Qualitative data Analysis : An introduction

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Qualitative data Analysis An introduction

• Carol Grbich
• Chapter 8. Postmodernist influences

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Postmodern beliefs

• everything is transitional and non-finite in
  nature  
• there is capacity to dialogue with other contexts
  in time and space.
• the tools, language and processes of discovery
  (as well as the interpretations and actions of
  individual researchers) are socially and
  culturally constructed and require further
  examination.
• research processes (and morals, laws etc) are
  subject to social construction, and have served
  to maintain the power bases of particular groups.
• any borders (disciplinary, research approaches,
  country and culture) are also constructions that
  can be crossed, incorporated or reconstructed

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Display of results

• To encourage the audience to see and see through,
  to participate in events and to interpret
  experiences gained at (almost) first hand by
• Disruption and challenges - fragmented and open
  and closed forms
• Multiple data sources - multiple narrators and
  voices
• Irony
• Playfulness,
• Illusion
• Pastiche
• Parody
• An emphasis on improvisation and satire of others
  and the self
• The use of a variety of visual, textual and other
  genres
•  

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Postmodern influences (1)

• Politics minority and political groups become
  localised
• Economics multiskilling, outsourcing, boutique
  products, managerial and computing skills
• Architecture dialogues occur between readable
  signs on buildingsi

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Postmodern influences (2)

• Literature complex plots, juxtaposition
• Art and film viewer focus, bricolage, hyper
  reality and simulacra, embodiment
• Knowledge reality is unknowable, meanings are
  individual
• Culture popular, hybrid, hyper real, simulacra

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Postmodern influences (3)

• Individuals
• socially constructed in many contextual but
  transient groups
• Fluid and fragmented - alternative structures
  dominate.
• Multiple identities and subjectivities
• Time and space continuums with links to past
  and future

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Postmodern ideas and qualitative research

1. Postmodernism favours "mini-narratives - small
   scale situations
2. No pretensions of abstract theory, universality
   or generaliseability.
3. The explanatory power of metanarratives is
   downplayed in favour of descriptive
   documentation.
4. Individual interpretation is paramount, no
   objective reality, and truth and reality lie in
   our constructed meanings,
5. Truth is fluid it is limited by the
   constructions and interpretations of both
   researcher and researched.
6. Reflexive subjectivity replaces objectivity.
   Self-reflexivity involves a heightened awareness
   of the socially constructed self in the process
   of knowledge creation how ones values are
   impacting on interaction, data collection and
   data analysis

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Postmodern ideas and qualitative research (2)

• 7. Truth, reason and logic are constructed within
  specific cultural understandings.
• 8. Realities are multiple subject to endless
  formation, reformation, construction and
  reconstruction.
• 9. validity and reliability gives way to
  individually constructed views relative to time
  and context. Subjectivity is paramount, multiple
  identities are accepted The researcher and the
  researched are no longer separate, they
  interweave their constructed meanings.
• 10. Postmodernist forms of display include
  multiple forms of visual, oral, aural and textual
  data.

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Criticisms of postmodernism

• that pulling apart of situations and the
  deconstruction of discourses may lead to nihilism
  
• that the rejection of objectivity and a lack of
  certainty make it difficult to come to any solid
  conclusion
• that montages of social reality provide limited
  information upon which policy decisions can be
  made
• that the rejection of grand narratives and logic
  and rationality lead to limited theoretical
  explanations
• that privileging, marginalising and truth making
  are also tools of postmodernists