Page - 218 - in Über Bücher reden - Literaturrezeption in Lesegemeinschaften

© 2021 V&R unipress, Brill Deutschland GmbH ISBN Print: 9783847113232 – ISBN E-Lib: 9783737013239 andthemurkyevening lightat the street sign in frontofus toremindourselves whereweare.IknowthatDeNelisnervousaboutgoingbackonthe401.Ineedto givehergooddirections,butIamnotveryconfidentaboutourorientation.Ipeer againatthestreetsign,squintingharderthistime.Iglancedownatthemapinmy hand. Idon’tknowhowtogetusoutof this town.I lookupatherandcryout in frustration: “It’snotonmymap!” *** Inmy field notes I have dated this phrase to 21st September 2004. It quickly becameamuch-used termthatDeNel and I employed literally, andoftencom- ically, for situationswhenwewere trying to findourwaytosomeplace.Wealso adopted it as a phrase that we usedmoremetaphorically formoments of in- tellectualuncertainty,forexample,whenweencounteredresponsesfromreaders thatwedidnotunderstand.Forme,“it’snotonmymap!” sumsupmostofmy academiccareer,butespecially the last sixteenyears,a timeduringwhichIhave frequently been pursuing research usingmethods inwhich Iwas not formally trained. Since September 2016when I began leading a teamof researchers ex- aminingasombre topic thathasnothingwhatever todowithreaders, literature orbooks, I frequently recall thephrase, andexperience the same flashofpanic that accompanied its initial utterance: English law, the work ofmidwives and funeral directors, women’s varied experiences of pregnancy loss, metaphor analysis:noneof this isonmymap.1Atleast twiceaweekIaskmyself:whatamI doingwanderingabout insomeoneelse’s fieldofexpertise?!But Iamnotalone, ofcourse– Ihaveexperts intheseareasworkingincollaborationwithme.AndI have, in fact, acquired someof theknowledgeneeded todecode themapof an unfamiliarareaof studythat is—metaphorically speaking—nowinfrontofme. Rather like the grid lines running through anOrdnance Surveymap, there are social structuresandculturalnormsthatare immediatelydiscernible, aswell as beliefsandpracticeswhicharenotsoreadilyvisible.Acombinationofdifferent methodswillenableustobuildapictureof these.It isawayof lookingatthemap of social experience that Ihave learnt fromworkingwith readers. In this essay I work through some of the challenges of method and inter- pretationthat Ihaveencountered intheircompany. Indoingso, Ioffernogreat revelations or excavations ofmeaning about readers and reading:my original trainingasa literarycriticcoincidedwithpost-structuralismandIameverwary of essentialism and grand narratives of explanation. However, I hope thatmy 1 Fordetails of this project,DeathBeforeBirth:Understanding, informingand supporting the choices made by people who have experiencedmiscarriage, termination, and stillbirth, see www.deathbeforebirthproject.org. DanielleFuller218 Open-Access-Publikation im Sinne der CC-Lizenz BY 4.0