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Kip Jones

  • Kip Jones BA MSc PhD, an independent research and author,. An American by birth, he has been studying and working in ... moreedit
EJ658729 - Community Learning for Older Adults Comes of Age.
Princess on the steeple and all the pretty people They're drinkin', thinkin' that they got it made " —Bob Dylan, 'Like a Rollin' Stone' 2 ©1965 Warner Bros. Inc NARRATOR (Voice Over) The peculiar thing about... more
Princess on the steeple and all the pretty people They're drinkin', thinkin' that they got it made " —Bob Dylan, 'Like a Rollin' Stone' 2 ©1965 Warner Bros. Inc NARRATOR (Voice Over) The peculiar thing about the 1960s is that people think that the decade happened all at once, as though we woke up one morning to some sort of overnight transformation. We did not. Instead, we found ourselves, in transitory increments, participating in life differently, listening to new music, creating our own pastiche of alternative clothes to wear, and going to novel places or old haunts with new agendas. One cold Friday night in the autumn of 1965 my friends and I decided to take the train from our hometown of Philadelphia to New York City. Simon had moved there 1 The audio/visual production created from this script is available online at: http://video.google.co.uk/videoplay?docid=876851065821614838&hl=en-GB. 2 " 'Like a Rolling Stone' was recorded on June 15...
Conferences should be about serendipitous encounters not parachute keynote speakers - reflections from Kip Jones
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The turn to narrative enquiry shifts the very presence of the researcher from knowledge-privileged investigator to a reflective position of passive participant/audience member in the storytelling process. The interviewer as... more
The turn to narrative enquiry shifts the very presence of the researcher from knowledge-privileged investigator to a reflective position of passive participant/audience member in the storytelling process. The interviewer as writer/storyteller then emerges later in the process through ...
The informal care literature is reviewed, exploring the geography and etymology of terms in the British and North American literature. Meaning, well-being, gender and personality are then reviewed. Concepts of care, informal care and... more
The informal care literature is reviewed, exploring the geography and etymology of terms in the British and North American literature. Meaning, well-being, gender and personality are then reviewed. Concepts of care, informal care and carer identity are bridged, leading to ...
ABSTRACT
The emerging recollections, perceptions and storied biographies of older lesbians and gay men and their experiences in rural Britain are presented in the article, alongside consideration of the multiple qualitative methodologies used in a... more
The emerging recollections, perceptions and storied biographies of older lesbians and gay men and their experiences in rural Britain are presented in the article, alongside consideration of the multiple qualitative methodologies used in a unique multi-method participatory action research project. The project aimed to empower older lesbians and gay men in rural areas through a collaborative design and meaningful participation in the research process itself. Methods included the core Biographic Narrative Interpretive Method (BNIM) (JONES, 2001, 2004; WENGRAF, 2001) with its interpretation of data by panels of citizens. In addition, visual ethnographic site visits, a focus group and two days of theatrical improvisation of interview data to explore action within the texts were used. The project embraced the principles of a performative social science (GERGEN &
"I left New York for Philadelphia on an early morning train and never heard from Jason again". It's an old story, the one where a simple country boy (me) goes to the big city (Philadelphia) way back when (the Sixties), and enrolls in art... more
"I left New York for Philadelphia on an early morning train and never heard from Jason again". It's an old story, the one where a simple country boy (me) goes to the big city (Philadelphia) way back when (the Sixties), and enrolls in art studies (Philadelphia College of Art). (Philadelphia has more art students per capita than any other place on the planet.)
The following is a transcript of Kip Jones’ contribution to several interviews on biographic research conducted by his colleagues at Bournemouth University, Joanna Thurston and Louise Oliver. The pair interviewed Jones for their film,... more
The following is a transcript of Kip Jones’ contribution to several interviews on biographic research conducted by his colleagues at Bournemouth University, Joanna Thurston and Louise Oliver. The pair interviewed Jones for their film, "It's not research, it's just stories!" screened at the British Sociological Association Auto/Biography Study Group Conference, in December 2018.
Scene: Interior small flat, south coast of England, early autumn. Colleagues Trevor Hearing and Kip Jones meet up for a discussion about using film as a performative research tool and/or a research dissemination medium. Hearing comes to... more
Scene: Interior small flat, south coast of England, early autumn.
Colleagues Trevor Hearing and Kip Jones meet up for a discussion about using film as a performative research tool and/or a research dissemination medium. 
Hearing comes to the conversation with a background in documentary filmmaking for television. Jones is a qualitative researcher who has successfully turned biographic research data into the story for an award-winning short film. Hearing and Jones collaborated on the trailer for that film, as well as documenting its production on video. Over more than ten years now, they have worked together on several projects and visual presentations. They especially enjoy editing together.
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Lack of understanding of the needs of older LGBT individuals is a global issue and their needs are often ignored by health and social care providers who adopt sexuality-blind approaches within their provision. As a result public services... more
Lack of understanding of the needs of older LGBT individuals is a global issue and their needs are often ignored by health and social care providers who adopt sexuality-blind approaches within their provision. As a result public services can find it difficult to push the LGBT equalities agenda forward due resistance to change and underlying discrimination. This paper considers how a body of research concerning the needs and experiences of older LGBT people was used to create innovatory tools to engage communities in learning about the needs and experiences of older LGBT citizens. The paper will consider how research outputs have been used to develop creative learning tools, including film and a method deck of cards, offering opportunities to learn and critically reflect upon practice built upon a research informed knowledge base. The workshops developed as part of our social impact dissemination strategy demonstrate the importance of having a champion within an organisation to take forward the LGBT agenda.
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Narrative methods contribute greatly to the advances made in qualitative research. A narrative style should also be promoted in publications and presentations. A study on older LGBT citizens in rural Britain highlights this by means of a... more
Narrative methods contribute greatly to the advances made in qualitative research. A narrative style should also be promoted in publications and presentations. A study on older LGBT citizens in rural Britain highlights this by means of a report on one part of that study—a Focus Group. 

The paper demonstrates two ways of writing Focus Group material for publication. First, “data bits” extracted from the transcript are imbedded by interpretive categories. The authors ask, “How did this come about? Isn’t it time to shift our approach and report these experiences in a different way? Was this not a story of the interactions of strangers and a growing social group cohesion that was taking place by means of this very research exercise?”

Secondly, a large section of the Focus Group transcript is presented, including nuances such as breaks, how one person’s thought follows another’s, and the energy created when several people talk at once. Doing this without comment or interruption brings the reader closer to the group experience itself.

The Focus Group provided a opportunity for participants to share a common history and identify individual experiences. Focus Groups can provide marginalised groups with an opportunity to collectively create new knowledge and understanding about shared cultural and historical experiences.
Narrative researchers are natural storytellers and need to foreground this when reporting studies for publication. Qualitative research is always about story reporting and story making, and narrative research (listening to and retelling stories) is a key democratising factor in qualitative social science research.
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Purpose – By means of several auto-ethnographic stories (including a scene from a working script for a proposed film), the author interrogates numerous ideas and misconceptions about gay youth, both past and present. A “bargain of... more
Purpose – By means of several auto-ethnographic stories (including a scene from a working script for a proposed film), the author interrogates numerous ideas and misconceptions about gay youth, both past and
present. A “bargain of silence” sometimes following gay sexual encounters in youth is described. The paper aims to discuss these issues.
Design/methodology/approach – The author recounts a sexual experience with a male college student in his past. This dissonance catapulted the author to move from his small liberal arts college to the city and begin his education again at an art college.
Findings – The author then describes his personal attraction to a 16-year-old boy who lived near his lodgings during one summer’s break from art college. This time, the relationship remained purely platonic, but that did not seem to matter where the boy’s parents were concerned. The author’s social position and pretence coupled with his romantic outlook convinced him that anything was possible, even this platonic love. The painful lesson learned that summer was that this was not the case, and never would be. The boy’s parents threatened Jones, and he never
saw the youth again. The author continues by discussing his award-winning research-based film, Rufus Stone, and the reactions and conversations following screenings, particularly with youth. This present generation seems to Jones to be a sexually ambivalent one, more comfortable with multiple choices or no choice at all. Nonetheless,
these young people do identify with the complexity of feelings and insecurities presented by youth within the film.
Research limitations/implications – In a recent report on sexuality of American high school students by the Center for Disease Control, researchers found an ambivalence and “dissonance” amongst youth regarding sexuality and choice. The author acknowledges that there remains a contemporary problem of genuine acceptance by society, and that there still is work to be done. He also admits that present-day attitudes by youth regarding sexuality are one that he had previously assumed to be historical ones.
Originality/value – Being straight or being gay can be viewed within the wider culture’s need to set up a sexual binary and force sexual “choice” decision-making for the benefit of the majority culture. Through the
device of the fleeting moment, this essay hopes to interrogate the certainties and uncertainties of the “norms” of modernity by portraying sexuality in youth.
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The Sociological Review: In the eighth part of our special section on Sociology and Fiction, Kip Jones reflects on the pleasures of physical books and our emerging culture of analogue nostalgia.
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Report on Creative Writing for Academics Workshop at Bournemouth University, 2016.
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More than 2600 have read this on the blog, KIPWORLD. Here is a downloadable, printable version.
“I left New York for Philadelphia on an early morning train
and never heard from Jason again”.
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• There is a New Emotivity emergent in academia worth exploring. • Time & time again, when given the opportunity, scholars long to connect emotionally with the people about whom they are writing. • The difficulty encountered for... more
• There is a New Emotivity emergent in academia worth exploring.

• Time & time again, when given the opportunity, scholars long to connect emotionally with the people about whom they are writing.

• The difficulty encountered for academics wishing to write creatively is that we are programmed to repeat (endlessly) what we've read to establish “validity”.

• When you write to provoke (arouse) readers emotionally, don't mimic words you've read to do it. Instead, chose unique words that equal your experience.

• Scholars realising the soundness of their emotional connectivity need to find their own language to express feeling—a new language not simply justified by the idiom preceding them.
In terms of research using film-making for academic scholarship, the ethical emphasis must remain balanced between the two: the active research participants and their worlds, and multiple viewing audiences and their worlds. This is the... more
In terms of research using film-making for academic scholarship, the ethical emphasis must remain balanced between the two: the active research participants and their worlds, and multiple viewing audiences and their worlds. This is the key fundamental shift in ethical protocols for film-making as an arts-based academic research method.
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A repost of a blog written a while back that describes the process of creating, then publishing,’On a Train from Morgantown: a film script’ in Psychological Studies, an academic journal.
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‘We locate in a specifically relational humanism a new and significant means of realizing traditional visions of human well-being’ (Gergen 1997). Social science often has sought new ways of attaining greater "sensibility" to humanistic... more
‘We locate in a specifically relational humanism a new and significant means of realizing traditional visions of human well-being’ (Gergen 1997). Social science often has sought new ways of attaining greater "sensibility" to humanistic concerns; nonetheless, the status of new forms of production and dissemination as academic knowledge remains contested and ambiguous, and further development is required (Jones 2006).
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Kip Jones speaks in his roles as Author and Executive Producer of the film RUFUS STONE with Trevor Hearing.“Our hope is that the film will dispel
many of the myths surrounding ageing, being gay and life in British rural settings.”
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Minimalist passive interviewing technique and team analysis of
narrative qualitative data
Conferences should be about serendipitous encounters not parachute keynotes - reflections from Kip Jones for The Sociological Imagination
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This paper reports on a two-day experimental workshop in arts‐led interviewing technique using ephemera to illicit life stories and then reporting narrative accounts back using creative means of presentation. Academics and students from... more
This paper reports on a two-day experimental workshop in arts‐led interviewing technique using ephemera to illicit life stories and then reporting narrative accounts back using creative means of presentation. Academics and students from across Schools at Bournemouth University told each other stories from their pasts based in objects that they presented to each other as gifts. Each partner then reported the shared story to the group using arts‐led presentation methods. Narrative research and the qualitative interview are discussed. The conclusion is drawn that academics yearn to express the more emotive connections generated by listening to the stories of strangers. The procedures followed for the two‐day workshop are outlined in order that other academics may also organize their own experiments in eliciting story using personal objects and retelling stories creatively.
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The (re)presentation of biographic narrative research benefits greatly from embracing the art of its craft. This requires a renewed interest in an aesthetic of storytelling. Where do we find an aesthetic in which to base our new... more
The (re)presentation of biographic narrative research benefits greatly
from embracing the art of its craft. This requires a renewed interest in an
aesthetic of storytelling. Where do we find an aesthetic in which to base
our new “performative” social science? The 20th Century was not kind to
18th Century notions of what truth and beauty mean. The terms need to be
re-examined from a local, quotidian vantage point, with concepts such as
“aesthetic judgment” located within community. Social Constructionism
asks us to participate in alterior systems of belief and value. The principles
of Nicolas Bourriaud’s Relational Aesthetics offer one possible set of
convictions for further exploration. Relational Art is located in human
interactions and their social contexts. Central to it are inter-subjectivity,
being-together, the encounter and the collective elaboration of meaning,
based in models of sociability, meetings, events, collaborations, games,
festivals and places of conviviality. Bourriaud believes that Art is made of
the same material as social exchanges. If social exchanges are the same
as Art, how can we portray them? One place to start is in our
(re)presentations of narrative stories, through publications, presentations
and performances. Arts-based (re)presentation in knowledge diffusion in
the post-modern era is explored as one theoretical grounding for thinking
across epistemologies and supporting inter-disciplinary efforts. An example
from my own published narrative biography work is described, adding
credence to the concept of the research report/presentation as a “dynamic
vehicle”, pointing to ways in which biographic sociology can benefit from
work outside sociology and, in turn, identifying areas of possible
collaboration with the narrator in producing “performances” within published
texts themselves.
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Alone, lost and abandoned in a foreign city with only Google translate and a taxi driver to save me.
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Since the end of the year seems to be the time for lists, top ten lists, etc., I decided to compile mine about being creative whist producing cutting-edge research. Not for the faint-hearted!
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'The early waves of renewed interest in qualitative and narrative approaches (or the qualitative and narrative “turns” in research as they were called in the early 1990s) established protocols, procedures, and a language that, by now, are... more
'The early waves of renewed interest in qualitative and narrative approaches (or the qualitative and narrative “turns” in research as they were called in the early 1990s) established protocols, procedures, and a language that, by now, are repeated habitually. Perhaps it time now to look elsewhere, (to culture, to the arts, to literature, etc. both past and present), to find fresh inspiration and vocabulary to support our new emotive efforts.'
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And 27 more

The Chapter reports on a two-day experimental workshop in an arts‐led interviewing technique using ephemera to illicit life stories and then reporting narrative accounts back using creative means of presentation. Participants told each... more
The Chapter reports on a two-day experimental workshop in an arts‐led interviewing technique using ephemera to illicit life stories and then reporting narrative accounts back using creative means of presentation. Participants told each other stories from their pasts based on objects that they presented to each other as gifts. Each partner then reported the shared story to the group using arts‐led presentation methods. Narrative research and the qualitative duologue are discussed. Through interviewing, scholars are often astonished to find their own narratives in the stories that people tell them. Time and time again, when given the opportunity, academics long to connect emotionally with the people whom they encounter in their investigations. There is a new " emotivity " emergent from such connectivity worth exploring. A big part of " Neo Emotivism " (a phrase coined to mimic the grand theories of the past, but with an ironic and profound emphasis on the post-modern and the personal) is embracing this phenomenon, instead of backing away from it as we may have done in the past. The conclusion is drawn that academics yearn to express the more emotive connections generated by listening to the stories of strangers. The procedures followed in the two‐day workshop are outlined in order that others may also organize their own experiments in eliciting narratives using personal objects and retelling stories creatively. The first step in reporting emotive encounters in research, therefore, is moving away from concepts that have evolved from positivist procedures and measurement; the second step is to find our own individual language to report our experiences of " Neo Emotivism " .
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This is the scene in which all the major characters are introduced and the story sets up the conundrum that the main character faces in the film. “Copacetic” tells the tale of a gullible youth on a roller coaster ride of loss of... more
This is the scene in which all the major characters are introduced and the story sets up the conundrum that the main character faces in the film.

“Copacetic” tells the tale of a gullible youth on a roller coaster ride of loss of innocence and coming out in the flux and instability of 1960s hippy America. Set in the 1960s, Copacetica's themes include being different, the celebration of being an outsider, seeing oneself from outside of the “norm”, and the interior conflicts of “coming out” within a continuum as a (gay) male in a straight world.
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Being straight or being gay can be viewed within the wider culture’s need to set up a sexual binary and force sexual “choice” decision-making for the benefit of the majority culture. Through the device of the fleeting moment, this essay... more
Being straight or being gay can be viewed within the wider culture’s need to set up a sexual binary and force sexual “choice” decision-making for the benefit of the majority culture. Through the device of the fleeting moment, this essay hopes to interrogate the certainties and uncertainties of the “norms” of modernity by portraying sexuality in youth.
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The brief was thus: "Each participant gives a maximum 5 minute ONE SLIDE presentation about their research aspirations for the coming years". I chose Scene 1. from "Copacetica", a feature-length film that I am writing. A 'mélologue' is a... more
The brief was thus: "Each participant gives a maximum 5 minute ONE SLIDE presentation about their research aspirations for the coming years". I chose Scene 1. from "Copacetica", a feature-length film that I am writing. A 'mélologue' is a spoken declamation with musical accompaniment or a soundscape, developed by the composer, Berlioz. I liked this idea. I have also been thinking a lot about Michael Haneke's use of lingering shots and stillness past the action or dialogue of a scene, so wanted to play a bit with that here. Rewriting the script directions, etc. for a narration definitely helped in refining the script itself.
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Art and Science are both about discovery and creating a record of that discovery. Both are infused with the time and place in which they are practiced. The 'audience' for any work of art, any scientific discovery makes the ultimate... more
Art and Science are both about discovery and creating a record of that discovery. Both are infused with the time and place in which they are practiced. The 'audience' for any work of art, any scientific discovery makes the ultimate interpretation. This is as it should be. The visual image needs to be interrogated. Just like a criminal in a police station. We should never accept what we first see as the final truth, but realise that we are peeling an onion of multiple truths (and lies). Sociology, when done well, is a good detective story.
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Performative Social Science (PSS) is positioned within the current era of cross-pollination from discipline to discipline. Practitioners from the Arts and Humanities look to the Social Sciences for fresh frameworks, whist Social Science... more
Performative Social Science (PSS) is positioned within the current era of cross-pollination from discipline to discipline. Practitioners from the Arts and Humanities look to the Social Sciences for fresh frameworks, whist Social Science practitioners explore the Arts for potential new tools for enquiry and dissemination. PSS is defined and the similarities and differences between PSS and Arts-based Research (ABR) are delineated. The history of PSS is then outlined and its development, particularly at the Centre for Qualitative Research at Bournemouth University in the United Kingdom, is reviewed. Relational Aesthetics is then described in depth as the theoretical basis and grounding of PSS. Relational Aesthetics (Bourriaud, 2002) offers a theoretical ground for the complexities of connections across seemingly disparate disciplines such as the Arts and Social Sciences and for further exploration of the synergies between both disciplines as well as communities beyond the academy. An example of a large, three-year nationally funded project, culminating with the production of an award-winning short biopic, RUFUS STONE, is outlined as a prime example of a multi-method approach to social science research which includes tools from the arts in its progress and outputs. The entry concludes with goals and aspirations for PSS in the future.
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