Class 4 Notes - The Oniology & Epistemology Standpoints

ONTOLOGY & EPISTEMOLOGY Research is guided by different ideas in relation to Ontology & Epistemology ONTOLOGY - What knowledge/reality is EPISTEMOLOGY - How we access our understanding/reality EPISTEMOLOGICAL STANDPOINT Realism A fixed reality Exists independent Entity that can be Assessed through Research Relativism A reality exists But we can only ever partially know it Reality is dependent on human interaction Ontology Methodology Evaluation What is Discourse Analysis? - Set of approaches used to analyse - Discourse analysis is concerned with understanding the ways in which objects of study (e.g. people, objects, groups) are constructed through language - e.g. the way in which things are talked about - what purposes these constructions serve - Two types of discourse analysis in Psychology Discourse analysis Foucauldian discourse analysis Development of Discourse Analysis - The crisis in social psychology - 1970's - Critical social psychology (Hepburn, 2003) - Criticisms of the individualistic focus of social psychology - Need to attend to context, meaning, interpretation - The broader turn to language - Knowledge, truth & reality are created through the negotiation of socio-cultural meanings; not an objective truth out there waiting to be found out Discourse Analysis: Social Constructionism - A language as a representational system... to language in use - Social constructionism means that language is not just a mirror into someone's mind, reflecting their thoughts, beliefs, or attitudes. Instead... - talk is SOCIAL - our words do things New focus for research – turn to language – what do we do with our words? Radically different approach to psychology. DISCOURSE ANALYSIS Two main approaches: Discourse Psychology (e.g. Potter & Wetherell, 1987) Use of discursive resources, what people do with their talk Availability of discursive resources & what consequences Foucauldian DA (e.g. Parker, 1992) Discursive Psychology Micro-psychological phenomena e.g. memories, attributions, attitudes, identities are considered to be discursive accomplishments. Examines the actions accomplished in talk in interactions (e.g. requests, blame, excuses, identity management etc.) Main concerns: What? How? Discursive/Rhetorical Strategies How people use discursive resources with what effect/consequences? (See Edwards & Potter, 1992) Category entitlement - Constructing talk as coming from a category that is credible or knowledgeable e.g. “even the doctor says that it’s good for you to get some vitamin D” Stake inoculation - Constructing talk as coming from someone whose stake is counter to what you would expect e.g. “I’ve never believed in ghosts but even I was afraid” Corroboration + consensus - Description corroborated by an independent witness e.g. “Hayley Jane was there too” Active voicing - Using quotes of thoughts to present corroborative views of others Footing snipes - “I felt that there were things I needed to do, things you ought to have achieved before motherhood” Systematic vagueness - Vague about features that might not add or draw attention to stance Extreme case formulations - Claims evaluating stance are taken to the extremes e.g. “those people who do them all the time”, “It was absolutely the right thing to do every single week” Disclaimer (Hewitt Stones, 1975) I'm not racist / sexist but... This may sound strange... I'm no expert but... Some of my best friends... Don't get me wrong... Discursive Psychology - Critique (Wulig, 2013) Narrow focus on the linguistic devices in immediate interaction What about the wider social, cultural, historical context? How are social action / experience determined by wider meaning systems? Foucauldian Discourse Analysis (FDA) - Macro Influenced particularly by work of Michael Foucault Relationships between: Discourses are a system of statements which constructs an object (Parker, 2014, p.3) Availability of discursive resources? Its Main concerns: what, how, why? What is FDA? Discourse facilitates, enables, constrains what can be said (whom, where, when) Discursive constructions - make available certain ways of seeing + being in the world Subject positions What discourse positions are available? What implications do these have for individual subjectivity? Foucauldian-inspired FDA What kind of objects, events or subjects are being referred to or discussed? How are these being characterized? What kind of claims are being made about them? Why these particular descriptions or accounts + not others? Who might be benefiting from these? What purposes might these serve? What kind of beliefs/assumptions/knowledge are being drawn upon here? FDA & Power (Wulig, 2013) Dominant discourses privilege certain versions of reality, often those that reinforce existing power relations + social structures Certain discourses are repeated so often that they become common sense, become very difficult to challenge