Radical Research: Designing, developing and writing research to make a difference

304 Pages·2007·1.26 MB·English

by  Jill Schostak

Radical Research
Is it still possible, or even advisable, to ask why it is that so much research
contributes so little to democratic questioning of the powerful? Has research
become just a tool for the powerful, the complacent, the satisfied?
Radical Research explores the view that research is not a neutral tool to be
employed without bias in the search for truth. The overall motivation of radical
research is to drive democracy further down to individuals engaging with each
other, drawing upon their powerto create community as a facilitator of each others’
talents and thus to enrich each other as individuals. Radical research in social
contexts implies a radical politics because it raises questions that make the power-
ful feel uncomfortable, even threatened. This multidisciplinary book, of relevance
for those in the social sciences, cultural studies and media studies, draws upon data
gathered from a diversity of funded projects in health, education, police training,
youth and community, schools, business and the use of information technology.
Wide-ranging in appeal and example, data is drawn from observations, interviews,
texts, the media and the Internet.
The book presents a radical view of research in a way that enables both beginner
and the experienced professional researcher to explore its approaches in the
formation of their own views and practices. It progressively leads the reader from
discussions of concrete illustrations or cases to critical explorations of the philo-
sophical and methodological concepts, theories and arguments that are central
to contemporary debates. In essence, this book shows how to design, develop and
write radical research under conditions where ‘normal’ research rules apply and it
offers a ground-breaking and proven alternative to traditional research techniques.
John Schostakis Professor of Education in the Education and Social Research
Institute at Manchester Metropolitan University, UK.
Jill Schostakis Visiting Fellow at the University of East Anglia, UK; and currently
contract researcher with the College of Emergency Medicine, UK.

Radical Research
Designing, developing and writing
research to make a difference
John Schostak
and Jill Schostak
First published 2008
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN
Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
by Routledge
270 Madison Ave, New York, NY 10016
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2008 John Schostak and Jill Schostak
This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2007.
“To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s
collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.”
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced
or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means,
now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording,
or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in
writing from the publishers.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Schostak, John F.
Radical research : how to design, develop and write emancipatory research
under “normal” research rules / John Schostak and Jill Schostak.
p. cm.
ISBN 978–0–415–39927–2 (hardback) – ISBN 978–0–415 39928–9 (pbk).
1. Social sciences–Research–Methodology–. 2. Power (social sciences) 3. Social control.
4. Democracy. 5. Social change. I. Schostak, Jill. II. Title.
H62.S3397 2007
001.4–dc22 2007007853
ISBN 0-203-93992-1 Master e-book ISBN
ISBN10: 0–415–39927–0 (hbk)
ISBN10: 0–415–39928–9 (pbk)
ISBN10: 0–203–93992–1 (ebk)
ISBN13: 978–0–415–39927–2 (hbk)
ISBN13: 978–0–415–39928–9 (pbk)
ISBN13: 978–0–203–93992–5 (ebk)
Contents
List of figures vi
Introduction 1
1 Bodies in chains 14
2 Unchaining, deconstruction and the intertextual 39
3 Fragmenting and reframing bodies 67
4 Incarnating/incorporating data as understanding and
explanation 91
5 Events of transposition 113
6 Power, rights and the real 139
7 (Il)legitimate knowledge(s) – wrongs and injuries 159
8 Provocative identities, radical edges: difference, diversity
and the same 184
9 Universalising the singular: designing the radical game 211
10 W/ri(gh)ting fashions 243
Conclusion 269
References 273
NameIndex 286
Subject Index 290
Figures
1.1 The God’s-eye view and the wandering-eye view 17
1.2 Producing the good society 31
2.1 Communities and total coverage 54
2.2 From power to power 55
2.3 Signifier and signified 58
2.4 The cut of the signifier 58
2.5 The synchronic and diachronic axis 61
3.1 Many signifiers but one signified 83
3.2 Framing the paranoid 84
3.3 Intentional network as multidimensional space 88
4.1 The visible and the invisible 108
5.1 How to join the dots? 122
5.2 Texts and codes 124
6.1 Humanity and division 148
7.1 Mirror groups 172
7.2 Architectures of the social 180
8.1 Power and contested spaces 193
8.2 Cut of the signifier and liminal spaces 196
9.1 Historic chains of communication 213
9.2 Sign repetition 222
9.3 Representing universal truths 225
9.4 Reconfiguring the field of the visible: friend/enemy 227
9.5 Including all except one 228
9.6 Totality 229
9.7 Always one more... 232
9.8 Individual, game and taking sides 233
10.1 The play of design and de-sign 253
10.2 Extract from contents list for TYDE report 267
Introduction
Is it still possible, or even advisable, to ask why it is that so much research
contributes so little to democratic questioning of the powerful? Has research
become just a tool for the powerful, the complacent, the satisfied? Radical research
in social contexts implies a radical politics because it raises questions that make
the powerful feel uncomfortable, even threatened. What makes research radical is
this political dimension, it suggests the possible overthrow of a previously stable
or at least dominant order of ways of knowing, thinking, believing, acting. But
if there is an overthrow, won’t the resultant circumstances be just another ortho-
doxy secured through power and thus just as open to radical challenge, starting
the whole process over again? Radical research, we argue, thrives in this apparent
paradox. It has its counterpart in radical democracy, that project which as Mouffe
(1993) writes is forever an ‘unfinished revolution’. It is unfinished because every
individual is capable of asking questions like:
• Why do things have to be like this?
• Why am I considered to be inferior to them?
• Why do they have more than me?
• So, what is actually going on here? Who benefits from these circumstances
and who loses?
• Why can’t I do just whatever I want?
• How do I stop them from doing whatever they like and in the process hurting
me?
• Why can’t we all just get on with each other?
It’s in asking such questions that there is a demand for change and action. It is at
the point of making this demand that research takes on a radical edge. There are
those who want to organise the world around to fit in with their desires, and those
who want to be organised, and those who want to be left alone. Some like to
compete, others to cooperate. Whether this is said to be ‘natural’ or ‘learnt’, it
matters little when face to face with the demands of the other. When the powerful
make radical demands, it depends on the extent of their power, the force they can
bring to bear, the extent to which people are subject to their power, whether or not
2 Introduction
they succeed in getting what they want. So what can be done to counter the
demands of others when they are felt to be excessive? What can be done simply
to be fair in the context of some who have so much and many who have so little?
Look around and see how space is used. Who is able to take up space and who
has to get out of the way? Who is rich in space, having the freedom to spread
around. Who has to confine themselves to little corners, the edges – and why? Some
young people aged about ten years old involved in a project with creative
practitioners and teachers in a school were asked to walk around the neighbourhood
of their school and reimagine their community. One particular focus for the project
was racism and how people’s attitudes towards others might be changed. The
question, then was, can people change?
Boy: Well some people do but some people don’t cos like I said you’ve got
people of 30 running round smashing bottles and burning cars but I can’t
really see well, maybe I can. I can’t really see 50 year olds doing it but
then I saw that programme with the antisocial old people.
Girl: And um like on TV there’s racist people and bullies that are going around
and they’re so bad that the people, people take their own lives. So then
they learn and they send out messages to like other people on the TV not
to bully because um that’s what will happen, having a conscience on your
life for ever like you’ve killed someone.
Girl2: And my mum said um that if somebody like hung themselves just because
of getting bullied um in circle time they said um don’t keep it all bottled
up inside just tell someone like a friend or teacher or a grown up.
JFS: So circle time is something that came from the project?
[more than one voice]Yeah, they done more of it.
Boy: We did it before but since the project I’ve realised we’re doing a lot more
of it.
JFS: So that’s a good thing.
Girl: Yeah.
Girl: So like you said before ‘do you think people will change’ I think they
would cos they would know what other people will feel like.
Girl2: And they’re realising that maybe like one day they might decide to
kill their selves just because they’re getting bullied in a fight. If I bullied
someone and then they killed theirself it’d just make me f’ (think?), you
might as well have just killed them. Could be they killed theirselves cos
of you. I wouldn’t like to think of myself as a murderer.
(CAPE 2005)
In this sense of responsibility for the other, the recognition of becoming someone
disvalued, blameworthy, reprehensible in the eyes of another and of oneself for an
action imagines the possibility of radically alternative selves. That moment of
insight begins when an individual looks around at the people passing by and realises
that no matter how strong, each individual is vulnerable to the actions of another.
Introduction 3
No one is immortal. And ultimately, each, simply as individuals, stripped of their
money, their security guards, are equal in the face of death. If we are all equally
vulnerable in this sense, then how should we behave towards each other? How is
security to be assured? Should we all have equal security? What does having
security involve? Does it mean sheltering with the strongest groups, following the
orders of the one who commands most respect, or fear? Do I have to give up
something to join with them? If enough of us join together can we get more security
under better conditions? How do I know what’s best? It is in asking such questions
that current conditions become open to challenge by alternative propositions.
However, those who have a stake in current arrangements have to convince the
rest, that is, the greatest number, that there is no alternative or that the alterna-
tives are worse, or that they are powerless to make changes. It is here that research
plays a role in public decision-making about what is or is not possible and realisable
through action. But how is research to be conceived? What counts as ‘real’ research,
for who and for what purposes and with what consequences?
What is ‘normal research’?
Everyone has an image of the ‘scientist’ drawn by popular culture, modelled a
bit on the wild crazy hair of an Einstein figure or the eccentric gadget-maker of
spy films or the absent-minded professor lost in thought. Perhaps, more seriously,
research is popularly identified with a sense of discovery as when the bewhiskered
scientist and hisrobot buggy stuffed with instruments is sent on its way to sniff
out the secrets of the planet Mars. Then there is the researcher as ‘hero’, who
engages in medical science and delivers wondrous drugs to cure killer diseases.
Or maybe it is the research scientist presenting or being interviewed on television
documentaries warning of global warming or the extinction of various species.
Whether in the cosmos or on Earth, the scientists boldly go, fearless, intrepid, hot
on the trail of undiscovered knowledge treasures. But there are other, more prosaic,
images of the researcher. In marketplaces, on street corners and hanging around
in pedestrianised areas, market researchers stand clipboard in hand scanning
the passers-by for a likely ‘fit’ – or ‘suspect’ even, if one were to be cynical for a
moment – for their category of the day. Matching their quarry with their target
criteria for the day they fire pointed questions, tick the appropriate response boxes
thereby fulfilling the quota required by the particular commissioning agency. Less
visible by far are the social scientists of academic institutions or government
policy researchers. Less visible, less romantic in nature, their work may often be
regarded as useless, or as trivia, or even as annoying, perhaps even as an outrage
– a waste of public money. Unless there is a patent that someone can make money
out of, what is the use of research? Particularly when it is in those useless subjects
like sociology or, even worse, cultural studies.
In the UK, in the 1980s, social science came under sustained attack by politicians
in the Conservative Party then led by Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. These
were not sciences, it was argued. And, indeed, the name of the body that funded