In between reality and imagination: writing a case

Recording of presentation given at Vital Signs 2 Conference, 7-9 September 2010, University of Manchester
I start by contrasting two ways of introducing 'Jenny', a participant in a research project on the identity changes involved in becoming a mother for the first time. One way relies on social identity categories; the other is 'scenic'. I contrast the ways of knowing afforded by the two methods using criteria of experience-nearness and potential for a psycho-social analysis, which will not lend itself to either sociological or psychological reductionism. I theorise the scenic in terms of Donald Winnicott's concept of transitional space. This paradigm-changing idea provides a way of understanding imagination and reality not as binary terms (similar to the dualism of subjectivity and objectivity) but as essential parts of an ongoing encounter in which meaning is achieved creatively at the same time as enabling a relation between the person and the intractability of the realities that comprise settings. I use a further analysis of Jenny's becoming a mother to illustrate this principle, applied both ontologically (Jenny's knowing) and epistemologically (my approach to knowing Jenny).