social psychology • oral history • women designers
1 J. Heritage, Garfinkel and Ethnomethodology, Polity Press, Cambridge, 1984, p. 242.
2 M. Billig, Arguing and Thinking: A Rhetorical Approach to Social Psychology, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1996. See also S. Wiggins & J. Potter, ‘Attitudes and evaluative practices: category vs. item and subjective vs. objective constructions in everyday food assessments’, British Journal of Social Psychology, vol. 42, 2003, pp. 513–31.
3 R. Cándida Smith (2002) ‘Analytic strategies for oral history interviews’, in J. Gubrium & H. Holstein (eds.), Handbook of Interview Research: Context and Method, Sage Publications, London, 2002, pp. 711–32. Also see K. Narayan & K. George, ‘Personal and folk narrative as cultural Representation’, in J. Gubrium & H. Holstein (eds.), Handbook of Interview Research: Context and Method, Sage Publications, London, 2002, pp. 815–32.
4 D. Dunaway, ‘The interdisciplinarity of oral history’, in D. Dunaway & W. Baum (eds.), Oral History: An Interdisciplinary Anthology, Sage Publications, London, 1992, p. 8.
5 S. Bailyn, ‘Who makes the rules? Using Wittgenstein in social theory’, Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour, vol. 32, no. 3, 2000, pp. 311–30. See also S. Hester & D. Francis, ‘Doing data: the local organization of a sociological interview’, British Journal of Sociology, vol. 45, no. 4, 1994, pp. 675–95.
6 D. Crippen, ‘Automotive oral histories’, in The Automobile in American Life and Society, University of Michigan Dearborn and Benson Ford Research Centre, 2004, available on http://www.autolife.umd.umich.edu/About.htm. The website that features the oral history transcripts was completed in 2005 as part of a project initiated by the University of Michigan—Dearborn and linked to ‘The Henry Ford’—a non-profit organization that is independent of Ford Motors. A total of 115 oral history interviews were collected, with full transcripts of seventeen available online. The transcript extracts in this paper are mainly presented in chronological order of interviewing, though the last extract is undated.
7 A. Oak, ‘‘It's a nice idea, but it's not actually real’: assessing the objects and activities of design’, The International Journal of Art and Design Education, vol. 19, no. 1, 2000, pp. 86–95. See also A. Oak, ‘Conversation pieces: talking about artifacts in design education’, Working Papers in Art and Design, vol. 3, no. 1, 2005, available on http://www.herts.ac.uk/artdes1/research/papers/wpades/vol3/index.html.
8 The JUDS Project is affiliated with the Cambridge–MIT Institute, which was developed in 2000 to create research opportunities and entrepreneurial links between academia and industry. Part of the data collected for the JUDS Project included audiotape recordings of some of the critique sessions that took place at Cambridge and at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Transcript selections from two of the critiques that took place at Cambridge University in March 2002 are used in this paper.
9 The University-based design project that is discussed in the critiques here was loosely associated with the Cambridge Futures Project, a non-profit, long-term set of private and public strategies and initiatives to develop the Cambridge region.
10 M. Bucholtz, ‘The politics of transcription’, Journal of Pragmatics, vol. 32, 2000, pp. 1439–65. See also E. Mishler, ‘Representing discourse: the rhetoric of transcription’, Journal of Narrative and Life History, vol. 1, 1992, pp. 255–80.
11 R. Hilbert, ‘Ethnomethodology and the micro macro order’, American Sociological Review, vol. 55, no. 6, 1990, pp. 794–808.
12 P. Bourdieu, The Logic of Practice, Stanford University Press, Stanford, 1990, p. 33.
13 C. Baker, ‘Ethnomethodological analyses of interviews’, in J. Gubrium & H. Holstein (eds.), Handbook of Interview Research: Context and Method, Sage Publications, London, 2002, pp. 777–96.
14 J. Potter & D. Edwards, ‘Discursive social psychology’, in P. Robinson & H. Giles (eds.), The New Handbook of Language and Social Psychology, John Wiley & Sons, Chichester, 2001, pp. 103–18.
15 T. Van Dijk, ‘Principles of critical discourse analysis’, Discourse & Society, vol. 4, no. 2, 1993, pp. 249–83.
17 H. Garfinkel, Studies in Ethnomethodology, Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, 1967. See also H. Garfinkel, Seeing Sociologically: The Routine Grounds of Social Action, Paradigm Publishers, Boulder, 2006.
18 H. Sacks, Lectures on Conversation, vols. 1 & 2, G. Jefferson (ed.), Blackwell, Oxford, 1992.
19 P. Bourdieu, Language and Symbolic Power, Polity Press, Cambridge, 1992.
20 J. L. Austin, How To Do Things With Words, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1962. See also G. H. Mead, Mind, Self, and Society: From the Standpoint of a Social Behaviourist, C. Morris (ed.), University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1967, and L. Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, Blackwell, Oxford, 1953.
21 J. Potter, ‘Discursive social psychology: from attitudes to evaluations’, European Review of Social Psychology, vol. 9, 1998, pp. 233–66.
22 J. Potter, Representing Reality: Discourse, Rhetoric, and Social Construction, Sage Publications, London, 1996.
23 P. Drew, ‘Precision and exaggeration in interaction’, American Sociological Review, vol. 68, 2003, p. 917.
24 S. Shapin, A Social History of Truth: Civility and Science in Seventeenth-Century England, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1994, p. 311.
25 R. Atkinson, ‘The life story interview’, in J. Gubrium & H. Holstein (eds.), Handbook of Interview Research: Context and Method, Sage Publications, London, 2002, pp. 121–40. See also A. Green & M. Hutching (eds.), Remembering: Writing Oral History, Auckland University Press, Auckland, 2004; R. Josselson & A. Lieblich (eds.), Interpreting Experience: The Narrative Study of Lives, vol. 3, Sage Publications, London, 1995, and E. Tonkin, Narrating Our Pasts: The Social Construction of Oral History, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1995.
26 P. Thompson, The Voice of the Past: Oral History, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2000. See also V. R. Yow, Recording Oral History: A Guide for the Humanities and Social Sciences, Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, New York, 2005.
27 R. Grele, Envelopes of Sound: The Art of Oral History, Precedent Publishing, Chicago, 1985, pp. 127–54. See also V. Yow, ‘Do I like them too much?: effects of the oral history interview on the interviewer and vice versa’, The Oral History Review, vol. 24, no. 1, 1997, pp. 55–80, and A. Errante, ‘But sometimes you're not part of the story: oral histories and ways of remembering and telling’, Educational Researcher, vol. 29, no. 2, 2000, pp. 16–27.
28 Baker, op.cit. See also C. Briggs, Learning How to Ask, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1986, and C. Briggs, ‘Interviewing, power/knowledge and social inequality’, J. Gubrium & H. Holstein (eds.), Handbook of Interview Research: Context and Method, Sage Publications, London, 2002, pp. 911–22.
29 I. Arminem, ‘On the context sensitivity of institutional interaction’, Discourse & Society, vol. 11, no. 4, 2000, pp. 435–58.
30 C. Briggs, op. cit. See also M. Rapley. & C. Antaki, ‘‘What do you think about...?’: Generating views in an interview’, Text, vol. 18, no. 4, 1998, pp. 587–608.
31 P. Drew, op.cit., pp. 917–38. See also D. Edwards, ‘Extreme case formulations: softeners, investment, and doing nonliteral’, Research on Language and Social Interaction, vol. 33, no. 4, 2000, pp. 347–73.
32 P. Drew, op. cit., pp. 917–38. See also C. Puchta & J. Potter, ‘Manufacturing individual opinions: market research focus groups and the discursive psychology of evaluation’, British Journal of Social Psychology, vol. 41, 2002, pp. 345–63, and A. Pomerantz, ‘Extreme case formulations: a way of legitimizing claims’, Human Studies, vol. 9, 1986, pp. 219–29.
33 For an overview of gender and language research, see E. Stokoe, ‘Analysing gender and language’, Journal of Sociolinguistics, vol. 9., no. 1, 2005, pp. 118–33.
34 For a range of approaches to the issue of women's participation in design practice, see M. Bruce & J. Lewis, ‘Women designers: is there a gender trap?’, Design Studies, vol. 11, no. 2, 1990, pp. 114–20; L. Farrelly, ‘Mysterious absence at the cutting edge’, Eye, vol. 5, 1995, pp. 6–7; W. Mayfield, ‘Women's participation in product design education’, Journal of Design and Technology Education, vol. 2, no. 2, 1997, pp. 128–33; D. McDonagh-Philp, ‘The masculine kettle and other stories’, New Design, vol. 1, no. 1, 1997, pp. 32–4, and N. Whiteley, Design for Society, Reaktion Books, London, 1993, pp. 134–57.
35 D. Dunaway, op. cit., p. 8.
36 C. K. Riessman, ‘Analysis of personal narratives’, in J. Gubrium & H. Holstein (eds.), Handbook of Interview Research: Context and Method, Sage Publications, London, 2002, pp. 695–710.
37 H. Sacks, op. cit., pp. 40–8.
38 M. Rapley & C. Antaki, op.cit., p. 608.
39 S. Hester & D. Francis, op. cit., pp. 675–95.
40 A. Oak, 2000, op. cit., pp. 86–95.
41 C. Baker, op. cit., pp. 777–96.
42 The issue of language, value judgements and underlying assumptions is widely discussed by discourse analysts such as C. Antaki, ‘‘D’you like a drink then do you?’ Dissembling language and the construction of an impoverished life’, Journal of Language and Social Psychology, vol. 20, 2001, pp. 196–213; I. Hutchby, ‘Power in discourse: the case of arguments on a British talk radio show’, Discourse & Society, vol. 7, no. 4, 1996, pp. 481–97; D. Weltman & M. Billig, ‘The political psychology of contemporary anti-politics: a discursive approach to the end-of-ideology era’, Political Psychology, vol. 22, no. 2, 2001, pp. 367–82, and M. Wetherell, ‘Positioning and interpretive repertoires: conversation analysis and post-structuralism in dialogue’, Discourse & Society, vol. 9, no. 3, 1998, pp. 387–412.
43 C. Caldas-Coulthard, ‘‘Women who pay for sex. And enjoy it’: transgression versus morality in women's magazines’, in C. Caldas-Coulthard & M Coulthard (eds.), Texts and Practices: Readings in Critical Discourse Analysis, Routledge, London, 1996, p. 264.
44 V. Haser, Metaphor, Metonymy and Experientialist Philosophy, Mouton de Gruyter, New York, 2005. See also G. Radden & Z. Kovecses, ‘Towards a theory of metonymy’, in K. Panther & G. Radden (eds.), Metonymy in Language and Thought, John Benjamins, Philadelphia, 1999.
45 M. Billig, op. cit.; P. Drew, op. cit., pp. 917–38.
46 The two critique extracts here, transcribed by A. Oak, follow some of the conventions of transcription associated with conversation analysis (CA). CA transcription usually includes line numbers so that references to specific terms or actions (such as asking a question) can be readily noted. Jefferson's work was particularly influential in establishing CA transcription conventions. The different formats of the Ford transcripts indicate only the words of one speaker and thus, are not in conversation Analysis Format. The MIT/Cambridge transcripts do contain interaction and so follow CA format. See, for instance, G. Jefferson, ‘An exercise in the transcription and analysis of laughter’, in van Dijk (ed.), Handbook of Discourse Analysis: Volume 3, Academic Press, London, pp. 25–34.
47 For a history of Bar Hill, created in the early 1960s, see www.barhill.org.uk/villagehistory1.htm.
48 Appleyard and Lynch were significant in attempting to bridge the gap between the physical environment of a city and its more personal and social impact. Both designers used social science-based survey methods in their work, so their writing and their urban plans were supported by the evidence of people's experiences of cities. For the work of Appleyard, see D. Appleyard, The BART Residential Impact Study: A Longitudinal Study of Environmental Impact, University of California Press, Berkeley, 1973, and D. Appleyard, Liveable Streets, University of California Press, Berkeley, 1981. For Lynch's work, see K. Lynch, The Image of the City, Technology Press, Cambridge, MA, 1960, and K. Lynch, What Time Is This Place?, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 1972. Together, Lynch and Appleyard wrote (with J. Myer) The View From the Road, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 1969.
49 D. Middleton, ‘Talking work: argument, common knowledge, and improvisation in teamwork’, in Y. Engestrom& D. Middleton (eds.), Cognition and Communication at Work, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1996, pp. 233–56.
50 L. Pellizzoni, ‘The myth of the best argument: power, deliberation and reason’, The British Journal of Sociology, vol. 52., no. 1, 2001, pp. 59–86.
51 For transcripts of the Watergate Tapes online, see http://nixon.archives.gov/find/tapes/watergate/trial/transcripts.html.
52 See, for instance, O. Lavoisy, ‘Illustration and technical know-how in eighteenth-century France’, Journal of Design History, vol. 17, no. 2, 2004, pp. 141–62, and S. Lichtman, ‘Do-it-yourself security: safety, gender and the home fallout shelter in Cold War America’, Journal of Design History, vol. 19, no. 1, 2006, pp. 39–55.
53 Scholars who are interested in design practice and who use oral materials include D. Cuff, Architecture: The Story of a Practice, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 1992; P. Lloyd, ‘Making a drama out of a process: how television represents designing’, Design Studies, vol. 23, 2002, pp. 113–3; J. Stempfle & P. Badke-Schaub, ‘Thinking in design teams: an analysis of team communication’, Design Studies, vol. 23, no. 5, 2002, pp. 473–96; D. Chaubaud-Rychter, ‘The configuration of domestic practices in the designing of household appliances’, in K. Grint & R. Gill (eds.), The Gender-Technology Relation: Contemporary Theory and Research, Taylor and Francis, London, 1995, pp. 95–111.