A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of - Etheses - Queen Margaret ...

aspects of themes overlapped so that they could be classified under one larger general
category (Lofland et al, 2006).
For example, in relation to the first series of interviews, after open coding I initially emerged
with 42 themes (listed in Appendix D). I read through the passages again and again,
identifying areas of similarity and thematic overlap, narrowing them down into eleven
refined themes (see also Appendix D). I then repeated this process until I emerged with five
master themes for analysis:
Distance
Intrusion
Bodies
Closeness
Power
Memos
I have been making memos almost continuously since carrying out the interviews. As Kristin
Esterberg notes, memos can take „whatever format you like and feel most comfortable with‟
(Esterberg, 2002:165). I have bought 14 spiral-bound notebooks, each with 72 blank pages,
which I have filled with notes written in numerous situations: from short notes to myself
made during actual interviews; to interview summaries and records of physical spaces
immediately following the interview; to copious notes during transcription relating
comments made in one interview to similar comments made in others and relating comments
to theoretical insights in books I have been reading; to thoughts jotted down that have
occurred to me while watching television, reading the newspaper, waiting for trains, during
train journeys, cooking tea, walking the dog.
Setting it out
In the following chapters where I have included participants‟ statements taken from
interview transcriptions, I have identified the location of these in terms of interview and line
numbers. After quoting a statement made by Roshni which can be located in the 24 th and
following lines of her first interview, for example, I identify this in brackets at the end of the
quote.
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