Poststructural Paradigm (Group A)

1. The Poststructural Paradigm
By: Alexander Makin and Sinthi Neal

2. 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).

3. 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).

4. 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).

5. 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).

6. -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).

7. 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).

8. 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).

9. -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).

10. 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.

11. 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.

12. 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

13. 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)

14. 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).

15. -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

16. 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.

17. 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

18. -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).

19. 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?

20. 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

21. 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)?

22. References:
Belsey, Catherine. (2002). Postructuralism: A very short introduction. Oxford University Press, 1-132.
Retrieved January 25, 2016 from
https://vk.com/doc182701393_354811724?hash=73ba5dc549d6ef1d0f&dl=82d9f3a24a1529506c
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.

23. 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.