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'Welcome To The Club Nobody Wanted To Join': Humour And Masculinity In Prostate Cancer Support Groups
Published 23 April, 2010

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Interviewee

Dr John Oliffe, Assistant Professor, School of Nursing, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada.

Article

Oliffe, J., Halpin, M., Ogrodniczuk, J., Bottorff, J. & Hislop, G. (2009) Connection humor, health and masculinities at prostate cancer support groups. Psycho-Oncology, 18: 916-926.

Summary

Dr John Oliffe describes the qualitative ethnographic approaches he used to understand the way men engage with prostate cancer support groups. He says men typically do not acknowledge illness, let alone openly discuss their health concerns with other men, so the support groups seem to run contrary to typical male behaviour. Direct observation of support groups allowed him to observe the role humour played in the groups, enabling men to engage at a level they were comfortable with, at a time in their lives when they were feeling particularly vulnerable. Follow-up interviews with the men and their partners allowed him to contextualise his observations, gain an understanding of how the men came to be involved in the groups, and understand what the men and their partners saw as the benefits of group participation.

Transcript

Michael Bouwman: I’m Michael Bouwman and in podcast number one hundred and four, we interviewed Dr John Oliffe about his paper: Connecting humor, health, and masculinities at prostate cancer support groups. We asked him what he thought were the benefits of using a qualitative approach to his research in exploring this issue.

John Oliffe: A qualitative approach allowed us to observe the groups, so, typically what we did, we had a couple of research assistants, myself included, and we positioned ourselves at the back of the room, and we would observe the interactions of the men at the groups, and then we would also interview men and their partners individually about attending the prostate cancer support groups. So, there’s a kind of, the qualitative approach helped us to, sort of, contextualise some of what we were seeing, to more fully understand and be able to talk to what we were seeing. And, also, talking with the fellows, and or, their partners about, you know, what the benefits were and how they came to be involved in the group. Because, really, when you think about it, they’re really acting in a way that we say men don’t act, so, it was very interesting to be able to do it in a qualitative way. I can’t imagine a survey questionnaire that would have got us the same, sort of, contextual data.

Michael Bouwman: Yes, and did they understand that you were researching humour?

John Oliffe: Actually, one of the reviewer questions was around, you know, did you present yourself as a humour researcher? And, no we didn’t; so, we didn’t come in, sort of, telling jokes and...We came in doing an ethnographic study of looking at these groups, and talking to people who were affiliated with these groups and members of the groups. So, this was very much emergent and I guess it relates, in part, to the qualitative approach. I guess one of the advantages of the qualitative piece is that you can go in and you’re not necessarily looking for humour and then humour emerges as a key piece, and then you start to be able to ask more questions about it, observe it more closely, and write a paper. This was definitely not a paper that we thought was going to feature, and we certainly weren’t going in there looking solely at humour. I think we’ve had five or six publications of this particular research and this was one aspect that you just couldn’t ignore, it was so, kind of, prevalent, in how the guys conducted their business, that we just, sort of ran with it and started, sort of, asking focus questions around as we started to unpack, you know, the interviews and then attending more and more groups, just looking for these subtle pieces around humour.