Posted by
jillian on Jun 30, 2006 in
Issue no.2/3, March/June 2006,
Volume 05 |
Comments Off on The Postmodern Turn: Shall Classic Grounded Theory Take That Detour? A Review Essay
Vivian B. Martin, PhD Situational Analysis: Grounded Theory after the Postmodern Turn, Adele E. Clarke, 2005, Sage Publications. 408 pp., paperback/hardcover Constructing Grounded Theory: A Practical Guide through Qualitative Analysis, Kathy Charmaz, 2006, Sage Publications. 224 pp., paperback/hardcover Adherents to classic grounded theory have gotten used to spotting the pretenders working under the grounded theory banner. Some of these faux-GT researchers have worked in a fog, misunderstanding fundamentals of the method; these are the studies that leave us shaking our heads and wondering about the doctoral committee and peer reviewers who did not bother to find out more about the method they were evaluating. More infuriating are the authors who are claiming to improve on grounded theory, to reground it, to quote one notable British author who, lack of handson grounded theory experience aside, manages a booklength critique of the method. Two recent books in the “remaking grounded theory” genre are from sociologists with some years of grounded theory projects behind them. Adele E. Clarke, author of Situational Analysis, was a student and colleague of Anselm L. Strauss at the University of California San Francisco. Kathy Charmaz, author of Constructing Grounded Theory, is among the few grounded theorists who studied with Barney G. Glaser and Strauss at UCSF. Although the pedigree of both authors gives more traditional readers comfort that these are not just people wielding the term grounded theory and conflating it with any old interview study, the vision for grounded theory offered in these two books are a challenge to more orthodox notions. Both authors treat a sacrosanct element of classic grounded theory, the core category or concept, as unnecessary or, worse, a barrier to understanding the phenomenon under study. Both accuse classic grounded theory of a lack of reflexivity about the research process, insensitivity to difference and variation, and oversimplification in its quest to create an integrative theory. The overall indictment is that grounded theory is out of step with the ways of thinking and talking about research brought about by postmodernism and other changes in scholarship through the 80s and 90s. Clarke’s stated goal is to “push grounded theory more fully around the postmodern turn” (p. xxi), a shift in the social sciences and humanities that has focused on the fragmentation, tentativeness, and complexities of social life and the need to adopt different methods and ways of gaining entry to these fragments, not to bring about wholeness—that is not possible within the postmodern frame—but to at least begin articulating the possibilities and their connections. If this sounds vague and possibly contradictory, such is the nature of postmodernism. The goal of both authors is to make grounded theory more responsive to it. Toward this end, Clarke proposes changes that pretty much create a new method. Charmaz, though better informed about how the different variants of grounded theory converge and diverge and how they have coexisted,nonetheless endorses a sometimes impressionistic, interpretative approach which, I suspect, grounded theorists who are seeking to utilize grounded theory to bring about understanding and change in practical disciplines would find less desirable and accountable. The daily worlds of nursing, management, information systems, and other fields, I would argue, very much privilege an “objective” reality where phenomena are defined and measured. In posing the question in the title of this review essay, I am asking whether classic grounded theory can and should avoid the postmodern turn, which would be a detour off its main path, which has yet to be fully explored. I...