Steedman, C. (1986). Landscape for a good woman: A story of two lives. London: Virago, 1986.
Scott, J.W. (1992). The evidence of experience. In J. Butler & J.W. Scott (Eds.), Feminists theorize the political (pp.22-40). New York: Routledge.
Although Scott (1992) supports the use of experience in recording history, and as a means of studying “the other”, she contests the historical approach of using experience as fact or as the creation of knowledge. Scott describes historical explanations of experience as “foundationalist”; that is, historians do not question the pre-existing categories (gender, race, class etc.), to which they classify their subjects. In turn, existing ideologies are reaffirmed and there is no exploration of how these categories are produced. In order to understand the process of how identities are produced, it is necessary to look not only at the experience of an individual, but at how experience shapes that individual. The context, within which the subject is situated, including the dominant discourse and politics, must also be considered (Scott, 1992). Steedman’s mother’s rejection of dominant ideology exemplifies the importance of looking at process. Rather than aligning herself with the working class, her mother supports conservative politics with her motive being envy for what she does not have.
Landscape for a Good Woman is an autoethnographical account of Steedman’s childhood growing up in a 1950’s working class, single parent family in England. Steedman draws on her past to rethink and reconstruct dominant ideas of class, feminism, patriarchy, and gender. Her personal narratives not only challenge the typical image of the perfect bourgeois family, but also the romantic sense of family and work solidarity that is assumed of the working class. In doing so, Steedman illustrates the importance and the possibility of autoethnographic work that gives, “a sense of people’s complexity of relationship to the historical situations they inherit” (p.19). These complex relationships are elucidated through Steedman’s multiple references to herself as her mother despite her disregard for her mother; “that whilst hating her, I was her” (p.55). The metaphor of her being her mother reinforces Scott’s (1992) notion that individuals are “subject to definite conditions of existence” (p.793) and these conditions are especially strong during childhood, which Steedman describes as always being someone else’s story. Steedman does not claim that the history she refers to is entirely accurate, but rather states that her stories trace a part of her history so that others can (but not necessarily will) relate and in doing so make sense of their own history.
Steedman posits that one derives meaning from their memories and personal histories through both psychoanalytic as well as structural analysis. Using Steedman’s story in the bluebell wood where her father is reprimanded for picking flowers, she finds symbolism in the uprooted plants and the illegality of the situation (being an illegitimate child). She is also able to put this story into a context that considers her father’s social position as a working class male that subjects him to this scrutiny. Both social context and psychoanalysis are important to lend meaning to an experience but Steedman cautions that such psychoanalytic myths – that describe an experience and its outcomes- should not be generalized and essentialized. As is evidenced by E.P. Thompson’s work as mentioned by Scott, his attempt to capture the stories of the working class were problematic despite his inclusion of agency, because he failed to capture the variance of individual experience (whether it be gender, ethnicity or other variance), and consequently his work resulted in essentializing class. While Steedman uses such myths throughout her work, she urges the reader to refuse to consider her narratives as part of a larger cultural psychology. Why should her story be considered over someone else’s? We understand it is not her intention to make her experiences seem more important than someone else’s but does her position as an academic equipped with the analytical tools and resources to be critical of her upbringing privilege her reflections over others’? Are there negative implications of having alternate voices that come from such privileged positions?
We have seen the use of metaphors in description both in last week and in this week’s articles. In addition to the symbol of the flowers, the theme of food is presented throughout the book: not only did Steedman describe her mother’s ‘food reform’ as a means of control over their life, but she also described the emotional impact of the school meal program as a form of recognition of the importance of children. What other symbols or metaphors are used throughout her book? Looking at both last week and this week, do these metaphors add or detract from the message conveyed? How, as researchers, can we ensure to get the deeper meaning of symbols and metaphors presented?
Two ideas have emerged and followed us from blog to blog. Those are vision and of course objectivity. Last week, Haraway claimed that vision should be an objective understanding of our situated knowledge. It should, “attach the objective to our theoretical and political scanners in order to name where we are and are not, in dimensions of mental and physical space we hardly know how to name”(p.582). Scott’s position is quite similar as she argues that vision that precedes critical examination of social categories (such as class and gender) fails to recognize how an experience operates within society. Given the notion that such categories are so multiple and varied within themselves, who should have the authority, or in other words, who should be able to claim objectivity over one’s experience? How could a critical examination of one’s own past experience change over time? Does that memoried experience become any more or less objective with age?
Steedman claims that, “children do not posses a social analysis of what is happening to them, or around them, so the landscape and the pictures it presents have to remain a background, taking on meaning later from different circumstances” (28). She also goes on to claim that the idea of a childhood was created based on the notion that there is a “landscape of feeling” within every adult that needs to “be continually reworked and reinterpreted” (128). Both of this week’s bloggers found the notion of childhood as an uncharted or unexplored terrain to be problematic. It seems as if Steedman is arguing that children are unable to make meaning of their experiences until they are equipped with adult insight. What do these references suggest about young people’s place or value in society? How might their positions, or even childhood histories, be exploited in the process of being reworked and reinterpreted by the adult vision? If Steedman is in fact correct, is it even possible to engage children in reflective and critical discourse?
Saturday, February 27, 2010
Sunday, February 14, 2010
Carolyn's Post: Politics of Knowledge
Haraway, D. (1988). Situated knowledges: The science question in feminism and the privilege of the partial perspective. Feminist Studies, 14(3), 575-598.
Geertz, C. (1973). Thick description: Toward an interpretive theory of culture. The Interpretation of Cultures (p. 3-30). New York: Basic.
Rosaldo, R. (1993). Culture and Truth (pp. 1-67). Boston: Beacon.
Marcus, G. & Fischer, M. (1986). A Crisis of representation in the human sciences. Anthropology as Cultural Critique (pp. 445-452). US: The University of Chicago Press.
Abu-Lughod, L. (1991). Writing against culture. In Richard G. Fox [Ed.] Recapturing Anthroplogy: Working in the Present (pp. 466-479). Santa Fe: School of American Research Press.
The authors of this week’s articles all address questions of epistemology, or how we come to know what we consider knowledge. Geertz, Rosaldo, and Marcus and Fischer approach this question from an anthropological perspective, while Abu-Lughod and Haraway add a feminist bent to similar theoretical claims. The scholars argue for a rethinking of classical approaches to ethnography, and shared issues of power, objectivity, subject position, culture, and dialogue bring these works in conversation with one another.
Haraway, writing in the elegant and metaphoric fashion we would expect from the Cyborg Manifesto author, questions our understanding of objectivity. She initially explores the dichotomy discourse of objectivity over which feminists have struggled. The first pole of the debate is radical constructivism, or the idea that all knowledge is created through positions of power. In this version of truth, “History is a story Western culture buffs tell each other; science is a contestable text and a power field; the content is the form. Period” (p. 577). The other pole of the objectivity binary is feminist critical empiricism, which attempts to elucidate a legitimate meaning of objectivity and create a “better” account of the world. Haraway believes both of these poles have been embraced in a feminist understanding of objectivity. She proposes a new project of feminist objectivity, however, that is dependent on her concept of situated knowledge. Objectivity can only be understood in terms of embodied experience, she argues. Situated knowledge privileges partial perspectives, split identity, and the multidimensional nature of subjectivity. Epistemology must account for specificity of location and positioning, and build knowledge from the body out as opposed to from above. Perhaps most interesting is Haraway’s philosophy of engagement with her subject matter; she explains that the object of knowledge must be viewed as an active subject or agent. In this way, real world accounts are not a discovery so much as a conversation between subjects. Is objectivity, then, just another word for finding a “truth”? And if so, are “truths” or “realities” of situated knowledges concepts that may be politically mobilized? Or is Haraway’s notion of situated knowledge just a middle ground (recognizing construction and reality) that ultimately leaves us nowhere?
Geertz, Rosaldo and Marcus and Fischer represent reactions to classical approaches of anthropology and its primary method, ethnography. Classical anthropology, as Rosaldo traces, has traditionally viewed culture as a static entity with structures and meanings that are to be unpacked through the imperialist project of Othering, ethnographic discourse. We have, however, reached an academic epoch in history in which these fixed notions of culture and their corresponding paradigms are being refashioned and reconstituted in anthropology’s new experimental moment (Marcus and Fischer). All authors problematize the notion of generalized metanarratives used to explain and predict behaviour within an object culture.
Geertz introduces us to the notion of the “thick description,” as the purpose of ethnography. This approach recognizes the impossibility of separating description from interpretation because all data is constructed by the ethnographer. This notion resonates with Haraway’s metaphor of visual processing; in both accounts, a reality is necessarily processed through seeing or writing and transformed into a situated knowledge or a thick description. Observation, recording and analysis, Geertz argues, cannot be separated. Furthermore, findings are contextually complex and specific, thus theory must penetrate the immediate observational level to determine structures of signification and import. Ultimately, he believes cultural analysis to be “intrinsically incomplete” and “essentially contestable.”
While Rosaldo agrees with Geertz that we need to complicate notions of fixed cultural patterns, he also questions a complete emphasis on thick description and thorough interpretation. Sometimes, he argues, we need to take conversations by the “force” of face value. Using the example of the Ilongot headhunters, he explains the importance of positionality of the ethnographer; it was not until his wife died that he fully appreciated the “rage through grief” justification for killing others. A corollary of this perspective on positionality is the necessity of recognizing emotion. Rosaldo notes that assuming a detached position (that is, divorcing the ethnographer from the subject as much as one believes this can be done) has the tendency to explain away emotion and thus not account for primary reasons behind human actions. Cultural rituals and patterns cannot explain the significance of all human behaviour. How might these current anthropological debates be similar or different to those occurring within cultural studies?
Rosaldo also emphasizes the necessity of critically engaging in dialogue with the subjects of research. Often, reciprocal reflections can shed significant light on the way “we” (as ethnographers, researchers, etc.) live our lives. Marcus and Fischer extend this line of thought when they note that cultural critique should be balanced and be understood as an intersection of different cultures, in which each constructs a new understanding of the other. I wonder, however, what the potential is for this “conversation” to occur between equal powers? Given the traditionally imperialist project of ethnography, can these dialogues emancipate the Other through discourse that has been typically Orientalist?
Abu-Lughod says no. She believes that the very notion of culture creates discourses of difference between the researching self and the object of knowledge Other, which serve to subjugate the latter. Culture has merely replaced race in Orientalist discourse that defines the self through the Other. She states that dialogic approaches are still dominated by the institutional resources and the political, economic, and social position of the powerful West. Is her case against polyvocal texts more compelling than the arguments for dialogues promoted by Geertz, Rosaldo, and Marcus and Fischer? Abu-Lughod shares Haraway’s notion of split selfhood to explain how feminist and halfie (that is, those of mixed national or cultural identity) anthropologists occupy a positionality at the intersection of systems of difference. Because of this positionality however, they are in an advantageous position to advocate for the importance of partial truths, a notion consistent with Haraway and Geertz. She states that because the very idea of culture creates systems of difference, we must learn to “write against culture.” She mobilizes Geertz’s notion of writing as fiction to advocate for “ethnographies of the particular.” This methodology and theoretical perspective recognizes the manifestation of long term, extra-local processes within the local and specific context.
Conversation and dialogue are of central import to these texts. Is Haraway’s notion of engagement with the world as active agent the same as the dialogues between researcher and researched that the other authors promote? Are these categories (of researcher and researched) even valid anymore? Can Abu-Lughod’s writing against culture be reconciled with the other authors’ expansion of the notion of culture or Haraway’s situated knowledge? If so, in what ways may this be achieved? Can we even expect a singular notion of culture in a postmodern era such as our own? Finally, how has an understanding of these issues changed your relationship with the subject matter you wish to study?
Geertz, C. (1973). Thick description: Toward an interpretive theory of culture. The Interpretation of Cultures (p. 3-30). New York: Basic.
Rosaldo, R. (1993). Culture and Truth (pp. 1-67). Boston: Beacon.
Marcus, G. & Fischer, M. (1986). A Crisis of representation in the human sciences. Anthropology as Cultural Critique (pp. 445-452). US: The University of Chicago Press.
Abu-Lughod, L. (1991). Writing against culture. In Richard G. Fox [Ed.] Recapturing Anthroplogy: Working in the Present (pp. 466-479). Santa Fe: School of American Research Press.
The authors of this week’s articles all address questions of epistemology, or how we come to know what we consider knowledge. Geertz, Rosaldo, and Marcus and Fischer approach this question from an anthropological perspective, while Abu-Lughod and Haraway add a feminist bent to similar theoretical claims. The scholars argue for a rethinking of classical approaches to ethnography, and shared issues of power, objectivity, subject position, culture, and dialogue bring these works in conversation with one another.
Haraway, writing in the elegant and metaphoric fashion we would expect from the Cyborg Manifesto author, questions our understanding of objectivity. She initially explores the dichotomy discourse of objectivity over which feminists have struggled. The first pole of the debate is radical constructivism, or the idea that all knowledge is created through positions of power. In this version of truth, “History is a story Western culture buffs tell each other; science is a contestable text and a power field; the content is the form. Period” (p. 577). The other pole of the objectivity binary is feminist critical empiricism, which attempts to elucidate a legitimate meaning of objectivity and create a “better” account of the world. Haraway believes both of these poles have been embraced in a feminist understanding of objectivity. She proposes a new project of feminist objectivity, however, that is dependent on her concept of situated knowledge. Objectivity can only be understood in terms of embodied experience, she argues. Situated knowledge privileges partial perspectives, split identity, and the multidimensional nature of subjectivity. Epistemology must account for specificity of location and positioning, and build knowledge from the body out as opposed to from above. Perhaps most interesting is Haraway’s philosophy of engagement with her subject matter; she explains that the object of knowledge must be viewed as an active subject or agent. In this way, real world accounts are not a discovery so much as a conversation between subjects. Is objectivity, then, just another word for finding a “truth”? And if so, are “truths” or “realities” of situated knowledges concepts that may be politically mobilized? Or is Haraway’s notion of situated knowledge just a middle ground (recognizing construction and reality) that ultimately leaves us nowhere?
Geertz, Rosaldo and Marcus and Fischer represent reactions to classical approaches of anthropology and its primary method, ethnography. Classical anthropology, as Rosaldo traces, has traditionally viewed culture as a static entity with structures and meanings that are to be unpacked through the imperialist project of Othering, ethnographic discourse. We have, however, reached an academic epoch in history in which these fixed notions of culture and their corresponding paradigms are being refashioned and reconstituted in anthropology’s new experimental moment (Marcus and Fischer). All authors problematize the notion of generalized metanarratives used to explain and predict behaviour within an object culture.
Geertz introduces us to the notion of the “thick description,” as the purpose of ethnography. This approach recognizes the impossibility of separating description from interpretation because all data is constructed by the ethnographer. This notion resonates with Haraway’s metaphor of visual processing; in both accounts, a reality is necessarily processed through seeing or writing and transformed into a situated knowledge or a thick description. Observation, recording and analysis, Geertz argues, cannot be separated. Furthermore, findings are contextually complex and specific, thus theory must penetrate the immediate observational level to determine structures of signification and import. Ultimately, he believes cultural analysis to be “intrinsically incomplete” and “essentially contestable.”
While Rosaldo agrees with Geertz that we need to complicate notions of fixed cultural patterns, he also questions a complete emphasis on thick description and thorough interpretation. Sometimes, he argues, we need to take conversations by the “force” of face value. Using the example of the Ilongot headhunters, he explains the importance of positionality of the ethnographer; it was not until his wife died that he fully appreciated the “rage through grief” justification for killing others. A corollary of this perspective on positionality is the necessity of recognizing emotion. Rosaldo notes that assuming a detached position (that is, divorcing the ethnographer from the subject as much as one believes this can be done) has the tendency to explain away emotion and thus not account for primary reasons behind human actions. Cultural rituals and patterns cannot explain the significance of all human behaviour. How might these current anthropological debates be similar or different to those occurring within cultural studies?
Rosaldo also emphasizes the necessity of critically engaging in dialogue with the subjects of research. Often, reciprocal reflections can shed significant light on the way “we” (as ethnographers, researchers, etc.) live our lives. Marcus and Fischer extend this line of thought when they note that cultural critique should be balanced and be understood as an intersection of different cultures, in which each constructs a new understanding of the other. I wonder, however, what the potential is for this “conversation” to occur between equal powers? Given the traditionally imperialist project of ethnography, can these dialogues emancipate the Other through discourse that has been typically Orientalist?
Abu-Lughod says no. She believes that the very notion of culture creates discourses of difference between the researching self and the object of knowledge Other, which serve to subjugate the latter. Culture has merely replaced race in Orientalist discourse that defines the self through the Other. She states that dialogic approaches are still dominated by the institutional resources and the political, economic, and social position of the powerful West. Is her case against polyvocal texts more compelling than the arguments for dialogues promoted by Geertz, Rosaldo, and Marcus and Fischer? Abu-Lughod shares Haraway’s notion of split selfhood to explain how feminist and halfie (that is, those of mixed national or cultural identity) anthropologists occupy a positionality at the intersection of systems of difference. Because of this positionality however, they are in an advantageous position to advocate for the importance of partial truths, a notion consistent with Haraway and Geertz. She states that because the very idea of culture creates systems of difference, we must learn to “write against culture.” She mobilizes Geertz’s notion of writing as fiction to advocate for “ethnographies of the particular.” This methodology and theoretical perspective recognizes the manifestation of long term, extra-local processes within the local and specific context.
Conversation and dialogue are of central import to these texts. Is Haraway’s notion of engagement with the world as active agent the same as the dialogues between researcher and researched that the other authors promote? Are these categories (of researcher and researched) even valid anymore? Can Abu-Lughod’s writing against culture be reconciled with the other authors’ expansion of the notion of culture or Haraway’s situated knowledge? If so, in what ways may this be achieved? Can we even expect a singular notion of culture in a postmodern era such as our own? Finally, how has an understanding of these issues changed your relationship with the subject matter you wish to study?
Friday, February 5, 2010
How to Think About Our Research
Becker, Howard S. Tricks of the Trade: How to Think About your Research While You're doing It. 1. Chicago IL: The University of Chicago Press, 1997
Denzin, Norman K., and Yvonne S. Lincoln. Sage Handbook of Qualitative Research, 3rd ed. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 2005
“The Discipline and Practice of Qualitative Research” provides us with a historical background of where the practice of research originated and what its initial purposes were for. Originally, research was used to produce knowledge about indigenous peoples (Denzin 1) Researchers would observe foreign settings to study culture, customs, and habits of groups (Denzin 2). The article discusses the different phases of research over the last 100 years and shows how the research process has progressed to how we do it today. It also discusses the different phases of the research process. I think the article puts into perspective the importance of our own research. By studying “the other” we open up opportunities for certain groups and we provide the world better understandings of current social issues.
Howard Becker’s book about sociological research is a guide to learning how to think about society, interpret it, and make sense of it. As a student at the “Chicago School” of Sociology, Becker experienced the initial thinking of sociology and chooses to share his expertise and advice with future researchers. He uses the word “trick” to describe a technique which can be used to help explore society. The tricks are meant to help with difficulty, and to act as models which can be imitated when similar problems arise (Becker 4). In my opinion, it is important that we take these tricks to heart because they can only help us when/if we become lost in understanding the social phenomena we study. It is especially important to look back on past research and/or theory to help discover our own topics and interpret our analyses.
The first portion of the book describes tricks that can help us shape our topics and determine the direction of our research. Becker advises us to construct an image about our topic using existing data and theories mixed with our own intuitions and experiences. He goes on to list about a dozen “tricks” of pre-existing general imageries. These “tricks” are not meant to act as theories, but rather as tools and remedies for better understanding our topics. I think that we’ve all already constructed an initial image in our minds about our own topics. Does anyone feel that Becker’s advice has altered their images? Or even persuaded you to think about altering it?
The second part of the book teaches us about sampling. Becker offers advice on data collection. The tricks he offers are meant to help researchers as they encounter problems or to act as tools to prevent such problems from occurring. He constructs a list of rules to help researchers avoid common mistakes. Although I do not have the room to thoroughly discuss any of the tricks he teaches us in this chapter, I thought I’d mention the issue of authenticity since Melanie brought it up on Tuesday. Becker reminds us and warns us that it is extremely difficult to label anything as authentic. He also advises that we never “assume” or use “common sense” to justify anything. Becker offers some light advice such as “everything is possible,” even the rare, and that there is no “pure description” for anything. Overall, he advises that we step away from our instincts and open our minds to unforeseen possibilities.
Concepts are “...generalized statements about whole classes of phenomena...” (Becker 109). They show us “... where to look, what to look for, (and) how to recognize...” (Becker 110). They are statements about facts that can typically be applied anywhere at any point in time. In this chapter, Becker provides us with the tricks for “...using (our) data to create more complex ideas that will help (us) find more problems worth studying and more things about what (we) have studied worth thinking about and incorporating into (our) analysis” (Becker 109). The basic trick Becker teaches us in this chapter is that “...the definition of concepts rest on what the examples they are based on have in common” (Becker 119-20). Once these examples are established, a concept can be created. The knowledge the examples produces is only useful if it can be reapplied (Becker 123). Becker warns us that we must be careful not to apply our example to a concept, but rather a concept to our topic. We can only discover which concept is applicable once we’ve gathered all our information.
The remainder of the book teaches us tricks on how we can take full advantage of the data we collect. Becker insists that there is always more to be learned and that should we want/need to learn more, we should look no further than the data we’ve already collected. The tricks he teaches us in this chapter show us how we can use logic to further extract information from the data we’ve already analysed. Logic, according to Becker, teaches us how to go about “...manipulating what we know according to some set of rules so that the manipulations produce new things” (Becker 146). The chapter teaches us about thinking, and how the thoughts we produce can further our research. There are two specific tricks of logic that Becker teaches in this chapter; finding the major premise, and using truth tables to discover possible combinations.
The first trick involves the typical A=B=C argument. There is a major premise (A=B), a minor premise (B=C) and then a conclusion (A=C). We may have learned this simple logic in elementary school, but Becker warns us about the issues that can arise in making these types of statements. He brings up examples where the minor premises involved stereotypical “facts” about race or religion which ultimately allowed for false conclusions to be made. The A=B=C equation we once knew as a logical explanation for many phenomena is rarely applicable in sociological research. Facts cannot be subjective and we must always be careful of what we deem as true or false. Do you think this model can ever be applicable today in qualitative research?
Becker advises us to design a way to manage our data using specific language and terminology that reflect consistent methods of social research. He lists several different methods of organizing data that can help develop ideas. I don’t have much space to discuss these methods, but hopefully someone else in the class will. Becker believes that logic provides us with possibilities for discovering more information that could otherwise go unnoticed. These tricks can be extremely helpful for us when dealing with own data.
Overall, Becker has extreme faith in the future of research. He believes in the power of a student’s mind and has an overall positive attitude about the results they can accomplish. I think this book speaks directly to us as we are about to embark on our own research journey. I hope that every one of you gained something positive and helpful out of Becker’s advice. I’d love to hear about which tricks are most applicable to your own research.
Saturday, January 30, 2010
Modernity/Postmodernity
Kant, Immanuel. (1784). An answer to the question: What is Enlightenment? Retrieved 1/11/10 from http://www.english.upenn.edu/~mgamer/Etexts/kant/html.
Hamilton P. (1996). The Enlightenment and the birth of social science. In S. Hall, D. Held, D. Hubert, K. Thompson (Eds.), Modernity: An introduction to modern societies (pp. 20-54). Cambridge: Polity Press.
Hall, S. (1996). On postmodernism and articulation: An interview with Stuart Hall. In D. Morley & K. Chen (Eds.), Stuart Hall: Critical dialogues in cultural studies (pp.131-150). London: Routledge.
Butler, J. (1992). Contingent foundations. In J. Butler & J. Scott (Eds.), Feminists theorize the political (pp.3-21). London: Routledge.
McDonald, M. (2002). Queering whiteness: The peculiar case of the Women’s National Basketball Association. Sociological Perspectives, 45, 379-396.
This week’s readings covered a range of themes, both historically and conceptually, from the Enlightenment, through modernity, to postmodernity. In this initial post, to help spur discussion, I try to map the arguments from Kant to Buter--via Hamilton, Hall, and McDonald--so as to tie the readings together, and provoke questions along the way.
To begin, the emergence of sociology as a field of study (and, eventually cultural studies), was the result, in part, of Enlightenment thinking. As Kant (1784) argued at the time, the central paradigm of the Enlightenment was to allow the free thinking man [sic] to emerge from a self-imposed immaturity. Kant saw man as shackled and confined by rules and formulas--i.e. the church, physicians, nobility--that prevented him from free, rational, and scientific thought. Kant, like other philosophes, saw the Enlightenment as a gradual, but inevitable process that could not be achieved through a coup d’état, but rather, through a revolution of the mind. Only through individual free thought could the unthinking masses be emancipated (Kant, 1784).
As Hamilton (1996) outlines, the “birth of sociology” can be traced to Enlightenment thinkers--primarily Henri de Saint-Simon, and Auguste Comte. These Enlightenment thinkers sought to construct a “positive science” of society that would be based on critical rationalism and apply reason to social, political and economic issues. The new field of social science would concern itself with progress, emancipation, and improvement. Essentially it sought to build upon the works of previous generations of pilosophes to continue enlightened thinking. The Enlightenment became tied to the idea of modernity as society was thought of as something over and above the individual. It was through the social that progress, science, and rational thought--ideologies that would later be symbolized by the American and French Revolutions--would bring about the modern free man.
Hamilton (1996) argues that the Enlightenment was not only the precursor to modernity, but rather, the pursuit of it. He argues that the Enlightenment involved characteristically sociological concerns about how societies are organized and developed, and that philosophes saw an essential uniformity in human nature (an issues that post-modern scholars would go on to challenge as both Hall (1996) and Butler (1992) note). This brings me to the question that if, as Hamilton discusses, the Enlightenment was localized to Western Europe in the 18th Century (Hall also calls modernism a “western phenomenon”), how does this idea of the Enlightenment as the pursuit of modernity serve to ignore the other forms of modernity in other parts of the globe (the global South for example), and privilege this western, linear version of history over others?
Now, in the little space that I have left, I would like to get to the issue of postmodernity. Both Hall (1996) and Butler (1992) present what they see as the central facets of postmodernism, yet they both question what we mean when using the term postmodern. Hall (1996) argues that postmodernity holds two charges. First, there is nothing of significance but modern culture, and there are no contradictory forces to it. Second, these changes are profound and we have no choice but to reconcile ourselves to them. Similarly, Butler (1992) argues that a number of positions are attached to postmodernity: discourse is all there is; the subject is dead; ‘I’ can never be used; and there is no reality, only representations (p.4). While Hall and Butler are similar in this regard, I think they differ in how they view the usefulness of postmodernity. Both discuss how postmodernist thought involves the “collapse of the real” as a dominant type of representation into fragmented forms. Hall argues that we cannot conceptualize language without meaning, representation, ideology. He takes issues with two “postmodern” scholars, questioning Baudrillard’s argument that we are at the end of signifying practice, and Foucault’s use of the discursive without an ideological dimension.
Where Hall sees these issues as problematic, Butler takes another position. She argues that the project of postmodernism is to call into question the ways in which paradigms--the set of interconnected ideas that provide an image of the world and a way of thinking about it--oppress and erase that which they seek to explain. While Hall challenges the notion of a break between modernism and postmodernism, is it perhaps here where this rupture becomes visible? Philosophes saw a universality to human knowledge and people: postmodern scholars (a grouping to which Butler has been attach) challenge this notion of universality. Butler (1992) questions how a theory or politics can be grounded in a position which is “universal” when the very category depends on ethnocentric biases based on exclusion and difference.
I think that this brings back the question of positionality discussed last week. From a postmodern perspective that operates against totalizing notions, and seeks to renegotiate subjectivity, can there ever be a true subjectivity? Or are subjects always fragmented and require deconstruction? How do we account for a multiplicity of positions? Do we agree with Hall that postmodernity is limiting in that it closes off history and assumes that there is no future, only the present? Or, do we see postmodernity as providing new avenues for critiques by challenging hegemonic practices and ideologies through “postmodern” approaches like queer theory, as McDonald (2002) argues?
Sunday, January 24, 2010
Cultural Studies as Method
Johnson, R., Chambers, D., Raghuram, P., Tincknell, E. (Eds) (2006). The practice of cultural studies (1-103). London: Sage.
Slack, J. (1996). The theory and method of articulation in cultural studies. In D. Morley and K. Chen (Eds.), Stuart Hall: Critical dialogues in cultural studies (112-127). London: Routledge.
King, Samantha. (2005). Methodological contingencies in sports studies. In D. Andrews, D. Mason, & M. Silk (Eds.), Qualitative Methods in Sport Studies. Oxford: Berg
Brundson, C., Johnson, C., Moseley, R. & Wheatley, H. (2001). Factual entertainment on British television: The Midlands TV Research Group’s ‘8-9 Project’. European Journal of Cultural Studies, 4-9.
It is not surprising that since cultural studies draws on diverse subject areas it would also draw on a variety of methods and methodologies for conducting its research. This week the focus of the readings is on the methods, methodologies and theories employed in cultural studies research. Through the readings it became evident that research in cultural studies is very different from the scientific, empirically focused research that I am familiar with. As such, I have discovered many aspects of cultural studies research that I am excited to learn and apply, for example: it addresses power, it avoids reductionism, and it is reflexive. However, I am still confused and questioning the application of cultural studies research “methods”.
I will start my discussion on a positive note, discussing two key themes that appeared throughout the readings; that of power and positionality and reflexivity of the researcher. We learn in cultural studies to consider how power and positionality as a researcher influence our work. However, I only ever thought of my position and the power I bring within the context of interviewing my participants. I did not think about the existence of power throughout the different “moments” of research. I will use the cultural circuit (Johnson et al., 2006) as a guide to explore power at the different stages of producing research. As previously mentioned, a power relationship exists when interviewing participants at the “everyday life phase”, at the production phase, power exists in the interpretation of the data and choosing what to include, deciding on the sources/references and then at the text phase there is power in deciding what to write (Johnson et al., 2006). I introduce the topic of power as it is key component of reflexivity. Reflexivity is described as “knowing thyself” or self-awareness (Johnson et al., 2006) and it is essential to cultural studies research. Reflexivity is an on-going dialogue that not only involves thinking about ourselves, our biases, our expectations, our thoughts and feelings and our work within the research, but also how we feel in the world around us and being ready and willing to make changes. However, as Johnson et al. (2006) state, reflexivity is not a confessional so it makes me wonder, how much reflexivity do we include in our research? How do we know what is enough, or too much?
Johnson et al. (2006) discuss “truth claims” and state that in cultural studies three methodologies are used to legitimize the claims that are made in research, empirical (such as field work), interpretative (hermeneutics) and critical (praxis). These theoretical approaches as well as the approach “concept-led” are represented in a schematic on page 97. According to Johnson et al. (2006) cultural studies draws from all of these approaches, but does it favour some approaches over others? Does a study lose credibility if it relies more on one approach than another? It seems that cultural studies favours theory over practice and abstraction over empirical analysis. I am aware that cultural studies is fluid and believes that dyads should not exist and that empirical and abstract theories or analysis are both necessary, but would a practice-based, field study, still be considered part of cultural studies?
I grapple with the idea that cultural studies has no single or concrete means of methodology and that methods can be theories and vice versa. According to Johnson et al. (2006) the word “research practice” is favoured over methods or methodologies for cultural studies as they feel it better describes the active process of cultural studies research. Slack (1996) states that methods become a process that need to be adapted as we progress through research, so does this mean we are continually re-evaluating and changing the methods throughout our research projects? If methods are so undefined, what are the determining factors that allow research to be part of cultural studies? As long as research involves power, emancipation, context, hegemony etc., is it considered part of cultural studies?
Finally, I am almost out of space but did not feel I could end the blog without addressing articulation. Through articulation, I have gained greater insight into how a concept can be both a theory and a method. As theory, articulation is used to describe social formations and as a methodological framework, it provides strategies for doing cultural studies. Articulation is the process involved in the joining of parts, it provides a way of creating links between concepts that may not normally be joined or that may be seen as mutually exclusive (Slack, 1996, King, 2005). I realize from King’s (2005) article that articulation is a key method used by cultural studies researchers when looking at sport because it provides the social, economic and political context. Although not addressing sport, the Brunsdon et al. (2001) article was very helpful as it gave concrete examples of articulation in the research practice of textual analysis. The article shows how tensions that are normally mutually exclusive exist. In the Jamie Oliver example, there are “competing discourses of masculinity” (39). My understanding of this competing discourse is that Jamie Oliver is a man in his own kitchen cooking on television, and these elements at one time did not all come together. I don’t have room to expand, so I apologize for my rather crude explanation, but if you are uninspired to address my comments or questions, perhaps you’d like to elaborate on Brunson et al.’s (2001) use of articulation.
Slack, J. (1996). The theory and method of articulation in cultural studies. In D. Morley and K. Chen (Eds.), Stuart Hall: Critical dialogues in cultural studies (112-127). London: Routledge.
King, Samantha. (2005). Methodological contingencies in sports studies. In D. Andrews, D. Mason, & M. Silk (Eds.), Qualitative Methods in Sport Studies. Oxford: Berg
Brundson, C., Johnson, C., Moseley, R. & Wheatley, H. (2001). Factual entertainment on British television: The Midlands TV Research Group’s ‘8-9 Project’. European Journal of Cultural Studies, 4-9.
It is not surprising that since cultural studies draws on diverse subject areas it would also draw on a variety of methods and methodologies for conducting its research. This week the focus of the readings is on the methods, methodologies and theories employed in cultural studies research. Through the readings it became evident that research in cultural studies is very different from the scientific, empirically focused research that I am familiar with. As such, I have discovered many aspects of cultural studies research that I am excited to learn and apply, for example: it addresses power, it avoids reductionism, and it is reflexive. However, I am still confused and questioning the application of cultural studies research “methods”.
I will start my discussion on a positive note, discussing two key themes that appeared throughout the readings; that of power and positionality and reflexivity of the researcher. We learn in cultural studies to consider how power and positionality as a researcher influence our work. However, I only ever thought of my position and the power I bring within the context of interviewing my participants. I did not think about the existence of power throughout the different “moments” of research. I will use the cultural circuit (Johnson et al., 2006) as a guide to explore power at the different stages of producing research. As previously mentioned, a power relationship exists when interviewing participants at the “everyday life phase”, at the production phase, power exists in the interpretation of the data and choosing what to include, deciding on the sources/references and then at the text phase there is power in deciding what to write (Johnson et al., 2006). I introduce the topic of power as it is key component of reflexivity. Reflexivity is described as “knowing thyself” or self-awareness (Johnson et al., 2006) and it is essential to cultural studies research. Reflexivity is an on-going dialogue that not only involves thinking about ourselves, our biases, our expectations, our thoughts and feelings and our work within the research, but also how we feel in the world around us and being ready and willing to make changes. However, as Johnson et al. (2006) state, reflexivity is not a confessional so it makes me wonder, how much reflexivity do we include in our research? How do we know what is enough, or too much?
Johnson et al. (2006) discuss “truth claims” and state that in cultural studies three methodologies are used to legitimize the claims that are made in research, empirical (such as field work), interpretative (hermeneutics) and critical (praxis). These theoretical approaches as well as the approach “concept-led” are represented in a schematic on page 97. According to Johnson et al. (2006) cultural studies draws from all of these approaches, but does it favour some approaches over others? Does a study lose credibility if it relies more on one approach than another? It seems that cultural studies favours theory over practice and abstraction over empirical analysis. I am aware that cultural studies is fluid and believes that dyads should not exist and that empirical and abstract theories or analysis are both necessary, but would a practice-based, field study, still be considered part of cultural studies?
I grapple with the idea that cultural studies has no single or concrete means of methodology and that methods can be theories and vice versa. According to Johnson et al. (2006) the word “research practice” is favoured over methods or methodologies for cultural studies as they feel it better describes the active process of cultural studies research. Slack (1996) states that methods become a process that need to be adapted as we progress through research, so does this mean we are continually re-evaluating and changing the methods throughout our research projects? If methods are so undefined, what are the determining factors that allow research to be part of cultural studies? As long as research involves power, emancipation, context, hegemony etc., is it considered part of cultural studies?
Finally, I am almost out of space but did not feel I could end the blog without addressing articulation. Through articulation, I have gained greater insight into how a concept can be both a theory and a method. As theory, articulation is used to describe social formations and as a methodological framework, it provides strategies for doing cultural studies. Articulation is the process involved in the joining of parts, it provides a way of creating links between concepts that may not normally be joined or that may be seen as mutually exclusive (Slack, 1996, King, 2005). I realize from King’s (2005) article that articulation is a key method used by cultural studies researchers when looking at sport because it provides the social, economic and political context. Although not addressing sport, the Brunsdon et al. (2001) article was very helpful as it gave concrete examples of articulation in the research practice of textual analysis. The article shows how tensions that are normally mutually exclusive exist. In the Jamie Oliver example, there are “competing discourses of masculinity” (39). My understanding of this competing discourse is that Jamie Oliver is a man in his own kitchen cooking on television, and these elements at one time did not all come together. I don’t have room to expand, so I apologize for my rather crude explanation, but if you are uninspired to address my comments or questions, perhaps you’d like to elaborate on Brunson et al.’s (2001) use of articulation.
Saturday, January 16, 2010
From Beamish to King, Leaving Marx behind?
Part II:
Readings: Hall and Hargreaves and McDonald
Both authors attempt to answer the complex question of what constitutes “cultural studies.” Hargreaves and McDonald take the example of sport to illustrate the complexities of everyday life (sporting) as intersecting with greater social, political and cultural forces. Hall’s piece, an older perspective, attempts to define this through contrasting Cultural Studies with Functionalist Sociology.
This last distinction is what struck me, and as a self-proclaimed Sociologist I felt I should focus on this aspect of these readings.
These approaches demonstrate the difficulty in defining a discipline that openly resists reductionism. Cultural Studies, by its very nature, can be “…dissolved in further methodological and theoretical reprise” when concrete constructions are attempted (Hall 1980:39). Studies with this ‘cultural’ orientation (both Sociology and Cultural Studies) necessitate fluidity in definition; this, to me, resonates with a postmodern perspective. It is through this allocation that I wish to pose that these disciplines (Sociology and Cultural Studies) are united by common themes. The grand narratives of older theorists (such as Marx, Weber and Durkheim) though foundational, are also the roots of critique, and that binaries such as man/woman, straight/queer, healthy/unhealthy and able/disabled are seen as problematic in themselves; and that these loaded linguistic assignments must be taken apart to determine true signification, in other words who these distinctions are meant for and how they operate on these individuals. It is through these critical lenses that ‘reality’ is seen as far more complex than simply consisting of the sign and the signified. This is identified as the modern linguistic turn and further the advent of Foucauldian sentiments “…In his notion of ‘discourse’” modern social and cultural theorists seem to advance towards the same goals of breaking down both “dichotomy” and “…the signifying (‘discursive’) and the ‘extra-discursive’ aspects of any practice” (Hall 1980:37). Our social world cannot be ‘measured’ not in any objective sense; we cannot sit external to the society/culture in which we live.
The divisions between theory and praxis are meant to articulate as a further distinction between Cultural Studies and the rest. This is where, at least, I believe, the sporting body enters. Sport is a visceral lived-experience, an experience that confirms both the docility and agency of the human form. It demonstrates the multi-faceted nature of ‘culture,’ as there are many subcultural manifestations of sport. Therefore assignment of ‘higher’ and ‘lower’ cultures, and further the idea of a singular ‘Culture,’ has been taken apart in sociology and recognized as a privileged position, insensitive to the uniqueness of human experience. This is not to engage in a relativistic turn, it is to articulate that the loudest voices of history are not exhaustive, and further that this is echoed in both of these disciplines. Like Marxian political economy the base and superstructure influence one another. Marxian theory itself parallels assertions about sport, in that, “…sport is perceived to be an aspect of culture embodying struggle and contestation…” (Hargreaves and McDonald 52). One of my major interpretations of Cultural Studies is that there is conflict and an inherent tension between different paradigms, however I do not truly see this conflict as being with modern Sociology(ies).
So…
Post-script:
and Regarding Paloma's post I thought I should bring back an old friend:
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