Qualitative Data Analysis: An introduction

1. Qualitative Data Analysis: An introduction Carol Grbich Chapter 13: Structuralism and post structuralism

2. Structuralism: Principles • the world comprises systems of centralised logic and formal structures that accessible through processes of scientific reason. • Individual objects were viewed as being part of a greater whole.. • Nothing was seen to be of itself, more as a representative of an style based in a specific culture and reflecting identifiable values. • People become seen as objects/products of cultural networks, perceptions and values. - mechanical organisms produced by systems, and with defined needs, predictable behaviours and actions • the underlying forms, structures and processes of construction and transmission of meaning, rather than content, became the main focus.

3. Structuralism: Language, signs and meaning • language is a key process in the creation and communication of meaning. • Language is a self-referential system - all perceptions and understandings are framed by words. • Meaning lies within the text, a coherent and unified structure derived from pattern and order, • analysis involves uncovering these patterns and their meanings

4. Structuralism : texts • The focus is on signs, signifiers, codes (the frameworks in which signs make sense), and order and meaning through repetitions of patterned relationships, • The privileging of binary opposites is integral. Everything is ‘text’, both the author and the reader are also viewed as social constructions. • each literary work, is part of the broader institution of literature (langue) which is intricately intertwined in the cultural system.

5. Structuralist writers • Jacques Lacan : binary oppositions of the ‘subject’ and ‘other’ to examine the development of the structure of the unconscious • Roland Barthes : analysis of ‘objects’ in terms of a search for their functioning rules • Claude Levi-Strauss : myths and universal myths • the ‘bricoleur’ (the odd job man) who re- uses the bits and pieces at his disposal in devious and creative ways) • the ‘engineer’ (who can access scientific thought, concepts and theories). Both need to order and structure in the creation of knowledge.

6. Criticisms of structuralism • Is there meaning beyond the text? • The problems of binary opposites • Signs and signifiers and the problem of desire • The position of the individual • cultural concepts and the individual

7. Post structuralism: • a rejection of the existence of deep structure or form • Acceptance that meanings signified by signs are conventions - signifiers dance in an endless play of meaning with no relation to any integrated centre. • Discourses structure and limit the way we think, read and write, the language we use and the discourses and tropes (metaphors) within which we think prevent us from seeing the genesis and development of ideas as the power-laden discourses that they really are. • Knowledge is unreliable if it comes solely from language. There is no absolute truth beyond or beneath the text. • Reality is fragmented and diverse, . • Meaning is fluid. There is constant referral of meaning, All that we can know is textual and related to discourses.

8. Criticisms of Post Structuralism • its tendency toward nihilism • the lack of finite conclusions though the constant deferral of meaning presents difficulties in terms of evaluation and policy decisions. • the decentering of the author doesn’t take into account the fact that the author still composes the structure of the text, has selected the ‘voices’ and manipulated the direction of interpretation. • the difference between deconstruction and good critique is unclear. • is deconstruction any more than an older authorial desire to appropriate a text?). • how will the contradictions between culture and science be explained without recourse to the language claims of structuralism?