The emotional and analytic impact of working with disturbing secondary data

The paper discusses the effects on the researcher of reading disturbing
secondary data (defined here as evidence gathered by someone other than the
researcher). The case study is a qualitative sociological autopsy of suicide and
the secondary data – written documents and photographs - are all from case
files in a British coroner’s office. After some ethnographic detail about the
research setting and research process, there is some discussion in the paper of
the diverse secondary data sources in these files, particularly in relation to the
impact on the researcher. Some general observations are made about emotion
in the research process and potential strategies for responding to emotion. The
authors locate their responses to reading about suicides within the broader
context of the social processing of death and distress and also consider
whether or not emotional reactions to data have any analytical purchase.