The more I learn, the less I know….

I just realized something: PhD stands for doctor of philosophy (duh!), so now would be the appropriate time to read philosophy. In this week’s episode, I continue questioning this idea of the knowing, unknowing, or defended subject by thinking about 2 texts. One is a book on discourse analysis (Phillips & Jørgensen, 2002), the other the introductory chapter to a book on narrative research (Squire, Andrews & Tamboukou, 2008).

Phillips & Jørgensen trace the origins of the unknowing subject through whom discourse reveals itself to Foucault. According to these authors, discourse analysis (which can be based on either structural or poststructural understandings) views the subject’s agency as limited by certain features of particular texts. However, as many discourses co-exist, subjects have a variety of options open to them. The idea, also discussed in Elizabeth St-Pierre’s piece (see last post) is that the subject is decentred. What exactly does that mean? Phillips & Jørgensen say that the subject is “created in discourses” (p.17) but how much room they have to maneuver depends on which theory (or in their case, which type of critical discourse analysis) one ascribes to. They call this the relationship between structure and agent. People either use discourses to create new possibilities, functioning as “agents of discursive and cultural change “ (p.17) or they don’t…they are simply governed by ideologies that determine what and how they can say.

When it comes to engaging with these different ideas, I have no formal background whatsoever in philosophy. I don’t know how one is “supposed” to decide amongst these competing ideas except by deciding which one resonates with my personal interpretation of the world and my own experiences. Am I supposed to back up my opinions with proof or a complicated argument? I find the idea that humans are unable to create new possibilities within or in response to one or multiple discourses kind of hopeless. In don’t believe the world is getting any better, or any worse, but it does change, and if discourses change, aren’t they created by people? My prof says discourses arise in a particular time and place, because the socio-historical conditions allow that discourse to emerge, but if we look at history, some discourses that were radical, controversial, downright dangerous is a particular era were still expressed in that era. They may have been marginalized or repressed, but somebody thought of them, and sometimes they were even written down or recorded. Sometimes (I like to imagine) centuries passed before a particular society was ready to accept that discourse…So I guess I believe in the first option, that we use discourses to create new possibilities.

Phillips & Jørgensen go on to map critical discourse theorists on a continuum from those interested in abstract discourses circulating in a society to everyday discursive practices situated in talk and texts. Which makes me wonder whether you choose the theory that best matches your research question, or personal interest.

Squire, Andrews and Tamboukou (2008) propose that narrative research can indeed be undertaken from a poststructuralist position. This stands in contrast to Clandinin & Connelly, 2000) who argue that there is a clear border between narrative and postmodern, poststructural inquiry, which they label ‘formalistic,’ and  Spector-Mersel (2010), who suggests that narrative has its very own paradigm. Squire and company give a great rationale for doing narrative research, “we frame our research in terms of narrative because we believe that by doing so we are able to see different and sometimes contradictory layers of meaning, to bring them into useful dialogue with each other, and to understand more about individual and social change.”  They also explain that narratives are treated as “modes of resistance to existing structures of power” (p.4). I think it assuages my conscious to imagine that the research I do is an extension of the activism I used to do, even if I am not completely sure that research can actually lead to societal change and social justice.

Squire and her colleagues argue that the field of narrative research is traversed by “theoretical fault lines” (p.3), based on its divergent beginnings, between humanist approaches to psychology and sociology and poststructuralist, postmodern, psychoanalytic and deconstructionist approaches to the humanities. And the biggest difference between these 2 traditions is ….(insert drum roll)…the position of the subject! Does the storyteller tell the story? Or is the storyteller told by the story? They state that it is contradictory to treat the narrative as socially constructed as subject to multiple interpretations while treating the subject as singular and unified. The contradictions multiply when attempting to make sense of narratives and when attempting to view narrative research as emancipatory.

Similarly fascinating for me are particular methodologies that span the divide between post-structuralism and narratology. For example, Tamboukou (2008) has a chapter on using Foucauldian discourse analysis within a narrative inquiry, and narrative research has been undertaken from poststructural positions (e.g., Burman, 2003; Edley, 2002; Parker, 2004; Tamboukou, 2003). I look forward to reading these sometime soon…I’ll be sure to keep you updated J

My last question for today has to do with ontological/epistemological positioning and research. What I am trying to figure out is how to position myself in an academic culture that is pretty positivist, and where my committee members caution me not to be too…I can’t remember how they put it, but not to be too direct in my criticism of institutions and structures. If I believe, quite strongly, that something needs to be criticized, I should basically be polite until I have a tenured position. In a related question, I find myself working with early childhood researchers who do a lot of quantitative research and I am often invited to participate. The early childhood reconceptualists are not that numerous in this city, so my choice is to work with researchers who take a critical viewpoint but not exactly in my field (hence the historical archive internship), or those in my field who are not openly critical. I wonder about my reputation as an academic. While my committee members worry that I will be pigeonholed as a wacko (that’s my own interpretation), I worry that the people whose work I respect and am inspired by will think I am a sellout or less than trustworthy because my name appears on research from such a variety of philosophical paradigms. What do you think readers?

References (the ones I read, the others I need to look up and read myself!)

Clandinin, D.J. et Connelly, F.M. (2000). Narrative Inquiry : Experience and Story in Qualitative Research. San Francisco : Jossey Bass.

Phillips, L. & Jørgensen, M.W. & (2002). Discoure Analysis as Theory and Method. London: Sage.

Spector-Mersel, G. (2010). Narrative research : Time for a paradigme.  Narrative Inquiry, 20(1), 204-224. doi : 10.1075/ni.20.1.10spe

Squire, Andrews & Tamboukou (2008). What is narrative research? In M. Andrews, C. Squire and M. Tamboukou (eds.), Doing Narrative Research (pp.1-21). Los Angeles: Sage.