In this article I revisit the idea of literary ethnography (proposed by Van De Poel-Knottnerus and Knottnerus, 1994) as a method for investigating social phenomena constituted principally through literature. I report the use of this method to investigate the topic of evidence-based healthcare, EBHC. EBHC is a field of discourse much built upon a dichotomy between rationality and emotionality. In this context literary ethnography, a particular type of discourse analysis, is valuable for allowing researchers to bring the emotional currents of technical-rational discourse into conscious awareness. In such discourses, emotions are not written out by name. The researcher must discern emotional phenomena by experiencing the discourse, and (try to) bring them into intelligible expression. As I clarify this process I develop Van de Poel-Knottnerus and Knottnerus’ method theoretically, look to destabilise the rationality-emotionality dichotomy foundational to discourse around EBHC, and so transgress its conventional lines of thought.
AhmedS (2004). The cultural politics of emotion. London: Routledge.
2.
BakhtinM (1981). The dialogic imagination: four essays (trans. Emerson and Holquist). Austin: University of Texas Press.
3.
BarbaletJ (2001). Emotion, social theory and social structure. A macrosociological approach. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
4.
BaumanZ (2010). Hermeneutics and social science. Approaches to understanding. London: Routledge.
5.
BellMM and GardinerM (1998 eds). Bakhtin and the human sciences. London: Sage.
6.
BellahR (1991). Beyond belief. Essays on religion in a post-traditionalist world. Los Angeles: University of California Press.
7.
BiestaG (2010). Why ‘What Works’ Still Won't Work: From Evidence-Based Education to Value-Based Education. Studies in Philosophy and Education29(5): p. 491–503.
8.
BlackmanS (2007). ‘Hidden ethnography’. Crossing emotional borders in qualitative accounts of young people's lives. Sociology41(4): p. 699–716.
9.
Brecht - see WillettWillett J (1964). Brecht on theatre. The development of an aesthetic.London: Methuen.
10.
BrownR and CorryR (2011). Evidence-based landscape architecture: The maturing of a profession. Landscape and Urban Planning100(4): p. 327–9.
11.
BurkittI (2012). Emotional reflexivity. Feeling, emotion and subjectivity in reflexive dialogues. Sociology46(3): p. 458–472.
12.
CharmazK (1990). Discovering chronic illness. Using grounded theory. Social Science and Medicine30(11): p. 1161–72.
13.
CheekJ (2004). At the margins? Discourse analysis and qualitative research. Qualitative Health Research14: p. 1140.
14.
CronjeR and FullanA (2003). Evidence-based medicine: toward a new definition of ‘rational’ medicine. health: an interdisciplinary journal7(3): p. 353–69.
15.
DavidoffF, HaynesB, SackettD and SmithR (1995). Evidence-based medicine. British Medical Journal310(6987): p. 1085–6.
16.
Dickson SwiftV, JamesE (2009). Researching sensitive topics: qualitative research as emotion work. Qualitative Research9(1): p. 61–79.
17.
DjulbegovicB, GuyattG and AshcroftR (2009). Epistemologic inquiries in evidence-based medicine. Cancer Control16(2): p. 158–168.
18.
DopsonS, LocockL, GabbayJ (2003). Evidence-based medicine and the implementation gap. health7(3): p. 311–330.
19.
EagletonT (1996). Literary theory. An introduction. Second Edition. Oxford: Blackwell.
20.
Ebmwg (1992). Evidence-based medicine. A new approach to teaching the practice of medicine. JAMA268(17): p. 2420–2425.
21.
EdwardsD, AshmoreM and PotterJ (1995). Death and Furniture: the rhetoric, politics and theology of bottom line arguments against relativism. History of the Human Sciences8: p. 25–49.
22.
EdwardsD (1999). Emotion discourse. Culture and Psychology5(3): p. 271–91.
23.
ElyM, VinzR, AnzulM and DowningM (1997). On writing qualitative research. Living by words.London: Falmer Press.
24.
FeinsteinA and HorwitzR (1997). Problems in the “evidence” of evidence-based medicine. The American Journal of Medicine103(6), p. 529–535.
25.
FoucaultM (1969). The archaeology of knowledge. London: Tavistock.
26.
FoucaultM (1974). ‘Prisons et asiles dans le mécanisme du pouvoir’ in Dits et Ecrits, t. II. Paris: Gallimard, 1994[2001]: p. 523–4.
27.
GoodwinJ, JasperJ and PollettaF (2009). Passionate politics. Emotions and social movements. London: University of Chicago Press.
28.
GreenhalghT (1999). Narrative based medicine in an evidence based world. BMJ318(7179): p. 323–325.
29.
GreenhalghT, HowickJ and MaskreyN (2014). Evidence based medicine: a movement in crisis?BMJ 2014.348:g3725.
30.
GuyattG, SackettD, AdachiJ, RobertsR, ChongJ, RosenbloomD and KellerJ (1988). A clinician's guide for conducting randomized trials in individual patients. Canadian Medical Association Journal139(6): p. 497–503.
31.
HarrisonS (1998). The politics of evidence-based medicine in the United Kingdom. Policy and Politics26(1): p. 15–31.
32.
HaynesB and HainesA (1998). Barriers and bridges to evidence based clinical practice. British Medical Journal317(7153): p. 273.
33.
HodgeB (1989). Discourse in time. Some notes on method. In TorodeB (ed.), Text and talk as social practice.Providence: Foris Publications.
34.
HollandJ (2007). Emotions and research. International Journal of Social Research Methodology10(3): p. 195–209.
35.
HookD (2007). Discourse, knowledge, materiality, history. Foucault and discourse analysis. In HookD, Foucault, Psychology and the Analytics of Power p. 100–37. Palgrave Macmillan.
36.
HowarthD (2000). Discourse (concepts in the social sciences). Buckingham: Open University Press.
37.
Josselson (2004). The hermeneutics of faith and the hermeneutics of suspicion. Narrative Inquiry14(1): p. 1–28.
38.
KellyM and MooreT (2012). The judgement process in evidence-based medicine and health technology assessment. Social Theory and Health10(1): p. 1–19.
39.
KressG (1990). Critical discourse analysis. Annual Review of Applied Linguistics11: p. 84–99.
40.
LambertH (2006). Accounting for EBM: notions of evidence in medicine. Social Science and Medicine62(11): p. 2633–45.
41.
LambertH (2009). Evidentiary truths? The evidence of anthropology through the anthropology of medical evidence. Anthropology Today25(1): p. 16–20.
42.
LamersL, VileM (2015). Ecological restoration of rich fens in Europe and North America: from trial and error to an evidence-based approach. Biological Reviews90(1): p. 182–203.
43.
LillisT (2008). Ethnography as method, methodology and deep theorising. Written Communication25(3): p. 353–88.
44.
LutzC and WhiteG (1986). The anthropology of emotions. Annual Review of Anthropology15: p. 405–36.
45.
MantzoukasS (2008). A review of evidence-based practice, nursing research and reflection: levelling the hierarchy. Journal of Clinical Nursing17(2): p. 214–223.
46.
OchsE and SchieffelinB (1989). Language has a heart. Text & Talk9(1): p. 7–25.
47.
ParkerI (1997). Discourse analysis and psychoanalysis. British Journal of Social Psychology36: p. 479–95.
48.
PhillipsL and JorgensenM (2002). Discourse analysis as theory and method. London: Sage.
49.
PolanyiM (1966). The tacit dimension. New York: Doubleday.
50.
PopeC (2003). Resisting evidence: the study of evidence-based medicine as a contemporary social movement. health: an interdisciplinary journal7(3), p. 267–282.
51.
PotterJ and MolderH (2005e). Conversation and cognition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
52.
RobinsonD (2008). Estrangement and the Somatics of Literature: Tolstoy, Shklovsky, Brecht. Baltimore: JHU Press.
53.
RosenbergW and DonaldA (1995). Evidence-based medicine: an approach to clinical problem-solving. BMJ310: p. 1122–6.
54.
SackettD and RosenbergM (1995). On the need for evidence-based medicine. Journal of Public Health Medicine17(3), p. 330–4.
55.
SchiffrinD, TannenD and HamiltonH (2008 eds). The handbook of discourse analysis. Oxford: Blackwell.
56.
SeebachS and Núñ ez-MosteoF (2016). Is romantic love a linking emotion?Sociological Research Online21(1), p. 14.
57.
StevensonK, LewisM, HayE (2004). Do physiotherapists' attitudes towards evidence-based practice change as a result of an evidence-based educational programme?Journal of Evaluation in Clinical Practice10(2): p. 207–17.
58.
StrausS and SackettD (1999). Applying evidence to the individual patient. Annals of Oncology10: p. 29–32.
59.
TitscherS, MeyerM, WodakR and VetterE (2000). Methods of text and discourse analysis. London: Sage.
60.
TraynorM (2000). Purity, conversion and the evidence-based movements. Health4(2): p. 139–58.
61.
TurnerA (2010). Has a coherent idea emerged after nearly twenty years of literature about evidence based medicine?2nd September 2010, talk delivered at BSA MedSoc conference, Durham, UK.
62.
UpshurR (2005). Looking for rules in a world of exceptions. Reflections on evidence-based practice. Biology and Medicine48(4): p. 477–89
63.
Van De Poel-KnottnerusF and KnottnerusJ (1994). Social life through literature: a suggested strategy for conducting a Literary Ethnography. Sociological Focus27(1): p. 67–80.
64.
WallS (2006). An autoethnography on learning about autoethnography. International Journal of Qualitative Methods5(2): p. 146–60.
65.
WilligC (2015). Discourse analysis. In SmithJ (ed.), Qualitative Psychology: A Practical Guide to Research3rd edition, chapter 7. London: Sage.
