These diagrams summarize the ontology that is assumed by the interpretive paradigm. An "ontology" is a view of the way the world is structured, and the kinds of entities that exist. As we pointed out at the beginning of this course, every research paradigm assumes an ontology of some kind: a basic, unexamined view of the world. Because it is unexamined and taken for granted, it generally goes uncriticized. Empirical-analytic researchers claimed for a long time to be making no such "metaphysical" assumptions, though in recent years they have come to recognize that they do.
Think of these diagrams as ontological blueprints. They provide a way of thinking about your research project. We can start by rethinking the nature of the relationship between a person and any object or phenomenon the person interacts with and knows. Both the empirical-analytic paradigm and some forms of phenomenology assume one or another kind of dualism: a division between mind and thing, between subject and object, which can be traced back to Descartes (and is often called Cartesian dualism). The interpretive paradigm assumes instead a "contextualized" relationship between subject and object: both people and the various kinds of objects they deal with are always situated in a world that provides a background against which they can stand out.
Objects and Background. Objects, then, are always encountered against the background of some setting, or situation. The overhead projector I use is found in the classroom setting we are familiar with. (A terminological note: by the term "object" we refer to material things, like the projector, but also to less tangible objects -- a conversation is an "object" in this sense. The term "phenomenon" is an alternative to "object," less likely to be mistaken as referring only to physical things.)
Perspective. The overhead projector is an object which, like all others, can be approached from a variety of perspectives. It can be seen, and viewed, from a variety of visual perspectives (the top, the side, etc.), but more broadly than this it can be grasped in a variety of ways: it may need to be lifted, or pushed across the room, or repaired, or it may, more usually, just be sitting there ready to be used. We can say that approached in all these different ways, it shows different aspects of itself. Each way of grasping it is a way of understanding it.
People and Positions. The projector is located in a setting, and so are the people who have dealings with it. People are positioned in settings, not just spatially (though certainly they are: some at the back of the room, some at the front), but also positioned in terms of the classroom as a place -- an inhabited space -- for certain kinds of normatively organized interactions to take place. In a classroom, teachers teach and students learn. (This at least is the traditional scenario, and even when some students and teachers try to change the norms, they find the physical arrangement of the room embodying the traditional ways of doing things: many desks all pointing to the front of the room.) The positions that people have, then, are positions within the social practices of a social institutions. They may do very different things from these positions, but they will rarely operate outside them. They are like the different kinds of players in a game: the different positions in a football team, for example.
A person's position gives them a particular perspective on the object. This perspective provides a way of understanding the object, a way of grasping it, a particular approach to it, a particular kind f concern with it This approach brings out one of the object's aspects. The teacher's approach towards the overhead projector and his or her way of grasping it will be quite different from the approach of the person who comes to replace the broken bulb. Both deal with the same object but, since they approach it differently, and with different concerns and interests, the projector "shows itself" to them in different ways. A complete description of the overhead projector would need to account for each of these different ways it shows itself.
The way the projector is understood is made possible by the setting in which it is encountered. The teacher encounters the projector in the setting of the classroom (as a place of instruction and learning); the repair person encounters the projector in a different setting: that of equipment to be repair, repair facilities, IRIS, etc. Clearly the setting is not simply the objective space of the classroom, it is the classroom as it is inhabited by people, and as its space is defined by the institution.
Everyday routine activity. When things are going smoothly, in everyday routine activity, much of the structure we have just described goes unnoticed. We are absorbed in what we are doing, not at all reflective about our activity: we "lose ourselves" in it. The phenomenon is transparent, and goes unnoticed; all that is noticed is the aim of our activity. If we are using a hammer to build a fence, for example, the hammer will be transparent and we will be aware only of our aim to drive in a nail, or to get a board in place, or even, if all this is going smoothly, simply to get the fence finished. If we are involved in a routine, everyday conversation (buying a cup of coffee, for example) then the words, the turns and moves are transparent and we will be aware only of the aim of the conversation: getting the coffee. And in everyday smooth activity the setting is an invisible background to what we are doing, taken for granted and so unnoticed.
All this means that asking people what they are doing when things are going smoothly doesn't provide us with very useful material. If they are unaware of most of the structure of their involvement with objects, other people, and the world, there is not very much they can tell us. We must either observe what they are doing, so we can notice things they do not, or we must ask them not about things going smoothly but about occasions of breakdown.
Breakdown. Things never go smoothly for long; there are always repairs to be made, in human conversations just as much as with equipment like an overhead projector. We've seen that Conversation Analysts pay special attention to "repairs" in conversation, because when a 'hitch' occurs participants try to repair it. In doing so they provide useful evidence about the way they understand the organization of the conversation. When there is a breakdown (and also when something is missing, or when there is a hitch of some kind, and things don't go the way we expected them to, or when we make a mistake) various parts of the world-person-object structure we have described become apparent. The broken object now become noticed, as an aspect of it now stands out. The marker for the overhead projector is "dried out"; the hammer is "too heavy"; the book we wanted to buy is "not cheap enough"; the lecture we are listening to is "too long." Each of these aspects is context-dependent: that is to say, the aspect that stands out is defined by the activity or project we are engaged in. The hammer is "too heavy" for this particular nailing task; the lecture is "too long" for such a sunny day in wintry Ann Arbor.
When there is a breakdown we look around, surveying our circumstances, noticing the project or course of action we are engaged in, in order to start to work out alternatives and begin repair. (The looking around can be called circumspection; noticing ones project can be called reflection; the working out of alternatives can be called deliberation.) The way the object was grasped now becomes evident as one possibility amongst several others. And the setting is now lit up, so that we become aware of other objects that may be helpful.
Modes of engagement. Another way of describing occasions of breakdown is to say that they bring about a shift from one mode of engagement with objects and people to a different mode. The shift brought about by breakdown is from "participation" to "circumspection." This shift involves one kind of hermeneutic circle: the way things were grasped and understood in practice is now articulated and interpreted. The hammer, previously grasped and used in a taken for granted manner, is now interpreted as "too heavy" for the task at hand. The conversation, previously engaged in without reflection or planning, is now interpreted as "too rude," or as "a case of mistaken identity," or as the result of "stupidity" or "cupidity" on the part of ones interlocutor. [More on this next week.]
Everyday social interaction. In terms of the ontological blueprint, everyday social interaction is a matter of exchanges among people who inhabit a setting together, but who occupy different positions within it. More needs to be said here, but this is about all we can say without adding more detail to the ontological blueprint, and adding some more levels to it.
A New Conception of Knowledge and Truth. The view of the world we have sketched here has been intended, by those who have articulated it, to provide a radical break with the way in which knowledge and truth have been viewed for about 300 years, since the start of the Enlightenment. The move is one away from:
The idea of a basic dichotomy between the subjective and the objective
The conception of knowledge as being a correct representation of something that has an independent objective existence
The conviction that human reason can completely free itself from bias, prejudice, and tradition
The idea of a universal scientific method by which we can first secure firm foundations of knowledge and than build the edifice of a universal science
The belief that by the power of self-reflection we can transcend our historical context and horizon and know things as they really are in themselves
(Cf. Bernstein, R. J. (1983). Beyond objectivism and relativism: Science, hermeneutics, and praxis. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.
Caputo, J. D. (1987). Radical hermeneutics: Repetition, deconstruction, and the hermeneutic project. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
Kuhn, T. S. (1977). Second thoughts on paradigms. In T. S. Kuhn (Eds.), The essential tension: Selected studies in scientific tradition and change (pp. 293-319). Chicago: University of Chicago Press.)
The Ontological Blueprint applied to the Conduct of Research.
How does this view of the world apply to and guide the actual practice of research? First, it draws our attention to the fact that any phenomenon -- a child's learning, an instructional practice, a building, a person -- can be looked at and grasped in a variety of different ways. We will need to survey these ways, and for each of them find out which people or groups of people have that way as their primary way of understanding the phenomenon. In fact, talking with these people -- interviewing them and witnessing their interactions with one another -- it what is most likely to show us the different ways the phenomenon is viewed. What McCracken called a person's "cultural categories" we can now redescribe as the way that person grasps and understands the phenomenon we are interested in. We will want to discover which groups of people have a similar perspective and which people differ in their perspective on the phenomenon. In fact, we will start to think of people forming groups on the basis of their common perspective and their shared grasp.
Those people who share a perspective may also be members of a separate culture of their own. Willis (in the coursepack), for instance, identifies "the lads" as a distinct social group because they hang out together, but also because they share a common way of understanding the larger world, as well as a separate world of their own, which neither teachers nor "ear'oles" are permitted to enter.
As we identify groups of people and understand how they are located at significant positions to the social setting, we are getting a sense of the whole social "game" being played: the kinds of players, the way turns are allocated, the moves that can be made, the exchanges that take place, the nature of winning and losing.
Culture. A word on the word "culture": E. P. Thompson defined culture as "a shared form of conflict." Conflict is perhaps too strong a word to describe all cultures; what about defining culture as a shared form of exchange? When exchange gets out of balance it is unfair, inequitable and exploitative; when it gets out of hand it becomes conflict. So conflict can be understood as an extreme kind of exchange. Culture is a shared form of exchange, and the teachers and students Willis describes participate in a shared form of exchange in the classroom, and so can be said to be operating in a distinct culture. The lads reject this exchange as unfair, and so come to share a form of conflict with the teachers. At the same time they share among themselves an exchange of barbs, dares, and challenges.
Looking for Breakdown. Our interviews and observations should pay special attention to breakdowns and repairs, for it is then that things show up that otherwise go unnoticed. In fact, as we write notes and conduct analyses, we should even pay attention to hitches and lapses in our own activity, the activity of reporting and analyzing what is going on. By focusing on those things that we don't understand, we become more aware of our fore-structure.
As we interview people and observe their interactions, we are typically learning to find our way around in the setting in which they live, work, or play. We can describe this setting, first in objectivizing physical spatial and temporal terms (with maps and schedules), then in terms of the way the setting is inhabited as a lived place. Certain kinds of interaction, certain kinds of exchanges, are likely to occur in certain places. Interaction in the teacher's lounge is quite different from interaction in the classroom, or on the playground.
The researcher's fore-structure. At the same time, we should try to become reflexive about the character of our own involvement in the setting. Here the ontological blueprint provides a way of thinking about the researcher's active role in the setting. It is important for social scientific researchers to be reflexive: to understand their own activity in the same terms in which they understand the activity of the people they are investigating.
Fore-structure operates at both the emic and the etic levels, as the researcher moves between participation and analysis. At the emic level, perspective, grasp and grounding must be considered:
Perspective. The researcher, just like the people whose activity is studied, has a particular point of view or perspective from which the research phenomenon is viewed. This perspective is provided by the particular question or concern which guides the research. (This perspective can be described as "where the researcher is coming from.") For example, with the Touchstones discussion, our perspective was provided by asking the question, is this the kind of discussion the Touchstones program was designed to foster?
Grasp. The researcher will also have a way of grasping the phenomenon. This interpretive framework is often provided by a guiding metaphor. It is what Thomas Kuhn (1977) calls a paradigm in the sense of an "exemplar" or a paradigmatic example. It is a model that provides the terms in which a phenomenon can be dealt with. For example, when we conduct a Conversation Analysis, we grasp the conversation as a game. We try to figure out the turns and moves that take place.
Grounding. And the researcher will be working within a practical setting, with which they will have practical familiarity.
These three -- perspective, grasp and grounding -- make up the fore-structure the researcher brings to the field. With these three we have a more complete picture of what McCracken called the researcher's cultural categories. But the researcher also has an analytic involvement with the phenomenon being studied. This is partly a matter of knowing and using the "etic" terms, the "analytic categories" used by the research community.
Fore-view. The researcher needs a way to approach the phenomenon of interest: a perspective from which to undertake the research. The formulation of a research question is a n important part of this.
Fore-grasp. The researcher needs an interpretive framework within which to grasp the phenomenon studied and the material collected. Narrative and argument analyis, and conversation analysis, have provided you with three different kinds of interpretive framework.
Fore-grounding. The researcher needs a sense of the scope of the system in which the phenomnon of interest is found. This is in part provided by what Kuhn calls a paradigm in the sense of a "disciplinary matrix": the shared commitments of a scientific community: the way researchers locate a classroom, say, in its institutional and social setting.
The Ontological Blueprint applied to Writing a Report.
We've now described the subject-matter of interpretive research in several different ways: as people's cultural categories; as the language-game they are participating in; as forms of exchange; and now as a person-object-world structure. Each of these is a way of grasping the notion that people are active interpreters, and that social life is normatively organized. They complement each other, and can usefully be combined.
One way to organize a report of an interpretive research project is to ensure that all the features of these diagrams are included. Interpretive research should include attention to and study of the kind of setting visited, the different kinds of position people can adopt within the setting, their different perspectives, the kinds of exchange they are engaged in.
It should also include attention to the researcher's fore-structure, including an account of how access to the setting was gained by the researcher, and how they found their way around, and became familiar with it. It should discuss the position the researcher came to adopt in the setting: the role they played; the relationships they established with the research participants; how these people viewed them.
Include in an Interpretive Report:
The research question guiding the inquiry.
The phenomenon of interest
The setting in which it was sought, and found
The positions people occupied in this setting
Their different perspectives on the phenomenon (the way they approached it; the way they grasped it; their interests, concerns, and projects)
How they grasped it (how they understood it)
The "game" they are playing: its turns and moves
For example, the analysis conducted by Willis in Learning to Labor contains these elements.
The guiding question was: Why do working class young people continue to reject opportunities for "skilled" jobs? (This question is evident in the book's subtitle: "How working class kids get working class jobs")
The phenomenon: the working class student
The setting: a Midlands comprehensive school. Described spatially (physical layout; boundaries; places special to the lads) and temporally (daily schedule; a year in the lad's life).
The positions: students, teachers, "lads," "ear'oles," headmaster, townspeople, police...
Their perspectives: representatives from many of these positions are interviewed, individually or in small groups. Each of their accounts of "the lads" is elicited. Their interests and concerns are described.
Their diverse grasps of the school, of daily events, etc. are detailed.
The "game" they are playing: Willis describes the "oppositional culture" of the lads, and the "teaching paradigm" they are engaged in, where they are expected by the teachers to trade respect for the knowledge they receive. The lads view this exchange very differently, as unfair...
Willis's analysis is not as detailed as a Conversation Analysis, but it is still an interpretive analysis. He is interested in laying out the "culture" of these young people, and its relationships to working class culture as a whole, as well as the "official" culture of the school. Culture amounts to a shared sense of what is valued and what is not; of fair and unfair exchanges. It is a shared way of interacting that includes valued and disvalued outcomes, and a way of managing turns and moves.
© Martin Packer, 1999