A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Studying Portuguese Ethnic Media in Montreal: ‘Autosiociobiographie,’ Sibling Relations, Brotherly Love and ‘Emotional Episodes’ in Research

Abstract

How does the dynamic of sibling relations affect researching and dissemination of research findings? How can we best capture the unfolding of this dimension in researching? We discuss these questions via the description of a community event where the siblings were directly implicated and an “emotional episode” arose leading to humor in one sense but also stress on the other as the younger sibling struggled to intervene and interrupt his older brother’s presentation. We discuss and analyze this “key emotional episode” by placing it in the cultural upbringing of the siblings involved in the study as well as co-authors’ reactions to the same episode. We conclude by stating the necessity to know your audience and the approach most conducive to fit the culture of community engagement. Further, we argue that in this time when so much emphasis is placed on team research, we know so much about the academic credentials and skills of our project team members, but little about their personal upbringing and how this can influence relationships and interpretations of findings.