The Poststructural Paradigm

By: Alexander Makin and Sinthi Neal

What is poststructuralism?

-Lather (1992) describes poststructuralism to “mean the

working out of academic theory within the culture of

postmodernism” (p. 90).

-Unlike structuralism, which is “premised on efforts to

scientize language, to posit it as systematizable”,

poststructuralism concentrates on the “remainder, all that is

left over after the systematic categorizations have been

made” (Lather, 1992, p. 90).

-So while structuralism “sought a new language that would

mirror the ‘true’ depth of things” conversely,

poststructuralism “casts doubt on such projects, seriously

modifies their ambitions and pretension to clarity,

challenges them as utopian, or eventually totalitarian in

tendency” (Somehk & Lewin, 2005, p. 312).

The purpose

-Drawing on the concept of “difference” to enable “splits, disjunctions,

displacements and provisionalities”, poststructuralism aims to expose the “hidden

disasters, tragedies and crimes of the ‘systems’ of social and cultural thinking that

preceded it” (Somehk & Lewin, 2005, p. 313).

-Poststructuralism therefore endeavours to offer “the last word”, not in regarding

“definition”, understanding, interpretation, or critique, but “in terms of irresolution”

(Somehk & Lewin, 2005, p. 313).

-It is with a commitment to irresolution that poststructuralism endeavours to

problematize both “what is opened up and what is closed down” by particular

discourses or ways of knowing (Lather, 1992, p. 94).

Epistemology

-Structuralism supported the idea of relativism, where

something is produced rather than already pre-exisiting.

Poststructuralists believe that the meanings that we

attribute are not given to us but is rather a product of

symbolizing systems that we learn (Belsey, 2002, p. 5).

-It further proposes that ideas are not the source of

meaning or the origin of the language we speak, but ideas

are in fact produced through the meanings we learn and

then reproduce (Belsey, 2002, p. 7).

-Rejects the notion of placing limits and boundaries on

certain kinds of knowledge (e.g. meta-narratives).

-Focuses on the:

-operation of language, production of meaning and combination of

knowledge and power that produce an “accepted or taken-for-granted

forms of knowledge and social practices” (Fawcett, 2008).

Epistemology- The process of knowing

-Poststructuralists believe that subjectivity will cause more uncertainties than to

solve them (Belsey, 2002, p. 82). They do not believe in the subjective-objective

binary because subjective opinions and ideologies must have also been learned

from somewhere (it is produced outside itself) (Belsey, 2002, p. 83).

-Poststructuralism views subjectivity as being fragmented and incomplete

(Sykes, 2001, p. 15). “What is outside the subject constitutes subjectivity; the

subject invades the objectivity of what it knows” (Belsey, 2002, p. 83).

-Sassure believed that meaning was not something that was already in existence

but was reproduced. He goes to say, “language has neither ideas nor sounds that

existed before the linguistic system, but only conceptual and phonic differences

that have issued from the system.” (Belsey, 2002, p. 22).

-Poststructuralism also takes into account that meaning cannot be generalized or

made universal, rather it is differential instead of referential (Belsey, 2002, p.

20).

-Poststructural research practices emphasis meanings that are context

specific instead of aiming at finding a single “truth” (Fawcett, 2008).

-Deconstruction tires to unravel the multiple layers that make up reality

(Fawcett, 2008).Thus, different accounts of realities are perceived and

we must identify “recurring themes, contradictions, and the

identification of patterns in the ways in which participant experiences

are articulated” (Fawcett, 2008).

-Realities can be deformed or altered.

Phenomenological hermeneutics describes the fact that the author is

disengaged from the interpretive process. “What is in question is what

is meant by authorship, and the assumption that the meaning of a

Ontology

work is the product of a single self-determining author, in control of his meanings, who fulfills

his intentions and only his intentions” (Lye, 2008).

-This shows that meanings are learned and reproduced overtime and thus, any form of writing is

viewed as a text form of cultural meanings (Lye, 2008).

-Meaning according to Ferdinand de Saussure is not associated with words, but rather in the

systems that it occurs in and is compared to differences of those meanings and not in the identity

of it (Lye, 2008).

Role of Language

-Language pre-exists us and it is not something that we possess; therefore

we must take into consideration the signifiers present and the possibilities

of what they can mean (Belsey, 2002, p. 18).

-Language makes dialogue possible, but only when we use it

appropriately, subscribing to the meanings already given in the language

that always precedes our familiarity with it (Sykes, 15).

-An interpretive heterotopia- “A heterotopia is a form, a set of relations

where things not usually associated with one another are juxtaposed,

allowing language to become more elastic, more able to collect new

interpretations and announce new possibilities” (Sykes, 17).

-Jacques Derrida came up with the belief that meanings cannot be fixed

(différance) (Fawcett, 2008). Meaning according to Derrida can only be

produced in the juxtaposition of the signified and the signifier. Therefore,

meaning is always undergoing changes and can only be fixed temporarily

in specific contexts. (Fawcett, 2008).

The researcher

-While the poststructuralist research has one “eye

on what subjects are saying, writing, doing”, the

other centres on “what is not said, what discourses

make it impossible to say, what practical or

theoretical logics hide away from sight” (Somehk &

Lewin, 2005, p. 313).

-As Sykes (2001) explains, the research must be

able to:

-Ask what the text imposes

-Ask questions that are not implied in the

text

-Ask how it is that stories are told

-Ask not what the “work has in mind but

what it forgets, not what it says but what it

takes for granted’’ (p. 17).

-The researcher focuses on

how stories are told.

Stories and silence

-By centring on how stories

are told the researcher is

able to look into different

categories and analyze how

“silence and speech” has

been used to narrate stories

and existence through

conscious and unconscious

processes (Sykes, 2001, p.

18).

Data

-Data is not

“transparent evidence

of that which is real”,

but is instead used as a

tool to reveal how

sense is being made of

what is real within a

particular text (Somehk

& Lewin, 2005, p.

319).

-The data or text is “not

respected” in terms of

revealing or making

sense of what is real,

but may be

“deconstructed and

broken open” to capture

how the real might be

constructed (Somehk &

Lewin, 2005, p. 319).

-Data is deconstructed

and broken up to

disrupt that which is

taken as a stable or

unquestionable truth in

ways that recognize

contradiction.

Rethinking data, the researcher, and theory

-Data collection is often viewed as a productive

process that creates something new or altogether

different based on the interactions between the data,

researcher, and theory.

-A researcher is never separate from the data, instead

the researcher actively positions themselves within the

text.

-How a researcher relates to the data will vary, but it is important that they

question what is asked of the data, how they hear the data in terms of their

“own privilege and authority”, and “deconstruct why one story is told and not

another” (Jackson & Mazzei, 2012, p. ix).

-Data and theory are inseparable as theoretical possibilities are continually

opened up as the researcher goes from asking questions, choosing data, to

writing up the data.

Writing up and working with data

-Writing up the data may depart from “predicted patterns of report

writing” and “may set out to deconstruct or disrupt report writing

itself” (Somehk & Lewin, 2005, p. 321).

-Jackson and Mazzei (2012), for instance, use the term “plugging in”

to discuss how data can be filtered or plugged into to a variety of

theoretical concepts to “produce something new” in a “constant,

continuous process of making and unmaking” (p. 1). Such theoretical

concepts might include deconstruction, marginality, power relations,

and performativity.

Power Relations

To put a term under erasure

-To put a term under erasure is “to write a word, cross it out, and then print both

the word and its deletion. Because the word is inaccurate, or inadequate, it is

crossed out; because the word is necessary, it remains legible” (Kamoea, 2003, p.

16).

-When a term is put under erasure the potential emerges to “expose the

uncertainty of what that signifier might be or could become, and to open up the

traces present” to capture the “absent presence”, or what is always and already

present yet often overlooked (Jackson & Mazzei, 2012, p. 18).

-As truth or narratives are placed under erasure,

they are used and troubled simultaneously,

“rendering them inaccurate yet necessary” (Jackson

& Mazzei, 2012, p. 18)

Speech act theory

-Speech act theory demonstrates how words such as married and single

can be contrasted and compared.

-Speech act theory shows how these words can be viewed by different

people and how overstanding can be used to ask a question that may

not have been expected by the researched (Sykes, 2001, p. 21).

-Speech act theory can be used to analyze how specific words are used

to either enable or restrict construction of identity in spoken narratives.

-Speech act theory can be used to show how discourses perform

functionally, such as how repetitive performance can be taken as the

“norm” if not challenged, such as maintaining a heterosexual storyline

(Sykes, 2001, p. 19).

-Defamiliarization- according to Shklovsky, as we are

continuously exposed to the same elements, we begin to

recognize it. “Over time our perceptions of familiar, everyday

situations become stale, blunted, and “automatized” (Kaomea,

2003, p. 15).

-Defamiliarizing techniques used in language tries to hold our

attention and bring focus to particular elements that can open up

discourse into hidden conflicts and tensions (Kaomea, 2003, p.

15-16).

-Reading erasures-uncovering successive layers of erasures can

enable one to read beyond what can be seen on the surface

(Kaomea, 2003, p. 16). This process can “disclose suppressed

emotions and successive layers of underlying feelings,

motivations, and causes” (Kaomea, 2003, p. 18).

-What we find through using defamilarizing tools can be

uncomfortable and hurtful (e.g. Kaomea study) but can be a great

tool in exposing and analysing oppression (Kaomea, 2003, p. 24).

Intended meaning vs. interpretations

Conceptualizing power and agency

-Poststructuralists are concerned with “how it is that power works not

just to force us into particular ways of being, but to make those ways

of being desirable such that we actively take them up as our own”

(Somehk & Lewin, 2005, p. 318)

-This enables the “possibility of a different kind of agency” wherein

the “subject is inscribed” not only from the outside, but “through

actively taking up the values, norms and desires” that make them a

“recognizable” and “legitimate member” of their social group

(Somehk & Lewin, 2005, p. 318).

-Agency emerges, then, when the subject fails to repeat these values,

norms, and desires, which are closely tied to race, sexuality, and

gender.

A helpful metaphor

-Sipe and Constable (1999) provide an interesting and helpful

comparison of the differences between critical theory and

deconstructivism as an approach in keeping with the principles

poststructuralism.

-Critical theory is assigned the colour red to reflect the

“energetic” and “actively charged” characteristic of the

critical paradigm (Sipe & Constable, 1999, p. 160).

-Since deconstructivism is suspicious of all “semiotic

systems” and “denies that any language transparently

reflects or conveys reality” it reflects the “absence or

denial” of colour and is assigned the colour black (Sipe &

Constable, 1999, p. 160).

Critical theory

vDeconstructivism

-Postructuralists have been critiqued for “overturning

acceptable knowledge” and considering it for re-analyses

(Fawcett, 2008).

-Deconstructive analyses has been critiqued for promoting

interrogation rather than investigating necessary elements

that are essential for the function and identity of a specific

phenomenon (essentialism) (Fawcett, 2008).

Critiques:

-Makes it difficult to address inequality and forms of oppression (does not take into

consideration “absolutes associated with extreme injustice and poverty” (all things

become plural) (Fawcett, 2008).

-Therefore, all concepts become relative and the notion of validity disintegrates (difficult

to take on an ethical position and address social justice) (Fawcett, 2008).

-One of the issues with poststructuralists is that practitioners use “old words” that can be

used in unfamiliar ways but also questions the notion of to what extent we should allow

existing language to place limits on the meaning-making process (Belsey, 2002, p. 15).

Questions

1) Lather (1992) points out how

emancipatory research can risk

reinforcing the “power dynamics” or

relations of dominance that it is

“theoretically opposed” (p. 94). What do

you make of this and what implications

might it have for your own work or for

emancipatory research in general?

2) Issues of interpretation and meaning-How do we know the

author meant what we think he/she was trying to describe

and write about? Is there a discrepancy between how we read

the text and the way it was intended to be read?

3) How can researchers investigate and uncover erasures,

absences and silences in understanding underlying notions,

feelings, causes and motivations? How can we look beyond

life histories to uncover messages that cannot be read or seen

on the surface? Do these erasures and defamiliarizing clues

function to oppress or empower?

Questions

Questions

4) Choose an image or a text and using the examples provided by Kamoea (2003) and

Lather (1992) try the following:

a) Conduct a surface reading of the image. What do you see?

b) Conduct a reading that takes a closer look at what might be hidden

beneath the image by “making strange” what might be “habitually” glossed

over (Kamoea, 2003, p. 15). What do you see?

c) Compare and contrast your first two readings. What differences do you

notice? Do any assumptions or contradictions emerge?

d) Briefly reflect on your different readings and experiences looking at and

thinking about the image or text. Discuss your experience reading the image

or text. How are you “embodied, positioned, desiring”, and ultimately

present in your different readings (Lather, 1992, p. 95)?

References:

Belsey, Catherine. (2002). Postructuralism: A very short introduction. Oxford University Press, 1-132.

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Fawcett, Barbara. "Poststructuralism." The Sage Encyclopedia of Qualitative Research Methods. 2008.

SAGE Publications. Retrieved January 29, 2016 from http://www.sage-

ereference.com.myaccess.library.utoronto.ca/research/Article_n334.html.

Jackson, A. Y., & Mazzei, L. A. (2012). Thinking with theory in qualitative research: Viewing data across

multiple perspectives. New York: Routledge.

Kaomea, Julie. (2003). Reading erasures and making the familiar strange: Defamiliarizing methods for

research in formerly colonized and historically oppressed communities. Educational Researcher,

32(2), 14-25. Retrieved January 29, 2016 from

http://simplelink.library.utoronto.ca.myaccess.library.utoronto.ca/url.cfm/126450

Lather, P. (1992). Critical frames in educational research: Feminist and post-structural persectives.

Theory Into Practice, XXXI(2), 87-99.

Lye, John. (2008). The ‘death of the author’ as an instance of theory. Brock University. Retrieved January

27, 2016 from https://www.brocku.ca/english/courses/4F70/author.php.

References:

Sipe, L, & Constable, S. (1999). A chart of four contemporary research paradigms: Metaphors for the

modes of inquiry. Taboo: The Journal of Culture and Education, 1(1), 153-163.

Somekh, B., & Lewin, C. (2005). Research methods in the social sciences. Thousand Oaks: Sage

Publications.

Sykes, Heather. (2001). Understanding and overstanding: Feminist poststructural life histories of

physical education teachers. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 14(1),

13-31.Retrieved January 28, 2016 from

http://simplelink.library.utoronto.ca.myaccess.library.utoronto.ca/url.cfm/125930

Williams, James. (2004). Understanding Poststructuralism: What is poststructuralism? Retrieved

January 29, 2016 from

http://www.readysteadybook.com/Article.aspx?page=whatispoststructuralism.