Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis

A variation of interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA) was employed as the methodological tool to analyse the primary data generated from the series of interviews. IPA is a qualitative research technique which has predominantly been used in health psychology.286 However, recently academics from outside of health psychology have utilised it in their research. IPA studies have ranged from an analysis of the sexual decision making of gay men287 to terrorism research. In their 2007 paper Mark Burgess and colleagues interviewed both former members of the IRA and peaceful civil rights activists to assess how they interpreted the social conditions in a post Good Friday Agreement Northern Ireland. The researchers deemed IPA to be the appropriate methodological tool for their project as it provided the researchers with an appropriate tool to analyse complex issues that directly impact on the lives of individual participants and their decision making process.288 This methodology allowed the researchers to gain an insight into how individuals make sense of their social circumstances.

IPA is phenomenological in nature in so far as it entails a broad examination of a participant’s lived experiences and an individual’s personal perception or account of an object and/or event. Unlike other techniques it does not aim to produce an objective

286 _{Examples of this range from studies of individual personal experiences of bone marrow transplants to} individual experiences of spinal cord injuries. Holmes, S. Coyle, A. and Thomson, E. (1997). Quality of Life in survivors of bone marrow transplant. Journal of Cancer Nursing. Dickson, A., Allan, D., and O’Carroll, R. (2008). Biographical Disruption and the Experience of Loss Following a Spinal Cord Injury: An Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis. Psychology & Health, 23, pp.407-425.

287 _{Flowers, P., Smith, J.A., Sheeran, P., & Beail, N. (1997). Health and Romance: Understanding} Unprotected Sex in Relationships Between Gay Men. British Journal of Health Psychology, 12, pp. 197- 230.

288

Burgess, M., Ferguson, N. and Hollywood, I. (2007). Rebels’ Perspectives of the Legacy of Past Violence and the Current Peace in Post-Agreement Northern Ireland: An Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis. Political Psychology, Vol. 28, No. 1. (pp.69-88)

record of the object or event itself.289 In essence IPA is broadly concerned with how people think and what they believe to be important and relevant about the issue290 under discussion.291 Fundamental to the success of IPA as a methodology is the

acknowledgement of the dynamic process of analysis, a process in which the researcher plays an active role.292 Throughout the interview process, in which the participant is being asked about their own perceptions and understandings of specific lived

experiences, the participant is trying to make sense of their world and the experiences and decisions they are being asked about. Therefore when it comes to the interpretation stages of the process the researcher is fundamentally trying to make sense of the

participants trying to make sense of their world.293 Consequently this form of analysis is declaring that the participants who are interviewed are the experts on the topic at hand, as it is an interpretation of their beliefs which will take prominence throughout the research. It is not pertinent whether or not these beliefs contain an absolute truth of the situation, what is important is that the factors or themes which the participants deem important come to the fore in the research. In IPA the assumption is that the data collected will indicate how the participants perceive and make sense of the issue under scrutiny.

Across the social scientific disciplines, and beyond, it is vital that the research questions are not altered to suit any one particular methodology; if anything it should be the methodologies which are adapted to suit the questions. This is a view which has widely been embraced by IPA practitioners.294 Individual researchers must resolve how best IPA may suit their specific research questions, if at all. It is believed that the present research has successfully adapted the IPA technique to the benefit of the study.

289 _{Smith, J.A. and Osborn, M. (2008). Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis. In Smith, J. A. (Ed.)} Qualitative Psychology: A Practical Guide to Research Methods. Second Edition. (pp.53-80). London: Sage Publications.

290 _{In the case of the present research this is splits in the Irish Republican Movement.}

291 _{Smith, J.A., Jarman, M., and Osborn, M. (1999). Doing Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis. In} Murray, M. and Chamberlain, K. (Eds.), Qualitative Health Psychology: Theories and Methods (pp. 218- 239). London: Sage Publications.

292

Smith and Osborn (2008) 293_Ibid

The nature of many previous IPA studies has led to the researchers regarding ‘traditional criteria’ for evaluating research quality, such as reliability, as inappropriate in assessing their work.295 While this may have been the case in previous research the political and historical relevance of the issue at hand and the nature of the participant group assembled have enabled the research results to be assessed under the ‘traditional’ headings of both reliability and validity. While still maintaining the focus of the research on the individual participants’ views and perceptions the availability and prevalence of secondary and tertiary sources such as speeches and policy papers from the time of the splits has provided the author with further valuable resources to strengthen the analysis.

IPA projects are principally concerned with issues which affect the individual actor, the decisions which they make and how this affects their life. One of the central research questions of the current project is ‘why and how did the splits take place in the Irish Republican Movement?’ At first glance IPA may be deemed an inappropriate technique for answering this question. However, while this question is dealing with a group action296 the application of IPA has gone on to ascertain what the important factors in splits are in the opinion of individual actors on either side of the split and at different levels within the groups. Therefore in dealing with the group level questions of the research IPA has enabled the researcher to establish why and how the splits took place in the opinion of different groups of individuals. This is keeping with the philosophical origins of the technique as the researcher is concentrating on individual perceptions and opinions.