Silence as a Source of Information in Qualitative Research

This paper explores the possibilities of silence as a methodologically useful tool. Employing a feminist perspective to qualitative research as its starting point and its relationship with ‘voice’ this paper explores the potential of capturing meaning beyond words, moving beyond the rigid categories of traditional practices in qualitative research, and becoming attentive to presence in absence. It discusses the complexity of silence, presenting it as a continuum rather than an opposite of speech. This paper emanates from two separate research studies: one which explored the professional lives of a cohort of Irish male primary teachers and the other that examined relationship and sexuality education (RSE) in Irish primary schools. Along with a lingering historical silence that surrounds sexualities and gender in the Irish curriculum, silence was pervasive in both research studies, revealing itself in different ways. Drawing upon feminist theories that advance the belief that language creates the world rather than mirrors it, and that dominant agendas can be disrupted by documenting untold stories, this paper illustrates how alternative ways of meaning-making and knowing can be opened up. This paper explores the disruptions and irruptions to meaning-making triggered by silence using a framework that conceptualises silence. Theories of power are also employed to aid the exploration of two types of silence: acquiescent and defensive. It is not the intention of this paper to uncover hidden meanings, as cultural and material practices are already impressions. Instead, this paper highlights silence as a transgressive source of information and seeks to uncover how certain knowledge and practices become legitimised and normalised through silence. This paper aims to examine an ontological shift from what silence is to what silence is achieving, and to reinforce the significant link between knowledge, power and methodology.