Telling Tales: Living the Effects of Public Policy, Sheila Neysmith, Kate Bezanson, and Anne O'Connell. Halifax: Fernwood Publishing, 2005; 231 pages; ISBN 1-55266-161-X; $24.95 (paper).
Telling Tales: Living the Effects of Public Policy explores the lived experiences of forty participants within the context of broad-based policy changes in Ontario. A primary focus of the book is to grasp the multiple and diverse ways in which government cuts to social programs between 1997 and 2000 have affected people's lives, particularly the lives of people living with low incomes.
The methodological challenges of the study were immense. However, in their concluding chapter, "Developing Methodology That Can Deal with Complexity," Neysmith et al. demonstrate a sophisticated understanding of these challenges and offer an accessible and convincing approach to a complex research question. This chapter will be useful to scholars seeking to move beyond mainstream policy research approaches focused on quantitative data and macro-level variables, toward analyses that draw upon qualitative data and situated knowledge. Neysmith et al. explain not only the theoretical and practical importance of qualitative techniques to policy research, but also offer sound research steps that other researchers can draw upon and expand.
One of the distinctive qualities of this book is that, rather than focusing on a single policy field, the authors explore the intersectional and cross-cutting policy processes that have shaped the lives of research participants with a wide-range of social and economic backgrounds. The data was enriched by tracking changes over time, which involved interviewing each participant four times over a three-year period, and by grounding the interview data in analyses of wider policy shifts.
The findings revealed that many of the research participants felt their quality of life had significantly eroded, despite the official rhetoric of policy changes, such as claims that government reforms would harness individual, community, and family competencies and promote greater freedom and choice. Moreover, the findings showed how policy changes shaped and were shaped by social divisions such as race, gender, class, and so on.
In analyzing these findings, the authors conclude that "[m]arginal social location and attendant

120

Atlantis 31.1, 2006 PR www.msvu.ca/atlantis

lack of power are regulated and maintained by the state, market and informal social institutions. Such forces of social exclusion are powerful protectors of privilege" (142). While others have made similar claims, what is distinctive about this book is that the authors move beyond abstract theorizing to reveal how specific policy changes foster these processes at the ground level. In doing so, Neysmith et al. bring in the voices and viewpoints of people frequently excluded from policy debates, specifically the poor and economically marginalized. Thus, they offer an important counterweight to policy research that recreates the vocabularies and ideas of those with privilege and power.
This book is a refreshing contribution to the study of social politics and administration that would fit well on course outlines in many fields, including social work, sociology, political science, and gender studies.
Karen Bridget Murray York University