The hands have it: tactile participation and maximum grip in the aviation sector

Introduction

The hands, creative and resourceful, are integral to discovering, examining and understanding the material and sensorial world in which they are put to use in qualitative research. Drawing on the philosophical work of Heidegger (2003) and Merleau-Ponty (2014), this article argues that the researcher’s hands become investigative – put to use for exploring the worlds of our research participants. In doing so, the hands (as part of the body) can be positioned in such a way as to optimise our understanding of the given situation – providing what Merleau-Ponty (2014) explains as an optimal or maximum grip (Dreyfus, 2004). Merleau-Ponty uses the terms la prise, meaning ‘grip’ or ‘hold’ and en prise, which literally means ‘in gear’ (or figuratively ‘attuned to’) to denote the body’s tendency to respond to the social environment in order to maximize ones understanding of a particular context or situation (Merleau-Ponty, 2014: 497). This article explores the use of a researcher’s body and hands during fieldwork with a commercial pilot within an aviation setting. There is currently an expanding body of literature written about sensory ethnography and sensorial methods (see Pink, 2009, 2011, 2015; Hurdley and Dicks, 2011; Dicks, 2014; Dicks et al., 2011; Chadwick, 2016) as well as a number of studies centred on embodiment or sensorial data, including for example, ‘sensing violence’ in ‘mixed martial arts’ (Spencer, 2013); the ‘embodiment of ballet’ (Wainwright et al., 2006); the ‘power of corridors’ in universities (Hurdley, 2010) and the use of ‘tactile digital ethnography’ in the use of mobile media devices (Pink, 2015). There has also been a plethora of studies which have tried to understand the body using various research methodologies, including Orr and Phoenix’s (2015) use of ‘visual methods to ‘grasp at’ the sensorial experiences of the ageing body’ and Sutton’s (2011) use of ‘playful cards’ for ‘serious talk’, a research technique to ‘elicit women’s embodied experiences’. This article extends these discussions by providing an application of sensorial methods to aviation, but with focus on the ways in which tactile understanding can be optimised through positionality, reflexivity and successful access to the field of study. Qualitative researchers have long been aware that what research participants say and do needs to be interpreted alongside the material and sensorial settings in which they say and do it (Hurdley and Dicks, 2011). Multisensorial and emplaced ethnographic methodology provides phenomenological ways of knowing by being there (Pink, 2015). This article takes forward these ideas, using the phenomenology of Heidegger and Merleau-Ponty to develop the ways in which the body seeks to disclose the world in particular ways and optimise its grip on a given situation when doing qualitative fieldwork.

Given the nature of qualitative inquiry, it is natural for ethnographers to make sense of other worlds by attempting to disclose everyday things (and others) in the particular ways our research participants do (Heidegger, 2003). This article focuses on disclosure through the use of the body – in particular the hands. It seeks to elaborate on what it means for ethnographers to actively get involved in participation – in doing, as well as listening; in practising activities using our bodies; putting our hands to use in order to learn from our research participants, and generally providing ‘fleshier’ modes of doing qualitative research (Chadwick, 2016). Drawing on fieldwork conducted with a commercial aeroplane pilot at a British airbase, this article examines how the body and in particular the hands are put to use during ethnographic fieldwork – exploring how sensory forms of social research can create empathetic and experiential ways of knowing participants’ and researchers’ worlds (Hurdley and Dicks, 2011).

The discussion is presented in six main parts organised around my research journey, from building rapport and interviewing the Pilot, to using training equipment and flying real aeroplanes in the field. The first part provides a background to the study. The second part of the article provides details of how the study begins using interviews and moves towards sensorial methods examining the different kinds of data obtained. The third part focuses on experiences at an airbase, and provides a close-up examination of the use of the hands and ways in which messy processes of our research can be developed and made useful for research practice. The fourth part of this article looks at key examples from the research study including the participation on board an aircraft simulator used for training commercial pilots. The fifth part focuses on experiences aboard a Cherokee aeroplane used for training commercial pilots. Lastly, the article examines the ways in which the body and in particular how the presence of the hands might impact on reflexivity during the research process. I conclude by evaluating the ways in which the hands and the body can inform data analysis used in qualitative research.

Background to study

This article draws upon data gathered at a British airbase in the UK between 2009 and 2014. The study involved understanding the ways in which a commercial aeroplane pilot, aged 56, encountered technology at work. The research centred on evaluating the use of performance systems and auto-pilot technology used to replicate some of the flying activities pilots once did. Two central questions for my research with the pilot were: What does pilot expertise involve? And what are the implications for replicating it using the algorithmic-type formulations developed in autopilot software? To investigate these issues, I carried out a series of [ethnographic] interviews (Spradley, 1979) with the Pilot at his home and workplace, as well as participating with him during several training exercises at an airbase - where sensory methods were implemented (Pink, 2015), as part of a holistic approach to doing ethnographic research (Mannay and Morgan, 2015). Whilst other studies of aviation have focussed on cognitive science (Casner et al., 2014; Hutchins, 1995) or aeroplane artefacts (Hutchins et al., 2006), or talk and interaction in the airline cockpit in studies of human-computer interaction (Nevile, 2004), this sociological study focused on pilot expertise and replication of it via the emergence of new information and communication technologies. With exception to Bennett’s (2016) study of a commercial flight crew, there have been few sociological studies of front-line pilots and the ways in which pilot expertise has been threatened by autopilot technology.

Using Heidegger’s philosophy from Being and Time (2003), and History of the Concept of Time (2008), and taking ideas from Merleau-Ponty’s (2014) Phenomenology of Perception, I developed several ideas which could explain a) how the Pilot’s tacit understanding of flying was problematic for programming new aviation technology (I called this tacit understanding ‘know-how’) and b) how tactile involvement and bodily presence aboard an aeroplane mattered for skilfully manoeuvring and flying (handling) the aircraft (later I shall refer to the pilots optimal grasp of a situation ‘maximum grip’, following Dreyfus’ (2004) interpretation of Merleau-Ponty). In essence, the study argues that experts such as the Pilot have a premium of tacit knowledge that can only be exhibited in bodily actions (such as the skilful use of the hands). This creates difficulty for autopilot designers and computer developers who wish to mimic pilot expertise in the development of autopilot systems because ‘the lived body can never be a fully explicit thing’ (Leder, 1990: 17). This article draws upon these ideas, not only in relation to the analytical themes of the study, but also, and more importantly for this article, in relation to the methodology used in the study – disclosing the everyday world by engaging through the body, learning through apprenticeship and understanding (without necessarily the need for mastering) what it means to have optimal or maximum grip (Merleau-Ponty, 2014). The study not only focussed on know-how, the body, and maximum grip, but applied these ideas in its very methodology. Research involved shadowing the Pilot during routine training exercises at a British airbase. Here, flying was not just observed, but practiced by researcher and research participants alike. The purpose was to investigate what pilot expertise involved by taking part and putting my body on the front line, learning not only about the practical issues with flying, but the moral and ideological circumstances too. The aim was not to undermine or replace the rich data gathered via standard interview methods but to support and supplement it. Scholars who have used visual and sensory methods of ethnographic practice, have generally sought to acknowledge the importance of these approaches in relation to standard methods, although not necessarily giving one higher status than the other (Pink, 2011).

Exploring pilot expertise: from interviews to sensorial methods

Interested in pilot expertise, and the potential for autopilot systems to replicate it, I interviewed the Pilot on several occasions at his home, where he lived with his wife and two daughters. But frustration began to set in when the Pilot described what flying involved using seemingly ad hoc explanations:

When you’re at an approach it’s going to be that sort of angle. You’re going to listen to that much sound that will be coming out of the engines. You can see that the engine instruments are going to be in that sort of mark. You’re expecting all these numbers and those numbers go into your subconscious and that’s where they stay. And when you’re actually doing something and they’re not in those numbers, especially in a public transport aeroplane then you really start to get worried [sic].

Here the Pilot understands how to make an approach using expressions that seem to lack any precision at all: ‘That sort of angle’ he says, with engines that make ‘that much sound’, and with engine instruments in ‘that sort of mark’. On the face of it, these comments might seem to be arbitrary remarks on how to fly an aircraft, because they appear to fall short of providing a precise script, articulated plan or set of rules on flying. In other words, these remarks suggested there was no science of flying whatsoever. But to say that the Pilot lacks precision or articulation in what he is doing would be a complete misconception. On the contrary, the Pilot knows how to make an approach and exhibits his ability through the act of doing it, because his ability to fly can best be explained through flying itself.

My future interviews with the Pilot provided much of the same kind of data. The Pilot did his best to explain how he recognised certain situations but could never put into words his capacity to understand what he was doing when flying aeroplanes. Of course, there is a tendency for data developed from interview methods and other non-participatory methods to sterilize or deaden the aliveness and authenticity of social phenomena. The ‘challenge is often to find words that are faithful to the phenomenon in all its complexity, sense and texture’ (Todres and Galvin, 2008: 569). How could I make sense of the Pilot’s ability to fly an aeroplane whilst only interviewing him inside his home? I turned to participatory methods, and in particular, sensory research methodology. Sensory research methods allow for experiential ways of knowing and afford us a way understanding phenomena in its depth and complexity (Pink, 2009). The following two sub-sections of this article describe how I gained access to the Pilot’s airbase, used for training, and how I learnt from the Pilot by flying a Cherokee aeroplane and simulator used for training purposes. A key focus of these sections is on the use of my hands.

At the airbase: communicative hands, knowing hands and symbolic hands

After interviewing the Pilot on several occasions at his home, I frequented the airbase where he trained. Gaining and maintaining access can be difficult in qualitative research (Bergman-Blix and Wettergren, 2015). ‘Don’t worry’ said the Pilot, ‘You’re in safe hands’. I knew the Pilot had my trust and that the feeling was mutual. I entered the airfield and looked around. I saw various aeroplanes, of different types, shapes and sizes. Some aeroplanes were draped in protective cloths or covers (technically known as ‘aircraft fabric covering’), and others appeared uncovered and actively in use. The Pilot took me over to a small Cherokee aircraft and with his hands, began loosening the ropes that fixed the cover over the aeroplane. Unfamiliar and unsure about what to do, at first I watched. I was the apprentice within what can be described as a master-apprenticeship relationship (Downey et al., 2015). It was the master-pilot who could show me (the novice-pilot) the ropes, in quite a literal sense. My familiarity with aviation was not of the same magnitude as the Pilot’s. But I could learn more by getting involved – in doing so I also put my hands to use.

In what ways are our hands important for being there in the field? This section of this article argues that the hands are communicative, knowledgeable and symbolic in the conduct of participatory research. First, our hands are often intrinsic to the way in which we convey communication with our respondents. During my fieldwork with the Pilot, I pointed to things and asked questions: ‘What’s that for?’ I said pointing to the cloth draped over the aircraft. ‘That’s kept on during winter or when the aircraft is not in use’, said the Pilot. The Pilot turned around and raised his arm, pointing towards other aircrafts some distance away. ‘Can you see those over there?’ asked the Pilot. ‘Yes’ I said. ‘They’re not in use either and many of them need maintenance’, the Pilot explained. Pointing things out in this mundane way was made easier by being there with the Pilot in which my hands were integral to communicating and asking questions. Being surrounded by aeroplane-things increases the likelihood that equipment becomes available for use rather than something ‘just there’ to be looked at thematically (Heidegger, 2008). Allowing entities to become available for use provides an understanding that is not only described but felt.

Moreover, my hands were used as a way of getting to know things more intimately. This has been referred to as a way of acquiring ‘tactile experience’ (Pink et al., 2016: 237) or ‘haptic perception’ (Grunwald, 2008: 12) – becoming aware of something via touch. ¹ As the Pilot started removing the cloth I began to help, gently pulling it away from the wings of the aeroplane and uncovering the aircraft from beneath. The cloth felt thick and heavy. I was feeling my way through the world (Pink et al., 2016), by haptically getting involved in the Pilot’s everyday experiences. My body, and in particular my hands, were more than just communicative things. Through my hands I had learnt a lot about the aeroplane before I had even boarded it, because the hand has a capacity to know and tell and to ‘recognise subtle clues in one’s environment and to respond to them with judgement and precision’ (Ingold, 2013: 113). As I brushed my fingers along the edge of the wings I was becoming informed of what the aeroplane was about and feeling my way around as much as I was talking and listening to the Pilot about his world of aviation.

The use of my hands here not only enhanced my understanding of the environment but also showed my keenness to get involved. ‘That’s the trick’ exclaimed the Pilot, as I removed the cloth completely, pulling it away with both hands gripped to the edges of the material. The movement of the hands, the leaning forward and gentle holding of the cloth, were symbolic – they showed a measure of my character, worth and social status (Goffman, 1963), in the sense that my bodily movements showed an openness to learn; gratification for being taught, and a keen but carefulness (and gentleness) of dealing with equipment. Such gestures were integral to showing the Pilot that I was interested to learn and to know how things worked. By reaching out with my hands, the Pilot could see that I was offering to help. My gestures, loaded with communicative meaning, was used to inform the Pilot of what I expected from him and what he could expect from me (Mead, 2015). My hands were communicating ‘I’m here, can I help you? I want to help you.’ They symbolised empathy, trustworthiness and integrity, and were part of my holistic approach to building rapport. Of course, ‘researchers are warned that trust does not develop overnight and that developing rapport in the field is a challenging process that must be maintained throughout the duration of the study’ (Pitts and Miller-Day, 2007: 195). But by being there with our respondents, and taking part in our participants’ activities, our trustworthiness can be sussed out and reckoned with very quickly. Even the researcher’s first appearances enable others to anticipate his or her attributes, providing a moral expectation of his or her trustworthiness and character (Goffman, 1990). How my hands moved were symbolic of my keenness to learn, enthusiasm to discover, and appreciation of what the Pilot’s work involved.

Flying the simulator: ‘take your hands on the controls, and have a little play’

In contrast to interviewing, participating in flying meant engaging with aircraft equipment and using it. Here, the researcher learns how equipment is put to use in the world of his or her research participant. ² During my participation on board an aircraft simulator – a replica cockpit and controls of a Boeing 757 – I was able to get ‘hands on’ practice and ‘appreciation’ (Fielding, 2015: 4) of what flying involves:

The Pilot is giving precise instructions (thematic assertions) on what I should or should not do in order to control the simulated aircraft. ‘Push forward on the control column to dip the nose of the aeroplane’ and ‘pull back on it to pull the nose up’. But he is also providing me with an opportunity to ‘learn for myself’ as he encourages me to ‘play’ with the controls. Importantly, the Pilot is not just telling me how it is (‘Now you are going nose up’) but he is asking me how it feels (‘See how little it is?’). Here, I developed an opportunity for knowing that did not only require listening to what was said, but feeling how it felt. Sensorial data is a rich resource allowing understanding to permeate through experience. Pink et al. (2016: 241) call this approach a ‘knowing through the hand’ by feeling our way through the world.

My understanding of flying developed by implementing this hands-on-approach and making sense of how it felt to control the aircraft – it was from being there, holding the controls of the aircraft that I was able to possess ‘a feel for the game’ (Bourdieu, 1980: 56) and get beyond any ‘official stories’ of what flying might involve (Roer-Strier and Sands, 2015). My lack of overall competence was an opportunity for me to learn from my respondent. Good fieldwork involves understanding others by ‘learning their skills while learning about their learning and their lives’ (Marchand, 2010: 9). As Downey et al (2015: 191) point out, ‘the incompetence of the researcher-student becomes a shared problem, and a range of pedagogic intervention is brought to bear on the ethnographer’. Wacquant (2011: 86) calls this ‘pedagogical work’ because ‘the work is being done on and with us’ (cited in Downey et al., 2015: 191). We can ‘see, hear and feel the workings of the social pedagogical machine from within, noticing how demanding different portions of training are, recognising how practices come together to shape expertise’ (Downey et al., 2015: 191). The Pilot recognised my ineptness to hold the yoke (the instrument that steers the aeroplane) and control the aircraft by feeling how I was using the controls. He intervened, showing me most articulately how it was to be done in practice, rather than merely telling me in verbal communication. Apart from technical knowing how, my apprenticeship also required an ‘embodied understanding of the sensibilities, behaviours and values’ (Downey et al., 2015: 192) of what it meant to be a pilot. Shifting between explicit explanations to embodied skills and directives allowed the Pilot to better communicate with me what he meant when describing certain actions or practices (often discussed in previous interviews).

Flying a Cherokee aeroplane: ‘swing it to the right’

Participating aboard the Cherokee aeroplane, I was able to further experience for myself some of the things the Pilot had spoken about during the interviews, by grabbing hold of the aeroplane controls. My field notes describe this:

The aeroplane was very noisy but we had radio headphones on which meant we could talk to each other fairly clearly. The Pilot asked me to ‘grab hold of the controls’. As I did so, he let go of his controls. I realised I was actually flying the aircraft myself. I was a little nervous at first and concentrated on keeping the aeroplane straight and level. ‘I’m going to have a little sleep’ says the Pilot. ‘What was that?’ I said. ‘I’m having a little nap and will leave it to you’ replies the Pilot. I laughed as I realised the Pilot was joking. But nevertheless I was in control of directing the plane and I felt I had enormous responsibility in doing so.

The weather was dull and we saw bits of terrain heading towards us. The Pilot told me to turn the aircraft around: ‘Swing it to the right’ he said. ‘That’s it, and as you turn, pull it up a little bit’ the Pilot said. I turned the aeroplane to the right by turning the yoke to the right side. It did seem similar to a car (even though I’ve never driven one of them either!). A major difference with a plane is that you can go up and down, as well as left and right, simply by pulling or pushing on the yoke in front of you. As I turned the yoke to the right I pulled it back as well. I could see the ground through my left window as the whole aeroplane turned. The Pilot told me he ‘felt sick’ – but I knew he was only joking because I was in control of the aircraft. I just laughed and carried on flying. After a short time the Pilot pointed out to my right and said: ‘That’s Milton Keynes down there’. ‘Oh I have a friend from Milton Keynes’ I responded. I kept on flying the aircraft.

The Pilot had given me full control of the aeroplane by encouraging me to hold the yoke whilst he let go of his: ‘grab hold of the controls’ he said. This opportunity to take control of the aeroplane was extremely valuable. It had finally brought the flying we had spoken so much about into the real world. The Pilot’s body is not merely instrumental. Rather, ‘to be a body is to be tied to a certain world’ (Merleau-Ponty, 2014: 149). The manner in which the Pilot manoeuvres the yoke is gentle but also robust - he is accomplishing a certain style, articulated in a particular fashion, to achieve a certain result. With this in mind, the Pilot was not merely teaching me the rules of flying but was also encouraging me to develop a certain manner in which to fly. Directives from the Pilot like ‘swing it to the right’ (see extract above), might appear to be arbitrary or casual instructions, but no other instruction could be more fitting. By encouraging me to control the yoke robustly in certain situations, there was a mutual articulation of how it felt to fly the aeroplane.

Understanding the Pilot’s expertise involves knowing how to handle the aircraft, rather than merely following a set of rules for flying. When the Pilot engages with his instruments in a practical fashion, he need not ‘think through’ the rules of flying but demonstrates his understanding simply by flying the aeroplane appropriately. This distinction between thematic understanding and tacit understanding is made clear in Heidegger’s (2003) Being and Time, and is further developed in Merleau-Ponty’s (2014) Phenomenology of Perception. Heidegger (2003) says that the kind of dealing which is closest to us is ‘not a bare perceptual cognition, but rather that kind of concern which manipulates things and puts them to use’ (Heidegger, 2003: 95). Phenomenologically speaking, the Pilot’s everyday being-in-the-world can be referred to as his ‘dealings’ in the world and with entities within-the-world’ (Heidegger, 2003: 95). Following Heidegger (2003), these practical dealings with entities within-the-world does not amount to ‘knowing the “world” theoretically’ but knowing the world in terms of what is used, produced and so forth. This way of manipulating things and putting them to use ‘has its own kind of ‘knowledge’ (Heidegger, 2003: 95) that involves a practical ‘knowing how’ rather than a theoretical ‘knowing that’ (Heidegger, 2008). The expert Pilot and apprentice-pilot researcher share the capacity to know through practical involvement. But whereas I am a researcher learning how to fly the Cherokee aeroplane, the Pilot already knows how to carry out activities in a way which could not be more suitable for the job at hand. Dreyfus and Dreyfus (2005: 50) argue that with top-level performance, ‘expert pilots no longer feel that they are flying the plane, but rather that they are flying’ (my own emphasis added). Thus, ‘flying has become like walking, something one does without detaching oneself from it’ (Dreyfus and Dreyfus, 2005: 50). Both researcher and expert however, maximise their ability to fly through knowing how to take hold. Thus I learnt about increasing altitude by pulling on the yoke and experienced the lift in a practical sense, feeling the lift in the seat of my pants.

To further understand how the novice-researcher learns from the expert pilot in flying aeroplanes we can turn to Merleau-Ponty’s (2014) use of the intentional arc. This term can be described as the tight connection between the Pilot and the Pilot’s world, and that, as he acquires skills, these skills are ‘stored’, not as representations in the mind, but as more and more refined dispositions to respond to the solicitations of more and more refined perceptions of the current flying situation (Dreyfus, 2004). Merleau-Ponty (2014: 137) says that the intentional arc is a more fundamental function that is ‘beneath intelligence and beneath perception’. He says that the intentional arc:

projects around us our past, our future, our human milieu, our physical situation, our ideological situation, and our moral situation, or rather, that ensures that we are situated within all of these relationships. (Merleau-Ponty, 2014: 137)

Thus the Pilot skilfully manoeuvres his aeroplane in view of his past, future and moral responsibility to fly – usually with around two-hundred passengers on board. To learn from the Pilot means to make sense of the moral, ideological, and practical circumstances in which the Pilot experiences his world. Thus when the Pilot jokes about ‘having a little nap’ on the Cherokee aeroplane, we both break out into laughter because we were both aware that sleeping in the cockpit has serious consequences – of which our lives depend. Merleau-Ponty’s arguments about the intentional arc helps us to understand how the situatedness of an aeroplane pilot’s body (whether novice or expert) enables him or her to disclose stuff in the world of aviation and know how to appropriate it – not just in the physical (how to fly) sense but in an existential sense too. It also illuminates some of the problems of autopilot technology set to replace professional pilots. In contrast to the human pilot, the autopilot system has no intentional arc and thus no past, future or moral situation to reckon with at all. As a novice pilot gripping hold of the controls and taking forward the aircraft through the oncoming terrain – I was given a stark reminder of the difficulties and dangers which can often be taken-for-granted – just by being there and holding on to the equipment.

Acquiring maximum grip: feeling how to land the aeroplane

The core arguments used in this article have centred on the idea that we, as qualitative researchers, can maximise our understanding of our research participants’ worlds by being there, engaging with things, communicating with others and putting our hands to use. Following Merleau-Ponty, the notions of ‘optimal distance’ and ‘maximum visibility’ (2014: 315–316) describes the body’s inclination to perceive an object in the most apt and appropriate way given all current circumstances:

For each object, just as for each painting in an art gallery, there is an optimal distance from which it asks to be seen – an orientation through which it presents more of itself – beneath or beyond which we merely have a confused perception due to excess or lack. Hence, we tend toward the maximum visibility and we seek, just as when using a microscope, a better focus point, which is obtained through a certain equilibrium between the interior and exterior horizons. (Merleau-Ponty, 2014: 315–316)

Merleau-Ponty (2014) explains how the body adjusts or attunes itself to a particular social environment - in doing so one can maximise one’s understanding or la prise (‘grip’) on a given situation. Drawing on Hubert Dreyfus’ (2004) interpretation of Merleau-Ponty’s (1945) Phénoménologie de la perception, maximum grip can be understood as ‘the body’s tendency to respond to these solicitations in such a way as to bring the current situation closer to the agent’s sense of an optimal gestalt’ (Dreyfus, 2004: 1). Acquiring maximum grip does not involve following a set of rules or mental activities. On the contrary, maximum grip requires neither mental or brain representations but allows an organised whole (more than the sum of its parts) to be understood. The point of any experiential learning activity is not to merely learn the rules (a ‘how to do’ manual can do that) but to acquaint oneself with the necessary skills in order to optimise our grasp of a given situation.

One of the most important skills in aviation is the ability to land an aeroplane. It seemed impossible that I would experience how to do that –without having a considerable number of flying hours ‘under my belt’. But fortunately the Cherokee (like most aeroplanes), had two connected yokes for both the pilot and co-pilot to use together. This meant I was able to get a feel for how to fly the aeroplane by both seeing and feeling how the Pilot operated the aeroplane. My field notes taken on the Cherokee aircraft describe this experience:

The Pilot asked me to hold the yoke and feel how he lands the aeroplane. At first I held the yoke tightly, but I then eased off, so the Pilot knew he was in total control. By holding onto the yoke whilst the Pilot was flying the aircraft I could experience to some extent what the Pilot was experiencing. I felt tiny subtle movements of the yoke which were mainly forward and backward, pulling and pushing the plane so it was tilting up and down. The movements were constant and the yoke never seemed to stop moving around until we eventually landed on the runway.

Feeling how the aeroplane landed provided an understanding through the hands and body that could not be articulated in language (Leder, 1990). Drawing on Ingold’s work, Pink et al. (2016: 239) argue that the hands are ‘repositories of memory’; as articulate in the present; and as having an orientation towards what will happen next. But the use of the hands should not be understood as separate from the body. Nor should we understand the hands as something to be instructed via the mind. Rather, it is the whole style of bodily movement that allowed me to emulate the fashion in which the Pilot landed the aircraft. Merleau-Ponty (2014: 151) says this:

So the connection between the segments of our body, or between our visual and our tactile experience, is not produced gradually and through accumulation. I do not translate the ‘givens of touch’ into ‘the language of vision’, nor vice versa; I do not assemble the parts of my body one by one. Rather, this translation and this assemblage are completed once and for all in me: they are my body itself.

My body in the aeroplane was posturing and manoeuvring in order to get maximum grip of what the Pilot was doing (Merleau-Ponty, 2014). It is this grip that provides the researcher with genuine insight into the worlds of our participants. Merleau-Ponty (2014) tells us that ‘science accustoms us to considering the body as an assemblage of parts, and so too does the experience of its breaking apart in death (Merleau-Ponty, 2014: 455). But the ‘objective body is not the truth of the phenomenal body, that is, the truth of the body such as we experience it’ (Merleau-Ponty, 2014: 456). Thus the phenomenal body and our use of it as social researchers allow us to optimise experience in order to maximise our understanding of a given situation.

Back to base: the hands, body and reflexivity

Back at base I was able to reflect on what I had learnt from being up in the Cherokee aeroplane and better understand my position in the research process. Reflexivity is usually understood as ‘the process of a continual internal dialogue and critical self-evaluation of researcher’s positionality as well as active acknowledgement and explicit recognition that this position may affect the research process and outcome’ (Berger, 2015: 220). The body is important for reflexivity because it is the embodied positionality of the researcher that will affect the research process and outcome and shape the way in which the research is conducted (Vartabedian, 2015; Wacquant, 2005; Warren, 2000). Reflexivity can be controlled via the body. Tacit involvement in participants’ lives can bring researchers closer to the worlds which they wish to make sense of and understand (Kumsa et al., 2015), but can also distance them and alter ‘researcher positionality’ (Wiederhold, 2015). This is because hands are multi-faceted, multi-purposeful and can be appropriated in a variety of ways. The researcher can enter the field with trepidation and convey nervousness, apprehension and discomposure with her hands. Or the researcher can enter with self-confidence and convey through the hands a feeling of self-assurance; assertiveness or trustworthiness.

As I sat somewhat nervously aboard the Cherokee aeroplane, my torso was poised in a refrained and most apprehensive manner, I sat back with my arms and elbows held close to my body, my hands on my lap and fingers coiled. I did not want to accidentally touch anything, controls, instruments and the like. My posture spoke volumes – it communicated to the Pilot that I was here and ready – and although apprehensive, I would not mess things up. Our bodies communicate a great deal of information to others in the field. Without speaking, our bodies tell others where we are, what we were doing, and what we were about to do. In this example, my body had ‘unfamiliarity’ written all over it. The aeroplane controls were alien to me and it was obvious. But the communicative posture had several advantages. The unfamiliarity I had and was conveyed by my body provided a sense of ‘anthropological strangeness’ allowing a distanced and more objective account of research data (Atkinson et al., 2007; Silverman, 2013). I was an outsider and could approach the experience from a ‘fresh and different viewpoint posing new questions that may lead to innovative directions’ (Berger, 2015: 227). As an outsider the Pilot could see I was nervous yet inquisitive and what the Pilot had said about flying during the interviews could be better understood in participating alongside him. Hence learning to fly the aeroplane as a novice not only provided an outsider’s account of flying but also allowed me to observe what was previously said during the interviews with ‘new eyes’ (Berger, 2015: 226). I embodied this quality of newness in the style in which I carried myself (Merleau-Ponty, 2014). Moreover, moving from a complete outsider to gaining some insider know-how of how to fly the aeroplane ‘forced me to examine some biases and commonly accepted generalization that coloured my study in light of my new experience’ (Berger, 2015: 226). For example, the Pilot had spoken a great deal about the subtlety of moving the yoke – the instrument that controls the direction of the aircraft. But only when I held the yoke and controlled the aircraft myself did it really sink in what the Pilot had been talking about all along. I was drawing on how it felt to hold the yoke more than listening to what was said about it. The Pilot had been trying to convey just how delicate the aeroplane instruments were – but this was only fully realised when I had used them for myself. My understanding was articulated by the feeling I had. Furthermore, because the researcher is ‘ignorant’ and the Pilot is in the expert position, the experience is an empowering one for the research participant (Berger and Malkinson, 2000). The researchers’ positionality and situatedness affects all aspects of the research process, including the recruitment and motivation of interviewees (Kristensen and Ravn, 2015). My body conveyed this positionality by saying: ‘I’m here, I’m interested, show me more’.

As I moved from outsider to insider my positionality began to change (Berger, 2015). Instead of thinking through how to use the equipment, there were moments when I felt equipment was available to me – ‘to hand’ – and that I was gaining insightful experiences of the Pilot’s world. By holding equipment with my hands and putting my body on the front line, I was immersing myself into the world of the Pilot by attempting to get on the inside (Vartabedian, 2015). When equipment is available for use in this way, Heidegger (2003: 102) calls it ‘ready-to-hand’, explaining how entities become appropriate in a given situation and thus fit for purpose. Researchers may not always begin fieldwork with familiarity of the ‘natives’ perspective and may not consistently encounter things in the ‘ready-to-hand’ way (Heidegger, 2003). But in ‘learning the ropes’ and becoming practically involved in what their research participants do, they can begin to lay a foundation in which this way of dealing with everyday things can become possible, and more meaningful for research participants and researchers alike.

Conclusion

This article explored the use of the hands and body used in qualitative research. Drawing on the phenomenology of Heidegger (2003) and Merleau-Ponty (2014), the article argues that the researcher’s hands are investigative - put to use for exploring the worlds of our research participants. The hands (as part of the body) can be situated in such a way as to maximise our understanding of the given situation. Merleau-Ponty (2014) wrote about perception and maximum visibility – ways in which to seek a better focus point for viewing an object (a picture in an art gallery for example). But Merleau-Ponty (2014) was also making a much broader argument about the ways in which things show up to us – not via a particular sense – but through an optimal gestalt. This article provided empirical data from the aviation section, using a study with a commercial aeroplane pilot as an example of how to apply phenomenological ideas to doing qualitative research – through sensorial methods. One central question for the study with the pilot asked: What does pilot expertise involve? It turned out that pilot expertise involved know-how – an understanding rooted in practical involvement that always involves bodily action and in particular the use of the hands. The Pilot’s know-how was not confined to mere flying skill, but also to performance, style and a view to the moral and practical circumstances which flying involves – he holds the yoke of his aircraft for example, with a sense of importance, moral responsibility, and recognition that if he makes a mistake, he is risking his life and the lives of two-hundred passengers on board.

This article discussed the methodological ways of understanding pilot expertise by participating in flying exercises, showing researcher as apprentice to the master pilot whom could be learned from. The hands and body of which they are holistically part were used throughout the research process, from rapport building in the early parts of the study to flying aeroplanes in the gathering of data. This practical involvement was described by using Heidegger’s (2003) philosophy on our use of equipment and engagement with things in the world. Our bodies are often taken-for-granted and forgotten about in the course of our research activities. And yet, our bodies carry with them an abundance of know-how. Our hands particularly, have the capacity to understand through inquisitiveness and playfulness. Drawing on Merleau-Ponty’s (2014) arguments about the body, in The Phenomenology of Perception, Pink et al. (2016) argues that qualitative researchers must adapt methods for ways of ‘knowing through the hand’ (Pink et al., 2016). This article shows that researchers can understand by engaging with equipment and locating an optimal sense in which activities can be disclosed and research findings brought to light. Drawing on Merleau-Ponty’s (2014) work, this article shows that attempting to acquire maximum grip enhances our understanding of our research participants and the worlds which they encounter.