Olio and intègraphy as method and the consumption of death

Abstract

This article discusses strategies called olio and intègraphy as convenient terms for a multi-method approach to studying situations. Encompassing the familiar activities called ethnography, netnography, and symbolic analysis, as well as participant-observation and use of the media, the purpose is to integrate information, data, findings, and examples from a variety of sources in the environment that bear on topics of interest and to explicate what they mean to members of the culture, including the subjects, the researchers, and the audience. This is a classical behavioral science approach that makes explicit the role of the researcher as a participant–observer and an interpreter. It is rooted in symbolic interaction, the classic work of Mead [1934. Mind, Self, and Society, edited by Charles Morris. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press], who noted that “the reflective experience, the world, and things within it exist in the form of situations” (Becker, Howard, Blanche Geer, Everett C. Hughes, and Anselm L. Strauss. 1961. Boys in White. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press). In addition to summarizing case examples to illustrate the value of this approach, the “consumption of death” is extensively examined as an under-researched and multi-faceted complexity of circumstances and responses.