Author: Sharon A. Bong
School of Arts and Social Sciences, Monash University, Malaysia

Analysis processes

I began with a 'hypothesis'-a provisional relationship between two or three categories, in this instance, religion and sexuality. My hunch and informed by literature review is that-there is a story in this and it is a story that needs to be told (in part because it is under-researched). Data is then generated and analysed as elucidated in the previous sections.

The following is a quotation from interview 29 (primary document 1) by Dave (pseudonym) who is a 20-something Christian gay man:

I kept telling myself, eventually I would become normal. And go back down the straight path...it was very normal for people to kind of like condemn [smiles] people who act...a bit sissy...girly. And so like I joined the ranks-lah, in a sense like maybe I was trying to hide...closeted gays... but inside of me, I would still like look at this classmate (in an all boys' school) in a certain way... And to kind of like put up that front, I tried to like, date girls, I mean date people...of the opposite sex...To my friends, I'm straight, I'm normal. We would talk about girls. And but um, in private I like hooking up with other guys.

To see the interpretative qualitative analysis of the above quotation with output of family codes-codes generated by using ATLAS.ti, click here :

In the above quotation what strikes the researcher is the reiteration of becoming 'normal', i.e. 'straight' as articulated by a gay man. But there are nuances imbedded that I wish to flesh out in order to produce what grounded theorists term as a 'fine-grained hermeneutical analysis' (Coffey, Holbrook and Atkinson 1996). So coding the entire quotation as [aspiration-become normal] only would be inadequate (with [aspiration] as the family code and [become normal] as the code).

With reference to the link provided, you can see how the impetus to become normal as articulated by Dave, is interpreted through the following family codes-codes:

Aspiration-become normal

Normal-date (opposite sex)

Normal-condemn sissies

Normal-straight path

Within a heterosexist familial space (where heterosexuality in other words is privileged and homosexuality, condemned), Dave's aspires to become normal (as a gay man) to avoid the penalties for non-compliance. The family code of [coping strategy] attests to his self-regulation of queer desires and [coping strategy] is in turn, fleshed out through the following codes:

Coping strategy-become normal

Coping strategy-become straight

Coping strategy-closeted

Coping strategy-double life

Coping strategy-join ranks

Coping strategy-public/private

Coping strategy-put up front

A 'fine-grained hermeneutical analysis' also entails permutations of codes, i.e. [aspiration-become normal] and [coping strategy-become normal]. Is it necessary to have two family codes-[aspiration] and [coping strategy] for a similar code [become normal]? Yes because they have different inflections and in offering a 'thick description' of this particular quotation, it would more richly inform the write-up of the research project. Key ideas generated at this stage are:

becoming straight or normal for a gay man is an imperative as he inhabits public/ private spaces within a straight culture hence his [aspiration-(to) become normal] and his [coping strategy-(in becoming) normal]; and

(on his coming out as a gay man later in the interview) becoming straight is a rite of passage to becoming queer. In building theory from data, I am thus guided to Sara Ahmed's conceptualisation of 'queer phenomenology' (2006). In phenomenological terms, she explains how we are not born straight but become one. I then stretch this theorising further to show how interviewees are not born queer but become one (through, in the case of Dave, unlearning how to become straight and gradually coming out as queer).

When I analyse qualitative data, I constantly remind myself to remain reflexive-in listening to noises in the data and not being judgemental. This is what the politics of interpretation entails; being cognizant of researcher bias and of levelling the power dynamics between researcher-researched, particularly if the latter are socially marginalised. An example of non-reflexivity would be to code the quotation below:

And so like I joined the ranks-lah, in a sense like maybe I was trying to hide...closeted gays... but inside of me, I would still like look at this classmate (in an all boys' school) in a certain way... And to kind of like put up that front, I tried to like, date girls, I mean date people...of the opposite sex...

as [coping strategy-duplicity/ lying] rather than [coping strategy-closeted] [coping strategy-join ranks] [coping strategy-put up front]. Ethics in researching (beyond securing ethics approval) is also practised by basing codes on expressions used by interviewees as far as is possible, especially if they have coined an interesting word (i.e. 'loonyversary' by a lesbian couple who celebrate the alternative ritual of their joint menstruation cycles).

In this manner, every quotation of every primary document within the Hermeneutic Unit (folder for all 30 primary documents or interview transcripts) is coded to evince a fine-grained hermeneutic analysis (Coffey, Holbrook and Atkinson 1996) to unveil the layers of meanings of each turn of phrase and expose fissures where meaning is seemingly elided.

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