Lenora de la Luna wrote:
>I am not sure if I am reading your post correctly, but it seems to me that
>you have placed a sharp division between "narrative" and "quantitative
>analysis." I wonder, though, if these are appropriate
>comparisons. It sounds as if you are comparing a final product (a
>narrative) with an analysis (quantitative).
...and I think this is quite right; I glossed over a distinction here. But
I think the point I was trying to make stands. Not too long ago I
co-taught a course on Integrated Research Methods, where we examined
quantitative and qualitative methods of analysis, and set these within
discussion of interpretive and empirical-analytic research paradigms. I
came to think that it's very tough to do a quantitative analysis that
doesn't take for granted many of the assumptions about knowledge and
reality of the second of these two paradigms; assumptions which I don't
share. I think this is certainly true of quantitative "explanatory"
analysis; perhaps less true of "descriptive" analysis.
And diane says:
>theory is good. theory is thinking. it's ideas. everyone has ideas.
>everyone has theories.
>only some of us get paid to read and write about theories: but this ought not
It's probably dangerous to generalize too much about something as complex
and varying as "theory," but, thinking of Harold Garfinkel, I'll make the
claim that theoretical discourse aims to make claims that are
non-indexical; that's to say, require no reference to time, to place, or to
speaker to be understood. When we're dealing with human actions and
events, such statements strike me as leaving the meat behind. Leaving the
culture behind. Leaving the human behind. And (another pot-shot at
quantitative analysis-sorry, David, nothing personal. I respect the
intelligence and integrity of most people who do such work)
quantitification excises the indexical so early on, at the coding or
categorization stage, that we hardly notice.
I think Randy is on the same track when he writes:
>And I have read some research that is
>structured as narrative that I thought would have been more clearly structured
>categorically, especially since the balance of expository and narrative tipped
>toward the expository, the outside-of-time, the always-true. (I don't
>know why
>they chose narrative, except as an academic statement of affiliation -
>something else that's always true of genres.)
The structure of narrative is one that makes use of temporality; drawing
the reader into events unfolding in time, and so conveying the
open-endedness of life and history. A narrative doesn't make claims that
are true for all time, but aims to capture, to invoke a time and place (as
Musil invokes Vienna at the turn of the century-thanks, Randy!); it's left
up to the reader to figure out the relevance to *their* time and place.
But both these points just scratch the surface of complex issues.
(By the way when Lenora asks:
>But what happens when the people you've worked with say, "where the hell
>did you get _that_ from? you've got it all wrong. . . ." For me, this is
>where much of the interesting stuff takes place.
I agree whole-heartedly.)
Martin
================
Martin Packer
Associate Professor
Department of Psychology
Duquesne University
Pittsburgh PA 15282
(412) 396-4852
fax: (412) 396-5197
packer who-is-at duq3.cc.duq.edu
http://www.duq.edu/liberalarts/gradpsych/packer/packer.html