The enveloping, cordial, affectionate and sometimes cloying atmosphere on the female wards was not replicated on the male wards. Rachel Forrester-Jones (1995) in reference to Ann Oakley, discusses the problem of creating reciprocal relationships with informants of the opposite sex to the researcher. Here, as Bailey (1996) notes, heterosexual and gender issues permeate the platonic boundaries of the relationship. Attempts at reciprocity are jeopardised by unshared gender expectations and politics, where women researchers may face the possibility of unwanted sexual advances from male participants. Accordingly, Estroff discusses the difficulties of negotiating relationships with male psychiatric informants whose social unfamiliarity with women creates a potential for painful misunderstandings.
Being female helped and hurt. Over half of the subjects were men. My gender served as an entrée to contacting them and eliciting some interest, but it created tensions as well. Many had never had a female friend, that is, a symmetrical, platonic, heterosexual relationship. This led to some confusion of their part when their sexual advances offended me, and to reluctance on my part in entertaining situations with them that might be misconstrued. It was often inappropriate to participate with the group as the only female, and as a sexually inaccessible one, at that (Estroff, 1985: xvii).
Unlike Estroff’s case, my contact with male patients did not take place in the social context of the community, but with only one exception, took place on the ward and for the most part in full sight of other patients and staff. Nevertheless, it was awkward and embarrassing to be the regularly subjected to so much inquisitive, blatant or wistful and forlorn attention from male patients, such as dealing with those who persisted in calling, flirting and chatting to me through the bars of the locked section. I was of course very aware that I was ultimately free to stay or go and they were confined, bored and excited by any break in the tedium, which by my presence I had caused. By persisting in staying on the ward, as fieldwork demanded, I was aware that I was also guilty of encouraging and exacerbating this mortifying sexual attention in an atmosphere of palpable, claustrophobic voyeurism. This verged, as Gearing (1995) found in relation to her own study, on sexual harassment. Furthermore, evasive strategies could not be properly mobilised, such as the feigned dignified, and casual indifference of a woman passing a building site, as this directly conflicted with the research guise of keen-eyed vigilance to detail. For the most part therefore, I tried to encourage relationships with male patients that were polite, friendly and neutral, in an atmosphere where physical contact and verbal intimacy were subtly discouraged. Obviously, there were exceptions to the rule, whereby some of my relationships with male patients were mutually respectful with no hint of a sexual overture on any occasion.
Contact with staff provided a fascinating contrast, in that, as stated, while female nursing staff were often reticent, their male counterparts - the ‘medical assistants’ - on the male wards were much more willing to disclose information to me than the female nursing staff and could be, when they chose to be, cheerful, amusing and friendly in their interactions with me. Such was the peculiar and intriguing balance in that in general women patients and male nursing staff were by far the most helpful and friendly towards me, whilst male patients and female nursing staff were often distant, close-lipped and occasionally overtly suspicious of me. As others have noted, women as researchers are seen as more harmless (and usually less socially important) than male researchers by male participants and therefore as less likely to use information in a damaging way (Gurney, 1991; Warren, 1988).
Any perceived lack of status on the grounds of gender may therefore have worked against forming a good rapport with female staff, in that there were few incentives for them to overcome the insider/outsider power dichotomy in an environment of closed ranks. Furthermore, Taylor (1991) points out that in his own research in a male-dominated setting rapport with informants was built upon a foundation of male solidarity, socialising activities and initiation ceremonies, something from which I was culturally barred in my own research with men and which did not materialise with women members of staff. Yet a few friendships were developed between myself and female members of staff, where one nurse occasionally pressed on me bottles of homemade tuak (rice wine), which at first I thought I was expected to pay for and only later realised were spontaneous gifts.
The conditioning of women to cautiously observe the boundaries between the sexes will continue to mediate relations in a research encounter. These will qualify the nature and depth of disclosures by informants as well as altering the agenda of what can be discussed in comparative safety for informants and researchers alike. I was, for example, very interested in learning more about the sexuality of male patients but this proved to be a problematic area for inquiry, and one where responses from male staff and patients were unsatisfactory, superficial and laden with implications. Lesbianism, however, was a subject that could be discussed with women, once relationships of comparative trust had been satisfactorily built. Reciprocity therefore is heavily dependent on gender relations in the field and consequently influences the quality of disclosures from informants. Like Forrester-Jones (1995) I feel that a male co-worker would have been able to elicit information from male informants that was to some degree inaccessible to me as a woman researcher in the field.
In his ethnographic account of psychiatric patients in Australia, Barrett (1996) makes full use of medical records and attends team meetings to augment information on informants. However, at an early stage of research I decided that I would not request access to patients’ medical records although did note verbal information on patients from staff. My reasons were partially practical and partially ideological. Medical notes were kept on the ward and staff consultations of them took place in plain sight of patients, so that it was not possible to avoid being seen reading them. Any such activity would have been conspicuous and instantly noted by patients, and I feared that this therefore might interfere in forming relationships of trust with patients. Furthermore, I felt that these could probably contribute little in the way of understanding interactions in the hospital; my interest was located in everyday events and the perceptions of informants, rather than in turgid medical information, which could largely provide me only with details of admissions, discharges and medication. Finally, I also felt strongly that this was a transgression of privacy, to which my status as researcher could not really entitle me. This position was justified when patients prefaced their interviews by asking me if I had read their medical notes. I felt that my reassurance that I had not read them created a more confiding environment in which to seek personal disclosures from patients, who might otherwise see me as a sort of member of staff, or some such similar type of authority, although this of course did nevertheless happen.
Despite my good intentions however, I had not bargained for the frequent invitations by staff to read the notes. The nurses and medical assistants often seemed to feel the need to fit me into some type of legitimate medical role and offered me the records on numerous occasions, sometimes opening them at certain pages and putting them in front of me, which made it difficult to refuse a quick perusal. This bears comparison with Burgess’s (1995) research experiences in a school setting, where he describes a similar need by staff to try and neutralise him through assimilation into the professional corps he was in part studying. Similarly therefore the invitation of medical notes not only legitimised my presence but also my research, which otherwise probably seemed a nebulous and unscientific way of going about things. The notes offered concrete and valid information in the eyes of staff, as opposed to the naïve and no doubt foolish questions I asked. My insistence on sitting with and talking to patients was commented on, to reiterate, with levity, incomprehension, or thinly veiled hostility.
Language and meaning
Competence in the language of informants is usually perceived to be part of the ‘mystique’ of ethnographic work, to paraphrase Aull Davies (1999: 76) who goes on to expand on the limitations imposed by reliance on translation. Accordingly, Agar (1996) comments on the uncomfortable feeling associated with having insufficient