“I may have benefited more than anyone else”: Responses to Staller’s (2024) Write-Up of Jane Gilgun’s Career Interviews

Apologies

Another example of spontaneous utterances that are incomplete is my statement about research on violence that others do. Yes, much research on violence focuses on what independent variables predict dependent variables. I attended an invitation-only conference where the complex, ambiguity of the meanings of violence was absent, and I felt like the ugly duckling when other researchers responded with silence as I reported complexity and ambiguity. However, there is a great deal of excellent, theory-guided research that makes contributions to the understanding and prevention of violence. My apparent dismissal of excellent work in the interviews once again shows that the spontaneity of interviews risks presenting an incomplete account of what I actually think.

Theory of violence

I am glad Karen gave prominence to my theorizing about violence and thrilled that she included my question about why people hurt each other when spiritual teachers tell us we are made for love. This is one strand of an emerging theory of violence. Another strand I didn’t mention is beliefs are foundational to whether and how people harm others. This is important to me to state here because the feminists at my university appeared to believe that I overlooked beliefs as a main factor. One of them told me that.

Another strand that I’m developing is that people who commit acts of violence want what everyone else wants, such as peace, love, understanding, dignity, equality, and self-determination. As I said in the interviews, they mistake evil for good in that the means they use to attain these states of being are destructive to others and self-destructive. There are many other factors, such as neurobiology, the presence of proviolence beliefs in our culture that some people act upon and others do not, values so as not wanting to harm others, capacities for understanding that acting on proviolence beliefs harms others and the self, and self-regulation that involves the anticipation of consequences, and the values of care, justice, equality, and self-determination. Some people overlook consequences until it is too late, some people dismiss consequences, and some don’t care. Some want to inflict suffering.

The emerging theory is pattern theory, which is the kind of theory that results from research based on pragmatist principles (Gilgun, 2013). Pattern theory is composed of strands or factors that are in horizontal relationship with each other and that is meant to be inclusive, encompassing general patterns and exceptions to patterns (Kaplan, 1964).

A definition of violence

I also wish I had talked in the interviews about a definition of violence that delights me and that I have sought to construct since the beginning: Violence is composed of actions and words that harm the dignity, worth, and self-determination of others and obviously shows a lack of justice and care. Sometimes the harm is physical. The harm survivors experience becomes embedded in brain circuits and operates on conscious and subconscious levels for persons’ lifetimes. Survivors of violence who do well after experiencing violence are fortunate to have prosocial beliefs that guide them to cope in prosocial ways, such as refusal to hurt others and dealing with the hurt they experienced through talking to others, journaling, meditating, among many other ways. It’s been 5 years since I connected violence as the antithesis to democratic values that are embedded in both pragmatism and social work codes of ethics world-wide. The definition appears in one of my most recent article on violence (Gilgun, 2022b).

Deductive qualitative analysis

I did not talk about deductive qualitative analysis (DQA) in the interviews, which surprised me because I think it is an important approach to qualitative research. Many people begin their research with theory, as I did in my dissertation research when I used life course theory. DQA is a way of testing theory qualitatively or using theory to guide research and the willingness to seek information that contradicts or adds to the initial theory and to emerging findings. It is based on analytic induction, one of three research methods associated with the Chicago School. The other two methods are grounded theory and field studies, or descriptive research (Gilgun, 2010). My interest in analytic induction and scholarship regarding the Chicago School began when I was a PhD student and attended the lectures of Bob Bogdan who studied with Blanche Geer, a graduate in sociology from the University of Chicago (Gilgun, 1992). Geer carried forward the pragmatist tradition, and it intrigued me. From Bogdan and his colleague Sari Biklen (Bodgan and Biklen, 1998), I learned about analytic induction. I did not learn about pragmatism in my social work courses.

Doing analytic induction begins with conceptual material, like a hunch, a concept, a loose theory, or a theory developed from previous scholarship. For various reasons, analytic induction fell into disrepute, and researchers no longer used it. For DQA, I built upon the ideas of analytic induction, responded to objections to it, and made a case for using it. I decided that what I had developed was different enough to require a new name I have published articles and book chapters about analytic induction and DQA and done conference papers (Gilgun, 1995, 2001, 2005, 2019, 2020; 2022a; 2022b). I think that testing theory and doing theory-guided research are important. I want to encourage others to do so. I subscribe to Google Alerts and check Google Scholar, the Minnesota library system, and other services to see whether DQA is in use. Members of many disciplines use it, but few are social workers.

Coping benefited me

I may have benefited more than anyone else from my research on violence. I did not say that in the interviews. I also did not address the countless ways I coped. Dealing with the effects of the research on me benefited my personal growth and deepened my spiritual life. As a result of dealing with the effects of the research, more easily than ever before, I experience the spiritual energy and goodness in other people and other living beings, such as trees, flowers, and animals of all sorts. I am crazy about landscapes and rock formations. I have spent a month a year in rural Ireland for at least 25 years; there I am at peace through effortless connection to the landscapes, the people, the birds, the sheep, the rivers, and the rocky cliffs, whatever is alive.

Through well-known ways of coping, such as journaling, therapy, dealing directly with emotions, meditation, Al-Anon, vigorous exercise, and much more, I identified, became acquainted with, and let go on my own toxic beliefs and inner hurt. Much of what I dealt with was culture-wide misogynist and sexist beliefs about the worth of women. Spiritual teachers call this process many things, including diving into the wreck (Rich, 1973), facing reality, the dark night of the soul, and kenosis, which is an emptying out that gives more room for love and peace. I will never be completely free, but I’m doing better than ever. I would not have been able to do this without listening for decades to stories perpetrators tell.

Furthermore, for as long as I can remember, I have had the capacity to move naturally into peaceful and joyful states of being, even during the times when the research on violence hurt terribly. It’s likely that this is how we are built. We have an innate attraction to joy that pops into our awareness with no effort on our part. In addition, I achieved balance through relationships with family and friends, affiliations with social, political, religious, academic, and political action groups as well as hobbies of many types, such as writing poetry and prose, photography, gardening, cooking, and hiking. My horse friends, Ellie and Finn, with whom I experienced and continue to experience Zen, flow, and presence, provide enrichment and balance. The main article has detail on how my advocacy for qualitative social work research gave quality to my life. For example, I attended all 19 sessions of the International Congress on Qualitative Inquiry and am registered for the 20^th coming up in May.

My newest insight, about a few days old as of this writing, is that one way to contribute to the transformation of oppressive social systems is to transform our internalized oppressive beliefs. We enact the beliefs and practices we draw from social systems, and we contribute to these systems. Logically then, as we become more loving and peaceful, we will contribute to the transformation of oppressive systems. Most of us have proviolence beliefs, although we rarely act on them. For instance, today I saw a joke based on everyday violence. The former president said to a woman, “Let’s make America great again.” They are standing on a cliff. She pushes him over the cliff. I see the humor, but I also wonder if this everyday violence is toxic in that it contributes to society-wide beliefs about the acceptability of violence.

Transforming ourselves as a way of transforming oppressive systems adds to other ways of doing so: research, advocacy, and every action that promote the good on the interpersonal level.

Paying a price

Being faithful to social work requires immersion into human suffering, and this takes a toll. For me, the price was worth it—not only because I think my work is beneficial but also because of the personal growth I experienced. There is another price, however, for doing qualitative research, and that is the difficulty of finding funding. I obtained several grants from private foundations, but my consistent source of funding was from the Minnesota Agricultural Foundation’s section on Family Life. For more than 35 years, I received about $50,000 per year on a family-related project of my choice. I consistently chose the development of violent behaviors, the meanings of violence to perpetrators, and how persons overcome adversities. I used the money for a course buy-out, to support graduate research assistants, and to pay for transcription. Without this funding, I would not have had the freedom to do scholarship on the Chicago School, develop my understandings of methodologies and methods, and conduct research for 35 years on violence and how persons cope with adversities.

I wanted to bring more money into the School of Social Work and dreamed of major funding. I talked to many federal program officers and applied for large funding on topics such as rape in marriage. Program officers either were uninterested in what I wanted to research or wanted me to follow through on the research of others and give up developing the theory I had been working on through life history research. I think my standing as a researcher suffered because I didn’t get major funding. I believed in what I was doing and willingly took the consequences.

Feminist

I am grateful that Karen labeled me a feminist. This title is an honorific. I view my work and writings as feminist, even though I often don’t use the term. I am way past being hurt that other feminists at my university appeared to have misunderstood my work, as Karen recounted in the article. In the interviews, I didn’t say how I balanced this experience with others. For example, countless women colleagues at other universities welcomed me as a sister from the beginning of my career and understood my desire to contribute to the common good. As a qualitative social work researcher in the pragmatist tradition, I could not be anything other than feminist. I was a faculty affiliate of women studies at my university for more than 25 years until I retired, but, although I was on many dissertation committees in many departments, I did not contribute to student work in women’s studies. No one invited me.

Final thoughts: Qualitative social work

My work as a feminist qualitative social work researcher stands on the shoulders of giants. Among those giants are women social workers who formulated the principles and practices that guide my research and practice. These giants do the same globally for countless other social workers and persons whose goals are the promotion of the common good.