366 ANALYZING DATA
build up a coherent core-world out of the fragmentary appearances that, taken in isolated groupings, would
be merely kaleidoscopic” (1997, 224). Sense making from such physical activity may be related to the
researcher’s sense making based on the physical activity of taking notes, transcribing interviews, and so on
noted in chapter 4.- Howard Gardner (1993, chapter 8) makes the argument for spatial skills as one form of intelligence,
distinct from the cognitive intelligence that is assessed through IQ tests. He distinguishes between spatial
intelligence and bodily-kinesthetic intelligence (chapter 9), although in my view, as I try to show here, they
are intimately, and perhaps even necessarily, related, at least in some applications, as in analyzing the mean-
ings of built spaces. J. Berger (1972); Dondis (1973); Rapoport (1982); Tufte (1990); and Weisman (1992)
are useful sources for developing visual-spatial reading skills. - For example, G. Lakoff and Johnson (1980) write that in American English, “up” is associated with
control (“He’s at the height of his power,” [15]); more of something is “up,” as the pile gets taller (“My
income rose last year,” [16]); and “status is correlated with (social) power and (physical) power is up” (“He
has a lofty position,” [16]). It is important to emphasize that although this is the case for American English,
it may not be so for all cultures, as Levinson notes: “Many languages do not use the planes through the body
to derive spatial coordinates, i.e. they have no left/right/front/back spatial terms” (1996, 356). See also
Weisman (1992, 11–15) on both points. The implication of such cultural specificity for design and the
meanings of built spaces is illustrated in the discussion below. - He cites the theories of Merleau-Ponty (that spatializing space precedes spatialized space), Heidegger
(that spatiality precedes space), and Husserl (that bodily kinesthesias precede the idealizations of space). Husserl,
he notes, “designates the here to which the body brings me as the ‘absolute here’” (Casey 1993, 51). For a
supporting argument on the link between cognition and bodily experience, see G. Lakoff and Johnson (1999). - See also Samer Shehata’s discussion (chapter 13, this volume) of this point, although he does not
treat the physical (bodily) aspect of this process. - This is analogous to Rafaeli and Pratt’s (1993) “attributes of dress” category.
- The other two analytic categories commonly used in studying nonverbal communication (in addition
to physical characteristics, personal decoration, kinesics, and proxemics) are paralanguage (the sound of the
voice) and tactile behavior, or rules for touching, which, as Weitz (1974, 203) implies, is one end of the
proxemics continuum. Rapoport (1982) also takes a nonverbal communication approach to the study of built
space. As I read him, he appears to be arguing primarily for the centrality of built space as one way in which
human meaning(s) is (are) communicated nonverbally—that is, he seems to be bringing space to the nonver-
bal research community—whereas I am arguing for the utility of observational categories developed within
that community for the analysis of how spaces communicate meaning. Our approaches overlap where he
brings examples of how spaces mean by way of illustrating their nonverbal character.
Many of the elements subsumed under nonverbal communication categories have also been treated as
nonreactive (or unobtrusive) “measures” (Webb et al. 1981 [1966]). One should proceed with caution, how-
ever, in drawing too heavily on the notion of nonreactivity in accessing meaning. Webb and his coauthors
were heavily invested in controlling research processes that would “contaminate” the data being accessed,
including the impact of the researcher’s person—hence, “nonreactivity.” From an interpretive perspective,
however, so-called interviewer effects or response biases are accepted as given, following from the third
presupposition, that knowledge and knowing are situated.
Influenced by phenomenological humanism, many interpretive interviewers would argue that it would be
unethical not to bring themselves into the engagement, quite aside from the impossibility of not doing so, in
their view (see, e.g., Holstein and Gubrium 1995 for an argument in favor of interviewer “reactivity”). - My thanks to Ellen Pader for reminding me of the role of designation here.
- I cannot demonstrate that built space is correlated with masculinity, only that building design,
especially in the corporate and governmental organizational worlds, invokes status symbols associated
with culture-specific masculinity. But see Kemper (1990) on the association of testosterone, an erect
spine, and mastery in men, and Weisman (1992, esp. 15ff.) for a discussion of the gendered bases of the
built environment. - As related in Yanow (1996, chapter 6).
- Indeed, the research cited by Levinson (1996) would support this. See also note 15.
- My thanks to Jo Hatch for helping me bring out this point.
- Even the etymology of this word “dis-oriented” is place related: we “orient” ourselves toward the
“Orient,” the East, the place of the rising sun (from a certain “orientation”).